“Yeah, it is . . . But so a few years ago, I started getting these funny spells myself. I thought they were seizures. Maybe they are; I’m not sure. Anyway. I was worried maybe those episodes were the first sign that I was going to lose my mind, like my mom did.”
In a breath, Abilene was worried. Terrified. She held his hands tight, bracing herself.
“She started declining when she was in her early forties,” he went on. “The, um . . . One of the reasons I told you I didn’t think you and I could be anything serious is because I didn’t know if that was happening to me, too. My mom has spells—not as violent as mine, but similar. It seemed likely it was related to her other issues. I was afraid to know for sure what it was all about, because me going crazy seemed like the most obvious explanation. And if I was, it didn’t seem fair to get into something with you. Like I’d be making a promise I might not be able to keep, if things ever turned serious.”
Jesus, she’d never have guessed his hesitation was down to something so intense. “So what was the phone call about?”
Another deep breath. “I sent DNA samples to a company that does genetic analysis. Mine and my mom’s and Vince’s. They can look at your genes and tell you if you have the markers for a load of diseases and mental disorders.”
She nodded. “I’ve seen the ads on TV.” She’d always thought it sounded like a terrible idea—she worried enough as it was, without knowing what latent illnesses might be scribbled all over her DNA. But in Casey’s situation, she could appreciate needing answers.
“The call I had was with an analyst from there,” he said.
“And?”
“And my mom has the markers for dementia. No shock.”
“And you?”
A long, ragged, quaking sigh, and his arms trembled around her waist. Her heart broke in an instant.
“Oh, Casey.” She wrapped her hands around his wrists and held on tight, as though that could fix it somehow. “I’m so sorry.” For him, and for herself. This was nothing like the theories she’d cooked up, for why he was being cautious about the two of them. So much worse. So much more—
“No,” he said through a hitching breath. “No, honey, I’m all right. I don’t have what she does.”
“What?”
“I’m not going to lose my mind.”
“You’re not? You’re sure?”
“As sure as science can make me. And Vince is fine, too.”
“Jesus,” she huffed, short of breath, heart racing. She craned her neck to meet his blue eyes and found tears glossing them, a sight she’d never seen before. “You scared the shit out of me.”
“Sorry.”
“I thought you were upset.”
“No, no. I’m just . . . I’m rattled. Relieved, but a little messed up. I’ve been operating either out of denial, or under the assumption that I was going to go crazy for so long . . . I think I’m in shock.”
“It’s good news, though. It’s all good news, right?”
He nodded—she felt the gesture and heard his relief in the next exhalation he let go. “It’s the best fucking news ever.”
“I wish you’d told me before, what it was all about.”
“No, you don’t. You’ve had enough to worry about.”
That was probably fair. But what did all of this mean for them?
“How long have you been worrying about this?”
“For a few years, now—that’s when the episodes started. But I blocked it out for most of that time. I can be real good at denial, when it serves me.”
Can’t we all?
“It was after I came home and saw how bad my mom had gotten . . . Then I was fucking scared to death. Too scared to get the testing done, even. It seemed better to just live in the moment and ignore what might be coming.”
“Why’d you change your mind?”
“Partly Duncan. He suggested the testing, last fall. And once we’d gone into business together, it started weighing on me more. I mean, before, my future was nobody’s concern except mine. But now I have him counting on me. And my brother, since I’ve started pitching in, helping with our mom. And . . . and you. You and the baby. You depend on me.”