Линвуд Баркли - Find You First

“God, not more bad news.”

“No, but let me ask you about family history again. Did either of your parents have Huntington’s?”

“No,” he said. “I mean, not that I know of. I suppose one of them could have but it never had a chance to show itself. They died in a car accident when they were in their forties. My dad was a drunk. He ran their Ford Explorer into a bridge abutment on the Merritt Parkway.”

“You have a brother, yes?”

Miles nodded. “Gilbert.”

“The thing about Huntington’s is, it’s very much an inherited condition. You’re right that one of your parents might have developed it had they not died prematurely. You could have inherited it from one of them. If a parent has Huntington’s, there’s a 50 percent chance that any of their children will have it, too.”

“Pretty high odds.”

“Right. So, there’s a high probability that your brother has it, too. I think he should be tested.” She hesitated. “Are you close?”

“He works for me,” Miles said.

“That’s not what I asked.”

“We’re... close enough. Things got a bit strained after he married Cruella de Vil.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Caroline. I’m not... a fan. But I’m not exactly her favorite person, either.” He thought about what the doctor had said. “I’ll talk to Gilbert. Suggest he get tested. Or maybe...”

“Maybe what?”

“Nothing,” he said.

Alexandra waited, trying to will him to be more forthcoming. When he wasn’t, she forced a smile.

“There is one tiny piece of good news,” she said.

“This isn’t like that joke, is it?” Miles asked. “Where the doctor says, ‘I have bad news and good news. The bad news is you’re dying, but the good news is I’m sleeping with Brad Pitt’?”

Alexandra said, “No, not like that.”

“Okay. Tell me.”

“Well, you’re not married. You have no children. If you did, this would be devastating news for them. It’d be terrible enough to learn you’ve had this diagnosis. But on top of that, they’d have to deal with the news that they might have it as well. One chance in two. That would be, for you, I think, an extra emotional burden you really don’t need at this time.”

Miles stared at her, expressionless.

“Miles?” she said.

“Sorry,” he said. “Just blanked out there for a second.”

Alexandra grew concerned. “ Do you have children, Miles?”

And Miles thought, Isn’t that just the fucking million-dollar question?

Providence, RI

Chloe Swanson had the minitripod set up and ready to go.

She wasn’t using anything fancier than her iPhone for this. That was all she needed for this project. After all, didn’t Steven Soderbergh shoot an entire movie with an iPhone? If he could do that, couldn’t she? But she didn’t want the camera to be all shaky for the interview, so she’d brought along a minitripod to attach it to. Bought it used at a Providence camera shop for a third of what a new one would have cost her.

She positioned it on a stack of books on an end table, which she had moved around in front of her grandfather’s wheelchair so that it was aimed at him at eye level. She wanted to frame the shot so she wouldn’t see his bed in the background. The room was so small it wasn’t easy.

Chloe was initially going to film this in one of the nursing home’s common rooms, but her grandfather didn’t want to go down there. He’d had something going with one of the other residents, a woman in her mideighties, but they’d had a recent falling-out. Chloe had tried to piece together what had happened, and astonishingly, at least to Chloe, it appeared to have something to do with sex. The old lady was interested, but Chloe’s grandfather, not so much.

Anyway, Chloe hadn’t wanted to do the video in the common room anyway. Too much background noise. There was one guy, had to be close to ninety, who was always making these unbelievable horking noises, like he was trying to cough up something that was all the way down in his shoes. Chloe wasn’t without sympathy. Her heart went out to a lot of the residents of the Providence Valley Home, the place her mother most often referred to as the Fairfield Valley Home for the Bewildered.

Chloe didn’t like it when her mother made jokes about old people. What was funny about losing your balance, falling down, having to wear diapers, forgetting your loved ones when they came to see you? Where were the laughs in that? Sure, Chloe was only twenty-two and didn’t have to worry about getting old for a very long time, but that didn’t mean she didn’t have to care. She’d been here often enough to visit her grandfather that she’d made friends with several of the residents, and had started thinking about a more ambitious project that would involve interviewing a number of them, not just her mother’s father.

Everybody had a story to tell.

And it was Chloe’s hope that interviewing her grandfather would fill in some of the gaps in her own story. Not all of them, of course. There was one huge, missing chapter in her life it was unlikely she’d ever know anything about. Kind of like a five-hundred-piece jigsaw puzzle with one missing piece. Problem is, that piece takes up half the puzzle.

Chloe wanted to know who she was.

Her grandfather was thin and round shouldered, with a few wisps of hair that did little to hide his array of liver spots. Most days, Chloe might find him sitting in pajamas and a bathrobe, but today he had put on a jacket, white shirt, and tie. Chloe thought she could fit her entire hand between the collar and the old man’s leathery, wrinkled neck.

“That’s really a camera?” he whispered.

“It’s my phone,” she said. “You’ve seen my phone before. It does all kinds of things.”

He licked his dry lips. “But where’s the film?”

“It’s digital. Are you ready?”

“Fire away. I’m not going to need my lawyer, am I?” He grinned, flashing his dentures.

“I don’t think so,” Chloe said. “Unless you’re going to confess to something awful you did back in the day. Were you a hit man or something? Did you work for the mob?”

He shook his head. “Just Sears.”

“I’m going to pick up from where we talked last time. Is that okay?”

He nodded.

“Don’t look into the camera. Just look at me. We’re just having a conversation. Okay?”

“I get it,” he said weakly.

Chloe tapped the screen on the phone, settled into her chair opposite her grandfather, and said, “So how did you handle it, when Mom came out?”

“Came out of what?” he replied, grinning slyly.

Chloe chuckled. “When she told you she was a lesbian.”

“Oh, that, well,” he said. “It didn’t happen all at once, you know. She kind of hinted about it. The clues were there if we were paying any attention. Your grandmother, Lisa — bless her heart — and I couldn’t help but see the signs, but sometimes, even when it’s right there in front of your face, you pretend not to see it. Any boyfriends she had, it never lasted long. I think I took it better than Lisa did, to tell you the truth. I think Lisa was always counting on a big wedding for whenever Gillian found Mr. Right. You know?”

“Sure, I get that,” Chloe said.

“Twenty-five, thirty years ago, it wasn’t all ‘I’m here, I’m queer, I don’t care what you think.’ It’s different now.”

“Maybe not as much as you think. Tell me more about how Gran felt.”

The man’s face saddened. “She had a hard time with it. People’d ask, hey Lisa, when’s Gillian settling down? She’d always say she hadn’t found the right guy yet, or she was working on her career, that kind of thing. But she was already living with Annette at that time. Lisa, she’d tell anyone who asked that they were just roomies, saving money by sharing accommodations.”