Reach for Tomorrow (13 page)

She’d taken only a few steps when he said, “Wait!” He caught up with her. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be rude. I’m glad you came to see me.”

“You are?”

A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “I am.” He took hold of her hand. “Let’s walk.”

They started down a trail in the woods. Daylight was fast fading, and lightning bugs were blinking among the leaves of the trees. “We never got to go on that moonlight ride, did we?” he asked.

“We were sidetracked.”

“And now camp’s closing in two weeks.”

Meg felt let down. She could hardly imagine her days without the routine of camp life and seeing her new friends every day. And she couldn’t imagine not seeing Morgan. “Will you go back to Colorado?” she asked.

“Sure. Winter’s coming, and we’ll have to bring the herds down from the high places and into the valley where there’s better grazing. It’s still a working ranch, and there’s a lot to be done. What about your?”

“Back to Columbia. The books are calling to me. I haven’t spent any time this summer studying.”

“Why would you want to?”

She laughed. “Because I want to get into medical school. Only the brightest and best get in, you know.”

“You’ll make it,” he said.

“Oh, really? And have you got a crystal ball that tells the future?”

He gave a short, derisive laugh. “If only.”

She stopped and made him turn and face her. “What’s going on with you, Morgan? Something is. You’ve said things to me that make me believe there’s something you’re not telling me about yourself.”

Looking down at Meg’s pretty upturned face made Morgan’s insides turn mushy. What he wanted to do was take her in his arms and kiss her. But that wouldn’t be fair. A girl like Meg deserved more than he could ever give her. She wanted to be a doctor. He didn’t even know if he
had
a future.

“It’s nothing,” he said.

“I can take it.” She persisted. “Do you have a fiancée tucked away somewhere you don’t want me to know about?” She was teasing, but also serious. She wanted to get to the bottom of his secrecy.

“No fiancées,” he said. “But …” He teetered on the brink of telling her. “It’s personal.”

“Do I have to play Twenty Questions? Let’s
see …” She tapped her toe and thought up the most preposterous thing she could. “You’ve got some dread disease and you’re dying.”

She meant it as a joke, but when he didn’t laugh, her heart began to thud with apprehension. “Morgan, I was just kidding.”

“Actually, you’re not too far off the mark,” he said quietly.

“Please tell me.”

He stepped away and, turning, quietly told her about his genetic potential for contracting Huntington’s chorea. He hadn’t told anyone since Anne, and he never talked about it with his aunt, the only relative he had left. His fears had been bottled up for so long that his voice shook as he spoke, but once he was through it, once he’d told Meg about its horrors, he felt a tremendous sense of release.

“And you’ve been living with this knowledge for almost eight years?” she asked, careful to keep her voice controlled and subdued. Inside she was reeling, but if there was one thing she had learned from her surgeon father, it was how to keep her voice calm and her expression serene. A patient must never see his doctor panic.

“Yes,” Morgan answered.

“But you won’t take the genetic test even though
you can afford it? Even though it would settle the matter once and for all?”

When she put it so matter-of-factly, his motives seemed petty. He confessed his darkest fear. “I—I’m afraid to.”

He waited for her reaction, and when she neither scoffed nor scolded, he appreciated her even more.

“I would be afraid too,” she said. “My mother has a friend who has a family history of breast cancer. The woman’s scared to death she’ll get it. There’s a genetic test that can tell a woman if she carries the gene that might lead to her getting it. But even if she has the gene, there’s no predicting absolutely that she’ll get breast cancer. So she still has to ‘wait and see.’ Some women can’t stand the suspense, so they have mastectomies anyway. My father won’t do those surgeries. He thinks it’s too drastic a measure.”

Meg stared up at Morgan’s clouded expression. “I think you’re lucky to be able to take a simple test and know for sure whether or not you’ll get Huntington’s. Then all your waiting will be over.”

“But what if it’s positive? What if I am going to get it?”

“Then you can plan for it. Don’t you think that’s a whole lot better than wondering?”

“I’m not sure. Anne wanted me to take the test too.”

“What if you don’t get Huntington’s, Morgan? How old will you be before you’re absolutely, positively
sure
you won’t get it?”

“It usually happens when you’re in your thirties. Or maybe even when you’re fifty.”

“So then you’ll live years never doing something you want to do, never getting married, or having children, just in case you
might
get sick? That’s a long time to dangle your life, don’t you think? And it doesn’t seem fair to anybody who wants a future with you either.”

“I try not to think about that,” he said. “Keeping to myself, staying uninvolved, seems the best way for me to handle it.”

Meg ran her palm down his arm and grasped his hand. “I would never tell you what to do, Morgan. It’s your life, not mine. But I would think that living with
not
knowing is far more harmful than living with knowing. It eats you up inside. It does a kind of damage to your emotions and your spirit that dealing with the problem head-on avoids. Not facing the truth makes a person powerless. Knowledge is power, and the truth sets you free.

“If you’re going to get Huntington’s, you may as
well deal with it up front. Just like you do a wild horse. Would you not ride a horse because you might get thrown?”

“Of course not. I’d ride any wild horse.”

“Then why not think of this genetic test as a wild horse? A big, scary one, but still just a wild horse that you can manage if you put your mind to it.”

Meg’s suggestion gave Morgan a new way of viewing his problem. He had avoided the truth for so long because he was afraid of it. And it was the only thing in his life he had ever been afraid of. “You’ll make a hell of a doctor, Ms. Charnell,” he said with a wry grin. “You’ve got a powerful way with words.”

She shrugged. “It’s up to you, but if you do take the test, will you please tell me the results?”

“If they’re bad, I couldn’t tell you. I don’t want anybody’s pity. Especially yours.”

“And if they’re good?”

He thought for a moment. “I could send you a yellow ribbon.
If
I take the test,” he added.

She smiled up at him. “Fair enough,” she said. Then she asked, “Will you write me?”

“I’ll be out on the range most of the fall. Besides, I’m not much of a letter writer.”

“I am. I’ll write you whenever I feel like it. So there.”

He laughed. “But there is something I will do.”

“What’s that?”

Morgan took her in his arms, tilted her chin up, and said with a kiss what he could not say with words.

O
n the fourth day after Josh’s accident, when Katie went to the hospital, she found him sitting in a wheelchair. He wore a stiff white neck brace, a cervical collar that held his neck straight and rigid.

“What do you think?” he asked when she stepped into the room.

“Wow, you’re sitting up. That’s progress.” She was thrilled to see him out of bed, but the ominous sight of the chair made her stomach tighten.

“I have some feeling in my right arm, but my legs are pretty useless.”

“Is that normal?” She wanted so much for him to get up and come to her.

“The doctor said so, but he’s not telling me what I want to hear—that I can walk out of the hospital soon.” Josh grimaced. “I sure hate this collar. I have
to turn my whole body if I want to look to the right or left. But it helps keep my neck straight, and Dr. Benson doesn’t want it to get jarred.”

“How long will you have to wear it?”

“It depends. Six weeks to three months.”

“What happens next?”

“They haven’t said. I’m going down to rehab, though, and that seems like a good sign to me.”

She came closer. “You work really hard in rehab, you hear?”

“Katie, I know how serious my injury was.”

“You do?” Her gaze flew to his face. Her instinct was to protect him.

“I know they aren’t sure if I’ll walk again.”

Tears misted her eyes, and she turned away.

“Hey,” he said softly, “it’s not going to happen to me. I won’t let it.”

“You were really hurt bad, Josh.”

“I know. Dr. Benson’s been honest with me, and I’m glad. I know you’ve been scared for me, haven’t your?”

She nodded, not trusting her voice.

“You don’t have to keep it inside now,” Josh told her. “I know the worst. But I’m not afraid. The treatments they gave me helped a lot. Now I believe the rest is up to me. There are football players who’ve had injuries like mine—worse than mine—
and they were told they’d never walk again, and now, a few years later, they’re up walking and going to the gym.

“I’m not saying it’s going to be easy, but I can do this, Katie. Dr. Benson told me that the higher up the spinal cord the damage occurs, the greater the chance of complete paralysis. And that while I went over the horse and bent my neck pretty bad, it was the middle of my back that took the brunt of the fall.”

“And that’s a good thing?”

“It left me with upper-body movement. Watch.”

She looked down at his hands and saw the barest twitch of his thumbs. For the first time that morning, she smiled. “Why, that’s wonderful!”

“My legs are the most affected,” Josh continued. “They’re not sure if I’ll get full use of them back, but I’m here to tell you—I will.”

She saw determination on his face and believed him.

“When I get home, I have to go into physical therapy. I may not get back to classes till after Christmas.”

“How will you manage on your own?”

“Like I always have,” he said. “I’ll manage.”

“I wish I didn’t have to go back to school. I could help.”

“Is this Katie talking? Katie, who couldn’t wait to get back to Arizona and run track?”

Her cheeks burned at his gentle chiding. Funny how her priorities had shifted over the past several days. Now, instead of school, all she could think about was how Josh was going to make it by himself. “I don’t want you to be alone.”

“Katie, look at me.”

She did, and his blue eyes burned brightly. He said, “I have never wanted to stand in the way of your dreams. I won’t let this accident sidetrack you in any way. Go back to school. Have a good time. I’ll be all right.”

“I suppose Natalie could help you,” she ventured, feeling the the familiar prickling of jealousy in her heart.

“She’s a good friend. But she’s only a friend. And yes, she’ll help me.”

Katie wasn’t mollified. What if Josh’s friendship with Natalie turned into something more?

The door opened, and a man dressed in white stepped into the room. “I’m John, your therapist,” he said. “Ready to go down to rehab?”

“Ready and wanting to get started,” Josh said.

“That’s the attitude,” John said with a smile.

“I’ll wait for you,” Katie said.

“It’s all right,” Josh answered. “I’ve got to learn

to do this on my own. Go on back to camp and tell everyone I’m doing better.”

Katie watched the therapist push Josh in his wheelchair out of the room. She felt bereft and lost.

Only two days before the end of camp, Josh was released from the hospital. The entire camp threw a big party in the rec center. Banners proclaiming
WELCOME BACK, JOSH
! were strung across the room, and helium balloons hugged the ceiling. Eric had baked a giant sheet cake, and the staff had tacked to one wall an enormous piece of butcher paper, which every kid at camp had drawn pictures and written messages on.

When Josh arrived in the late afternoon, still in a wheelchair, everyone clustered around him. “It’s good to be back,” he told them all.

One of the boys asked what was on all their minds. “Will you be all right?”

“They think so,” Josh answered.

“Can you walk?” asked another.

“I can stand with help, but it hurts.”

“Your arm doesn’t move so well,” a girl noted.

“I’m still working out the kinks,” he told her.

“Can you stay with us, or do you have to go back to the hospital?” another boy asked.

“I’m here to stay.”

A cheer went up. Music began to play, and games started. Katie stuck close to Josh, but she wasn’t at all sure he wanted her with him. A subtle shift had occurred. She couldn’t say exactly what was different, but things between them were different. It was as if Josh had released her in some way. As if he’d let go of their relationship. He was kind to her, but she no longer felt tied to him emotionally. Neither did she experience the old gnawing guilt when she was around him, as if she owed him something, a debt she couldn’t pay. The feelings disturbed her, but she couldn’t say why.