Double Helix

by Nancy Werlin

  But she wasn’t capable of that.

  Another thing that made me angry was that I suspected I knew what Viv had been up to this last week. I suspected she’d spent all her free time researching Huntington’s disease. Toting books home from the library to read. Surfing the web. Reading Internet chat and list discussions about HD. Thinking. Putting together patterns with me in the middle of them. Trying to figure me—it—me—out.

  Yes, I could almost feel Viv learning about HD, or trying to, from twenty blocks away, and there was no way to make her stop. No way to keep the knowledge from her. And if she were to call my father—he’d talk to her now. Oh, yes, he’d talk freely.

  So, if Viv wanted to know where my mother was, she would find out. She could even—there was a stubbornness to Viv—go to the nursing home herself. Go to see for herself.

  Please God, no.

  And all at once I understood that this was why I’d been thinking about not going to see my mother. About hanging out with Kayla instead. It was just in case Viv showed up, informed by my father about my regular time to visit.

  More than that, actually. I didn’t want to go today because Viv might have been there at any time this past week. Might have met my mother. Might have trespassed. And if I learned that she had gone there . . . if a nurse or attendant said anything to me about that . . .

  I could feel rage—and fear, but mostly rage—threaten to fountain up inside me. Viv might have seen my mother in that wheelchair, her face vacant, and thought—wrongly—that she understood. Thought she understood her. Thought she understood me.

  But the woman called Ava Samuels, the one who existed in that nursing home today, as the end approached—she could not give Viv the slightest picture of who she once had been. Of the two—at least two—women she had been before.

  Ava Louise Lange Samuels. Brilliant economist, professor at the Harvard Business School. Picture-perfect wife and mother . . . but with an abnormally long trinucleotide repeat in a particular dominant gene, hidden deep in her DNA where nobody could see it or know about it. Not her husband or her son. Not even Ava herself, or her doctor—at least, not without the testing that had only been available publicly since 1993.

  And you had to already be suspicious to do the testing anyway.

  The trinucleotide: Cytosine-Adenine-Guanine. C-A-G. A normal sequence. Even to have repeats was absolutely normal. Eleven repeats was in the normal range. So, in fact, was twenty, thirty, forty. The human genome could tolerate a lot of variation. Variation was good, normal, healthy. To a point.

  But if you happened to have more than forty repeats of C-A-G at the tip of chromosome four, then you were carrying the HD time bomb, set to go off—well, no one could say exactly when. In middle age sometime, usually.

  That was what happened to my mother. Bit by bit, she started acting oddly.

  But what’s odd? Suppose, at age thirty-two, you stumbled while you walked. Suppose, at age forty, you threw a plate at your husband’s head. Maybe you were just being ordinarily clumsy. Maybe you had been provoked beyond bearing. People without HD did those things all the time. Maybe it was nothing.

  But maybe it was the beginning. Maybe it wasn’t you doing those things. Maybe it was the trinucleotide repeats . . . going to work on you. Starting to eat away at who you were. To mutate and possess your very self.

  Destiny was written in the trinucleotide repeats. That was what I knew, what Viv could never know, no matter how much research she might do. The words progressive insanity - didn’t even begin to cover it.

  C-A-G-C-A-G-C-A-G-C-A-G-C-A-G-C-A-G-C-A-G-C-AG-C-A-G-C-A-G-C-A-G-C-A-G-C-A-G-C-A-G-C-A-G-C-A- G-C-A-G-C-A-G-C-A-G-C-A-G-C-A-G-C-A-G-C-A-G-C-AG-C-A-G-C-A-G-C-A-G-C-A-G-C-A-G-C-A-G-C-A-G-C-A- G-C-A-G-C-A-G-C-A-G-C-A-G-C-A-G-C-A-G-C-A-G-C-AG-C-A-G-C-A-G-C-A-G-C-A-G-C-A-G-C-A-G-C-A-G-C-A- G-C-A-G-C-A-G-C-A-G-C-A-G-C-A-G-C-A-G-C-A-G.

  Viv could look and look at my mother, quiet and docile these days, as death approached. And Viv could read and read. But she couldn’t know, couldn’t know, couldn’t know.

  Too many C-A-G repeats at the tip of chromosome four.

  Viv couldn’t know what it had been like for me and my father. There was no way to describe those years in which Ava Louise Lange Samuels lived with us, out of control, turning into a different person, going insane day by day—and knowing it.

  As I would know it.

  Yes, much as I longed for Viv, it was good that she wasn’t with me right now. Because if she had been, and I’d felt what I felt now, this confusion and hate and rage and misery—

  Somewhere in me, I realized, I needed someone to lash out at. This was why I attacked my father verbally, emotionally, - every way I could. Viv had only been safe when she was in her little compartment, separated from the more horrible things in my life. And if she wouldn’t stay there, wouldn’t stay safe in the compartment, then I might not be able to trust myself. She wouldn’t be safe from me. Because I wanted—I needed—someone to blame—

  I took several deep breaths.

  I needed things to be the way they had been. But they - couldn’t be.

  Kayla, I told myself. Think of Kayla.

  But I couldn’t soothe myself, couldn’t forget Viv. Not yet, anyway. And so I gave up. I turned on the bedside lamp. It was just after two a.m. I prowled into the kitchen and made coffee. Then I pulled out a Terry Pratchett novel to read. Corporal Carrot—Viv’s favorite character. Sitting up at the kitchen table, I read his adventures doggedly for the rest of the night.

  When dawn came and the sun climbed into the sky, I got dressed and—with relief—went to meet Kayla and Dr. Wyatt for breakfast.

  CHAPTER 20

  IT FELT MORE than a little strange to sit idle and watch Dr. Wyatt cook. He refused outright to let Kayla or me help. Instead, he gave us coffee and sat us on the other side of the kitchen island from the stove, and I watched in surprise as he calmly managed three pans with order and efficiency. In no time, a neat platter of French toast, a pile of perfectly crisp bacon, and a shallow bowl of scrambled eggs were ready to be placed on the table on the sunporch, where croissants, grapes and blackberries, china place settings, linen napkins, and more coffee awaited.

  “I’m impressed,” I said to Dr. Wyatt as I pulled out a chair for Kayla. She brushed against me for a millisecond as she moved to sit, and I caught the fresh light scent of her shampoo. I again felt filled with amazement at her beauty, and with gratification at her clear interest in me. In fact, when she’d greeted me earlier, she’d displayed a demure downcast to her eyes—coupled with a sudden flashing glance upward—that made me feel ready to forget everything else in the world but her. We’d be alone later. I looked down at the top of her head, at the sweet jut of her cheekbone, the curve of her bare downy shoulder in her summer dress. I could kiss her if I wanted, later. I suddenly knew that, knew it with complete certainty. She’d like it; she even expected it. I could touch her and—

  I grabbed my own seat and sat.

  Dr. Wyatt was seated, too, and had already reached for the eggs. “What, Eli, you didn’t think I could use a stove? Set a table? Expected we’d be ordering bagels from the place around the corner?”

  “Well . . . you did mention the other day that you had a cook,” I said. My brain was racing ahead on the other track, however. Kayla was going to be a sophomore in college. She - wouldn’t be a virgin like Viv had been . . . and I wasn’t one now, either, for that matter. It would be totally different—no strings, no emotional entanglements. And the way Kayla had moved in her body when she played tennis . . . I’d been lying to myself, all at once I knew that. Pretending I hadn’t been thinking about this all along, from the second I saw Kayla. Maybe breaking up with Viv had nothing to do with her prying and snooping, her emotional demands, nothing to do with HD. Maybe it was all just normal hormones . . . time to move on, to experiment . . . why be tied down when you were only eighteen? Viv was far too intense anyway.

  “Eli? French toast?”

  “Oh—yes, sure.” I m
anaged to accept the platter that Dr. Wyatt passed to me. He was continuing the conversation like a civilized person. I tried hard to tune in again.

  “The truth is I’m limited to cooking breakfast things,” he said. “But only from choice. Cooking is a skill very close to chemistry, you know—and though I didn’t major in it, I took a lot of chem as an undergraduate. I don’t think it’s wise for scientists to specialize too quickly. Nowadays, especially, we understand that things connect in all sorts of unpredictable ways. The race goes to the prepared. Remember that next year, Eli, when you start college. I approve of double-majors, by the way. I only wish Kayla had at least—”

  “You know that I would never make a good scientist,” Kayla said calmly. “My parents reconciled themselves to that, and so should you.”

  “Maybe you weren’t meant to end up doing scientific research,” Dr. Wyatt conceded. “It bored you so much that summer. But you’re so smart, Kayla, and to spend all your time reading eighteenth-century novels—I simply fail to see the utility of it.”

  “I’m supposed to be the one figuring out utility, not you.” Kayla didn’t seem to have taken offense; she was smiling fondly at Dr. Wyatt. “Trust me, Q. I’ll be fine.”

  Hearing Dr. Wyatt called Q helped retrieve me from my sexual haze. I had heard Kayla use it before, but it still struck me as off-key—as strange as if the prophet Mohammed had materialized in the room and Kayla had greeted him with “Hey, Mo!” It made me remember, anew, that Kayla was more than a beautiful face and body. That she, too, had a history and a mind and was bound to be complicated and full of unknowns.

  This thought abruptly cooled me off.

  I dug into my French toast. “How’s it going with your internship?” I asked Kayla.

  “Oh, so far they have me writing press releases and updating the website. But they also said that I can read the slush in my spare time, if I want to.” She leaned forward, shredding a croissant between her fingers. “If I want to! I can’t wait!”

  “Slush?” I asked.

  “The manuscripts that people send in uninvited.” She ate the tiniest bit of croissant. “I know most of the slush pile manuscripts are supposed to be just awful, but it seems to me that you never know. There could be an amazing novel in there, or some fascinating nonfiction. It happens.”

  “Rarely.” Dr. Wyatt snorted. “Face it, Kayla: Most people are idiots and everything they do bears that out.”

  “But sometimes—”

  “No, no. I know something about this, because you find it in every field of endeavor. Mark my words: You’ll waste the summer looking for treasure in that slush pile, but you won’t find it. Just like, back when I used to teach, I’d look and look for signs of real intelligence, real originality, real thought, in my students’ work, but most of the time it just wasn’t there. The best you could get was a dull combination of memorization and regurgitation. Like from a clever monkey.” A look of distaste passed over his face, and then he shrugged. “Of course, that’s a useful lesson, too. You might as well learn it now, Kayla. It will save you time in the long run. Teach you not to waste time on fools.”

  “You’re so cynical!” said Kayla.

  “No,” Dr. Wyatt said mildly. “I’m realistic.” He turned to me. “Be honest, Eli. Haven’t you found what I say to be the case, in the admittedly short time you’ve been on this earth? Aren’t most people unable to string a logical thought together, unable to express themselves coherently, unable to do much of anything with competence and clarity—let alone with originality?”

  I hesitated. Secretly, I had sometimes had similar thoughts about a lot of my classmates. And about teachers, too, to be truthful. I’d been impatient sometimes, when people seemed particularly clueless. But I didn’t feel that way about everybody. And I didn’t quite know what Dr. Wyatt was driving at. Or why he was suddenly watching me so closely, with such intensity. It made me feel uncomfortable. I wanted to say something to please him, but I wasn’t sure what it would be. Wouldn’t just agreeing with him be—well, monkeylike? Especially since I really didn’t know what I thought?

  “The people I’ve been working with at Wyatt Transgenics seem very smart,” I temporized. “Larry Donohue and Mary Alice Gregorian.”

  Dr. Wyatt made a sweeping-away motion with one hand. His eyes were very bright, suddenly. “People who have skills that you don’t have often seem smart at first,” he said. “It - doesn’t mean anything. Think beyond that. Think more broadly. How often are you genuinely impressed with someone? Tell me the truth. How often do you think, This person is superior to me?”

  After what felt like a pause that went on too long, I shook my head. “I don’t know if I’ve ever thought that, exactly, but—”

  “You have never thought anyone was superior to you.”

  I felt as if I were suddenly standing on ground that was about to crumble beneath my feet. He’d twisted my words around. That was not what I’d said. “Well, I think you are superior to me!” I retorted. “Obviously.”

  He didn’t say anything, but he liked that; I could tell. Reassured, I went on. “Dr. Wyatt, listen, I haven’t really thought much about this. But I know that it doesn’t matter if I’m better at some things than other people are. That just makes sense. People have different talents. People contribute different things to the world. Like . . . I’m not musical. I have nothing to give to anybody there. Somebody else has to give to me. You hear what I’m saying?”

  There was a long, long pause. Then: “Oh, yes,” said Dr. Wyatt softly. “I hear you, Eli. I hear you quite plainly. I also hear that you lied a minute ago. You have thought about this. You’ve thought about it quite often, I judge. You’ve thought quite often about superiority. And—given your mother’s situation—no doubt you’ve thought a lot about genetics and destiny as well. The way that genetics enforces one’s destiny. The way that one cannot escape. Am I right?”

  I was unable to speak. Unable to move.

  “Of course I’m right,” said Dr. Wyatt. He smiled cheerily. “More eggs?”

  CHAPTER 21

  I DID NOT STAY, after all, to play tennis with Kayla. As soon as breakfast was over, I said bluntly that I had to go; I had to visit my mother at the nursing home. I looked Dr. Wyatt in the eye as I said it. Then I turned to Kayla and said, “My mother has a genetic disease called Huntington’s. It causes mental and physical deterioration and eventually insanity, beginning sometime in middle age. It can’t be treated or cured.”

  One or both of them began to say something, but I didn’t listen. I walked as rapidly as I could out of Dr. Wyatt’s house and down the street and around the corner, and there I found a bush and threw up behind it.

  Genetics enforces one’s destiny. One cannot escape.

  You’ve thought quite often about superiority.

  As I straightened, I caught the eye of a little boy—perhaps five or six years old—who was standing in the small front yard of a nearby house. The child moved forward a few steps and stared down with great interest. “Puke!” he said.

  “Sorry,” I said. “Look, if you’d like to go tell your parents, maybe they’ll have something I can clean it up with. Uh—a shovel, maybe. And a garbage bag.”

  The boy turned and ran inside his house. I felt jumpy, odd, nervous—wanting to leave but also feeling fixed to the spot because of the child. A couple of minutes later the boy reemerged, still alone, but holding a red plastic toy shovel and a folded plastic trash bag. I had him hold open the bag for me while I cleaned up. Together, we tied off the trash bag and deposited it in a barrel.

  “There,” I said. I squatted and looked the boy in the eye. “Thanks,” I said.

  “After you puke, you feel better,” said the child wisely.

  “Right,” I said. “Bye now, kid. And thanks.”

  “Bye now, man.” The boy was smiling at me sunnily. “Come back sometime. We can play.” He held out his hand, and I took it and we shook, gently.

  I got up, feeling his gaze still
on me, feeling his longing that I would stay and play. For a moment, I wished I could. I did think about going up to the house to find the boy’s parents or guardians, whoever. They needed to understand that any jerk who came by and puked could be this kid’s friend for life. It was a dangerous world; adults were supposed to protect their children, and these folks were not being watchful.

  But I didn’t have the strength to go talk to adults right now. So instead I said pedantically to the boy, “Now, remember, you really shouldn’t talk to or play with strangers like me. Haven’t your parents told you that?”

  The hero-worship faded from the boy’s face and was replaced by a kind of betrayal. And a scowl. He nodded. He backed away from me until he reached the safety of his front steps.

  I felt sick again but I didn’t know, either, what else I could have said or done. So much for superiority.

  I trudged to the nearest subway station and waited on the platform for a long time for a train. I kept thinking about the little boy . . . and then, all at once, I was aware that I wanted my mother. Not really, of course . . . not that woman in the nursing home. But . . . my mother. The mother she’d been when I was five or six.

  The feeling filled me, and I let the next train come and go, and then went around the platform to the other side, and without thinking or planning, went in the other direction, away from home, toward the nursing home, a couple of hours before I was due there.

  Maybe it was encountering the little boy. Or maybe, subconsciously, I wanted to make true the lie I had told Dr. Wyatt and Kayla. Or—maybe—it was something more mysterious. In any event, I was there by eleven o’clock, and the moment I walked into my mother’s room, and saw my father sitting by her bedside, I knew why I was there. It was happening at last, and I—I had come to bear witness, to be with my father, and to say good-bye.

  I watched the back of my father’s head for a time. My mother was lying still for once, eyes closed. Sleeping, perhaps. I hoped. Finally I said, “Hey,” softly. I knew, somehow, that my father knew I was there.