Cassie shut the door once Shelly had gone downstairs but didn’t bother opening the brief she was working on. No way could she concentrate. She pushed up the old frame window as far as it would go and gazed out over the pebbled driveway and the lush field. If her dad didn’t have those damn bees, she wouldn’t have met Glenn in the first place and life would be so much simpler. But her heart tumbled at the thought.
She hadn’t been straight with Glenn. She couldn’t blame him for being upset. She sealed up everything difficult—what happened to her mother, the medical history she still hadn’t shared with Andrew. So painful to look it all in the eye. She hadn’t told Glennthe truth about selling to Weber because she was afraid deep down of how he’d react. She’d been afraid of losing him and she had. She set Frederick back on the bed, andthe ancient dog toppled over. Her phone pinged with a text and she lunged for it, heart in her throat.
But it was only Shelly. Did u call him yet?
It’s been 10 minutes
Call him!
She didn’t respond. She climbed onto the bed and wrapped herself in the old floral comforter that had been there forever. Her mom had bought her and Shelly matching comforters when they were in middle school, and such things seemed important. It had become faded and frayed, but she couldn’t throw it out. She still felt her mother’s hand in choosing it.
Cassie had lived all her adult life in fear of forgetting, but she couldn’t forget a single word of the argument with Glenn. How he was so done he couldn’t wait to get away from her. Why couldn’t she forgetthat? Memory was so sneaky. It stole what you wanted and tossed the rest back like so much debris.
She rolled away from the yellow light spilling through the window. Spring with its relentless optimism beating down on her. If she had an ounce of energy she would get up and close the blind. Instead, she pulled the comforter over her head.
Wasshe in love with Glenn? Even now, her belly quickened at the thought. Her mutinous body. She reached for her phone and hit his name before she could talk herself out of it, but after two rings she knew he wouldn’t pick up.
“Hey,” she said when his voicemail came on. The same terse message about beekeeping she’d heard the very first time she’d called. A stranger on the other end of the line. “It’s me. I…I’m sorry about the way I handled this. I should have been up front. Can you call me? Please.” She didn’t say anything about the appointment with the counselor. It wasn’t fair to do that to him.
And who knew if he would listen to the message or just delete it.
...
Jeanette Torrington’s office was located on Tenth Avenue in Mt. Sinai Hospital’s westside location. Cassie had run past countless times on her way to Riverside Park but had never given it much thought, just another hospital in a city full of them. But inside was a woman who terrifyingly would tell her future.
Shelly held her hand as they rode up the elevator. “You okay?”
Cassie nodded, but her heart was thundering like she’d just stepped off a curb and narrowly missed getting hit by a bus. She wasn’t okay. How could anyone be okay in this situation? For a moment she thought about turning around, but they’d come all this way. And she wanted to know.Didn’t she?At least she didn’t have to worry about their dad. They’d hired a nurse to stay with him, and Andrew would be there too.
She checked in with the receptionist then took a seat next to Shelly in the bland waiting room. Across from them, a young couple held hands, the woman just visibly pregnant.
“I’ll take notes,” Shelly said, “don’t worry about remembering everything. It’s too hard when you’re in the middle of it. Toby came with me.”
Cassie fought back a swell of nausea. “What are the odds I’m going to be lucky too, Shel? What if you used up all our luck?” She knew this was ridiculous, that it didn’t work that way. They both had the exact same chance of inheriting the mutation. But she felt like she was either going to vomit or scream or run from the room. Maybe all three.
“Oh pumpkin, there’s enough luck for both of us.” Shelly drew her in for a hug. “At least you’ll know one way or the other, and you can plan.”
Plan for what, losing my mind?Cassie was about to say, but a trim woman in khakis and a blazer called her name.
“I’m Jeannette Torrington,” she said, shaking Cassie’s hand, then Shelly’s. “Let’s go on back.”
Jeannette Torrington was early forties with a warm smile and unruly hair that she didn’t bother to pull back. She led them to a neat office and motioned to a comfortable seating arrangement. “I hate talking to people behind my desk,” she said, taking an armchair across from them. “Makes me feel like I’m playing God.”
“Sort of feels like that anyway,” Cassie murmured.
“You mentioned your mother had early onset Alzheimer’s,” Jeanette said once they were settled and had declined waters. “Do you know which mutation? If you decide to go this route, we’ll need to know what to test for.”
“It was on PSEN1,” Shelly said. “Toward the end our dad had her evaluated so we’d know. They were just starting to do that then.”
“That makes it easier,” Jeannette said. “Sometimes folks come in and they don’t have a lot of information.” She looked frankly at Cassie. “As you may know, there are hundreds of early onset dementias, not all of them Alzheimer’s.”
“Could I have something else?” Was there such a thing as a better dementia?She felt another surge of nausea. She hadn’t eaten breakfast, but the coffee she’d had was threatening to come back up.
“Not likely. If your mother had a mutation on PSEN1, you and your sister both have a fifty percent chance of inheriting it.”
“I’ve been tested,” Shelly said quietly. “I don’t have it.”
Jeanette looked at Cassie. “So tell me.” She had a straightforward manner, and Cassie knew she would tell it like it was. “Why do you want to get tested?”
