Her mom brings in a stack of paper plates and napkins, and they start peeling off hot slices of pizza.
“Wait, we’re eating in here?” asks Meghan.
“Yeah, why not?” says her mom.
“Is there a game on?” asks Katie.
“Not ’til tonight,” says Patrick.
Pizza and beer in the living room for Sunday supper sounds like a party, but Katie tenses. This never happens, not unless there’s an important game on. Something’s off.
Her dad sits in his chair, her mom in the wooden rocker. He’s drinking a beer, and she’s holding Yaz, but neither of them have plates of pizza in their laps. Her mother’s face is pale and distracted. She’s looking in the direction of the TV but not at it, rubbing Yaz with one hand and the crucifix on her necklace with the other. Her dad is fidgeting in his chair. He looks nervous.
The room suddenly feels stranger than it did with the TV off. There’s an electric energy in the room, and Katie goes still and cold as it passes through her. She feels an animal intuition, an instinctive pinch in her nerves. Thunderclouds gathering. A lion waiting in the brush. Songbirds silencing before taking flight. Something is coming. Something bad.
Patrick is stuffing his face with pepperoni pizza, chewing with his mouth open. It’s got to be him. It’s always him. He’s done something illegal, and either he has to come clean now, or their dad has to arrest him. But Patrick looks totally chill.
Maybe it’s her. They saw Felix. That’s it. Here comes the lecture. They’re not going to let her stay here under their roof for practically free if this is how she’s going to behave. Shacking up with a black man who isn’t Catholic or Irish or from here. What will the neighbors think? Doesn’t she care about her reputation and her family’s good name, if not her soul?
She’ll have to choose between her family and Felix. Maybe. Maybe this kind of ultimatum will be a blessing. They’ll be doing her a favor. Good. I’m gone. Outta here. Just the kick in the pants she needs. She could live with Felix until she finds a place of her own. But where would she go? She’s not ready. She hasn’t saved up enough money to leave Charlestown, and she can’t afford to live here on her own either. Shit.
Her mother gets up, takes the clicker from the love seat arm, and points it at the TV, shutting it off. JJ looks up at her in protest, but the stricken look on her face stops him from complaining. No one does. No one says a word. She sits back down in the rocker and clutches her crucifix.
“Now that we’re all here together, your mom and I have something we want to tell you,” says her dad.
He’s trying to talk, but the words aren’t coming. His face floods pink and twitches, struggling with itself. The air in the room thins, and the bottom of Katie’s stomach drops out, her insides and two bites of pizza sinking without a floor. This isn’t about Felix. Her dad clears his throat.
“I had a medical test, and we found out I have something called Huntington’s disease. It means I’ll have trouble walking and talking and a few other issues over time. But the good news is it’s slow and will take at least ten years.”
Huntington’s disease. She’s never heard of it. She looks to her mom to gauge how bad this is. Her mom is squeezing her crucifix in one hand and hugging herself with the other as if she’s holding on for dear life. This is really bad.
“So you’ll start having trouble walking in ten years?” asks Meghan.
“No, sorry. I have some of the symptoms now. I already have it.”
“It’ll take ten years for what, then?” asks Patrick.
“For him to die,” says Colleen.
“Jesus, Coll,” says JJ.
“No, she’s right. You’ve seen this at your job,” says her dad, checking with Colleen.
Colleen nods. Colleen’s a physical therapist. Seen what? What has she seen?
“So you know the next part of this speech, huh?” says her dad.
Colleen nods again, all color drained from her face, which is clenching as if in pain, scaring the shit out of Katie.
“What next part, Dad? Ma?” asks JJ.
Her dad looks to her mom.
“I can’t,” she whispers. Her mom reaches over and pulls a tissue from the box on the side table. She dabs her eyes and wipes her nose. Her dad exhales forcefully through pursed lips, as if he’s blowing out candles on a birthday cake, as if he’s making a wish.
“So this Huntington’s thing is hereditary. I got it from my mum. And so you kids. You kids. Each of you has a fifty-fifty chance of getting it, too.”
No one moves or says anything. Katie forgets to breathe. Then her mom starts crying into her tissue.
“Wait, fifty-fifty chance of getting what? What is it again?” asks Meghan.
Her dad, their rock, their protector, always so sure of everything, looks physically fragile. His hands are shaking. His eyes are wet and pooling fast. His face grimaces as if he’s just sucked on a lemon, struggling to hold back his tears, and it’s turning Katie inside out. She’s never seen him cry. Not when his dad died or when his friend on the force was shot and killed or when he finally came home the day after the marathon.
Please don’t cry, Dad.
“Here.” He pulls a stack of pamphlets from his jacket pocket and lays them on the coffee table next to the boxes of pizza. “I’m sorry, I can’t talk.”
They each pick up a copy and start reading.
“Fuck,” says Patrick.
“Language,” says her mom.
“Ma, I’m sorry, but fuck language right now,” says Patrick.
“My God, Dad,” says Meghan, clutching the pink silk scarf wrapped around her neck.
“I’m sorry. I’m praying every minute that none of you get this,” says her dad.
“Is there anything they can do to treat it?” asks Meghan.
“They have some medications to ease the symptoms, and I’ll do PT and speech therapy.”
“But there’s no cure for this?” asks Patrick.
“No.”
Katie reads.
Huntington’s disease manifests in motor, cognitive, and psychiatric symptoms that typically begin at age 35–45 and advance relentlessly until death. There is currently no cure or treatment that can halt, slow, or reverse the disease’s progression.
Her dad has Huntington’s. Her dad is dying. Ten years. This can’t be happening.
Each child of an affected parent has a 50 percent chance of developing the disease.
Symptoms typically begin at thirty-five. That’s in fourteen years. And then she might be dying of Huntington’s disease. This can’t be happening.
“If you have the gene, is that it, you’ll definitely get it?” asks JJ.
Her dad nods. A tear trickles down his pink cheek.
Katie buries herself in her pamphlet, looking for the fine print, the exception, a way out. This can’t be right. Her dad is fine. He’s a strong, tough Boston cop, not someone sick with a fatal disease. She reads the list of symptoms again. Depression. No way. Paranoia. Totally not him. Slurred speech. Clear as a bell. They must be wrong. The test was wrong. A mixup or a false positive. Dead in ten years. Fuck those assholes for being wrong and making her dad cry.
She keeps reading. Reduced dexterity. Sometimes, but so what? Temper outbursts. Okay, yes, but everyone loses it once in a while. Chorea.
Derived from the Greek word for dance, chorea is characterized by jerky, involuntary movements.
She looks at her dad. His feet are doing an Irish jig on the floor. His shoulders shrug. His eyebrows lift, and his face grimaces as if he just sucked on a lemon. Shit.
“So we can find out if we have the gene?” asks Meghan, reading the booklet.
“Yes. You can have the same blood test I had,” says her dad.