Inside the O'Briens (17 page)

“Now there's your generation.” He draws squares for JJ and Patrick, circles for Meghan and Katie. He blackens JJ's square, and the sight of it blackens Katie's stomach. She shifts her focus to her circle, empty for now. She closes her eyes for a moment, a white circle emblazoned in her mind's eye, holding on to it. A symbol of hope.

“Each of you inherited a normal copy of the gene from your mom. Remember, your dad has one normal copy of the HD gene from his father and one expanded copy from his mother. So each of you inherited either his normal copy or the expanded copy. If you inherited the normal copy from your dad, you will not get HD. If you inherited the expanded copy, you will develop HD if you live long enough.”

“So that's how each of us has a fifty percent chance of getting this.”

“Exactly,” he says, smiling, seemingly pleased that she followed his biology lecture.

So it really does comes down to random chance. Shit luck. Nothing she has done or will ever do can affect it. She can eat a vegan diet, practice yoga every day, have protected sex, stay
away from drugs, take her vitamins, and sleep eight hours a night. She can pray, hope, write positive affirmations on her bedroom walls, and light candles. She can meditate on an empty, white circle. None of it matters. There it is on the board. She either already has the gene or she doesn't.

“Fuck,” she says. Her eyes widen and she presses her lips together, her mother's voice in her head scolding her with a harsh
Language
!
“Sorry.”

“That's okay. You can say ‘fuck' in here. You can say anything in here.”

Her lips part and she exhales. She feels that she has to be so careful now, especially around her family, worrying about what not to say, what not to notice. Sunday suppers in that cramped kitchen are particularly excruciating, where every spoken and withheld word seems to stomp on a minefield of eggs, crushing them into sharp shards that slice her lungs, making it painful to breathe.

There's a noticeable pause in conversation. The air in
the room fills with something. An invitation. A promise. A dare.

“When I was a kid and we played truth or dare, I always picked dare,” says Katie.

“So you were a risk taker.”

“No, not at all. It was just the better choice, better than having to admit some embarrassing truth about myself.”

“What was so embarrassing about you?”

“I dunno normal stuff.”

The baby of the family, she was forever trying to keep up with her older siblings. JJ, Patrick, and Meghan knew about sex, drinking, pot, everything before she did, and her ignorance made her feel stupid. And it was particularly difficult following Meghan. Katie spent most of her childhood faking what she knew, hiding what she didn't.

“This feels a little like truth or dare,” she says.

Truth: Find out whether she is going to get Huntington's disease or not.

Dare: Live without knowing, wondering every other second whether she already has it.

She never liked that game. She still doesn't want to play it. Eric nods, seemingly impressed and contemplative, as if this comparison had never occurred to him before.

“Tell me,” he says. “What would it mean to find out you're gene negative?”

“Uh, that would be amazing. Biggest relief ever.”

Duh.

“How do you think it would affect your relationship with JJ?”

Oh. The lightness from her imagined, obvious relief drops into an unliftable weight in her lap.

“And what if his baby has it?”

“He's not finding out.”

“In eighteen years, his kid can get tested. What if your niece or nephew is positive? How will that be for you?”

“Not good,” she says, lowering her head.

“What if Meghan and Patrick are positive, and you're negative?”

“Jesus,” she says, leaning forward to knock three times on Eric's desk. “Why are you painting the worst possible picture?”

“You said being negative would be the biggest relief ever. See how it's not that simple?”

“Yeah, I see it.”

Thanks a fuckin' lot.

“What would testing positive feel like?”

“Rainbows and kittens.”

“How would you handle it?”

“I wouldn't jump off the Tobin, if that's what you're getting at.”

This is getting too intense. She squirms in her seat. Eric notices. Fuck this. This isn't mandatory. She can get up and
leave anytime she wants. She doesn't have to be polite to Eric. She doesn't have to care what he thinks. She doesn't have to see Eric ever again.

“So, what would you do? Would anything in your life change?” he asks.

“I dunno. Maybe.”

“You in a relationship?”

She shifts to the edge of her seat and eyes the door.

“Yeah.”

“What's his name?”

“Felix.”

“Does Felix know about this?”

“No. I don't want to lay it on him until I know what's what.”

“Okay.”

“Don't judge me.”

“No judgment here. Let's make it more abstract. You want to get married someday?”

“Yeah.”

“Have kids?”

She shrugs. “Yeah, probably.”

“What if you're HD positive?”

She thinks about JJ and Colleen. She doesn't know whether she could've made the decision they made, whether she would've kept the baby. But Katie can find out before becoming pregnant. She could do that in vitro thing where they test the embryos for the mutated HD gene and only implant the embryos that don't have it. She could have Huntington's and have babies. It's not exactly chocolate and peanut butter, but she could make the combination work.

Or not. Felix doesn't deserve to sign up for a wife who is destined to get this hideous disease. He doesn't deserve a wife whom he'll have to take care of—feed her, push her in a wheelchair, change her diapers, bury her—by the time she's fifty. She thinks of her mom and dad, and she starts picturing their im
mediate future. She squeezes her eyes shut for a second and clenches her teeth, chasing the images away.

Why should Felix be stuck with that kind of future, knowing it from the get-go? At least her parents have had twenty-five years together without knowing. No guy should have to be saddled with that kind of burden before even getting started.

A realization hits her hard, and an overwhelming urge to cry swells fast within her, filling to the top of her throat. She swallows several times, grinding her molars, holding it down. Maybe being HD positive would be the perfect excuse, irrefutable proof that she's unlovable.

“I dunno. These questions are all way ahead of where I'm at anyway. You're not married,” she says, as if accusing him of something. “You planning to?”

“I'd like to someday, yeah,” says Eric.

“How old are you?”

“Thirty-two.”

“Okay, so you could get hit by a bus when you're thirty-five. Dead. Done. You still wanna make plans? You still wanna get married someday?”

Eric nods. “I understand your example, and you're right. We're all going to die. And who knows, I might get hit by a bus when I'm thirty-five. The difference is, I'm not sitting in someone's office, asking a counselor or a doctor or a psychic to tell me approximately when and exactly how I'm going to die.”

Katie thinks of the last ghost in
A Christmas Carol
, the grim reaper pointing to Scrooge's future gravestone. She never did read the book for English class like she was supposed to, but she's watched various versions of the movie on TV every year at Christmastime. Scrooge in his nightgown and nightcap, shaking in his slippers, begging for a different outcome. That scene always scared the living shit out of her, gave her vivid nightmares when she was little. Now the nightmare is real, and
the creepy ghost's name is Eric Clarkson. He's even wearing a black shirt. All he needs is a hood and sickle.

“I don't get why I have to answer all these questions. It's my business what I do with the information and how I'll live my life. If I say the wrong answer, you gonna tell me I can't find out?”

“There are no wrong answers. We're not going to deny you the test. But we want you to understand what you're getting into and have the tools to deal with it. We feel some responsibility for how you're going to react.”

She waits. Eric says nothing.

“So what happens now?” she asks.

“If you still want to go ahead and find out, you can come back in two weeks or anytime after that. We'll talk again, see how all this is sitting with you, and if you still want to know, I'll walk you to the lab and they'll draw your blood.”

She swallows.

“And then I'll know?”

“Then you'll come back four weeks after that, and I'll tell you the result of the test.”

She does the math. Six weeks. If she goes through with this, she'll know whether she's HD positive or negative by the end of the summer.

“Can't you just tell me over the phone?”

“No, it has to be here. In fact, we want someone to come with you for support, and not one of your siblings, because your news either way might be too hard on them given that they're also at risk. I also wouldn't recommend JJ or your father. Bring your mother or a friend.”

She wouldn't bring her mother. If the news is bad, her mother would be more of a mess than Katie. She'd end up supporting her mother, not the other way around. The other possibilities are equally unappealing. Felix. Andrea. Another teacher from the studio.

“But no one outside our family knows about this. Can't I just come alone?”

“I don't recommend it.”

“But it's not a rule.”

“No.”

She can't imagine whom she'd bring, but it's two appointments from now. Maybe by then she'll have told Felix. Maybe she doesn't want to know. Maybe she won't even go through with this. A lot can happen in six weeks. If she gets to that last appointment, to the day of reckoning, she'll either figure out whom to bring or come alone. She'll cross that bridge when she gets to it.

Truth or dare, little girl. What's it going to be?

CHAPTER 17

O
utside Katie's bedroom window, the day is flat, colorless, grim, a perfect reflection of her mood. She checks the calendar on her phone. Today is September 30. Katie could've gone to her second genetic counselor appointment two months ago, but she blew it off. Eric Clarkson just called. His voice mail was gently casual, as if coaxing a shy child hiding behind her mother's leg, reminding her that he's still there and available to talk if she's still wrestling with the idea of genetic testing. He didn't need to call. She thinks about Eric Clarkson probably more than she thinks about Felix, which isn't good for many reasons. She knows he's there and how to get in touch with him. She deletes the message.

She's avoiding pretty much everyone right now—Eric Clarkson and her second appointment, her dad, JJ and Colleen, Meghan, the other yoga instructors, even Felix. She's been going to three yoga classes a day, but she's all business about it, getting in and out with as little eye contact and chitchat with the other yogis as possible. Her body is wicked kickass strong from all the exercise, but her mind has been completely disconnected from her practice. Her mind is junk.

She has no self-discipline, no control over her thoughts. They're like big, hyper, untrained dogs chasing foxes into a dark forest, and she's holding on to their leashes, tethered to
their reckless decisions, being dragged everywhere they go. Meditation should take care of this. It should rein in the wild dogs. Heel. Sit. Be the fuck still. Good dogs. But she can't seem to stay focused.

Alone in her bedroom, she sits on her meditation pillow and reads the strange, beautiful graffiti on her walls. She's scrawled many more inspirational quotes in black Sharpie on the walls from floor to ceiling over the summer, hoping her exterior world would seep into her consciousness and perk things up in there. Her mom isn't too pleased that she's been marking up the walls, but Katie can't see the harm in it. She's never been crafty and doesn't want to waste money she doesn't have on buying posters or painted boards. A two-dollar Sharpie and her walls are all she needs. They can easily paint over everything if she ever moves. When she moves. When. Someday.

She reads the three quotes directly in front of her.

“The pain that you create now is always some form of nonacceptance, some form of unconscious resistance to what is.”

—Eckhart Tolle

“Life is a near-death experience. Stumble around in giddy gratitude while you still can.”

—Jen Sincero

“What we think, we become.”

—Buddha

She thinks about HD. All the time. Constantly. The creepy, dark forest is teeming with it. HD. HD. HD. She's a skipping vinyl record, and she wishes someone would smack her.

“What we think, we become.”

—Buddha

She's becoming HD. This self-sabotaging, obsessive habit has to stop.

She settles into a comfortable cross-legged seat on her pillow and closes her eyes. She begins Ujjayi breathing, creating an ocean wave rhythm through her nose, in and out, in and out. On the next inhalation, she mentally says the word
so
. On the exhalation, she mentally hears the word
hum
. In,
so
. Out,
hum
.
So hum
is actually short for the Sanskrit
So aham
, meaning
That I am
. She's breathing in and out, so-humming. That I am. That I am. So hum. So hum.

The mind loves words. Feeding it a restricted script of
So hum
keeps it focused, absorbed in essentially nothing, holding it still. When thoughts and sensations arise, when the dogs start barking, she's supposed to notice them, let them float by her like wispy clouds on a passing breeze, and then return to inhaling
so
, exhaling
hum
.

At first, it's working.
So hum
.
So hum
. Her mind is a clear glass of water, empty and clean. But then the dogs get a whiff of something scrumptious and take off for the woods.

HD. HD. HD.

She should call Eric Clarkson back. It's rude to ignore him. But she's not sure whether she wants to know. What if she's gene positive? What if she has HD like her dad and JJ?

And so the storytelling begins, a hallucination of a fictional future starring Katie and the O'Brien family, her mind an Academy Award–winning screenwriter, director, and actress. There are no romantic comedies or Hollywood endings in here. These epic tales are always extremely dark, invariably playing out the worst imaginable possibilities. And her sick, addicted mind loves every gruesome, dramatic second of it.

Her thoughts time travel, trying on a future wardrobe of Katie and Katie's life, where nothing is pretty. Her dad and JJ are dead. Her mom sells the house because she can't afford it alone and moves in with one of Katie's uncles just before hav
ing a nervous breakdown. Patrick is a heroin addict. Meghan kills herself. Katie has HD.

She breaks up with Felix to spare him. He marries a perfect woman and has two beautiful, perfect children, and they live in the penthouse of one of those fancy condos in the Navy Yard. Katie imagines sitting on a bench alone, watching them walk and laugh and play in the park.

She never opens her own yoga studio because she waited too long and then became symptomatic. Her balance was the first to go, so she lost her job right away. She ends up homeless.

People are disgusted by the sight of her. She's mistaken for being drunk in public and gets picked up by the police. It's Tommy Vitale, her dad's best friend, but instead of helping her, he locks her up. He says if her father were alive, he'd hunt her down and kick her ass for not fighting to live, for giving up and letting HD ruin her like this. He says she should be ashamed of herself. And she is. She's ruined and ashamed.

She's a thirty-five-year-old homeless, unloved woman with HD.

She's a forty-five-year-old homeless, unloved woman with HD.

She dies alone, ruined and ashamed with HD.

Wait, she's not breathing.
So hum
is gone. She's forgotten to breathe, and she's sweating, and her heart is bathing in a pool of adrenaline. Shit. This is what happens. This is why she's a mess.

She needs to get a grip, get present. Let go of the leash. No more getting dragged through the creepy, dark forest, lured into a future that may never happen. The future, good or bad, is a fantasy. There is only this moment, right now.

Right now, she's a twenty-one-year-old yoga teacher sitting in her bedroom, and she doesn't have HD. She has an
amazing boyfriend and a decent apartment, and her dad and JJ are still alive, and Patrick isn't a junkie, and Meghan is fine, and none of the drama she just experienced in her head is real.

None of it was real. She takes in a deep breath and lets it go, softening her panic-squeezed ribs, calming her anxious heart. She straightens her spine, places her palms on her thighs, and tries again. No more dogs. No more madness. This time, she begins by setting an intention.

“I am here now. I am healthy and whole.”

Instead of
So hum
, she repeats her intention in her mind over and over. Inhale,
I am here now
. Exhale,
I am healthy and whole
. Inhale. Exhale.

The dogs are gone. The forest dissolves into a sunlit meadow. Inhale,
I am here now
. Exhale,
I am healthy and whole
. The meadow brightens until there is only white light. There is white light and breathing in and out. And then there is nothing, and in that still space of nothing, there is peace.

Peace. Peace. Peace.

And then she thinks,
I'm doing it!
And with that thought, she's instantly ejected from that blissful, empty place. But that's okay. She smiles. She was there. It exists.

A space inside her where there is no HD.

She opens her eyes. Felix is sitting cross-legged in front of her, grinning at her face.

“Are you real?” she asks.

He laughs. “As real as they get, baby.”

“How long have you been here?”

“About ten minutes. Your sister let me in.”

And so Secret Invisible Mr. Martin is finally revealed. She wonders what Meghan is thinking right now, whether her mind is as blown as Katie suspects it is. She's sure to hear an earful as soon as Meghan gets her alone. She feels nervous, beetles scattering in her stomach.

“So how was meeting Meghan?”

“Fine. She seems nice. It was just for a second. Good to know she actually exists.”

“So, ten minutes. Really?”

“Yeah.”

She had no awareness of his presence, his bare knees only a couple of inches from hers. And she had no sense of time passing. If she had guessed, she would've said she'd been sitting in meditation for only a few moments.

“Hey, I have news,” he says. “The Biofuel project rolled out so well in Boston, we've been contracted to implement the same model in Portland, Oregon. The CEO wants me to go and oversee it.”

Katie feels her face drop.

“No, don't be upset. I want you to come with me.” She looks into his eyes, trying to catch up with him, searching for more.

“I love you, Katie. You're always talking about leaving this place, opening your own studio. Let's go for it. Portland's a great city. What do you think?”

His words sit between them like an unwrapped gift, his face bursting with confident anticipation.

“Wait,” she says. “You love me?”

“Yeah,” he says, squeezing both of her hands, his eyes tearing. “I do.”

“I love you, too. And I'm not just saying it back to say it. I have for a while. I've just been too scared to go first.”

“Chicken.”

“I know. I'm working on it.”

“So what do you think? You up for this adventure with me?”

Portland, Oregon. She doesn't know the first thing about it. Maybe Portland is the place she's been dreaming of, a city where there's space for her to grow without limitations; where she can live without being judged for dating a black
man; where people don't look at her sideways for eating vegan; where she wouldn't feel mostly invisible in the capacious shadow of her older sister; where she wouldn't live under the oppressive and not-so-subtle expectation that she'll marry a nice Irish boy from Charlestown and raise her many children Catholic; where people have ambitions beyond working in civil service, staying out of jail, raising a family, and getting hammered every weekend at the local bars; where she wouldn't feel inadequate because she's not a ballerina, weird because she doesn't particularly care about Tom Brady or the Bruins, or uppity because her highest aspiration in life isn't to be Mrs. Flannagan or Mrs. O Apostrophe Whatever; where she wouldn't feel ashamed of who she is.

Portland, Oregon. The other side of the country. Another world. Her own studio. A man who loves her. This could be her dream, laid out right in front of her for the taking.

Take it.

But what if she has HD and becomes symptomatic, and Felix can't handle it, and he leaves her, and she'll be left all alone out there? What if Portland is like Charlestown, and there isn't enough room for another yoga studio? What if she opens her own studio and it fails? The timing doesn't feel right. Her dad's HD is going to get worse. JJ's, too. They're going to need her. It would be selfish to leave now. What if Meghan and Patrick are HD positive? What if she is?

Let go of the leash, girl. Don't ruin your life with thoughts that aren't real.

Okay, here's what's real. She's a yoga teacher, daughter, and sister. She is sitting across from a brilliant, beautiful man she loves who loves her back. He's just asked her to move across the country with him. She wants to say yes. She is here now. She is healthy and whole.

And she has a second appointment to keep with Eric Clarkson.

She stares into Felix's brown, hopeful eyes, so exquisitely gorgeous and naive, and she's terrified of the change she's about to see in them. She takes a deep breath and lets it go. She inhales again, and on her next exhale, she holds on to his hands, looks into his eyes, her vulnerable heart facing his, and tells him what's real.