Could I Have This Dance? (36 page)

She introduced herself as Dr. McCall, explaining that she was doing some genetics research and needed to trace some local genealogies. Mr. Pitt was obviously impressed and practically stumbled over himself to promise full cooperation. He took down the names she gave him, along with approximate dates of their births, and promised to get back to her. He stood and stared at her for a moment before diverting his eyes to the floor.

“I’m only in town for a short while,” she said, writing the number of her cell phone down on a small card. “Remember, I need parents, grandparents, and their parents if possible, with dates of births and causes of death if available.”

“Sure thing.” He glanced over his shoulder at a desk stacked with large manila folders. “This may take me a while. If we don’t have the records on file, I’ll have to fax down to Richmond to get them. Our records are pretty complete, but the state’s are better.”

“What’s ‘a while’? Are you talking hours, days, weeks?”

“Oh, not weeks, Dr. McCall. It depends on if someone put this data in the computer or not. We’re trying to get a lot of this information updated on a database for Carlisle’s bicentennial celebration. I may have the information in a few minutes. Or it might take a few days.” His smile revealed a row of even white teeth. A dentist’s child couldn’t have looked nicer. He put a thumb in his belt and pulled his shoulders back an inch.

I’ll bet he’s practiced that pose a thousand times in front of his bathroom mirror.

“Call me Claire.” She scribbled her name on the paper above her phone number and pushed it into his palm. “Call me anytime.” She smiled. “I want to hear from you.”

“Sure, Doc—eh, Claire. I’ll call.” He hesitated and spoke again. “I’ll call soon.”

She turned and walked out into the bright sunshine and looked up at a sky so blue it should have been on a postcard.

What was it with the Y chromosome, anyway? That guy was almost slobbering.

Wally McCall hadn’t changed all day, so Claire pried her mother from the waiting room, drove to Stoney Creek for her grandmother, and took them to Chico’s for dinner. Chico’s restaurant was a quaint little place situated halfway between Fisher’s Retreat and North Mountain, an Apple Valley fixture where the bread was homemade and the lasagna was fabulous.

Over dinner, the three most important women in Wally’s life ate in awkward silence. Grandma Elizabeth had shared her secret with Claire, who had shared it in confidence with Dr. Jenkins, who in turn, blabbed it to Della. Now they all knew, but Elizabeth still didn’t know that Della had found out.

Claire buttered a hot roll. “Confession time.”

Elizabeth put down her fork. Della looked away.

Claire put her hand on her grandmother’s. “Look, it’s time we got some things in the open. Mom knows your secret, Grandma.”

“Claire, you promised to keep—”

“Grandma, I kept your secret. I shared it with Dr. Jenkins. I told him in confidence because I had concerns over Daddy’s health, over his family medical history.” She paused, praying her grandmother would understand. “Dr. Jenkins is the one who broke a confidence by telling Mom.”

Grandma McCall pushed her plate away and picked up a glass of tea. “So you know. Wally may never have been a blood McCall.” She cleared her throat. “And you know I wasn’t such a good Christian girl all my life.”

Della sighed. “This doesn’t change anything for us, Elizabeth. Blood certainly doesn’t change fatherhood. Maybe at some biological level, but not in the real world, where it counts. John McCall was the only father Wally ever knew. And John treated him with the same love he gave Leon. It’s that simple.”

Claire looked at her mother with admiration and a bit of surprise. This from the woman who staked her whole reputation just on being beautiful? How could Claire have considered her to be a dumb blond? Had she changed since Claire left at age sixteen? Or was she just too stupid to look below the surface?

Della made eye contact with Claire before turning back to Elizabeth. “And what is this idea that you’ve not been a good girl. The way I understood it, you were raped. That wasn’t your fault.”

Elizabeth stared at her half-eaten plate of lasagna. “You weren’t there, Della.”

“Tell us. We’re family. You can talk to us. You won’t find any judgment coming from me, that’s for sure.” Della looked away. “I’ve never qualified for sainthood myself.”

With the secret out, it seemed as if a well had been uncapped. Elizabeth began to vent the story which had been concealed for so long.

“Steve Hudson was my first love, before I met John McCall. He was a wild horse, not a safe catch like my John. His family was trouble, and my mother knew it. So when the McCalls came to town, and John started showing interest, she was eventually able to convince me to forsake my feelings for Steve.”

She pushed a wide noodle into a dab of tomato sauce and looked over at Claire. “You know what young love is like.” She blushed. “Steve used to kiss me in the hayloft. He’d come to my window at night and throw pebbles, just like in an old movie.” Elizabeth’s eyes seemed to sparkle when she talked. “I’d meet him in the barn and talk until the early hours of the morning. Oh, he’d kiss me, but I would never let him go further. But we allowed ourselves to talk about what marriage would be like, what it would be like to be together as a man and wife in the same bed. I promised him he would be the first to know me in that way.” Her hand went to her mouth. “I can hardly imagine talking with him like that. It was so improper for an unmarried woman.

“Eventually, John came into the picture, and I pulled away from Steve. But he was heartsick and never gave up trying to win me back. On the night before my wedding to John, he came to my window again.” She paused with a distant look in her eyes, unfocused, not seeing the present, but lost in a view of the past. “I was lying in bed, fantasizing of the marriage bed that soon would be mine. And then I heard the tapping on my window, pebbles from the hand of my first love.” She shook her head. “I should never have agreed to meet him. I went to the barn, intending to say a final good-bye.”

Claire looked at Della as she leaned forward, focused on the story.

“He cried when I told him it was over. He had tears in his eyes. He was crying for me, heartbroken and lost. I was so touched. I kissed him. I wanted it to be good-bye, but I felt more.”

Elizabeth looked up, the memory bringing a fear to her expression. “He felt it, too. He knew that I was teetering. I pushed him away, but he pulled me into the barn. I resisted, but in my heart, I knew I’d led him on. I kissed him that night. I enjoyed knowing he wanted me so bad. It gave me such power.” She thrust a napkin to her eyes. “It was so wrong. I tried to stop him, but I never cried out for help. I initiated his passion. I brought it on myself.”

“Grandma, having feelings for someone is just being human. It’s not a sin to be tempted.”

Della nodded. “You can’t blame yourself for this. A kiss, even if accompanied by desire, is not an open invitation for sex.”

“What he did was wrong, Grandma. You can’t blame yourself for what he did.”

Elizabeth sniffed and blew her nose. “Oh, ladies, I shouldn’t have dredged all of this up.”

“I’m afraid it’s my fault that you’ve been forced to bring this all up. It’s because of my questions about Daddy,” Claire said.

Elizabeth sighed heavily. “As much as I’d like to believe that, it’s not really true. Just seeing Wally at your graduation brought much of this back
to me. I’d kept it buried for so long, I didn’t think it could ever bother me again.” She shook her head. “But things have a way of catching up with you.” She looked at Claire. “Don’t blame yourself. I’m not so upset. I think it was good to get this out. But I’m not sure telling Wally that I don’t know who his father was is such a good idea.”

Della said, “I agree. He’s in no shape to hear this news now.” She dropped her eyes to her plate. “If he lives at all.”

Claire reached for her mother’s hand. “I have a feeling he’s gonna make it, Mom.” She offered a smile. “Something I feel as Wally’s daughter, not as a doctor.”

A chirping sound suddenly alerted Claire to refocus. Her cellular phone!

“Hello.”

The voice on the other end was masculine. “Claire? It’s Mike, from the clerk’s office.”

Brad.
“Hi. Did you find out anything for me?”

“Plenty. You want to meet me for a drink? We can go over it.”

Claire rolled her eyes at her mother and grandmother. “Oh, Mike, I can’t make it. Can you give me the information over the phone?”

She heard him sigh. “Sure, uh, I guess so.”

“I’m taking notes. Go slow.”

“You asked me about Rachel Morris. Her mother was Lydia Treevy. Her father was Greg Morris.”

“Greg Morris? How did he die?”

“Don’t know. The records just list an accident, age twenty-five.”

“Who was his father?”

“Ronald. And you know what? The other guy you wanted me to check into, Harold Morris? Ronald is his father too.”

Claire felt her forehead begin to sweat. This was unbelievable. “What about Peter Garret?”

“Mother was Judy Dorman. She died age thirty-five of breast cancer. Father was Bill Garret. He’s still alive.”

So if Peter had HD, it didn’t come from his father. He’d be too old. “Who was Judy’s mother and father?”

“Mother was Lillie Dorman. Evidently Lillie had a baby out of wedlock. The name on the birth certificate for Judy was a man named Leroy Morris.”

“Leroy?”

“Right.”

“And this Leroy’s dad was Harold, right?”

“Right. Hey, I thought you didn’t know this stuff yet.”

“I didn’t. Not all of it anyway.” She looked at the notes she’d scribbled. “You’ve given me exactly what I needed. If I need you again, can I call you at the clerk’s office?”

“Anytime.” He paused. “Call me.”

“Bye.” She clicked off the phone and stared at the information in front of her, then pulled out a second piece of paper. Elizabeth and Della’s eyes widened as they watched Claire’s frantic scribblings. Starting with Ronald Morris, she drew a line to Harold and his brother, Greg. From Harold’s name, Claire drew a line to Steve, and from Steve to Wally. Then, she drew a line from Harold to Leroy to Judy to Peter, and finally a line from Greg to Rachel to William Jr. to William Wampler III.

She shook her head. “It’s unbelievable. All of these people rumored to be affected by the Stoney Creek curse are related. It all traces back to Harold Morris and his brother, Greg.”

“Sins of the fathers are visited to the third and fourth generation,” Elizabeth spoke softly.

“It’s not that, Grandma. This looks like genetics, pure and simple. Only people didn’t realize it because too many carriers of the Huntington’s disease gene appear to have died young. Look, this one here had breast cancer. She died before she could have symptoms of HD. Greg Morris died young of an accidental death. Harold died of suicide, but probably after symptoms started. Steve Hudson died of suicide, also likely after his symptoms started. Leroy died of suicide too. And here, Rachel Morris Wampler died in an automobile accident before she could have shown the disease.”

“I’m not sure I get it.” Della looked puzzled.

“Huntington’s disease doesn’t start affecting you until midlife, at least in the usual situations. People may not have any symptoms until their thirties, forties, maybe fifties. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t carriers of the gene responsible. In the cases around Stoney Creek, it looks like so many generations were skipped because the carriers died young of something else. These early deaths combined with the cases where the paternity was completely unknown, as in Wally’s case, kept people from realizing that all of these people rumored to be suffering from a curse were actually related. It kept anyone from suspecting a genetic illness.”

“So maybe all of Wally’s problems can’t be blamed on alcohol?” Della looked sad.

“Maybe not, Momma. Maybe not.”

Claire folded the papers carefully and shivered. Now she had the information she needed to call Dr. V at Brighton University.

Elizabeth seemed to be grasping the implications of Claire’s theory. “I hope you’re wrong about this, Claire. For your sake, I hope you’re wrong.”

Chapter Twenty-Six

L
ate that evening, Claire called Dr. Visvalingam, professor of neurology, Brighton University, and asked for help. She explained her theory, and her father’s symptoms, and asked him to come to Carlisle to consult on her father.

Dr. V’s excitement grew as Claire told the story. The possibility of a previously undiagnosed family of HD patients fascinated him.

“Can you have the paralyzing agent removed so we can observe his movements?”

“I can ask Dr. Smuland. I think he’s concerned that the jerking movements were evidence of his agitation, possible alcohol withdrawal. My father was also fighting the ventilator, so they kept him on the medicine for that.”

“Hmmm. I really don’t want to make the trip until your father is off the ventilator. It won’t be a fruitful trip for me unless I can see him as he normally is.”

Claire’s heart sank. “I understand.”

“Can you call my office in the morning? If he is able to come off the ventilator, I could make the trip tomorrow afternoon. And I’d like to bring one of my residents. If you’re right, Claire, this will make the neurology literature for sure.”

Claire took down his office number. “I’ll call first thing in the morning.”

She set the phone in the cradle and yawned. The Stoney Creek curse could make the medical literature? That was something that hadn’t occurred to her. Her father’s case, and the intrigue of discovery of a hidden pocket of HD patients masquerading as a town curse, would be important enough for publication. Claire shook her head and made a mental note to tell Dr. V to change her name if he reported a new HD family in the literature.

Now Dr. V was all excited about getting another paper published, and Claire was not completely sure her father had anything rare at all. Dr. Smuland could be right, and she’d end up looking like a fool.