“Three. You mean the three of us. We have a child now, Gabriel. Once you create life, you can’t just hang it out to dry. You can’t go on the same way you did before because your life isn’t just about you anymore. You have a responsibility to your creations.”

“But my drinking, it doesn’t—”

“You know what this drinking crap is doing to you! You know that it’s eating you alive from the inside out, but you keep on doing it. And if you’re gonna be so damn stubborn, if this is your life… if this is what you’ve decided your life is going to be, I can’t let our child be hurt by that.” She turned away. “Goodbye, Gabriel.”

Gabriel stood there, deflated, his arms hanging at his sides. It was really happening. She was leaving him and taking their baby with her. It was real. “I’ll wait for you,” he whispered.

“Don’t.” She left.

Minutes later, Gabriel heard her car rumble to life and shoot down the driveway. He was rooted to the same spot, unable to think or feel. Then, it all came rushing in at once. He’d ruined it. He’d ruined everything.

“Goddammit! God-fucking-dammit!”

He picked up the chair and threw it across the room. He tore the cushions off the couch. He flipped over the coffee table and kicked out the glass. He stomped every shard into tiny crystals that crackled beneath the heels of his shoes. Looking around for more objects to release his anger upon, he saw the best target of all: his papers, the last remains of his life’s work.

He grabbed the entire stack and shoved it into the fireplace. Sparks and ashes flew into the living room as the fire struggled to swallow the giant morsel that had been stuffed down its throat.

“Go to hell,” Gabriel muttered.

Thick smoke billowed into the room. Gabriel took a giant swig of his beer as he watched his work become charred to nothingness. She didn’t leave because of the drinking. Alcohol was simply her excuse. She’d left him because she couldn’t tolerate the bitter lowlife he really was. She hadn’t been able to accept the true him. Alcohol was like another limb. It was a part of who he was. Alcohol was his outward personality, his way of creating a face for the world, a face that normal people were lucky enough to have from birth. He couldn’t give up his face. He took another drink.

A loose piece of paper spiraled from the fireplace, twisting and turning in the air like an autumn leaf. It landed at Gabriel’s feet, the bottom corner still smoldering. Gabriel stepped on it then bent over and picked up the page. It was a colored-pencil drawing he’d done when he was just a child, depicting the immune system. Each organ had been drawn from memory, freehand, and labeled in block letters. A note was written in the corner of the page: Great work! - Father Gareth.

For the first time, Gabriel imagined how bizarre he must have looked, a scrawny little boy with fiery red hair, stiff posture, and crazy theories. He pictured everything he’d gone through since those days, all the many battles he’d fought, all the alcohol he’d soaked his liver with since he was a teenager. He shook his beer can, still half-full.

Gabriel tried to drop the can, but it wouldn’t leave his fingers. It clutched his hand for dear life, as if glued to it. He wasn’t drinking by choice or putting on a stupid face for the world anymore. He’d surrendered to the fire demon long ago. He’d made alcohol his god. His stomach lurched, craving another drink.

Just one more sip. One more can. Gabriel shivered. That sinister subconscious worm in his ear had already taken away his life, his marriage, his child, and his dreams. Gabriel shook the beer can again. A stupid liquid substance silently held him by the balls.

No. Hell no.

He threw the can into the fireplace. Flames engulfed it. The aluminum caved in, and alcohol dripped from the mouth, dissipating into steam.

Invigorated, he went over to the stereo and cranked up some rock music. He opened the windows to let out some of the smoke still drifting through the living room. Then, finally, he started exorcising his demon.

Beer, scotch, whiskey—all of it went down the drain. The bottles and cans were unceremoniously tossed into the fire. Forty-five minutes later, every trace of alcohol within the house was gone.

Every bottle and can he emptied felt like a weight removed from his back. The deep, gnawing pit in his stomach—the craving, the voice—never ceased, but as the stubbornness of his youth rose within him, the addiction’s taunts became a challenge, a battle to overcome.

The demon was still strong, but Gabriel’s will was stronger, because no matter how painful his life was, no matter how much he had to suffer, he once again possessed a goal: he was going to recreate the human immune system.

Gabriel picked up the elementary school paper and decided that, from that point forward, it would be framed on the wall. He would become the man he once was, the man he had dreamed of being when he was a child. He would prove his worth to the world, to himself, to the memory of his parents, and to Yvonne. And one day, even if he never won her back, he would show her that he was the best father their child could ever have. And he would honor the memory of the one man who’d believed in him from the very beginning.

“This one’s for you, Old Gareth.”

Gabriel went to his desk and pulled out a notebook. He was starting from scratch, once again. He had no funding and no support, but that was okay. He was going to figure out AIDS.

Over the next few months, Gabriel tried to contact Yvonne, but when she didn’t respond, he realized that he needed to focus on getting well and completing his goals. He spent long hours working, and the only times he took any breaks were to attend his addiction rehabilitation meetings. He didn’t follow everything in the program, but the basic gist of it worked for him, and he devised his own personal system from it. Every time he was tempted, he recited the Fibonacci sequence—sometimes for over an hour—until the urge receded. He focused on what he had gained since quitting, and he learned to respect the unique shape of his mind instead of fearing it. Coffee and water replaced the alcohol.

He studied the research of Luc Montagnier and Robert Gallo and read the groundbreaking work of San Francisco Chronicle journalist Randy Shilts. He loved being himself again.

After a couple of months, his money situation became shaky, so he sold the house. He used the money to buy a sailboat, and he lived at the dock. From that point on, Gabriel spent his working days on the ocean, enjoying the sun and whistling as seagulls called and powerful waves propelled him to new discoveries. He would go sailing out into the ocean each morning, and once civilization was behind him, he’d let the boat drift, get out the chalk, and formulate new ideas.

One night, he made an agreement with several students he’d met at his recovery meetings—students majoring in immunology and chemistry, and even one physics student—and with their minor assistance, he conducted nightly experiments in the labs at the local college. He couldn’t just write his theories on paper then give the pharmaceutical companies a theory and hope they’d put it to work. He needed to prove his research was sound.

He bought a motorcycle and learned to ride, laughing every time he dumped it. Within a month, he was a pro. Racing down the 405 at night, speeding past the golden lights of Los Angeles, was a thrill like no other.

When he needed work, he became a carpenter. The manual labor kept his body in shape, and the math kept his brain moving. While working, Gabriel would often scribble down theories about autopoiesis and chemical structures right on the wood. Hundreds of benches, stairs, and wooden decks in southern California would forever be covered with these notes, hidden under coats of paint.

When his daughter was born, he began speaking to Yvonne again, tentatively, at first, and only over the phone. While she expressed enthusiastic support for his new lifestyle, she also told him that she had a new man in her life and that she didn’t yet trust Gabriel with their child. Gabriel was saddened, but he understood, and he knew that if he kept on the same path, if he proved himself, she would trust him again.

In the spring of 1991, Gabriel was working in the lab at four in the morning when he made his discovery. At first, he thought he was dreaming. He blinked in disbelief, but there was no denying it. He had done it. He had discovered an HIV vaccine. He stared at the glass vial filled with the clear liquid that would change the world, and he smiled.

He couldn’t believe it. He had been sitting at a table in a lavish restaurant with the CEO of Banner-Campbell Pharmaceuticals, mere minutes away from making demands on one of the most powerful men in the country. But there he was, hiding in the bathroom and splashing cold water on his face, because all he wanted was a drink. If only that girl hadn’t asked…

No, it wasn’t the waitress’s fault. She was a nice girl, chipper and friendly. She couldn’t have known her question would suck the air from his lungs. “Hey, sir! Would you like to know what’s on tap?”

He’d been sober for six years. But the smell of alcohol and the fantasy of a glass in his hand were still excruciating. At the beginning he’d hoped the urge—no, the craving—would go away, but after so long, he knew better. There was no such thing as a former alcoholic. Every day, for the rest of his life, would be a struggle.

Just one more drink. Think of it as a celebration, Gabriel. Just one more, for old times’ sake.

He looked at his damp face in the bathroom mirror and compared it to the zombie-like face that had looked back at him from his rearview mirror on the last day he’d seen Gareth. That face had been hideous. He’d looked older then than he did in that restaurant almost seven years later.

He told himself that millions of people needed his meeting with the CEO to go well. But that was crazy. He was just one man, an alcoholic deadbeat dad whose ex-wife still hadn’t permitted him to see his daughter’s face. But in recent phone calls, she had hinted that she was considering taking Melanie on a trip to California.

Melanie. He so wanted to make his little girl proud.

Glancing in the mirror again, he saw the redheaded seven-year-old boy writing notes on the blackboard, the same boy who had dreamed of doing what Gabriel had finally accomplished.

Gabriel stepped away from the sink, shaking, but as he walked toward the bathroom door, he felt good. Damn good. And he sure as hell didn’t want a stupid drink—and it wouldn’t have stopped at one—to ruin that for him. He took a deep breath, opened the door, and stepped across the threshold.

Gabriel walked onto the stage in Stockholm, Sweden to accept the Nobel Prize. His legs trembled beneath him. He peeked out at the audience, a crowd of thousands that included Sweden’s royal family, the prime minister, and a few of the same young American scientists he’d met back in his first recovery meetings. In the back of the room were three empty chairs. If things had been just slightly different, those chairs could’ve been filled with his loved ones. He couldn’t change the past, but he could change the future.

Gabriel felt his face flush. He had no idea how he was supposed to give a speech in front of thousands of people. He gave an embarrassed shrug, and laughter spilled from his mouth.

The people applauded, and everything became a blur. Gabriel took his prize and held it up in the air like an Academy Award. Then, he moved to the microphone and felt around in his pocket. Oh, marvelous. He’d forgotten to bring his speech.

“Well, um… I have absolutely no idea what to say.”

The crowd laughed and clapped.

Gabriel straightened his shoulders and smiled. “But what I will say is that this is a greater honor than I ever could’ve asked for. I didn’t create the Schist vaccine for this honor, of course. I did it because I believed in doing what was right. I believed that every life is valuable and that if a human life can be saved, it should be. But getting to this point, I… um… creating that vaccine, it was a constant challenge throughout my life.” He fidgeted with the microphone. “It was a challenge I could never have overcome if not for the people who believed in me along the way. Once upon a time, there were two regular, everyday parents, good people, parents who were stuck with a child they didn’t understand, but they loved him. And after them, there was an old man who had faith in a little redheaded boy with big ideas. And there was a woman who took that boy, showed him what love was, and gave him the nurturing he needed. And now, there’s a little girl, a girl I’ve never actually met, whose very existence shook me awake during my darkest hour.