Summary

Chapter 12: The Storm… 1951

Word of Henrietta’s death reached the Gey lab quickly. He asked for more tissue samples from every organ of her body. David was asked if they could perform an autopsy. He refused initially, but family members convinced him that he should. He agreed to a partial autopsy. Mary was present during the autopsy holding out her Petri dishes to collect samples from all her organs. There were tumors the size of baseballs. The official cause of death was uremic poisoning from the build-up of bodily toxins. Mary wanted to run out of there but kept her composure. She was most moved when she saw Henrietta’s red painted toenails. It occurred to her that she had thought of Henrietta as all those pieces she’d been growing and monitoring. The red toenails told her that Henrietta...