“I’m just going to live my life the best way I can,” she said. “That’s it. It won’t have anything to do with you, so don’t take it personally.”
“What does that mean?” he demanded.
“It means I’ll continue seeing Julian if I want to.”
His shoulders drooped. “You like him?”
She lifted her chin. “I do.”
He gave her a skeptical look. “What’s so great about him?”
“My feelings matter to him, for one. With you... I don’t even know what I did that made you want out of our marriage.”
He scratched his neck. “I’ve been trying to figure that out myself. I think it was just that you’re... I don’t know—too nice.”
“Toonice?” she repeated, dumbfounded. “Are you saying I’m boring?”
“Not boring. Too accommodating, I guess,” he said with a wince.
“Oh, I see. How could you possibly put up with someone who was too accommodating? God, that must’ve been terrible! I mean... the pain! The suffering!”
“Okay! I’m sorry!” he snapped.
She hefted the mail to her other arm. “No problem. Since it’s easiernotto be nice and accommodating, I should be able to fix that, right?”
He didn’t seem to know how to respond. “I guess.” He peered more closely at her. “Are you saying you want to try to save our marriage?”
“No, I’m not saying that,” she said. “I’ll be looking for someone else—someone who doesn’t have a stupidPredatortattoo.” Whirling around, she took the mail with her as she stalked out.
“What the hell, Charlotte? This is a cool tattoo, just like I thought it would be. Anyway, you’re acting like... I don’t even know you right now.” He followed her as far as the front stoop as she hurried to her car. “You’re going to be sorry!” he yelled, but for the life of her, she couldn’t figure out what she had to be sorry for. She’d given him and their marriage her very best. He was the one who’d torn it to shreds—because she wastoo nice!
“Let him get with someone whoisn’tnice,” she muttered. “See if he likes that any better.”
chapter 4
Julian stared at his hand, waiting to see if the tremor that’d almost caused him to spill his orange juice would come back. Having a diagnosis for the symptoms he’d been experiencing providedsomerelief. At least he knew what was wrong with him and could seek whatever treatments might help—after he decided between the options his doctor had presented to him. But knowing he had an incurable disease also came with a certain debilitating fatalism. He wasn’t sure which was worse—worrying about his symptoms without knowing the underlying cause or facing the truth.
It didn’t make things any easier that he felt cheated. He was too young to have Parkinson’s. It certainly wasn’t a rare disease, but most people didn’t develop it until they were in their sixties.
Michael J. Fox was a notable exception. He’d been diagnosed in his twenties. The good news was that he was still around almost forty years later. The bad news was that he appeared to be in decline. And Julian had no way of knowing how difficult the movie star’s journey had been. All he’d ever seen were the pictures and articles that appeared in the media.
At least Michael was always smiling. Julian wished he could tell him how much that helped. Maybehecould be like Fox. Fight the disease for decades before his symptoms became unbearable. Be grateful for the life he had. Keep his chin up.
Right now, that didn’t feel very likely. Whenever he imagined the years ahead, he just felt sad and scared. Mostly scared, which was such a foreign emotion to him. He’d never had reason to be frightened of anything—except the bear that’d charged him when he was in Alaska a year ago. That had caused a bolt of alarm before he played dead and the bear moseyed off into the woods.
He should still be out there, facing bears and moose and whatever other wild things crossed his path. He shouldn’t have this disease. Not only was he in the prime of his life, but there was no genetic component. Parkinson’s didn’t run in his family. The doctor couldn’t pinpoint a cause—unless he’d been exposed to some toxin he wasn’t aware of that’d caused his body to start misfolding the alpha-synuclein protein that was now destroying part of his brain.
How long would he be capable of hiking to the remote areas he liked to photograph? Of holding a camera steady? Would he be able to make enough money before he could no longer work to carry him through the rest of his life? And how would this diagnosis change the coming years in other ways?
There was no question that his future would be very different from the one he’d envisioned for himself. Now he didn’t even know if he’d ever marry, have kids. He couldn’t imagine any woman wanting a partner already so compromised. If he’d already been close to someone, he could conceivably see her sticking around—the way Michael J. Fox’s wife had remained committed to him over the years. But he hadn’t been dating anyone when he realized his body was no longer functioningcorrectly. And if a woman knew he was damaged goods before she fell in love with him, why wouldn’t she simply choose another man for the sake of her own future?
His mother came into the pool house his father had converted into a home office—Jerry was at his company’s headquarters downtown—and laid a hand on his shoulder.
“What is it?” he asked, twisting around to look up at her. He’d been using his laptop all morning, was supposed to be editing pictures. He loved the process of perfecting the shots he took. But since his latest muscle spasm, he’d been buried in his own thoughts, didn’t even know how long he’d sat there, inert, before she interrupted.
“Charlotte’s here. It’ssogood to see her again. She brought me flowers, which is lovely, but she also brought your father a special pillow to sit on.” She arched a reproving eyebrow at him. “I wonder how she knows about his surgery...”
“Whoops,” he said with a laugh. “I shouldn’t have told her, but I had no idea she’d bring him a butt pillow.”
