She laughed politely, and there was typing behind her voice. “Great. So I’m one of the analysts here at LifeMap, and it looks like we’re going to be consulting this evening about three different tests—yours and also Deirdre and Vincent. Is that correct?”
“That’s right. That’s me, my mom, and my brother.”
“Great. And I see we’ve got disclosure waivers all signed and ready to go, so let’s dig in. Now, in the mail you’re going to receive very, very detailed reports on all three tests, but when a client requests a personal consultation, it usually means they have some specific concerns they’d like to address. Is this correct, in your case?”
“Yeah, it is.”
“Okay, great.” Man, she sure liked the word great. “Where would you like to focus our thirty minutes together, then?”
“Well,” he said, sitting on the edge of his old bed, “my mom’s, um . . . Her mental health is declining. She’s never been diagnosed by a doctor, though.”
“Okay, let’s take a look.” More typing and clicking. “I see here in the APOE allele for her test that, yes, she does carry the gene for non-Alzheimer’s dementia.”
He nodded, no words coming. Luckily, the woman went on.
“Are you curious to know if you also have this gene?” she prodded gently, voice lilting upward.
“Yeah. I am.”
More clicking—easily three hours’ worth of clicking, it felt like.
“I have good news for you, Casey. You and your mother do not share that gene.”
He froze, eyes glued to a dark patch on the carpet. “We don’t?”
“No, you do not.”
“How sure are you?”
She laughed. “Ninety-nine-point-many-nines sure. Genetic testing is extremely accurate.”
“Dude,” he said, and flopped back on his covers. “You have no fucking clue how much of a relief it is to hear that.” Such a relief, he felt tears welling in his eyes, snot building in his sinuses. He sat up and wiped his lashes dry.
“I can only imagine,” she said.
“And my brother—is he cool, too?”
More typing. “Yes, your brother also doesn’t share it. Though of course your chances on that one were a bit less nerve-racking, I’m going to bet.”
Casey frowned, confused. It wasn’t as though she knew about him getting spells and Vince not. “Why do you say that?”
Silence—a pause deep enough to park a car in.
“Hello?”
“Sorry.” Click click click, tap tap tap. “You do know that you and Vincent don’t share a biological mother, correct?”
He stared at the carpet stain, blank. “’Scuse me?”
“Deirdre is not Vincent’s mother. Not genetically speaking.”
“The fuck?”
Another pause. “I take it this is news to you . . . You have the same father of course,” she went on quickly, like that even fucking mattered.
Fucking fuck, but Casey had always known the two of them couldn’t be full-blooded brothers. They didn’t look a thing alike. But all this time he’d hoped it was because he must have a different dad, somebody way better than the asshole who’d left them . . .
“I’ll be goddamned.”
“Would you like to speak with an emotional counselor?” she offered.
“What? Fucking no, I just— Sorry. It’s fine. What else can you tell me? Are there any other weird neurological things in my report?” Anything that might explain the visions, if his mother also shared them.
Apparently not. The woman went through a bunch of results with him, but aside from a predisposition for anxiety and depression, Casey’s brain tested deceptively normal.
“And of course those are very, very common across the board,” the data chick said. “And depression and anxiety are also strongly influenced by environmental factors.”
“Sure.”
A pause. “Are you all right, Casey?”
“Yeah, I’m cool.”
“Well, our thirty minutes are just about up. Have I answered all of your questions?”
“Yeah, I think so.”
“Great.”