Robert Sawyer - Frameshift

And that Henry Spade had moved to Toronto, never knowing he’d fathered a child?

It was too much, too personal. “I only recently met my real father for the first time,” said Pierre simply.

Laviolette nodded. “How old are you, Pierre?”

“I turn nineteen next month.”

The doctor frowned. “There isn’t any predictive test for Huntington’s, I’m afraid. You might not have the disease, but the only way you’ll discover that is when you finish middle age without it showing up. On the other hand, you might develop symptoms in as few as ten or fifteen years.”

Laviolette looked at him quietly. They’d already gone over the worst of it. Huntington’s disease (also known as Huntington’s chorea) affects about half a million people worldwide. It selectively destroys two parts of the brain that help control movement. Symptoms, which normally first manifest themselves between the ages of thirty and fifty, include abnormal posture, progressive dementia, and involuntary muscular action — the name “chorea” refers to the dancing movements typical of the disease. The disease itself, or complications arising from it, eventually kills the victim; Huntington’s sufferers often choke to death on food because they’ve lost the muscular control to swallow.

“Have you ever thought about killing yourself, Pierre?” asked Laviolette.

Pierre’s eyebrows rose at the unexpected question. “No.”

“I don’t mean just now over concern about possibly having Huntington’s disease. I mean ever. Have you ever thought about killing yourself?”

“No. Not seriously.”

“Are you prone to depression?”

“No more than the next guy, I imagine.”

“Boredom? Lack of direction?”

Pierre thought about lying, but didn’t. “Umm, yes. I have to admit to some of that.” He shrugged. “People say I’m unmotivated, that I coast through life.”

Laviolette nodded. “Do you know who Woody Guthrie is?”

“Who?”

The doctor made a “kids today” face. “He wrote ‘This Land Is Your Land.’ ”

“Oh, yeah. Sure.”

“He died of Huntington’s in 1967. His son Arlo — you have heard of him, no?”

Pierre shook his head.

Laviolette sighed. “You’re making me feel old. Arlo wrote ‘Alice’s Restaurant.’ ”

Pierre looked blank.

“Folk music,” said Laviolette.

“In English, no doubt,” said Pierre dismissively.

“Even worse,” said Laviolette, with a twinkle in his eye. “ American English. Anyway, Arlo is probably the most famous person in your position. He’s got a fifty-fifty chance of having inherited the gene, just like you. He talked about it once in an interview in People magazine; I’ll give you a photocopy before you go.”

Pierre, unsure what to say, simply nodded.

Laviolette reached for his pen and prescription pad. “I’m going to write out the number for the local Huntington’s support up; I want you to call them.” He copied a phone number from a small Cerlox-bound Montreal health-services directory, tore the sheet off the pad, and handed it to Pierre. He paused for a moment, as if thinking, then picked a business card from the brass holder on his desk and wrote another phone number beneath the one preprinted on the card. “And I’m also doing something I never do, Pierre. This is my personal number at home. If you can’t get me here, try me there — day or night. Sometimes… sometimes people take news like this very poorly. Please, if you’re ever thinking of doing something rash, call me. Promise you’ll do that, Pierre.” He proffered the card.

“You mean if I’m thinking about killing myself, don’t you?”

The doctor nodded.

Pierre took the card. To his astonishment, his hand was shaking.

Late at night, alone in his room. Pierre hadn’t even managed to finish undressing for bed. He just stared into space, not focusing, not thinking.

It was unfair, damn it. Totally unfair.

What had he done to deserve this?

There was a small crucifix above the door to his room; it had been there since he’d been a little boy. He stared up at the tiny Jesus — but there was no point in praying. The die was cast; what was done was done. Whether or not he had the gene had been determined almost twenty years ago, at the very moment of his conception.

Pierre had bought an Arlo Guthrie LP and listened to it. He’d been unable to find any Woody Guthrie at A A’s, but the Montreal library had an old album by a group called the Almanac Singers that Woody had once been part of. He listened to that, too.

The Almanac Singers’ music seemed full of hope; Arlo’s music seemed sad. It could go either way.

Pierre had read that most Huntington’s patients ended their lives in hospital. The average stay before death was seven years.

Outside, the wind was whistling. A branch of the tree next to the house swept back and forth across the window, like a crooked, bony hand beckoning him to follow.

He didn’t want to die. But he didn’t want to live through years of suffering.

He thought about his father — his real father, Henry Spade. Thrashing about in bed, his faculties slipping away.

His eyes lit on his desk, a white particleboard thing from Consumers Distributing. On it was his copy of Les Miserables , which he’d just finished reading for his French-literature course. Jean Valjean had stolen a loaf of bread, and no matter what he did, he could not undo that fact; until his dying day, his record was marked. Pierre’s record was marked, too, one way or the other, but there was no way to read it. If he were like Valjean — if he were a convict — then he had a Javert, too, endlessly pursuing him, eventually fated to catch up.

In the book, the tables had turned, with Inspector Javert ending up being the one incapable of escaping his birthright. Unable to alter what he was, he took the only way out, plunging from a parapet into the icy waters of the Seine below.

The only way out…

Pierre got up, shuffled over to the desk, turned on a hooded lamp on an articulated bone-white arm, and found Laviolette’s card with the doctor’s home number written on it. He stared at the card, reading it over and over again.

The only way out…

He walked back to his bed, sat on the edge of it, and listened to the wind some more. Without ever looking down to see what he was doing, he began drawing the edge of the card back and forth across the inside of his left wrist, again and again, as though it were a blade.

When she was eighteen, Molly Bond had been an undergraduate psychology student at the University of Minnesota. She lived in residence even though her family was right here in Minneapolis. Even back then, she couldn’t take staying in the same house with them — not with her disapproving mother, not with her vacuous sister Jessica, and not with her mother’s new husband, Paul, whose thoughts about her were often anything but paternal.

Still, there were certain family events that forced her to return home.

Today was one of those. “Happy birthday, Paul,” she said, leaning in to give her stepfather a kiss on the cheek. “I love you.”

Should say the same thing back . “Love you, too, hon.”

Molly stepped away, trying to keep her sigh from escaping audibly. It wasn’t much of a party, but maybe they’d do better next year. This was Paul’s forty-ninth birthday; they’d try to commemorate the big five-oh in a more stylish fashion.

If Paul was still around at that point, that is. What Molly had wanted to detect when she leaned in to kiss Paul was I love you, too , spontaneous, unplanned, unrehearsed. But no. She’d heard Should say the same thing b ack , and then, a moment later, the spoken words, false, manufactured, flat.