Not Quickly Broken

by Cronk, LN

  “Chase is sick,” Tanner finally said.

  My first thought was that he meant Chase was in rehab . . . which would actually be pretty great.

  “He’s sick?”

  “Have you ever heard of Huntington’s disease?” Tanner asked, and I felt Charlotte tense next to me and grip my hand even tighter.

  “No,” I said, shaking my head. “I don’t think so.”

  “It’s a neurological disease,” Tanner said. “It starts off with loss of muscle coordination – it’s affecting his walking and stuff right now.”

  “Right now?”

  “It’s progressive,” Tanner explained. “It’s going to keep getting worse.”

  “They can’t do anything for him?” I asked.

  “Not really,” Tanner answered. “There’s no cure.”

  “What’s going to happen to him?” I wanted to know. “Is he going to have to go into a wheelchair or something?”

  “Probably,” Tanner nodded.

  “How long?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “He developed it early. Usually people don’t start showing symptoms until they’re older. When it shows up this early, it usually progresses quicker.”

  I looked at Tanner. “When did you find out about this?”

  “Right after you went off to school,” he said. Then he added, “We didn’t want you to worry.”

  “So he’s going to be in a wheelchair?” I clarified.

  Tanner took in a deep breath.

  “It keeps getting worse,” he said. “It’ll start affecting other things. He’s going to decline mentally, he’s going to start having trouble swallowing, he’s not going to be able to talk, and eventually . . .”

  He didn’t go on.

  I stared at him for a moment, waiting for him to finish.

  But he didn’t.

  “Are you saying this thing’s going to kill him?” I finally asked.

  Tanner gave me a tight nod and I glanced at Charlotte. She was staring straight at Tanner.

  “I learned about Huntington’s last year in A.P. Biology,” she said in a small voice. He looked back at her with his lips pressed together and didn’t say anything. She was gripping my hand so hard now that I could barely feel my fingers. I glanced at Charlotte again. She and Tanner continued to stare at each other.

  Finally Tanner took a deep breath and looked back at me.

  “It’s genetic,” he said.

  “It’s what?”

  “Dad probably had it,” Tanner explained. “That’s probably why he killed himself. It can affect you so that you’re depressed and you do something like that that you normally wouldn’t do, or maybe what happened is that he got diagnosed and just couldn’t stand the thought of what was going to happen to him.”

  “He never told Mom anything?”

  “No,” he said, “but he changed his life insurance a year before . . .”

  “Changed it? Changed it how?”

  “He bought two policies that would pay even if he committed suicide,” Tanner said reluctantly. “There was a waiting period for them though. He did it as soon as the waiting period was over.”

  “He planned it for a year?” I cried.

  “We think so,” Tanner nodded.

  I looked at Charlotte again. She was white as a ghost and finally I figured it out.

  “You and I might have it,” I said, turning back to Tanner.

  “I got tested,” Tanner answered. “I don’t.”

  “Tested how?”

  “Blood test,” he said. “They just do a DNA test and tell you if you’ve got it or not.”

  He glanced at Charlotte one more time and then took a breath.

  “There’s a fifty percent chance you’ve got it, Jordan,” he explained, looking back at me directly.

  Next to me, Charlotte brought her free hand to her face, trying unsuccessfully to stifle a sob.

  I closed my eyes and didn’t say anything.

  Over the past year and a half I had been through a lot of trials and I’d definitely gotten a lot further away from God than I ever should have allowed. But I was back where I needed to be with Him right then and I’m happy to say that my first instinct was to pray.

  When I opened my eyes I had an overwhelming feeling of peace.

  “How’s Chase doing?” I asked Tanner, squeezing Charlotte’s hand to let her know that everything was going to be okay.

  “He’s still in his apartment right now and he’s still working and driving,” Tanner said, “but I don’t know how much longer he’s going to be able to keep that up. He’s going to have to start making plans before too long.”

  “What can I do for him?”

  “Go back to school and make straight A’s,” Tanner said emphatically. “He doesn’t want you getting distracted from your schoolwork because of this. He didn’t even want you to know right now.”

  “How’s Mom handling it?” I asked.

  “She’s . . . she’s doing pretty good,” he said after a moment’s hesitation. “I think she’s worried about you right now more than anything.”

  I didn’t say anything for another long moment. Charlotte was the one who finally spoke.

  “Should Jordan get tested?”

  “That’s up to him,” Tanner told her. Then, to me, he said, “You can get tested anytime if you want to find out.”

  “But . . . if I find out I’ve got it . . .”

  “They won’t be able to do anything about it . . . they can’t even tell you when or if you’re going to become symptomatic.”

  “If?”

  “Sometimes It doesn’t hit until old age,” he explained. “It’s possible that you could have it your whole life and never even know it.”

  “Then what’s the point in getting tested?” I asked.

  “Because if you find out you don’t have it,” he said, “it’s nice not to have it hanging over your head.”

  Charlotte took my lead and held it together pretty well until we said goodbye, but I know for a fact that she went straight across the street and unloaded on David and then spent half the night crying on his shoulder. I found her on his couch the next morning.

  The ski resort was about three hours away and we took Charlotte’s car. We rode in relative silence for the first hour and a half, at which point Charlotte – sitting in the passenger seat – turned and looked at me.

  “I don’t want to go skiing,” she said.

  I glanced at her.

  “Okay,” I said slowly.

  “Do you?”

  “Are you kidding?” I asked, tilting my head at her.

  She tried to give me a smile.

  “Do you want to go home?” I asked.

  “I want to go somewhere where we can be alone,” she answered.

  I nodded and kept driving, looking for a place to turn around. My mom had the day off, so we wouldn’t be able to go to my house . . .

  “Is your mom home today?” I asked.

  “There!” she said, ignoring me and pointing to a small billboard that was telling us: Turn right after one quarter of a mile.

  “Lakeside B&B?” I said, reading the sign. “You want to go to a bed and breakfast?”

  “I want to go somewhere where we can be alone,” she said again quietly.

  I turned right after a quarter of a mile.

  To this day, I have no idea how they got away with calling that place a “lakeside” B&B. “Pondside”, maybe, but definitely not “lakeside”.

  After declining the honeymoon suite with a Jacuzzi, we were shown to our room (where the owner started a fire in the wrought iron fireplace and promptly left us alone). He’d barely pulled the door closed before Charlotte burst into tears.

  I put my arms around her and held her for a while and then I sat down on the floor in front of the fireplace with my back against the footboard of the bed. I pulled her down beside me and wrapped my arms around her again.

  She cried a bit more, but after a while she finally stoppe
d. She pulled back and looked up at me.

  “Did you go on the Internet last night?” she asked.

  I nodded.

  “Me too,” she said quietly.

  I nodded again.

  Yes, I’d been on the Internet. I’d watched hours of heart-wrenching videos of what Huntington’s does to people who have it and what it does to the people who love them. I’d seen people slurring their words and writhing in bed, curled up in a ball with limbs shooting out uncontrollably. I’d seen people wasting away . . . dying of pneumonia . . . leaving suicide notes.

  “I’ve decided something,” Charlotte said.

  Decided something.

  What could she possibly have decided?

  Did she already want out?

  Of course, after what I’d learned about Huntington’s, I wouldn’t have blamed her a bit if she wanted out. One of the things that kept running through my mind as I’d watched all the videos the night before was that I did not want to be the one to take care of Chase . . . I didn’t want to spend years watching him die like that. And if Charlotte felt the same way about me . . . well, honestly, who could blame her?

  Besides that, if that’s how I was going to go, I wasn’t so sure I wanted Charlotte around to see it anyway. How was ruining two lives instead of one going to make things any better? If Charlotte wanted out, I certainly wasn’t going to try to stop her . . . but I had a feeling that wasn’t what she was talking about.

  A more likely scenario was that she’d decided I should get tested. All night long I’d gone back and forth about whether or not I should and it would’ve actually been a huge relief if someone else would just make that decision for me. My gut was telling me that it was going to be easier to trust God if I didn’t get tested, but on the other hand, it was reasonable that Charlotte might want to know.

  “What have you decided?” I asked.

  “I’m afraid you’re going to take it the wrong way,” she said.

  “No,” I said, shaking my head. “I won’t.”

  She paused and took a deep breath.

  “Just say it, Charlotte,” I said, squeezing her hand. “It’s okay. Just say whatever it is that you want to say.”

  She looked at me, her eyes still red, and then she swallowed and looked down at her lap.

  “Do you remember when you told me that you wanted to spend the rest of your life with me?” she finally asked, glancing back up at me with a worried look on her face.

  I nodded at her.

  “And,” she went on, “I told you that that was what I wanted too?”

  I nodded again.

  “Well, I don’t want you to think that anything’s changed.”

  “Changed?”

  “Just because you might be sick,” she explained. “Nothing’s changed. I still feel the same way.”

  “Charlotte,” I said quietly, leaning forward to rest my head against hers.

  “Uh-uh,” she said, shaking her head and pulling away. “Don’t ‘Charlotte’ me!”

  I looked at her, startled.

  “I know you, Jordan,” she went on. “And I know you probably think I’d be better off if we broke up so I could find somebody who didn’t have this hanging over their head or something . . .”

  “Maybe you would be better off,” I agreed.

  “No,” she said, shaking her head. “I’ll never be better off without you.”

  I looked at her, touched by what she was telling me.

  “Look,” I said, “I don’t think we need to go making any rash decisions right now. Why don’t I get tested and then we’ll see if it’s even an issue–”

  “But that’s exactly what I’m saying!” Charlotte cried. “It’s not an issue. It doesn’t matter one way or the other! I still want to get married–”

  She stopped herself short and looked at me.

  “I . . . I’m not trying to be presumptuous,” she said quickly, looking embarrassed.

  “No,” I agreed, fighting back a smile. “You’re just saying that if I was planning on dropping down on one knee and asking you to marry me, then I shouldn’t let this stop me?”

  “I knew this was all going to come out wrong,” she muttered miserably.

  I reached out and tipped her chin up so that she was looking at me.

  “I love you,” I said, running a finger along her cheek. I leaned forward and kissed her lips. “And it’s not presumptuous,” I said when I finally sat back. “Until yesterday I had every intention of spending the rest of my life with you, too.”

  “And now you don’t?” she cried. “Just because of this? Now suddenly everything’s changed?”

  “Just because of this?” I repeated. “Charlotte, this is huge! We can’t just act like nothing’s happened! I mean, how I feel about you hasn’t changed, but we have to think about this . . . we have to talk about it.”

  “So talk,” she said. She was starting to get huffy. Charlotte was very hard to have an argument with when she was huffy.

  “I don’t know if right now’s the time to–”

  “No,” she said. “Right now. We’re gonna do this right now. If you’re gonna break up with me then let’s get it over with so I can start looking for somebody else.” She gestured to the world outside and I bit back another smile.

  “Like I said, Charlotte, maybe I should get tested and–”

  “No!” she interrupted again. “It shouldn’t matter if you get tested or not! That’s what I’m trying to say! Either you trust that I love you enough to handle this or you don’t!”

  “Okay,” I agreed. I stood up and took the pillows off of the bed and tossed them up against the footboard. Then I sat back down and settled against the pillows, pulling her close again. “Let’s talk.”

  Apparently satisfied, she nestled herself beside me.

  “Do you have any idea what it’s going to be like if I get it?” I began.

  “Yes,” she nodded against my chest. “I know exactly what you’d have to go through.”

  “I’m not worried about what I would go through,” I told her. “I’m worried about what you would go though.”

  “I know what I might be getting myself into,” she assured me. “I want to spend every day that I can with you and if you get sick, then I want to be the one that takes care of you.”

  “I could start showing symptoms next week!” I reminded her.

  “And I could get hit by a bus tomorrow.”

  “Come on, Charlotte,” I said. “What if we get married and then I get it as early as Chase did? You could be a widow before you’re thirty years old!”

  “Well then I’d have plenty of time left to find somebody else after you were gone, wouldn’t I?” she said, looking up at me.

  I didn’t try to hide my smile that time, but I did try a different approach.

  “What about school?” I asked her. “What if you have to quit school to take care of me?”

  “I don’t care about school.”

  “But you want to be an engineer,” I protested.

  “I want to be with you more.”

  “What if it changes my personality?” I asked her. “What if I start acting all crazy?”

  “You’re already crazy.”

  “I’m serious, Charlotte,” I said. “I read about this one lady who just became a completely different person. She didn’t love her husband or kids anymore or appreciate anything that he was doing for her–”

  “That’s part of the whole ‘for better or for worse thing’,” she said. “It’s about loving somebody no matter what . . . even if they can’t love you back.”

  I sighed. She had an answer for everything.

  “What about kids?” I tried.

  “We can adopt.”

  “But Charlotte,” I said, shaking my head. “Don’t you wanna be able to go through that experience of being pregnant and–”

  I stopped myself in midsentence and looked at her. She had her eyes locked on mine, steadily holding my gaze.

  “Don
’t you get it?” she finally asked softly. “Don’t you see?”

  I stared down at her for a long moment and then I closed my eyes. I took a deep breath.

  “We were meant to be together,” I heard her whisper and I felt her lay her hand against my cheek. She kissed me tenderly and when she pulled away, I finally opened my eyes.

  “I love you,” she said, still whispering.

  “I love you, too,” I nodded, and then I looked at her for one more moment before I finally asked, “When do you want to get married?”

  ~ ~ ~

  MAY. THAT’S WHEN she wanted to get married. In May. We bought an engagement ring before I flew back to Texas and started making plans to go to Tahiti for seven days.

  After I got back to school, I made straight A’s like Chase had wanted me to. I’d wound up seeing him twice over the holidays while I’d been home and he wasn’t anywhere near as bad as what I’d been fearing – certainly nothing like most of the people Charlotte and I had seen in all the videos. He involuntarily shrugged his shoulders a lot and the muscles on his face twitched sometimes, but – overall – I thought he was doing pretty good. He told me not to worry about him, but to go back to school and to make him proud. And so I did.

  I was the starting pitcher for every game our baseball team played that spring – I broke two school records and we won the conference championship title for the first time since Baylor had joined the Big 12. When I told Coach Reichart that I was moving back home at the end of the semester, I honestly thought he was going to cry.

  NCAA regulations stipulated that I would have to sit out for an entire year if I transferred schools, but Charlotte had a huge trust fund that she wasn’t even using for anything because she had earned so many scholarships. That was good. Once Dad had been declared dead, we’d received the payoffs from the life insurance policies that he’d bought, but I had a feeling that we were going to be needing that money for something else in the (hopefully not too near) future.

  The night before our wedding – after the rehearsal dinner – I walked Charlotte to her car and kissed her goodnight.

  “Try not to get into too much trouble tonight,” she said and I smiled at her.