“You had Elena, Dad, remember? She’s not coming anymore.”
“Hmmpf.” He looked suspiciously between Cassie and Mrs. Macuja, who’d bustled right into the kitchen.
“Would you like a little more coffee?” she said.
“No, I don’t want any more coffee.”
She appeared with the pot anyway. “How you take it?”
He looked confused. “What do you mean?”
“Oh, he drinks it black,” Cassie said.
“If I want more coffee I’ll get up and get it. I don’t need someone following me around with the pot.” Her father snapped the newspaper closed and pushed away from the table. If he thought he was being managed, he would dig in. Just like Andrew when he was little, always suspicious of anything new. He used to hang back even when Cassie brought him to play with other kids. She’d worried he would be a friendless, solitary child, but Phil scoffed, predicting he’d grow out of it. And he had. Too well, judging by the trouble he was in at school. She checked her watch. Ten-thirty already and the hearing was at ten. How long could these things go? If she didn’t hear from him in half an hour, she would call.
“What you do to your foot?” Mrs. Macuja asked as her dad shuffled toward the den. Cassie hadn’t said anything about the sprained ankle. Or the bees.
Her dad didn’t answer, just flapped his hand like he was swatting them away.
“So,” Cassie said brightly as he stalked off, “want to see the rest of the house?”
She showed Mrs. Macuja the laundry and explained what her father liked to eat. “Roast chicken is always good,” she said. “He’ll complain about whatever you make, but he’ll eat it.” With surprisingly little pushback from her dad, Cassie had taken over the grocery shopping along with the cooking and cleaning. But she’d been here nearly two weeks and her own life, whatever that looked like now, was receding. She missed the give and take of the office. She missed her running club. They met in Central Park on Saturday mornings and lingered over coffee afterward. She’d made good friends in that group; Phil had even liked some of the husbands. She missed her weekly yoga class, although she supposed she could find yoga in Connecticut. The thing was, she felt like she’d been pulled up by the roots and left dangling.
“You want me sit with him while he watch TV?” Mrs. Macuja asked when they finished the tour.
“Probably not, best to give him some space unless he wants company. But once he’s out of that boot, maybe you can get him out for a walk in the afternoons. I don’t like him sitting in front of the TV all day.”
“I clean up kitchen,” Mrs. Macuja said, pulling on rubber gloves, “then make lunch. He like an early lunch?”
“Noon is good. Let’s give him time to recover from breakfast.”
...
Cassie settled herself at the desk in her old bedroom with its lilac walls and boy band posters from high school. Her ancient stuffed dog, Frederick, one ear chewed off by their real dog decades ago, slumped on the bed. She opened the lease she’d been working on. A redevelopment project, converting an old factory in Brooklyn into affordable housing. The neighbors disliked the factory but didn’t want low-income housing either. Always a fuss over change. Her childhood desk was narrow and the Wi-Fi spotty upstairs. Hard to work here.
She checked her watch again. Ten forty-five. Andrew was surely done. She swiped open her phone, then thought better of it. She should give him a chance to call. She needed to work on letting him be an adult. But the not knowing was killing her. She stared at the screen, unable to concentrate, thinking of Andrew and the fact that she’d completely blanked on Mrs. Macuja.
She shut her computer, heart pounding. She had no confusion. She knew the day of the week for God’s sake. Just sometimes lately she forgot things. She was under stress. It could happen to anyone. She dropped her head into her hands, and a small, choked sound escaped her.
But she wasn’t just anyone. Not with her history.
She fished the paper from her wallet.Jeanette Torrington, Mount Sinai Hospital. The sight of it sent a spike of fear through her. If she didn’t have the mutation, it didn’t mean she would never get Alzheimer’s, but her chances were substantially lower—like a normal person’s.
But if she did have it, she would definitely develop early onset. One hundred percent.
And if she had the mutation, Andrew might have it too. Did she owe it to Andrew to get tested? If she was negative, Andrew had no elevated risk. He could live his life without worry. She needed at least to explain all this to him. He knew none of it.
A clammy sweat sprang up under her arms and between her breasts. She couldn’t live this way, terrified every time she forgot something, wondering if the end was starting. If the test came up clean, she could get on with her life and chalk all this up to stress.
If not, at least she’d know what she was dealing with, and Andrew could decide what he wanted to do. There would be time to put things in order. However you did that.
She ignored the thundering in her chest and picked up the phone.
Shelly was right. She needed to know.
...
She leaned back in the small chair, wrung out after making the appointment. The raw fear had given way to a depleted feeling, like she’d run eight miles and hadn’t eaten. This wasn’t something she could remedy with a granola bar, but at least she’d set things in motion.
