The house remained largely the same, with one glaring exception – a heavy layering of dust. It was as if my normally perfection-oriented mother hadn’t had the strength in her final days to tidy up, and from the look of her emaciated body, I could certainly see why.
Like a trespasser, I slowly made my way through her house. It wasn’t that I was necessarily looking for something. Perhaps I just needed some sort of closure. But that was not what I found. While the rest of the house was tidy, her bedroom appeared to have been touched by a hurricane. Flashes of red caught my eye. All over the white walls were words, and phrases, and ominous warnings. Die. Never grow old. Be Afraid. Death sentence.
My hands shook as I read the inner ramblings of a diseased mind, and for the first time, I felt pity for the woman who’d birthed me. She hadn’t been evil by choice. She hadn’t asked for this disease. Maybe she would have been a lovely woman without it. Knowing that her cruelty couldn’t have been helped brought me some measure of comfort… until I opened the bathroom door.
The writing was no longer on the wall. As I stared into the mirror, my reflection was covered in blood. Instead of using lipstick to communicate, my mother had chosen her own plasma. And the words she’d written weren’t the cryptic ramblings of a crazy woman. No, this message was clear: my name written in blood.
Sam
And it was followed by two little words that put an end to the beautiful life I’d imagined with the man I loved.
You’re next
Screaming, I sank to the floor.
32
Keith: No Easy Fix
The image of Sam all dressed for the Oscars last night made me laugh. She had obviously been expecting something, and it gave me the slightest bit of pleasure to make her squirm. After all, she hadn’t made asking for her hand in marriage easy. It felt like I’d been jumping through hoops for five very long years. But no matter the restrictions she’d placed on us, I’d never been deterred either. It wasn’t like I had much of a choice in the matter. I loved her. Only her. So, I was forced to wait out her ultimatum.
Now it was her turn to wait, if only because the ring I planned to propose with hadn’t been ready until today. And now here it was gleaming under the lights. I picked it off the silver tray and inspected its brilliance from all angles. It was perfect – beyond perfect, actually. This ring was Sam.
The jeweler caught me salivating. “She must be one special woman.”
“Oh, she is,” I agreed, running my finger over the smooth stone. “I’ve proposed twice already.”
He studied me more closely. “And you’re finally buying her the ring?”
“No. The first time the ring was made of seaweed. The second time I was cock-blocked by her insane mother.”
The slightest grin playing out over his face. “She said no twice?”
“She did indeed.”
“You’re a determined fella.”
I shrugged. “You know what they say: the third time’s the charm.”
“Well, for your sake, I hope she says yes, because this ring is a special order and can’t be returned.”
“Way to have faith in me, dude,” I replied, somewhat annoyed he’d brought the return policy into my otherwise landmark moment.
“Oh…” The man mumbled, realizing his mistake. “I didn’t mean it that way.”
“No worries,” I said, too happy to be vindictive. I turned Sam’s ring from side to side, examining its splendor. This was no ordinary diamond engagement ring I was buying for Sam. In the center lay a milky blue agate encircled by a bed of diamonds. It was beautiful and durable and delicate all at once – just like my girl. “Besides, this time, I’m not taking no for an answer.”
“Good for you.” Was that a hint of condescending asshole I heard in his tone? Why was I getting the distinct impression he wasn’t liking my chances? Did he know something I didn’t?
The jeweler placed my ring in a box and rang up the remainder of my purchase balance. As he was running my card, he glanced up at me several times.
“I thought you looked familiar. You’re one of the McKallister boys, aren’t you?”
Evidentially, I hadn’t gone far enough out of my county to buy an engagement ring in peace. I wasn’t even the famous one, and yet still I got recognized.
“Yep,” I answered, hoping my curt reply would put an end to our chitchat.
“Well, I take it all back. Your lady will say yes, for sure. Who wouldn’t want to marry a rock star’s brother?”
Okay, now I was officially pissed. What a shithead. Did he really think Sam would only consider marrying me for my pedigree? If that had been the case we would have been betrothed long ago. My phone rang. Perfect timing. Sam had effectively saved the opinionated jeweler from a tongue-lashing.
“Hey, babe,” I answered, leaving the shop and heading for my car. “What’s up?”
“Keith… help me.”
* * *
By the time I got to Sam, I had to peel her off the bathroom floor. As far as I could tell, she’d been there for hours. The tile was slick with her tears as I scooped her into my arms and I carried her out of the house. Only after I’d clicked Sam into the passenger seat did she ask me to go back inside for her purse and the paperwork from the hospital. Leaving her alone was not an option, and I was about to tell her that when Shannon screeched to a halt in her Prius and bolted for my truck.
While the two were tucked into a tight embrace, I headed back to the house to fulfill Sam’s request. It was only when I’d stepped inside a second time that I understood the full scope of what had happened. From her frantic sob-sodden phone call, I got that her mother had passed and that she’d gone to the house, but her incoherent comments made no sense until now.
My jaw twitched as I read the words Carol had left for her daughter. Scribbled on the wall were hateful words like Abomination. Vengeance. Repulsive. But the words Sam had repeated over and over to me were the ones written in blood. The ones dripping down the mirror in an eerie warning. You’re next.
I’d never wanted to hurt someone the way I wanted to hurt that woman. As if it weren’t enough for Carol to wreak havoc in life, she’d found a way to reach her hand out of hell and wrap it around Sam’s throat. How could it be that the kindest woman I’d ever known had been raised by the devil?
* * *
Sam took the week off work and spent most of it curled up under a blanket with Murphy by her side. She seemed inconsolable at times, and although I knew people handled grief differently, I wondered why she was mourning a woman who’d treated her so poorly. My hope had been that once the funeral was over, we could get back to our normal lives. I’d propose, and we’d spend our days planning for the wedding that had been such a long time coming. But Sam didn’t get better. She cried a lot. Everyday. It had become noticeable enough at work that she was offered an extended leave.
But sitting home alone while I was at work was not helping her either, and slowly but inexorably, depression set in. Sam slept a lot and, when I attempted to comfort her, she always pushed me away. Even Murphy seemed at a loss to help her as no amount of face licks stopped the flow of tears.
So I was somewhat encouraged today when I arrived home from work to find her at the kitchen table, a pile of papers scattered about. She was freshly showered, an oddity as of late, and seemed more at peace than I’d seen her since her mother’s death.
“Hey, hun,” I said dropping my keys in the bowl and heading toward her for a kiss. She pulled back, and the thin line of her lips told me that perhaps she wasn’t doing as well as I’d thought. Maybe I’d just arrived in the eye of her storm? Proceeding with caution, I asked, “Are you hungry? You want me to grill up some fish for dinner?”
Her eyes met mine. She was not all right. In fact, Sam was the opposite of all right. How could I have read her so wrong? Lifting her to her feet, I held her in a tight embrace. Sam was like a ragdoll, limp and heavy in my arms. My hand ran along her back, soothing her in the only way
I knew how, while speaking softly in her ear. “Sam, talk to me. What’s going on in your head?”
She pulled away and sank back into her chair. “I haven’t been honest with you, Keith.”
“Okay,” I replied, already feeling the tension settle upon my shoulders. I took the seat opposite her as Murphy jumped onto my lap. It didn’t matter what she’d done. I would forgive her, as I always did. There was nothing she could say that would push me away. “Whatever it is, we’ll work it out.”
“Not this.”
The way she said it with such foreboding was my first indication that things would not be going my way. “What does that mean?”
“I found out in the hospital that my mother died from complications from Huntington’s disease. I’d never even heard of it before. The doctor explained to me that the disease attacks the brain cells, causing mental illness and eventually death. There’s no cure.”
“Shit. And your mom had this?”
“Yes. The reason I’ve been so upset, Keith, is not because of my mother’s death but because the disease is hereditary. It runs in families. And… and…”
Sam dissolved into tears. I let the dog down and dropped to my knees in front of her and lay my head on her stomach. “Just let me help you. We can figure this out. Everything will be all right.”
“No!” She pushed me back, jumping from her seat. “I don’t think you fully understand, Keith.”
“No, Sam. I don’t understand shit because you’ve been crying for a month straight. I’m trying to be supportive, but it’s a little hard when every time I try to comfort you, I get brushed off.”
“I have the disease!”
“You…” The left side of my face went numb. “Wait, how do you know?”
“The first signs are balance issues. Remember when I fell down those stairs last month?”
“So what? I regularly fall on my head. I ran into a wall yesterday. That doesn’t make me sick, it just makes me stupid as fuck.”
“I forget things.”
“So do I. Remember when I biked to work the other day? Well, when I was getting ready to leave, I spent fifteen minutes searching for my car. I was on the phone with cops reporting it missing when it hit me that it hadn’t been stolen – I was just a dumbass.”
Sam sighed, long and heavy. “I understand you’re trying to make me feel better, but nothing you say will change what’s coming. Aside from me showing the early signs of the disease, the reason I know I have this is because pretty much everyone on my mom’s side has died from it – including, I think, Sullivan. I’ve been combing through the family tree, and I’m telling you, Keith, my deranged ancestors are falling from the branches.”
What was she saying? None of it made sense. Sam was the picture of health, or at least she had been until her mother passed. And now she was trying to tell me she was dying? No way would I accept that. “Okay, look, I’ll talk to Jake and ask for a loan. We’ll get you the finest doctors. If they’re on the East Coast, we’ll go there. If they’re in Europe, we’ll go there. Medical trials? Whatever it takes. Anything we have to do, Samantha, we’ll fight this together.”
Sam raised her head slowly and sluggishly. I noticed then, the light had faded from her eyes. Sam wasn’t Sam anymore. I knew that look of defeat. I’d seen it in Jake’s eyes after the kidnapping, and I’d seen it again in my own while in the midst of my drug issues. The hell if I’d let despair take my girl!
“There is no fighting this.” Her voice matched the gloom in her eyes.
I swallowed the rising lump in my throat. This could not be happening.
Sam continued to rattle off words that laid siege to my ears. “Once the symptoms start, they get progressively worse. As my brain cells die off, mental illness will kick in, and I’ll become just like her, spewing hate and vitriol to those I love. Most with Huntington’s disease first start seeing symptoms in their early thirties, and then death comes 10 to 15 years later. I’m twenty-eight, Keith.”
Sam paused as if waiting for my reply, but I was too stunned to formulate any coherent words. So she continued.
“By the end, I’ll be completely gone, bed-ridden in a facility. My mother never got that far because the disease messed with her ability to swallow and she basically starved to death.”
Tears welled in my eyes as I shook my head. No, way could I accept this. Not Sam. “No.”
Now she was out of her chair, comforting me, her hand gliding through my hair. She held me tight as she repeated over and over, “I’m so sorry. I’m just so sorry.”
“What about… what about all the things we want to do together?”
She shook her head, and the finality of it all ripped my heart in two.
“We can’t. Not anymore.” She spoke in hushed tones, all her strength depleted. “It’s why I’ve been crying so much. I’ve been trying to come to terms with it. And today I finally accepted what I’ve known all along. This horrible disease is my future, but God help us, Keith, it won’t be yours.”
33
Samantha: Dead End
Cradling Murphy in my lap, I watched from the picture window in the living room as Keith packed up the last of his belongings. Getting him to this point had not been easy. Keith fought me all night and then into the next day, but I stayed strong and unwavering. After all, I had what he did not – the time to come to terms with my fate. If I gave Keith that same courtesy, I knew he’d find a way to talk me out of my decision. It wasn’t that I didn’t want him – I desperately did – but I refused to chain this loving man to my side when there was a full, rich life out there just waiting for him.
Yet Keith refused to accept the reality of our situation. Armed with his honorary medical degree off Wikipedia, he went back and forth from the computer to me, presenting the facts about the disease as if he somehow thought I hadn’t already been beating myself over the head with them every single day for the past couple of weeks.
Huntington’s was an open-ended disease, and one that didn’t discriminate. Passed on from generation to generation, all who inherited it would eventually meet a horrible end. And even though the statistics were somewhat on my side – with a 50% chance of harboring the disease in my DNA, I didn’t need genetic testing to tell me what I already knew – the monster lying dormant inside me all these years was lazily opening its evil eyes. I could tick off the symptoms as I experienced them. It was no longer a matter of if, but when.
Still, Keith clung to that 50% number like the glass half full kind of guy he was. I, on the other hand, had already anchored myself to despair. In my eyes, the glass wasn’t just half empty – it was bone dry. No matter when I got the testing, I knew the outcome would be the same – I died at the end.
Despite it all, Keith was willing to stand by my side. It was noble and romantic in a ‘doomed lover’ sort of way, but it was also unrealistic. I, of all people, knew that getting to the curtain call would be the real battle. As my brain cells slowly withered away, Keith would take the brunt of the suffering, and slowly but surely, he would grow to resent me – just as I’d resented my mother and she’d resented hers.
There was no easy answer. Every path for us led to heartbreak. If we stayed together, we lost. If we split up, we lost. No matter what, our hearts would break, and we’d have to learn to live our lives apart. Sure, I could go through the effort and time and expense to get an official diagnosis, but that would only bring us closer together, winding him around my disease as if it coursed through his veins as well as my own. No, going our separate ways was the only answer to us each escaping with the least amount of suffering. Apart, we could still cling to our memories, and I comforted myself in knowing he would go on to love again. Keith had too much tenderness in his heart not to pass it on.
And me? Without having to worry about him, I could get back to work and make what I had left of my coherent life matter. With any luck, I could get to a place in my life where I wouldn’t look back in sadness. Keith was my first love– my only love �
�� my last love.
As he walked back into the house, Keith’s shoulders were slumped and heavy. All that was left now was the fine print. I’d already worked out the bigger picture. My grandmother had left a sizable inheritance to my mother, which would soon be passed on to me. As soon as that money was in my account, I’d buy Keith out of the house we owned together. And Murphy… I hugged him tighter to me. I suppose I could have pushed for shared custody, but I couldn’t bear the idea of Keith coming in and out of my life. It had to be a clean split for both our sakes. He got the dog.
* * *
“Are you all packed?” I asked, trying to sound unaffected in the face of such sorrow. I wanted desperately to postpone his departure, but why prolong the torture? I was a dead end, and the sooner he turned around, the better.
“Yeah.” Keith’s voice broke in the most grievous of ways. I resisted the urge to smother him in the love he deserved. No one had said this would be easy – but no one had said it would rip us to bloody shreds either.
I stood up, carried Murphy over, and transferred him to Keith’s arms.
“Are you sure?” he asked, nothing but misery in his words.
I fought back the tears as I dipped my head into Murphy’s soft fur and nuzzled him. Yes, I was sure. Even furry pups weren’t safe from a deranged mind.
“I’m sure,” I nodded, leaving a trail of tears in his unruly hair. “Mommy’s going to miss you, baby.”
“We’ll come by and visit,” Keith whispered, his hands sliding over my neck.
Rogue Wave: Cake Series Book Five Page 27