Pursued by the Rogue (The Fairy Tales of New York Book 1) (10 page)

Finn opened his
mouth. Surely some kind of response was called for, but he couldn’t speak. She’d announced it in such a cool little voice. Life-shattering news given in a brusque postscript. A footnote.

It was as if she’d cut out his tongue, cut off his legs and left him bleeding. The sound he finally made wasn’t one he’d ever made before. A desolate cry of incomprehension at life’s cruelty. At her cruelty to him and to herself – Christ it must have been hard for her. More than hard.

She’d been seventeen and all alone. She could have called on him for support, called on
someone
for help, but she hadn’t.

Where had her friends been in all of this? His sister and Dawn’s other friends. Mercy and Zel? She could have told them? Why hadn’t she?

It was all starting to make a crazy kind of sense. She couldn’t tell them because Faith was his sister. Telling them meant telling him. As for her parents or the aunt that she’d lived with, maybe she’d known she’d get no support from them.

She’d worn the consequences alone.

She was
still
alone.

Because she wanted to be.

‡

D
awn waited outside
the Ambassador Theater for her mother and aunt to emerge, and when they did she waved them over, threaded an arm through each of their elbows and took them to a restaurant for late night sweets and coffee with a kick in it. Conversation came easily to her mother and Meg – they’d always been sisters and as far back as Dawn could remember, they’d always been friends and confidants.

Family bonds, strong and true.

Dawn’s own family bond with them had been lost at twelve years old when her mother had sent Dawn to Meg with no real explanation beyond the need for Dawn to get a better education. Aunt Meg hadn’t been totally on board with this plan but not for the reasons Dawn had thought.

All those heated phone conversations between the sisters – all those times Dawn had overheard Meg trying to convince Dawn’s mother to take Dawn back – they hadn’t been about Dawn being a colossal disappointment at all.

Vivian Turner had wanted to protect her daughter from the ugliness of her father’s failing body and mind.

Meg Dawson had vehemently disagreed with that approach.

Nothing to do with Dawn being ugly, unwanted and odd.

Dawn liked her aunt a lot. The rift with her mother, on the other hand, had never fully mended and Dawn didn’t know if it ever would. She’d been so utterly lost when she’d first come to New York as a child. A skinny outback girl more used to bare feet and brown snakes than convents and the social politics of American teenagers. Football and proms. Juniors, seniors and clothes. Dawn’s clothes had been sun-faded and threadbare when Dawn had arrived all those years ago. Not suitable at all. A childless Aunt Meg had taken her clothes shopping immediately and between them they’d chosen what they liked and got it utterly wrong.

“Do you remember that hippie coat?” she asked her aunt, coming in on the tail end of her mother’s enthusiastic appraisal of costumes. “The blue corduroy with the … I don’t know … was it Aztec trim?”

“I loved that coat,” said Meg.

“So did I.” Dawn turned to include her mother. “No one else did. The kids at school thought I was so weird. I swear, half the reason I went to St. J’s was for the uniform. I hated that uniform but
everyone
had to wear it. Much better than inflicting my debatable fashion sense on a regular school system.”

This kicked off a spirited conversation about the merits of various school systems and Dawn was content to sit back and listen and occasionally, when asked, give her opinion.

Only when Dawn signaled for the check half an hour later did Vivian Turner return her attention to her daughter.

“Dawn, you’re very quiet. Did you catch up with Finn?”

“Yes. We caught up.”

Her mother and her aunt shared a glance, and there it was again. A closeness Dawn didn’t know how to be part of.

It always had been far easier for Dawn to keep secrets than to share them.

“I know I haven’t always been there for you,” her mother began quietly. “But if you ever want to talk …”

“We talk.” They were talking now and Dawn desperately wanted to stop. “C’mon. I’ll ask the cab driver to take us past Times Square. All the pretty, pretty lights.”

“No, Dawn,” her mother replied with a strained smile. “You look tired, and contrary to popular belief, I do know when my daughter is hurting. Let’s just get you home.”

*

Sleep didn’t come
easily to Dawn that night. Horror at what she’d done to Finn warred with sorrow at her self-inflicted distance from her family. She tossed and turned, flung her covers off and ten minutes later wrapped them around her again. Her bedroom windows had blackout shutters and when she couldn’t sleep she’d make them go down, drenching the room in darkness the better to encourage her body and her brain to let go of wakefulness.

Tonight those blackout shutters did nothing but make her feel even more trapped inside her skin.

And more awake than ever.

Three am found her in the kitchen, opening cupboard doors by the cook-top light, in search of the super strong headache tablets she rarely had cause to take. Tonight though, or what was left of it, maybe they’d help her sleep. She thought she was being quiet, but she mustn’t have been quiet enough, because the next thing she knew, her mother was padding into the kitchen, yawning as she fastened a silky blue dressing gown around her waist.

“I’m sorry, did I wake you?” asked Dawn.

“Wasn’t asleep.” Her mother surveyed her through faded gray eyes that were the same color as Dawn’s. “Nothing to do with your apartment, which is beautiful, or the bed, which is comfortable. I heard you poking around so I got up. Maternal instinct. I was worried about you.”

Dawn shrugged and finally found the tablets. “Headache.”

Her mother made that humming sound. The one that Dawn imagined mothers the world over had perfected. The one that meant they had more to say but weren’t quite sure how to go about it.

And then her mother sighed and looked away towards the floor to ceiling windows framed by exterior latticework. “It’s like a cage in here,” she said. “A beautiful, elegant refuge that no one can breach.” And then she smiled again and turned back. “I could sure use a slice of that cheesecake. You?”

“Me too.”

So Dawn brought the box over to the bench and got a knife from the drawer and two plates and fussed about trying to find dessert forks, or sporks, or whatever they were called.

“It wasn’t really a date tonight,” Dawn said finally.

Look at her, confiding in her mother
. Dawn didn’t know whether to celebrate or be afraid.

“What was it?” The gentle encouragement in her mother’s eyes made her feel even smaller than she already did.

“More of a disaster.”

“Oh.”

Dawn rubbed at her face, wondering if she looked as beaten as she felt. “Finn’s a great guy. Everything a woman could ever want or need. All he has to do is look at me and I feel … beautiful.”

Her mother smiled. “I know that feeling.”

“I’ve been trying to keep things strictly casual between us, but they’re not. He wants a future and I can’t give him one. I just—can’t. So I turned him away for good. I deliberately hurt him.”

“I know that feeling too. I did it to you.”

Dawn shook her head, fighting back tears. “I don’t want to talk about that.” She focused on turning the cold water tap on and reached for the glass, she couldn’t see on account of all the unshed tears. She got it to the sink before she lost her grip on it. It broke, the way fine glassware was inclined to do when dropped. Dawn swore.

“I’m sorry,” she said next, hands shaking as she tried to pick up the pieces. No! Turn the tap off first, that’s what she should do. “It’s nothing. It slipped.”

And then her mother was beside her, reaching out to turn the tap off and gather up the bits of glass.

“I could have done that,” Dawn protested faintly. But she tucked her hands beneath her armpits, too afraid to try again and fail.

It was her mother who found another glass, a cut glass crystal one this time, textured to the touch rather than smooth as the other one had been. She filled it up with water from the tap and set it in front of Dawn.

“I used to do this for your father,” her mother said, eyes heavy with disquiet. “Have you taken the test?”

“I’m not thirty yet.” Dawn tried for levity. “And, well … I’m not sure I’m going to need the test.”

“You shouldn’t have symptoms yet. If you have it. Symptoms don’t appear until later in life.” Her mother’s voice was calm, very calm.

“Symptoms don’t usually appear until later, no. I know the literature and the progression of the disease as well as you.”

“Oh, Dawn.” Her mother turned her back to the sink and leaned against it, her arms tightly folded across her waist. Holding on hard because letting go meant acknowledging the obvious.

“I’ve been forgetting stuff at work. Little things.”

“Maybe you’re overworked.”

Dawn toed at the tile beneath her foot. “I’m getting clumsier.”

“Overworked and overtired.”

“That’s what my distribution manager says. I’m pretty sure,” Dawn whispered. “I wouldn’t have done what I did to Finn if I wasn’t pretty sure.” Tears started to spill over. “I only ever wanted a little bit of him, you know? Something to remember and make me feel good. Just for a little while.”

“Oh, Dawn.” Her mother’s tears had started too as she gathered Dawn into her arms and held her close.

“I’m pretty sure,” Dawn choked out on a sob.

“I know you’re scared. I’m scared too. I’m so sorry your father and I brought this down on you. I’d give anything to take it away, but I can’t.” Her mother pulled back enough to press her forehead to Dawn’s. “I know you don’t want to take that test yet, baby. But the not knowing is coloring your choices. You’re living as if you already have the disease and you’re hurting yourself and the people around you with the not knowing. Fifty-fifty, Dawn. Take the test. It’s time.”

“I know.”

“What’s going on?” It probably shouldn’t have come as a surprise that her aunt was the next to speak and that at some point she too must have made her way to the kitchen. Wonderful woman, her aunt. Stoic in the face of suffering. Dawn wanted to be her when she grew up.

“Dawn’s going to test for Huntington’s,” her mother said with one last squeeze before letting go and directing Dawn towards one of the kitchen stools.

“Okay,” said her aunt. “Good.”

“She thinks she’s got it.”

Her aunt stayed stoic. “Not so good.”

“She blew off her young man last night because of it. And she has a headache.”

“Well, hell.” Her aunt planted her butt on a breakfast stool. “We’re going to need more cheesecake.”

Her mother pulled back to pick up the headache tablets and hand them to Dawn along with the water. “When are you thinking of getting it done? Can you do it in your labs?”

She could, but she wouldn’t. If she was going to do this, she was going to do it the right way, through the right channels. She didn’t want people in her labs knowing before she knew. Before she’d lined up damage control measures when it came to the impact this could have on her company. “I’ll get a referral to a specialist. Become someone’s patient. I know who I want.”

“Your father’s specialist?”

Nothing wrong with her father’s specialist, except for the fact that he was based in the Adirondacks. “A specialist in Manhattan. I know him through medical conferences and research papers and such. We’ve collaborated before. He’s good, he’s close by and he’ll do it right.” Dawn wiped at her eyes and pushed her uneaten cheesecake in her aunt’s direction. “Fifty-fifty, right?” Those were her odds and she’d clung to them all her adult life. Trading knowledge for uncertainty because that way she could hold onto hope.

Maybe she
was
just tired and clumsy and forgetful. Stress could do that to a person.

There was still a chance.

You never know until you know.