Could I Have This Dance? (39 page)

“Maybe I just started thinking of Daddy in a different light. It’s taken me a long time to soften my opinion of his actions.” She paused. “It might not be all Dad’s fault, you know.”

“Oh, right, and I guess you have some intellectual way of justifying his neglect?”

Claire leaned forward. “Mom hasn’t told you?”

“Told me what? I talk to Mom about the weather and about the kids. We’re friendly, but not friends.”

“She hasn’t told you about Huntington’s disease? About the test they’re running on Daddy?”

Margo’s blank expression provided the answer.

Claire took a deep breath. “Daddy might be suffering from a rare genetic illness called Huntington’s disease.”

“Am I supposed to be upset? Excuse me if I don’t cry right now.”

“You don’t seem to understand. If Daddy has a genetic illness, he could pass it to us.”

Margo’s eyes widened.

Claire slowly explained about her search to find the keys to unlocking the supposed Stoney Creek curse. She told about Huntington’s disease, and what it would mean to her and Margo, and possibly Margo’s three daughters, if Wally was confirmed to have HD. “So you see,” she explained, “some of Dad’s problems with irrational behavior, with irritability, even his explosive emotions could have been early signs of HD.”

“You’re making excuses for him.”

“I’m not. I’m just making an observation. We may have misjudged him.”

She shook her head. “He’s a drunk, Claire. Don’t sugarcoat it.”

“This is serious, Margo. I’m not trying to justify how he treated us. But if it turns out that he does have HD, we’re going to be facing whether or not we want to be tested.”

“I don’t want anything to do with this.”

“We can’t run from it.”

Margo bit her lower lip and then spoke again, her voice low and steady, as if she was fighting not to let her voice waver. “I left home to get away because I thought that man was destroying my life. I’ve gotten along just fine without him. And now you want me to think about being cursed with an illness that will make me act just like him?” She shook her head and continued with sarcasm. “Oh, that’s real sweet. I get away from him, and he still ruins my life by passing me some horrific gene.”

“Margo, you may not have it. I may not have it. Dad may not have it. I could have been all wrong. But if I’m right, our family is going to have to pull together and find some support in each other.”

Margo had a faraway look in her eyes. “I can’t tell this to Kyle. He’d freak. He already hates Wally. I don’t want to see what he’d do if he knew Wally had given me some dreadful disease.”

“It’s not his fault, Margo. A genetic illness is no one’s choice.”

Margo quickened her pacing. “Why did you have to start digging up all this stuff? Why couldn’t you just apply your diagnostic skills somewhere else? Did you have to torture your own family?”

“It’s not like I caused this. I just raised the questions, that’s all.”

“Well, stop. I like my life just fine the way it is. Has it ever occurred to you that digging all this up might upset everyone? Have you told Clay? He’ll freak, too.”

“I thought you’d want to know. Would you have rather I’d not said anything? Then what if Dad’s test is positive? Then wouldn’t you have wondered why I didn’t say anything about my suspicions?”

Margo sat down on a deck chair and put her head in her hands. Just then, a baby’s cry interrupted their conversation.

Margo stood. “Kristin’s awake. Would you like to see her?”

“Sure.”

They walked to the baby’s room, and Margo filled the time by returning to chitchat about her daughters, never again mentioning the subject that she’d quickly shoved under the rug. Huntington’s disease was obviously not something she cared to think about anymore.

Claire smiled sweetly and held a rattle up to her little niece. Claire didn’t want to think about HD either, but getting lost in small talk felt plastic. She looked at Kristin, innocently cooing as Margo began changing her diaper. Claire did the math. If her father had HD, there was a fifty-fifty
chance that Margo had it, giving Kristin a one-in-four chance of having the disease. Of course, if Margo was found to be a carrier, then the baby would have a fifty-percent risk of getting it, too.

It struck Claire as unfair. Here was a faultless child, incapable of intentional disobedience, and yet silently lurking within her every cell could be a gene capable of slowly destroying her mind and body. Certainly this couldn’t be the workings of a loving God. At least not the kind of God that Claire understood him to be.

Claire looked at her watch. “She’s beautiful.”

“She looks like your baby pictures, don’t you think?”

Claire shook the rattle. “My lucky little niece. You look like me.”

“I hope she’s as smart as you. Maybe smart enough to leave this backwards valley behind.”

“Believe it or not, I miss this old valley.” She touched her sister’s arm. “And my family.”

Margo ignored Claire’s touch. “So will you bring John by so I can meet him?”

“Sure. He’s coming in tomorrow night. Maybe sometime on Saturday.” She paused. “Are you sure you wouldn’t want to try a little family reunion?”

Margo stiffened. “I don’t think so. Kyle isn’t into it.”

Claire nodded resolutely. That was it. No discussion. Margo wasn’t going to budge. “I’ve got to get back over to the hospital. I told Mom that I’d bring her some supper. She’s getting tired of the hospital cafeteria.”

With the baby in one arm, Margo marched back into her living room and picked a book up from the coffee table. “Could you give this to Mom for me? She gave it to me months ago and I just haven’t found time to return it.”

Claire took the book, a thick volume on child development. “Why don’t you come over to the hospital? I’m sure Daddy would like to see the girls.”

“Claire, stop. I’m not into polite little visits and pretending we’re some big happy family. We aren’t, so I’m not going to act like we are.”

“People can change.”

“You’ve been gone a long time, Sis. I don’t think you understand. Family gatherings are definitely not Daddy’s thing. I’m surprised you’d want this anyway. Mom told me about the last time you visited Daddy at home.”

“He’d been drinking. He’s sober now.”

Margo rocked Kristin in her arms. “Sorry, Sis. It’s not going to happen.”

Claire walked to the door. This was not going according to plan. Margo was supposed to be the easy one. “I’ll call you when John’s in town.”

“Kyle usually works until noon on Saturdays. But we should be around after that.”

Margo opened the door.

Claire stepped into the sunshine. The blue sky and peaceful setting belied the turmoil that she felt eroding her soul. Maybe Margo was right. Maybe it was too late for her family.

Maybe some things were best left undisturbed.

Leave her family undisturbed? Claire shook her head. It was too late for that.

They hugged politely with the baby between them before Claire turned to leave. As she walked across the manicured lawn, she glanced at the girl’s bicycle which was cast aside, leaning against the mailbox. It belonged to Casey, Margo’s eight-year-old.

Claire stopped in her tracks. It didn’t take a second look to unsettle her stomach. One glimpse was enough to freshen the bleeding in her heart.
What is it with little girls? Why do they all have to ride purple bikes?

The reunion Claire dreamed about never happened. It seemed everyone had their own agenda, and flexibility didn’t seem to be a McCall trait. John arrived late on Friday, well after visiting hours at the hospital. Clay went off-road motorcycle riding with his buddies on Saturday, precluding any meaningful time with him. Margo’s husband worked on Saturday until seven P.M. because a manager called in sick. John and Claire visited with Margo, and Claire endured another tour of her sister’s new home and her litany of stories about their contractor and the costly overruns in their budget. Claire had “oohed” and “aahed” appropriately.
SITCOM,
she thought, amused at the medical field’s love of initials and acronyms. If there was a summary of her sister’s financial status, this seemed to be it. SITCOM: Single Income. Three Children. Oppressive Mortgage.

Saturday evening there was time for a short visit with Wally, but he was tired and seemed self-conscious. In spite of his obvious physical shortcoming, Wally was a proud man and was uncomfortable being the center of attention in such a vulnerable state. The visit was awkward. Wally’s face reflected almost no emotion. There was no smiling, only a constant, rhythmic movement of his right cheek, which caused the corner of his mouth to pull to the side, as if tugged by an invisible string. He was pleasant to John, but Claire wasn’t sure from Wally’s nonreaction that her father even remembered John from her graduation.

Della was too concerned with Wally to prepare anything home-cooked, so after a thirty-minute visit where Della, Claire, and John sat around watching Wally twitch, they headed for supper at Denny’s, hardly the reunion Claire had hoped for. At dinner, even Della, normally talkative, was subdued. It was as if her whole experience with Wally had finally left her drained of positive emotions. The only thing left for Della seemed to be a quiet resolution to plod forward, unsure of the future, and afraid. Claire searched her mother’s beautiful eyes for clues. There seemed to be something more than fear. Something hidden, something Della held back, unable to express, or was too fearful to reveal. In John’s presence, Claire knew not to probe. Della would never open up in front of him.

That night, with the sky salted with a million stars, Claire nestled her head against John’s shoulder while sitting on the old porch swing. Her time at home was measured in hours. Tomorrow, half of her yearly vacation from the hospital would be over, and she would resume her other life as a surgical intern.

It seemed weird, in a way. Ever since her frantic flight from Boston, Claire had become so absorbed into her concerns about her family that other than a few snatches of memory, she had shelved her life at Lafayette. All her worries about the pyramid and the threatening message on her front door had been left behind. But now, as she realized her time in Stoney Creek was coming to a close, she turned her attention back to Lafayette and the pressures that awaited her there.

“This isn’t what I’d wanted for your first trip to Stoney Creek,” she began. “My family didn’t exactly reach out and make you feel welcome.” She felt a knot rising in her throat and her eyes moisten with tears.

She felt John’s arm tighten around her shoulder. “It’s okay, Claire. It’s not like your family has time right now to drop everything and pay attention to me.” He paused. “I had a wonderful time just being with you again.”

“I guess I’m stupid for expecting anything different. I had imagined my family pulling together over my dad’s illness, and putting to rest some of our old hurts.” Her voice thickened. “Over and over on my trip down, I wondered what my father would say to me, his youngest daughter, returning to his side at his moment of tragedy. The last time I left him, he was in a rage, almost hitting me with a beer bottle. I wanted him to embrace me, to tell me how sorry he was, but …” Her words faded.

“He didn’t apologize, did he?” John whispered.

She shook her head. “Mom says he doesn’t even remember. He can slip into a rage, and ten minutes later it’s like the storm has passed, and he acts like nothing has happened. For him, saying ‘I’m sorry’ isn’t an issue. He doesn’t remember hurting me.”

They were quiet for a minute before Claire dared to ask the question that etched a deep crevice in the smooth highway she’d planned for her life. “So now that you’ve seen the McCalls at their finest, do you still think you want to be a part of the family?”

“I’m in love with you, Claire. I’m not exactly marrying your family.”

“It’s a package deal. I was wrong to shut them out of my life for so long.”

His voice was gentle. “If it means I get to spend my life with you, I can put up with your family.”

“But what if I end up just like Wally? Could you love me like that?”

“But you’re nothing like him. It’s not going to happen.”

His reassurance did little to settle her thoughts. “If I’m right, and the curse that’s plagued Stoney Creek for generations is Huntington’s disease, I could end up looking just like him: lying in bed, unable to keep still, with my mind slowly deteriorating. You saw my father this afternoon. Could you deal with it if I ended up like that? You’d have to take care of me. And to boot, if we have children, they could end up suffering too. You might have to watch your own children suffer and die before you.”

“Claire, stop worrying. This isn’t like you. You’ve always been so optimistic about the future.”

“That was before I learned about HD.”

“You’ve said yourself that HD is rare. I can’t see getting so worked up about something so unlikely to happen.”

“Huntington’s disease is rare, but it also runs in families.”

“But so does diabetes. And so does colon cancer. My grandfather had that, and our family doctor told my mother that she is at increased risk for getting it, but it doesn’t have to ruin her life. She doesn’t go around worrying that someday she might get cancer.”

“John, you’re not getting it.” She lifted her head from his shoulder to face him. “Huntington’s disease is a dominant gene. Sure, diabetes and colon cancer can run in families, but the offspring are still unlikely to get it. A dominant gene like HD is passed to the next generation with a fifty-fifty chance of inheritance. That’s one out of two, John. If Daddy has Huntington’s, I have a fifty-percent risk of having it too.”

“Fifty percent?”

“That’s right, one out of two. It’s a flip of the coin. Heads I win. Tails I lose. My career’s over before it really gets going.”

She watched John shift in his seat. He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand and made a clicking noise with his cheek. “How can it be that high?”

“It’s simple genetics, John. We all have two sets of matching chromosomes, each of which contain thousands of genes. We get one set from our
mother, and one set from our father. If Daddy has HD, that means he has one HD gene which he inherited from his father and one normal gene which he got from Grandma Elizabeth. He has to give me one or the other. That means that with normal probability, out of three children in my family, one or two of us will have HD.”