Cassie forced herself to unclench her hands, which she’d wedged between her knees. Whydidshe want to get tested? Such a simple question but she didn’t have a good answer. She’d made the appointment in a spasm of anxiety after she forgot about Mrs. Macuja’s visit, but there’d been other worries since then. Misplaced words here and there. That awful incident with the windshield wipers when she hadn’t forgotten at all but thought she had. The unrelenting, suffocating worry smothered her every hour of every day. “I think on some level it would relieve a lot of stress,” she said, “to know why things are happening.”
“What kinds of things are happening?”
“What you might expect—reaching for words, forgetting people’s names. A while back I blanked on a big appointment.”
“Anything else?” Jeannette looked up from taking notes on an iPad. “Any personality changes? Sometimes we see that with early onset. Any form of Alzheimer’s.”
Cassie winced at how casually Jeannette tossed out the word.Alzheimer’s.The way your doctor might discuss your cholesterol, something to be managed. Only there was no pill to take for this. “Shel, have you noticed anything?”
Her sister considered. “Maybe a little cranky, but let’s see. You watched Dad almost die of a heart attack. You’re handling the sale of our childhood home. Your son has been suspended from school. And you just broke up with a guy you’re crazy about.”
Jeannette smiled. “Just a little stress there.”
“Could all this be stress?” The nausea had subsided, but now she’d broken out in a clammy sweat.
“Stress can manifest in a lot of ways—physically and mentally. But we won’t know anything definitively unless we test. Even if you do come up positive, you could still be suffering from stress, which always makes things worse.” Jeannettelooked at her squarely. “Just to be clear, if you do have the mutation, there’s a one hundred percent chance you’ll develop early-onset. We can’t say exactly when, but unfortunately there’s no getting around it.”
Shelly squeezed Cassie’s hand, but Cassie couldn’t look at her. She couldn’t look anywhere except at a picture on the wall of a lush orange poppy unfolding to reveal a delicate black center. For some reason the picture made her think of Glenn and the bees, and she felt a piercing sense of loss. “I’m aware of that,” she said quietly.
Jeanette gave her a moment, then went on. “When I counsel patients, I always ask if they’re emotionally prepared for the results. Positive or negative. That may sound surprising, but a negative result can be disconcerting too. People sometimes end up with survivor guilt. How old were you when your mother died?”
“Twenty-two. But she started showing symptoms when I was sixteen.”
“Were you both still at home?”
“I was in college,” Shelly said.
Jeanette gave Cassie a thoughtful look. “So you had to navigate what was happening to your mom all alone.”
Unexpectedly, Cassie’s eyes filled. She had a sudden vision of her mother on the way to a party in her dangly earrings and the yellow dress she’d loved. Blissfully unaware of what was coming.Would her mother have wanted to know? Would it have ruined the good years she still had left?
Jeanette handed her a tissue from a box on the desk. “It’s a hard thing to process when you’re that young. A time like now it all comes up again.” She waited while Cassie blew her nose. “You have children?”
“A son. He’s nineteen.”
“Have you spoken to him about this?”
“I need to.” Her heart felt like a stone in her chest. If she had the mutation, Andrew might have it too. He would have the same risk. Satisfying her own curiosity would curse him with the same wretched choice. And what would it change?
Absolutely nothing.
The poppy on the wall seemed to undulate, the orange folds rearranging themselves around the dark secretive center. She could stare at the picture for hours, contemplating its layers.
“So if you want to go ahead,” Jeanette was saying, “the test is simple. We just swab your cheek. It takes a couple of weeks to get the results, and we ask that you bring someone with you that day. It can be a lot to take in. If you want to make an appointment to come back for the procedure, they can help you at the desk on the way out.”
Cassie stood. “I’m not coming back.” She knew with a sudden, powerful certainty that she did not want this test. If she turned out positive, the moment she heard the news she would begin waiting for symptoms to start. Every day would be a countdown to the inevitable end. Yes, everyone’s life ended, but most people didn’t know how.
She wanted the joy of living a life of surprise, where the ending wasn’t ordained. It might still come to that, but she didn’t need to know. She wanted to live like she had a future. Yes, that meant heartache and not always being in control. But that was life in all its messy glory.
Getting ready to die was not the way she wanted to live.
Chapter Twenty-Two
When they got home, she found Andrew working on a puzzle with his grandfather, their heads bent together companionably. A new one, sunflowers in a field. A week since the heart attack and her dad was starting to improve. Small milestones. He could get himself out of bed and was lobbying to use the cane instead of the walker. But the hospital bed was still parked in the family room, and he couldn’t yet get upstairs to shower.
“How about I take a turn?” Shelly said, easing onto the couch.
Cassie gave her a grateful look. She needed to talk to Andrew, and she needed to do it now. No more excuses. No more delays. The visit with Jeannette Torrington had left her with an unexpected sense of clarity. She’d looked her options in the eye and come out the other side. Either she had the mutation or she didn’t. But this would be a shock to Andrew. She had no idea how he would take it.
