Splinters of Light (15 page)

“I
am,” said Mariana flatly. She was supposed to feel something here, wasn’t she? She felt a numb, lightweight thud, as if someone had thrown a beach ball at her head. That was all. “I am?”

“She doesn’t have it.” Joy lit Nora’s voice.

That
was it. Mariana was supposed to be happy. Overjoyed.

“Are you sure?” Mariana asked, unhooking her leg from Nora’s and leaning forward.

“Yes. Completely. You will not develop EOAD. You can, of course, be at risk for regular Alzheimer’s, just like anyone else, but that’s an epigenetic question, and we can talk about that if you like. It’s not at play in this, though.”

“Holy shit,” said Mariana. Disappointment, crisp and utterly shocking, filled her blood.

“Oh, my god.” Nora covered her mouth. “Mariana. Thank you. Thank god you’re okay. Thank you, Doctor.”

It wasn’t fair.

It wasn’t fucking fair.

Mariana stuck her index finger into her mouth and peeled off a strip of skin that tasted of dirt from the fern frond. Bright blood bloomed, a single red star of it next to her nail bed. How dare she feel
disappointed
? How dare she feel what was flooding her, the emotion that was so much worse than disappointment.

“Mariana?” Nora touched her arm.

Mariana was
jealous
. It was so far beyond unacceptable she couldn’t even be in the same room, contaminating her sister with it. She stood, saying, “I’ll just—” Then she sat again.

“Honey, this is good.” Nora was stroking her arm, gentling her.

Of anyone in the world, Nora would be able to see into her heart, to see the black jealousy that lay curled there, wanting to unfurl into diseased smoke. A jealousy flare—that’s what she was about to shoot into the sky. To have the disease with her sister, to be together as they began to fade, to live together all the way to the shortened, devastated, smashed end—they would have gone out tougher, faster, better. The way they’d always said they would. “This is good,” Mariana repeated, her tongue thick.

The doctor leaned back, appearing content to wait for them to process the information. How many lives did he change or destroy while sitting in that chair? Why did he get that power? Why couldn’t
she
have some of it? Mariana would change this, reorder the deck, stack the dice . . .

Nausea churned her stomach, turning it over. Sweat broke at her hairline. The shame of it, of her terrible reaction, burned her throat like battery acid. What should have happened—her heart filling with joy that she wasn’t sick—hadn’t. She couldn’t look at Nora. Nora would know. Maybe she already did.

She took a risk and glanced sideways. “Nora,” she started.

Her sister’s eyes were swimming, not overfilling with tears but simply leaking, like water dripping down a porcelain fountain. “I’m so happy,” Nora whispered, but there it was—there, at
the corner of her mouth, was the truth. No one in the whole world would have been able to see it, no one but Mariana.

Mariana saw it. Nora was jealous the same way Mariana was. Nora wanted to be well, like Mariana. And Mariana wanted to be sick.

“So happy,” Nora said again before standing. “This is—I’m so sorry. I think I need a minute.” She threw a wide, desperate smile at Mariana like a heavy blanket. Then she fled out into the quiet waiting room. Mariana heard a thud and knew Nora had crashed down the stairs and out the heavy door.

Nora wanted to be well. Mariana turned in her chair. “I’ve never lived farther than twelve miles away from her.” When she’d been in the country, that was . . . She wasn’t counting either India trip or the time Stephen had taken her to New Zealand for four months. . . . She shouldn’t have gone then. She should have stayed close.

Mariana stood.

“Wait,” said the doctor. “Before you go, hear me out. In every case of this type of familial processing, this is normal . . .”

This was a
type
?

“She just needs a moment to deal with this information. Alone.”

Mariana nodded and wished that she had thought to bring the fern frond with her to the chair. She’d have been able to strip it with her strong, healthy fingers. Instead, she pulled at the skin of her second finger. A small stripe of flesh followed by exactly what she wanted—a bright second of searing pain, a tiny stab. She put her finger in her mouth. Blood. It all came down to this, didn’t it?

“This is normal?” The word had almost ceased to have meaning to her.

Dr. Ghanjit, his face softening, his eyes sympathetic, said, “Yes. I counseled her to bring a third person. It can make this time a little easier. But she said she wouldn’t bring her daughter.
Is she getting tested, do you know?” He looked down at the file. “Ellie?”

“No.” Mariana remembered how clear Nora had been about it. “No, she won’t be tested.”

“That’s fine, of course, if that’s what they both want. I’ve known teenagers who want to know and others who didn’t.”

“Who makes the call?”

“The guardian parent. Most of the time. It can get sticky.”

“So if Ellie wanted to know but Nora didn’t want her to, she wouldn’t be able to be tested.”

The doctor shook his head. “She wouldn’t, not until she was eighteen. Things can get . . . complicated, though. When guardianship changes.” He shuffled papers on the desk. “Her father—he isn’t in the picture?”

“Shit.” Father’s Day was coming up, wasn’t it? “He’s second string. No, he’s last string. I don’t know sports. Is that a thing?”

“Will that change, do you think?”

“I’m not the one to ask.” Paul would never change. Nora might hope and Ellie would believe and Paul would let them down, and then Mariana would have to—finally—kill him with whatever came to hand, even if it was a rubber duck. She could do it.

“I often find the closest family member”—he looked over his glasses at her—“to know more than the patient does about family ties.”

“Yeah, well, her dad’s a dickbag.”

Dr. Ghanjit nodded. “Then you are the most important one.”

What did that mean? Did he mean . . .
custody
? Impossible—Mariana couldn’t keep Luke’s houseplants alive. She’d killed five African violets so far.

She couldn’t think about it. They’d figure something out. Nora wasn’t going anywhere without her. Swallowing down the burn in her throat, she said, “I have to go find my sister.”

The doctor closed his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose
as if it hurt. “She’s probably in the garden in the back. There’s a big swing. That’s where most people go.” Then he said, “You will be good at this.”

Startled, Mariana said, “Pardon?” This man didn’t know her. She wasn’t good at anything except being the fuckup sister. Granted, she was pretty excellent at that.

“I can tell.”

“How?” she challenged.

“It’s your turn, I think.” He smiled, and his eyes were so warm that Mariana felt strength start, deep inside her. Such a small tendril, barely alive. But it was there. As Mariana walked out of the office and down the hushed hall, she wished for it to root, like a blackberry, for it to grow tangled and fearsome without her trying. For it to be so big, someday, that no one could tear it out.

For now, she’d just be grateful it was green, and that she hadn’t moronically ripped it from its stalk just to prove a point.

N
ora wasn’t sure if it was the swing or Mariana’s diagnosis (the
non-
diagnosis) that was making her feel so queasy, but pushing with her legs was at least giving her something to do while she tried to get her thoughts to smooth. If she could iron them, put them on the board and hit them with the starch she loved so much, she could get them under control. It pleased her, thinking about getting the creases out of her thoughts, storing them in the linen cupboard next to the red (red!) Christmas tablecloth and the good hand towels she got out only for company. She wouldn’t need to put water in the iron—she could just cry over the top opening, filling it with tears. Her fingers twitched in her lap. She wanted to write that down before she forgot it, taking a sick pleasure in how pathetic it was. She could make fun of herself later for having the thought, if she wrote it just right for a column. But she’d forgotten her purse upstairs when she ran, and she’d probably forget the thought itself before writing it down.

She should get used to it.

Her sister pushed her way through the glass door and into the garden. Her step was uncertain, as if she thought Nora might be mad at her.

Mad at
her
.

“I’m sorry,” said Nora. One hot tear dripped to her chin, and she swiped at it, as if it were a bug suddenly crawling on her skin. It was the most messed-up reaction ever. “I’m so sorry. It’s like I can’t control it, and I keep thinking, is this the way it starts? Is this when you watch me start to lose it? I can’t stop
crying
.” Fury lit her chest on fire—it felt like bronchitis made of anger.

“Oh, my love.” Mariana sat next to her on the swing, tangling her left leg with Nora’s right. Now they had only two feet touching the ground, one Nora’s, one Mariana’s. With those two feet, they began to push themselves back and forth, so slowly.

“How long do I keep trying to pretend I’m still normal? Because I don’t
feel
normal. I feel like I’m fighting my brain every second of the way, and the worst part is that I feel like it’s winning. That I’m losing myself, and with you”—Nora barked a thin laugh—“with you healthy, I’m losing you, too. I won’t be able to find you.” She took a long breath. They became still, so still, just their legs entwined, the swing barely moving.

Then she went on. “I have to be able to find you. But now . . . god, Mariana, I’m so happy that you’ll be okay. There’s
nothing
in me that isn’t happy about that.”

Mariana looked straight ahead and moved the swing with her free foot, a gentle nudge.

“But you’re going to leave me,” said Nora. The real tears started in earnest then, even though she knew they might break Mariana. “I’m leaving you, but I won’t understand that. So it will be like you’re leaving me.” She couldn’t stop the heaving in her chest—there was a train barreling toward her, and she’d never get the straps undone in time. It was the kind of crying that took over a body, and every part of Nora was weeping, her shoulders, her belly, her knees. Next to her, Mariana gasped and folded at the waist.

Then Mariana stood and straddled the swing so that she could wrap both her arms around Nora. Her face was dry and hot against Nora’s cheek, and even though Nora kept crying, Mariana didn’t let go. Her knee dug into Nora’s thigh, poking her sharply, but it felt good. Something else to feel, something besides despair.

“I keep thinking about what I could use . . . how I would do it. But I’m too scared. And I can’t leave Ellie . . .”

“Stop it.”

“How does a person make that decision? To go?”

Mariana gripped her tighter. “You’re not going anywhere. You’re not making that decision. Fuck you if you think you are.” Her voice shook, and Nora felt such tenderness toward her. Mariana wasn’t good at this. This comforting, this holding—this was as difficult for her as a marathon, as scary to her as a skydive. No, her sister would have preferred either of those to these tears.

“But . . .”

“There. There,” said Mariana, her voice still pale compared to its usual bright bluster. “I’m here. I’m right here.”

She would continue to be there. That was the bitch of it.

They couldn’t—wouldn’t—do this together. Nora was on a one-way trip out of town, and even if Mariana had wanted to come, she couldn’t get a ticket.

Mariana wouldn’t be able to follow.

Nora wouldn’t be able to take care of her anymore.

As if she could hear Nora’s thoughts, Mariana said, “I’m not strong enough for this.”

Nora started, and laughed around a sob.
“Crap.”

“You can swear, you know. If you want to. You’re allowed to.” Mariana used the back of her fingers to wipe off Nora’s wet cheeks. It was the first time her sister had ever touched one of her tears. Nora wondered if it would be the last.

Then Mariana paled, the color leaving her lips. “Oh, god. Sorry.” She held up her hand, showing where the tears had mixed with blood. “I bit my finger, and now . . .”

Nora grabbed Mariana’s hands and inspected them. “I thought you’d stopped doing that.”

“I did.”

“When did you start it back up?”

Mariana jerked a thumb over her shoulder. “You know. In there.”

Nora straightened. “I’m going to make you take up knitting. That’s what I’m going to do. You can’t say no to me. I’m dying.”

Mariana’s mouth stretched in a grimace that was almost a laugh, and Nora knew her face looked the same.

She went on. “At least you get something out of it, instead of ragged, bloody cuticles. Oh!” Relief swelled like music inside her.

“What? You thought of something?”

“No.” Nora laughed. She couldn’t fix this with Aleene’s glue or with the right words. “I think I’m just fucked.” The word felt pleasingly shocking in her mouth.

Mariana blinked. “Why that look, then?”

Nora felt her smile get wider. “I’m gonna start smoking again.”

“Oh,
hell
no.”

“Yes, I am.” Nora stood and scrubbed her cheeks with the backs of her hands, but she could feel some of the dust from the rope transfer to her skin. “Let’s get out of here. I have a 7-Eleven to hit.” She thought of what she’d write in her journal to Ellie:
Don’t smoke. It shortens your life, it makes you smell like a hobo, and it gives you wrinkles. If you must smoke, do the e-cigarette thing and quit before your thirtieth birthday. Then take up knitting—knit at the bars, knit when your friends look cool with their glowing blue tips, and then give them the hand-knitted socks when you finish them. If your aunt tells you I ever smoked, tell her she’s full of crap even though she’s not—it’s what she gets for telling on me.

Would she see Ellie at twenty? Given the medical regimen, given that her daughter was almost seventeen, it was possible. Only just, but still possible. She’d never see her at thirty. They still weren’t talking about it, not directly, though Nora knew they’d have to start, and soon. “You still have to go to Smith,”
Nora had said the week before when Ellie had been deciding which schools to send her SAT scores to. They were phenomenal scores:
2210
. It was all Nora could do not to put a bumper sticker with the number on her car. She’d tried not to push Ellie to one school or another, but Smith, with its tradition of educating strong women, would be perfect for her. She knew it.

“Oh, god,” Ellie had said, her pencil stilling in midair. “Should I not go there?” It was obviously the first time she’d thought about it. Nora should never have even brought it up. “I shouldn’t go. I’m so stupid.”

“No,”
Nora had said. “You
have
to go.” Then she’d rushed into the backyard, where she’d stood in the cool air with her hands pressed to her cheeks for a long, long time.

Now, in the garden of the doctor’s office, Mariana said, “Your face is covered in blood and dirt.”

“Figures,” said Nora.

“You’re seriously going to buy cigarettes.”

“You coming?”

“You’re going to let me smoke? Shit yes, I’m coming.”

“Oh, no,” said Nora over her shoulder, already halfway up the walkway back to the reception door. “You don’t get one. You’re not dying. You have to stay healthy. It’s me who gets to drive this car right off the edge of the cliff.” Her grin as she pulled open the door was electric. “What do you think heroin is like? Maybe I’ll try a little of everything. I think I’ll try a little smack. I have no idea what it is, really, but I’ll give it a shot.”

Mariana stopped walking and put her hands on her hips. “Over my dead and totally disapproving body.”

“Okay. Just cigarettes.”

“Just one, and then you throw the pack away.”

“Oh, my cancerous silver lining.” The rapture felt like forgiveness. “I’m getting
menthol
.”