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coon in a shady patch just inside the woods behind their pool pump. Though she could not see the male, she felt it watching her, the way one might feel she was being watched while walking through a strange, deserted house. |
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The health department was on the second floor of the Carleton town hall in the center. Helen Burdick was taking a call, so Terry wandered to a bulletin board in the small waiting area. There were notices about town office employees, softball games, a six kilometer race and an Earth Day rally scheduled for May 1. |
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But what caught her eye was a small map of the carcinogenic hot spots in the state. Also, a bar graph highlighting the total cancer deaths and illnesses for the last ten years. Various kinds of cancers were footnoted, including child leukemia, melanoma, mesothelioma, pancreatic cancer, liver cancer, lung cancer. The town of Coburn was listed as having the highest incidence of the statenearly five times the state average, and twice that of Plymouth, site of the state's sole nuclear power plant. The child leukemia rate alone was six times that of the state. Even though Coburn was nearly a dozen miles from Carleton and was serviced by a different water supply, the figures appalled Terry. There were mothers like herself in those stricken townsmothers who went out of their way to make sure their kids ate the right foods and took their vitamins, who struggled against the press of the junk-food culture to minimize the intake of salt, fats, cholesterol, and chemical preservatives; who were neurotic about scouring their homes free of asbestos; who judiciously tested for radon and lead paint; who brought them to doctors and dentists on a regular basis. Mothers like herself who woke up one morning to discover that some unknown pollutants had given their babies leukemia. |
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Terry's head pounded like a jackhammer. As if there wasn't enough anxiety in her life, now she had to worry about Carleton being a carcinogenic hot spot. |
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Terry turned to see a large woman, about thirty-five, dressed in bib overalls and a blue workshirt. She had a wide, ruddy face that |
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