Inside the O'Briens (24 page)

CHAPTER 26

J
oe and Rosie are sitting in the law office of Christopher Cannistraro, waiting for him to get off the phone. Chris is Revere's “famous” ambulance chaser, but he also dabbles in real estate, family law, disability. He's got one of those cheesy commercials airing ad nauseam on daytime television, a close-up of Chris with his gel-slicked black hair and shiny face staring directly into the camera, pledging to fight if you or anyone you know has been injured in an accident. Joe imagines he was aiming to sound sincere and determined, a noble champion of the wronged, but in Joe's opinion, he comes off as a sleazeball.

But Joe would never go to some lawyer he didn't know from Adam. With the exception of district attorneys, lawyers as a category make him uneasy. DAs are on the same side as the police, so they're okay in Joe's book. The rest of them strike Joe as greedy, fast-talking scammers at best. The worst are the public defenders. Joe knows they're a necessary cog in the wheel of justice, but that doesn't keep Joe's blood from boiling every time they get some scumbag off on a ridiculous technicality when anyone with a brain cell knows the guy did it. All that police work wasted because some lawyer with a twisted moral compass in a cheap suit thinks he's the star of friggin'
Law & Order
. Joe honestly doesn't know how they sleep at night.

But Chris isn't a public defender. He and Donny met at
Wonderland, used to bet on the dogs and celebrate any winnings together over pizza at Santarpio's. Chris helped Donny through his divorce, got him joint custody, and kept him from getting financially raped by Donny's ex. If Donny trusts him, that's good enough for Joe. He won't need a second opinion.

Chris's desk is cluttered with so many stacks of manila folders, Joe can only see him from the shoulders up. He's wearing a gray suit, white shirt, and blue tie, a pencil balanced on his right ear, reading something on the screen of his outdated, large desktop computer while he listens and loudly “yah”s and “uh-huh”s to whoever is talking on the phone. The bookcase next to Joe is packed with impressive-looking textbooks. Joe wonders whether Chris has read any of them, or whether they're just for show. He suspects the latter.

Joe checks his watch and Chris notices. Chris holds up his index finger and lets the person on the other end know he's got to go.

“Sorry about that,” says Chris, standing and offering his hand to Rosie and then to Joe.

“No problem,” says Joe. “Thanks for seeing us.”

Chris pulls a folder from the top of one of the piles and shuffles through the papers inside it. He then shuts the folder, returns it to the top of the pile, and taps his fingers on his desk as if playing chords on a piano, a silent musical prelude.

“Okay,” he says finally. “This isn't my area of expertise, but I promise I've done my homework and looked into all your options. Here's what you're looking at. You've put in twenty-five years. You're on desk duty now. I don't know how much longer you can stay on, but you need to leave
before
they terminate you. I can't stress that enough. You get fired, you get nothing. And yeah, we have GINA now and could sue them, but you don't wanna spend the time you got left hangin' out with me.”

GINA, the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act, makes it illegal for employers to terminate an employee based
on genetic information. Of course, it's still perfectly legal for any employer to fire someone if he can't do his job safely and effectively. Someone like Joe.

“No, I don't. No offense,” says Joe.

“Hey, most days, I don't wanna hang out with me either. So you quit before they fire you.”

Joe nods.

“You'll use all of your sick time first. How much you got?”

“Ten months. I can probably get some more from my fellow officers.”

“Then you go out on Ordinary Disability Retirement. You'll get thirty percent pension.”

“
Thirty?
That's it?”

“ 'Fraid so.”

Joe looks over at Rosie, her mouth hanging open and wordless, her face drained of color. He suspects he's got the same dumb expression painted on his. Full retirement is eighty percent. They can barely make ends meet on what he's pulling home now. He hasn't seen a raise in years. Thirty percent. How is Rosie going to live on that? He assumed he wouldn't get full pension, but he was hoping for more than this. Twenty-five years of sacrifice and service, and it only adds up to a miserable 30 percent. Joe doesn't know whether to cry or throw the heaviest law book on the shelf at Chris's slick head.

“Fuck,” says Joe.

“I hear ya. Unfortunately, that's not the worst of it. Here's the kicker. Looking at what's ahead for you healthwise and assuming you'll need assisted living, your entire retirement pension, what little it is, will end up going to a nursing home or the state if you go to a state hospital.” Chris pauses. “
I
f
you stay married.”

Chris again taps his fingers on the desk, invisible piano keys plinking a suspense-building musical interlude, and waits. Joe scratches his stubbled face and rubs his eyes. He replays what
Chris just said in his head, trying to figure out which part was more incomprehensible.

“What are you sayin'?” asks Joe.

“I'm saying the only way to protect your thirty percent pension from being handed over to nursing care or the state will be to get divorced. You need to sign over one hundred percent of your pension to Rosie, deed the house and any other assets to her, too. Basically, we have to leave you with nothing and Rosie with everything. Otherwise, it'll be gone. They'll take it all.”

Joe and Rosie sit in horrified silence. He thought they came to this appointment with his eyes open, braced for any possibility, prepared to make some hard legal decisions about their future. Disability. Power of attorney. Advance directives. Feeding tube. DNR—Do Not Resuscitate. But he didn't anticipate this. Not for a second. He feels completely unprepared, as if he'd been looking out for a train scheduled to approach on the eastbound track and they've just been annihilated by the westbound freighter he never saw coming.

“No,” says Rosie, her arms crossed. “We're not doing that. We can't get divorced. There has to be another way.”

Joe takes a moment to process this new information, a scenario he never considered but should have. He nods to himself. There's no friggin' justice in it, but it's the right thing to do. He's not taking Rosie down with him. If getting divorced is how he can protect and provide for her, however unfair and fucked up that is, he's doing it. He refuses to leave her widowed and bankrupt on top of it.

“It's just on paper, hun.”

“Are you crazy? No. This is completely ridiculous. And it's a sin. My parents would turn over in their graves.”

“It won't be real in our hearts or in the eyes of God. I think we need to listen to Chris, here.”

“No way. I'm not divorcing you, Joe. That's just nuts. I think
we should talk to someone else. This guy doesn't know what he's doing.”

Joe glances at Chris, ready to apologize for Rosie's offensive comment, but Chris's expression is unperturbed. He's probably heard a lot worse.

“Chris, can we have a minute alone?” asks Joe.

“Sure.”

Chris checks something on his computer screen, then spins his chair around, gets up, and leaves his office, shutting the door behind him.

“Rosie, it's not real. It's just a piece of paper. It doesn't mean anything.” Joe hears himself, and suddenly he's a defense attorney, arguing technicalities.

“Our marriage certificate is a piece of paper. It means something,” says Rosie, her voice pursued by fear and anger.

“Rosie, waking up next to you every day for twenty-six years means something. Raising our four beautiful kids means something. Telling you I love you every day while I can still speak means something. This piece of paper just protects you. It keeps the money I earned for us in your pocket instead of the state's. It means nothing about you and me.”

He can't protect JJ and Meghan. He can't change whatever will happen with Patrick and Katie. But he can do this for Rosie, his beautiful bride, who deserves so much more than 30 percent and a divorce from a husband with Huntington's. No one deserves a husband with Huntington's.

Joe looks down at his hands, at his thirty-five-dollar wedding band, the most valuable thing he owns. They can take his marriage on paper, but they can't have his ring. They'd have to saw it off his cold, dead finger first. He holds up his left hand and taps his simple wedding band with his thumb. He reaches for Rosie's left hand and holds it in his.

“These stay on. God will understand, Rosie. This isn't a sin. The bigger sin would be to lose the pension and the house and
everything to this disease and leave you alone with nothing to take care of you.”

Tears spill down Rosie's pale face. She looks into Joe's eyes, searching for a way out of this dark corner she's being forced into. Joe squeezes her hand, a gesture meant to assure her that he's in that corner with her. She squeezes back, holding on tight.

“Okay,” she whispers.

“Okay,” he whispers back, pressing his forehead against hers. A perverse version of
I do
.

After several minutes of silence, there's a gentle knock on the door and then it opens a crack. “You need more time?” asks Chris.

“No,” says Joe. “No, we're all set.”

Chris returns to his seat, taps his fingers on his desk, and waits.

“Okay,” says Joe. “We'll get divorced.”

“Really sorry I didn't have better news for you guys, but I think that's the smart decision. I'll draw up those papers right away.”

“Then what happens?” asks Joe.

“You'll both sign. We'll get a court date. It's lopsided but uncontested. If the judge has any questions, I'll explain that you have a terminal illness. It'll go through. You'll be legally divorced in”—Chris flips through the pages of his day planner—“three months.”

Twenty-six years. Undone by a couple of signatures and three months. Joe rubs his chin, digging the pads of his fingers into the rough skin of his face, reminding himself that he's real, that this decision was about him and Rosie and not some other poor slob, some other lovely wife. It's the right thing to do. And it doesn't mean anything.

As Joe goes to stand to fetch the box of tissues by the bookcase for Rosie, his legs wobble, unable to support the vertical
weight of him, as if he no longer has bones, and he grabs on to the edge of Chris's desk, catching himself from falling. Even though Huntington's is the reason they're here in this office, he still feels embarrassed to be so exposed, so physically vulnerable in front of Chris, to be the kind of man who won't be able to keep his job or his wife, who literally can't even stand on his own two feet.

And then it hits him. Agreeing to sign their divorce papers does mean something. Agreeing to divorce Rosie means he's agreeing to Huntington's. All of it. They're preparing for the tail end of this beast. End stage. Joe's death. The certain reality of his grim future is a two-by-four to his chest and a steel-toed boot to the crotch. Denial has now left the building.

His service weapon. His job. His wife. His family. His life. He's going to lose everything.

Breathless, his pitiful heart feeling heavy and useless, he wants to surrender, to slip alone into a black tar pit of defeat. But then Rosie's standing beside him, her face still wet with tears, holding on to his arm. She's steadying him, assuring him that he's not alone, and the bones restack in Joe's legs; his heart remembers itself.

Their divorce means something, but it doesn't mean everything. HD is going to take his gun, his job, his dignity, his ability to walk, his words, his life. It's eventually going to take JJ and Meghan. But he'll be damned if it takes Rosie from him. Whatever the Commonwealth of Massachusetts says, whatever a judge or even God decrees, whatever HD takes from him, nothing can take away his family or his love for Rosie. He'll love Rosie until the day he dies.

CHAPTER 27

F
elix is leaving for Portland on Monday. Not for good. He's only going for the week to help with setting up the new office, interviewing some potential new employees from the West Coast, meeting with the mayor and various people in Energy, Waste Management, and City Planning, preparing for the Big Move.

The Big Move is happening June first, four months from now, and Felix has already begun packing up his apartment. Katie is curled up on his couch, drinking Chardonnay, watching him remove books from his bookcase, stacking them into cardboard boxes.

“You wanna watch a movie?” she asks.

“Yeah, lemme just finish up this shelf.”

“I don't get why you're doing that now.”

“One less thing I have to do later.”

She shakes her head, not comprehending him. If she were in charge of packing, those books might get thrown into boxes four
days
before the move, but not a minute before then. It's not simply that she's a procrastinator. What kind of person wants to live in a living room full of brown cardboard boxes for four months? What if he wants to read one of those books before June? She shakes her head again. She imagines all of her books packed into moving boxes, and her stomach sours. If she were moving to Portland in four months . . . The sentence hurts too much to finish it.

“What do you think about next week?” asks Felix, holding a copy of
Bunker Hill
by Nathaniel Philbrick.

“Whaddaya mean?” asks Katie, playing dumb.

“Are you coming with me?”

“I dunno. I'd have to find subs for all my classes, and it's kind of last minute.”

“Jesus, Katie. You've known about this trip for weeks. You're totally dragging your feet. I think you don't want to come, and you're afraid to tell me.”

She's afraid of a million things right now.

“That's not it.”

“Then come with me. We'll explore Portland together, see what's there. You'll love the microbreweries. We can go hiking, maybe find a cool space for your yoga studio. And we need to look for an apartment. The move is coming up fast, and we still don't have a place to live.”

She winces without meaning to with every “we” and hopes he didn't see her. He “we”s her all the time. He's being positive and hopeful, even charmingly persuasive if she's in the right mood, but today each “we” rubs her the wrong way, a bra strap on a sunburn, a callous assumption on the edge of bullying.

She hasn't told him she's not going.

“I'm okay with you picking out an apartment without me.”

“I think we should do that together. Let's go find a place, and then we can really start imagining our future there.”

The only place she can imagine her future with any clarity is in a nursing home. And there's no “we” there.

“I'm not sure I'm coming,” she says, tiptoeing toward the real answer.

Felix stops packing and rubs his bottom lip with his thumb. He has beautiful lips.

“Do you mean Monday or June?”

Katie hesitates. She doesn't want to talk about June. She wants to drink wine, snuggle on the couch, and watch a movie.

“Both.”

Felix pinches his lips. He stares at her hard, as if he's trying to see through her eyes, into her mind or maybe her soul. Or maybe he's trying to see whether he sees Huntington's in her eyes.

“This is about HD,” he says.

“Yes.”

He leaves the books and boxes and sits down next to Katie on the couch.

“What about HD is keeping you from coming with me to Portland on Monday?”

“I dunno.”

“You know you don't have HD now, even if you're gene positive.”

“I know.”

“And you might be gene negative, so all this planning around you having HD someday might be a colossal waste of time.”

“I know.”

“Then come with me!” he says, smiling, trying to persuade her with his dimple. That usually works.

“It's not that simple.”

“You know you could line up the subs if you wanted to.”

She shrugs out of instinct, feeling like a kid in trouble with her parents. When cornered, it's better to say nothing.

“If you get the test results, and it's positive, are you breaking up with me?”

“I don't know.”

Maybe. Probably.

“Jesus. You don't know if you're coming with me on Monday. You don't know if you're moving with me in June. You don't know if you're going to find out your test results. You don't know if you're breaking up with me if you have the HD gene. What the fuck do you know, Katie?”

She doesn't blame him for getting frustrated and mad at her, but she can't stand it. She hangs her head and stares at her claddagh ring, imagining her lonely finger without it. She wants to shrug or say
I don't know
again and avoid him. She'd like to avoid everything—her test results, thinking about June, watching her dad fidget and fall, thinking about HD, being a depressing source of anger and frustration for Felix. Maybe she should break up with him now. His life would be so much easier without her.

Sometimes it feels as if Huntington's is the only thing she knows. Her head is filled with thoughts of nothing else. HD. HD. HD. She looks up at Felix, his brown eyes focused on her, waiting, wanting her, and she wants him, too. And then she's struck in the heart with what she knows other than HD, the unavoidable truth and the courage to speak it.

“I love you.”

Felix softens. He hugs her and kisses her gently on the lips.

“I love you, too. I know what you're going through is terrifying and unfair and really hard. But you have to go through it. Right now, you're just standing still. You're sinking in it. Let me hold your hand and go through it with you.”

Katie nods. “You're right. I want to do that.”

Felix smiles. “Good. I love you if you do or don't have the gene, but I'm not doing a long-distance relationship. I'm not interested in seeing you on FaceTime or Facebook. I want to be in this with you, in person. All or nothing.”

“But—”

“I'm sorry, but at least I'm being clear on what I want. Can you get clear for me? For us?”

“It's like you're giving me an ultimatum.”

“I'm
leaving
in
four
months,” he says, his outstretched hand pointing out the cardboard boxes. “You don't seem to grasp this. I feel like you're deciding not to decide, and then the day
will come, and I'll go and you'll stay because you never decided what to do.”

He's right and he's wrong. He knows her so well. She's totally stuck. She can't make any decisions. Does she get her results, or live not knowing her genetic fate? If she gets her results and she's gene positive, does she break up with Felix or stay with him? Does she move to Portland with Felix against her dad's wishes, abandoning her family in their time of need, or does she stay in Charlestown?

If she had to give an answer today, she'd honor her father and stay. Interestingly, if HD weren't in the picture, her dad practically forbidding her to move with Felix might've pissed her off just enough to send her packing. But HD is smack dab in the center of the picture, and her dad's influence gives her one more valid reason to pause, legitimizing her stagnation.

To be or not to be, that is the question. And so far, the answer has been radio silence. But she grasps that whatever she decides or doesn't decide, Felix is moving in four short months. She grasps this every hour of the day.

“I'm sorry. I don't know what to do,” she says.

“About the test results?”

“For one thing.”

“I think you should find out.”

“You do? You didn't even want me to do the testing.”

“Not knowing isn't exactly sitting well with you. You're living like you've been handed a death sentence.”

“I am?”

She didn't think he noticed.

“Yeah. I think you need to be okay, really authentically okay with not knowing, or you need to find out.”

So true. But which one should she choose? That's the million-dollar question. She spends hours every day internally arguing the pros and cons of either decision. Ignorance is bliss. Knowledge is power. Living in the moment is en
lightened. Planning for the future is responsible. Prepare for the worst. Hope for the best. By the end of each day, the tally is either even on both sides or too dizzying to count, and she collapses into bed, exhausted from the effort.

“If it's negative, would you move to Portland with me?”

Katie considers his question as if she's working through a profound and sacred riddle. It's a strange shift in perspective, imagining a gene-negative outcome, free of Huntington's, when so many synapses in her brain have been devoted to practicing the opposite. Then there's her father's voice, the one she's always trusted and tried her best to obey, telling her to stay. Staying in Charlestown. The idea feels like a noose pulled tight around her neck. Staying. She's shackled to a future as predetermined as her risk of HD.

She looks into Felix's eyes and sees an invitation to freedom. Freedom from Huntington's, freedom from the smothering limitations of this neighborhood, freedom to love and grow into who she really is. If she's gene negative, this is her chance. Sorry, Dad.

“Yeah,” she says. “I would.”

A wide, immensely excited smile spreads across Felix's face. She feels excited, too, realizing what she just admitted aloud, but the thrill is quickly seasoned with fear and guilt. She told her dad she wouldn't go. Leaving would break her mother's heart. JJ and Meghan are gene positive. Who does she think she is, imagining her life gene negative? Why should she be granted such a freedom? Felix hugs her, unaware of the obstinate torment within her, and holds on to her shoulders.

“That's progress! Excellent. Okay, so now we know what's holding you back. What about if it's positive?”

Felix's hands suddenly feel unbearably heavy on her shoulders, pinning her down.

“I dunno,” she says, knowing.

“Okay; we can cross that bridge if we find ourselves on it.
How about just coming with me to Portland this week? Think of it as a vacation.”

Katie presses her temples with her fingers. She's got a screaming headache. She could use a vacation, an escape. But she could go all the way to Fiji, stay in a five-star hotel situated on a private beach, and she'd still be thinking about HD. There is no escape.

“I really can't.”

“Fine.”

Felix rises abruptly and returns to the bookcase.

“You still want to watch a movie?”

“I don't care.”

Katie watches him packing another box, not looking at her. From what he's told her about his job, she imagines Felix as a powerful and effective manager at the office. Her refusal to see things his way must be making him crazy. But he doesn't look like a man throwing a tantrum, taking his ball and leaving the playground because he didn't get what he wanted. His shoulders are turned and slumped, his eyes downcast. Her heart tenses, her blood pulsing hard against her temples as she understands his face. He looks scared. In all her self-centered fear, it never occurred to her that he could be scared, too.

“I'm sorry, Felix. Will you be going out there again before June? Maybe I could come next time.”

Felix shrugs. A taste of her own medicine.

“I'm just not ready to go next week. I didn't find any subs.”

He says nothing.

“Go pick an apartment without me. I trust you. I'll love anything you love.”

June first is a Monday. Katie imagines waking up that morning, her books still displayed in her bookcase, her clothes still hanging in the closet, her suitcases not packed, kissing Felix good-bye as he leaves for Logan Airport, staying behind
and standing still out of fear of being HD positive. She loves him, and he deserves a life that isn't cursed with Huntington's. But what if she doesn't move, she doesn't open her own yoga studio, she breaks up with Felix, and it turns out she's HD negative?

She will have given up everything for nothing.