"Mama!" Brigitte broke free and raced down the aisle. The little girl threw

herself at Jeanette. "You're all right."

Jeanette reached up from the shelter of Scott's arms and hugged her daughter, kissing any and all parts of the precious little face she could reach.

"Yeah, darling." Jeanette sniffed back tears of relief and happiness. "I'm all

right."

Brigitte's shining face looked up at Scott.

"Did Uncle Scott tell you? He came to the swamp and got us, me and Mama Chloe. He said we're going to get married."

"He did, huh?" Jeanette looked up.

A crease appeared on Scott's forehead.

She reached up and soothed the lines on his tanned face.

"Well, he happens to be one hundred percent correct. We are getting married, as soon as we possibly can."

Jeanette started laughing as the entire room erupted into cheers.

Spring had come into her life once more. Winter was a distant memory, a season in her life she hoped to put off coming again for a long, long time.

AFTERWORD.

Although a real life case inspired the writing of this book, this is a work of fiction. So, the reader might ask, "What's real and what isn't?"

In the 1980s, there was a study performed in New Orleans called Epikeratophakia or the Living Lens procedure. The procedure was as described in this novel -- it used donor corneas, which were cut, lathed, then applied as a living contact lens. The procedure had potentially severe side effects. Patients were not fully informed of the potential risks, one of which was blindness.

Blind-Sided takes as its inspiration the case of one such bad result. One patient was bilaterally blinded by the Living Lens procedure. She chose to sue the doctor and the research institution. Janet Ferran, a Research Assistant on the project, was subpoenaed to testify on behalf of the patient. Janet was fired when she refused to lie on behalf of the doctor. The patient won her case at trial, which was appealed by the defendants to the Louisiana Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. The appellate court not only upheld the jury's verdict and award, but also increased the amount of money damages.

Body part trafficking was not a part of the real-life case. However, in today's world, body part trafficking has become a concern. A small international task force (not associated with the United Nations, to my knowledge) called the Bellagio Task Force on Transplantation, Bodily Integrity, and the International Traffic in Organs conducted field research into what they call the "commodification" of the body and body parts. A paper written by Nancy Scheper-Hughes, Department of Anthropology, University of California -Berkeley, entitled "The End of the Body: The Global Traffic in Organs for Transplant Surgery," (May 14, 1998) summarizes the findings of the Task Force (only up through the date of the report's publication; I'm sure they have found out much more since then).

It was from this paper I learned about Brazil and the body mafia. Once I had a setting for my stolen body parts, the rest was all fiction.

The characters are all figments of a writer's imagination, and any resemblance to any one living or dead is unintentional.

While the Jazz Festival, Manchac Swamp, the Rock N Bowl do exist, Lady Marmalade's in the Quarter does not. We needed it, so we invented it. --Monette Michaels and Janet Ferran

The End.

About the Authors:.

Janet C. Ferran is a native of New Orleans and as a Certified Ophthalmic Technician has worked as a clinician and researcher in the field of ophthalmology for the past twenty-eight years.

As Vice-President of Research and Development for Baltech, Inc. for the past thirteen years, she has worked on the development of an antiviral drug recently licensed to a large pharmaceutical company. Daily she can be found in the retina clinic at Ochsner Foundation.

In her spare time, she enjoys interviewing local ophthalmologists for her column Reflections in the New Orleans Academy of Ophthalmology Newsletter.

She shares her private life with her daughter Tina, son-in-law Matthew, and grandson Austin.

Monette Michaels is the pen name for a Carmel, Indiana attorney/arbitrator. She lives with her pathologist husband of thirty-one years, her teenage son, and two parents, one hers, one his. Her other novels are Fatal Vision, Death Benefits and Green Fire, published by the Canadian publisher, LTDBooks, and Vested Interests, published by Atlantic Bridge Publishing.

Visit www.atlanticbridge.net for information on additional titles by this and other authors.