4
The next morning Simon left for school before Alex woke up. Jill stood at the sink looking out of the window as she washed the breakfast dishes, glad that today there were no library classes and she didn’t have to go in to the school. The rain had stopped and the sun was out, although a cold wind still blew. She felt restless and a little nervous as she waited for Alex to emerge. She dried her hands and sat at the dining room table, opening her laptop to read over the copy she had written the night before, but it was difficult to concentrate. It had been so long since she had thought much about him. As she let the memories come it was their friendship she found herself remembering more than anything else, not their romantic blundering and misunderstandings. She had stopped trying to imagine what had happened and why he was here. That could wait.
It was almost nine when he appeared in the lounge, bleary-eyed. “Hi,” he said, pushing his hands through his hair. He was in the same sweatpants and hoodie he had been wearing the night before. He looked vulnerable and a little dazed.
“Hi,” she said, closing her laptop. She felt a little skip of a heartbeat, just for a second. He was just as gorgeous as ever, even half asleep. He was taller, perhaps. Broader. The same dark, dark hair and deep brown eyes. But no smile this time. “You just slept for fourteen hours.”
“I feel as if I’ve been sleeping for fourteen hours,” he said. “Thank you. This is weird, I know …”
“You don’t need to say anything now,” said Jill. “Have a shower and some breakfast and then we can go for a walk on the beach.
How does that sound?”
“Sounds good,” he said, relief flooding his face.
An hour later they had made their way down the bush path to the beach, and were walking along the shore into the wind, keeping to the firm sand near the waves. It was way too cold to go barefoot. Jill tucked her hands in the pockets of her thick fleece jacket, glad she had worn her beanie and scarf. Alex had a big navy-blue parka with a fur-lined hood that he kept over his head, his hands also deep in his pockets.
“The beach looks different,” he said, looking around. “It’s a long time since I was here, but the shape’s all wrong somehow.”
“There was a big flood a few years ago. The shoreline has been different since then.”
“Oh.” He nodded, and they walked on in silence. “You look older,” he said after a while. “I mean, of course you do. I like your hair long.”
“Thanks,” she said. “You look older too.”
They stole glances at each other at the same time and laughed.
“So,” he said, after a while. “You’re living here again? You must have finished studying last year.”
“It isn’t what I planned,” said Jill. “Aunt Bert had a massive stroke near the end of last year and she’s never recovered. I wanted to go overseas and stay with Dad for a while, to see the world a bit, but I ended up having to come back here, for Simon.”
“Wow,” he said. “I’m sorry about Aunt Bert. That must have been rough for you and Simon.”
“Thanks,” she said. “She’s in a nursing home up the road. She doesn’t recognise us, or talk or do anything, really. There’s not much hope that she’ll get any better. She wanted me to have the house – she told me after the first stroke when she was still lucid most of the time.”
“It’s not much of a life,” he said, thinking of Huntington’s. If he had it, the end could be something like that. He felt his chest constrict, the beginnings of panic returning. He took a deep breath, willing himself to keep it together.
“No,” said Jill. “It’s horrible.”
“So Simon goes to school here?”
“He’s in Grade 9. There’s a small high school here now. He really didn’t want to go to the UK and I couldn’t just abandon him and Aunt Bert. So here I am. I work part time at the primary school in the library, shelving books and teaching a few classes. I really don’t like it much. But I do some copywriting and editing from home for an agency in PE. That’s going well. Dad still supports Simon, so I manage.”
“I’m sorry your plans didn’t work out. Aunt Bert and Simon are lucky to have you.”
Jill shrugged. “They’re my family. I might still get the chance to spread my wings a bit but for now, this isn’t a bad place to be. It’s home.”
They were silent for a moment as they walked on. The wind whipped around them and Jill held her hair in her hand to keep it out of her face.
“Let’s sit over there for a while,” she said, pointing away from the waves to some rocks that promised a little shelter. They sat down on some low rocks, out of the worst of the wind. “And you? How’s med school?”
“Med school was going great,” he said. “It’s been amazing actually, especially now we’re getting to do more.”
“It was going great?” asked Jill. “Is that what’s wrong?”
Alex closed his eyes for a few seconds and then spoke. “No, it’s not that. I got some really bad news a few days ago. I haven’t even told anyone yet. About Dad.”
Jill remembered Ed Palmer well. She could picture him now in his golf clothes, charming and confident, silver wings in his dark hair.
“He hasn’t been well lately. He’s been anxious and depressed. He was struggling to play golf, and he was starting to get these involuntary jerking movements. I thought maybe he had
Parkinson’s, or something similar. They did a genetic test, and it’s worse, much worse. It’s Huntington’s disease.”
“Oh no, Alex.” The name was familiar to Jill. She knew what it meant and why it was such terrible news.
“You’ve heard of it?” Alex looked almost grateful.
“There’s someone at Aunt Bert’s nursing home,” she said. Jill felt sick, and swallowed hard, tears threatening behind her eyes. The woman could hardly speak. She had a feeding tube and her arms and head often flailed around uncontrollably. Her son and daughter who visited her said her whole personality had changed since she had been diagnosed. What a terrible thing to find out, thought Jill. What a scary future to face. “I am so sorry, Alex.”
“So – I might get it. You know how it works?”
“Yes,” said Jill, trying to wipe her eyes without being noticed.
“Will you get tested? To see if you have the gene?”
“Yes. At least I think I will. The whole process takes a few months. I’m terrified of having the test, Jill. When I think about some doctor saying, ‘I’m so sorry Mr Palmer, but unfortunately you have an abnormal number of repeats of the Huntington gene’ – seriously, even now I want to pass out.” He put his head down on his knees as if he were about to do just that.
Jill put her hand on his shoulder. She had been right – grief and fear. But she knew something else: that for Alex, who had planned his career before he had even left school, who had not been prepared to surrender control even to a loving God, it must indeed feel like the end of his life right now. He lifted his head and looked out over the sea.
“I’m so glad I don’t have to explain it to you. I can’t imagine trying to make someone understand how awful it is if they haven’t seen it.”
“I’ve seen it, Alex. I know.”
“I had a big exam the day after I found out. The day before yesterday, I think – time’s gone fuzzy. I couldn’t remember a thing and I walked out. I couldn’t do it.” He paused for a while, then turned a little to face her. “Jill,” he said. “I’m sorry to be unloading this all on you. You must think I’m crazy to have come here like this. But I felt as if I was going mad. I was having such terrible thoughts – I think I was losing my grip on reality. All I could think about was coming here. It was the only thing I could focus on.”
“It’s okay, Alex,” she said. “It’s a little odd but I don’t think you’re crazy.”
He took a deep breath and picked up a handful of sand, letting it fall through his fingers. “I feel calmer already, being here. As if I can actually breathe.”
They were silent for a while. Jill was wondering what to say, wondering how she could help him. What she really wanted to do was put her arms around him and hug him, but they were still just old friends, if that. As it stood they barely knew each other. This new Alex, struggling and hurting, facing an uncertain future, was so different to the confident boy she had known all those years ago. Now he was staring down the grim certainty of his father’s suffering and death, and the very real possibility of the same thing happening to him. She could understand that for someone as ambitious and self-reliant as Alex, this disease could seem a fate worse than death. She knew that many people facing it chose to die on their own terms rather than submit to it. What could she do for him? Only be the brief refuge he had hoped to find.
“It makes sense,” she said eventually, “to take a few days out.”
“Are you sure it’s okay to be staying with you? I could easily go somewhere else …”
“It’s fine,” she said. “I want you to stay with us.”
“And then there’s all that stuff that happened with us before.”
“Oh Alex,” said Jill, shaking her head. “That was so long ago. We were kids. Let’s agree not to stress about that, okay?”
“I behaved badly,” he said, but there was a half-hearted smile on his face. “I really thought you would come around eventually.”
“I was so naïve, Alex,” she said, smiling at him a little selfconsciously. “I thought I had it all worked out. I thought I could be friends with boys as much as I wanted and then just pick one when I wanted to get married.”
He laughed. “We were just kids. I remember talking for hours, laughing about anything. How I could just be myself around you. It was so easy.”
“I remember too, Alex. I missed you after you left.”
“You did?”
“Yes, I did. We can be like that again for few days now, if that’s what you want. I’m going away in a few days, on a trip with some people from church. But until then you can stay with me and Simon, and we can talk and hang out, and walk on the beach, and you can take some time to get used to the idea of this thing. And maybe come up with a way to go forward.”
“Thank you. I appreciate it so much, Jill. I can’t be at home right now. My mom, Anna, Dad – I can’t face them yet. But … I don’t want to get used to the idea. I don’t want to go forward, I want to go back.” Alex lifted his face up to the sky and took a deep breath.
“You’ve never experienced grief before, have you?” asked Jill. “You have never had to let go of something and accept that there is nothing you can do about it.”
Alex looked over and grinned at her wryly. “Well there was this one time,” he said. “I had to give you up.”
“Hmm,” she said. “I suspect you bounced back from that pretty fast.”
He shrugged. “I guess. You’re right. I haven’t had much practice with things like this. No one close to me has ever died. Life has been a pretty smooth ride so far.” He looked at her. “But not for you.”
“No,” she said. “It’s fourteen years since my Mom died and I still miss her every day. There’s still a huge gap in my life where she should be. I have grappled with why she had to die, and why my dad had to leave us. And now there’s Aunt Bert, and having to mother Simon on my own. Most of the time I’m okay with it, and with whatever else God has in store for me, challenges or happy things. But it hasn’t been easy to get there. And what you are facing – it’s worse than anything I’ve had to deal with.”
“Yeah, well.” Alex picked up a pebble and threw it towards the sea. “Maybe you can share some of those grapplings with me.”
Jill was surprised. “You want to talk about spiritual stuff? Really?”
“Jill,” said Alex, shaking his head. “I have nothing in me that will help me face this. I don’t want to die. I have at least some life left. I have to go home and live it somehow, but the thought is paralyzing. I can’t. Right now, I can’t.”
Jill got up and dusted the sand off herself. “Come,” she said. “Let’s get out of this wind and go somewhere warm. And let’s change the subject and just chill today, okay? You’ve had a huge shock, and you’re exhausted. You need some more time to pass.”
He stood up. “You’re right,” he said. “I would love to go somewhere warm and talk about something else. You up for some brunch? Is there still a Wimpy on the main road?”
“There is,” she said, laughing. “That’s a great idea.”
“But just coffee,” he said, grinning at her as they walked back the way they had come, the wind at their backs now. “No milkshakes, right?”
“No need to specify beverages,” laughed Jill. He offered her his arm, and smiling, she took it.
5
The rest of the day passed quietly. They went to the Wimpy, and managed to eat eggs and bacon without talking about anything too serious, then back to the house where Alex steeled himself to call his family to tell them where he was. Jill went into the kitchen to give him some privacy, and when she came back she found him lying on the couch, asleep, his phone still in his hand. She stood for a minute, watching him, his forehead creased even as he slept, his arms tight against his chest. She fetched her blanket and spread it over him, careful not to wake him, and closed the curtains as quietly as she could. Then she sat in a chair on the other side of the room, suddenly feeling very tired herself. It seemed incomprehensible that Alex might have Huntington’s disease, and that Ed Palmer had it, and that both might become like the woman in the nursing home. The sick feeling she had had on the beach returned, and she closed her eyes. Oh Father, she prayed silently. I know you have heard all my prayers for Alex ever since I met him. And I will pray them again – please don’t leave him where he is. Don’t let him keep on shutting you out. Please, make this awful thing count for something. Please be his refuge and his hiding place, and help him. Alex shifted on the couch in his sleep and she opened her eyes, one more prayer in her mind. I want to help him if I can, Lord. Please, help me to know how to do that.
Simon came home from school at lunch time, but Alex didn’t even stir. It was after three when he finally woke up, amazed that he had fallen asleep and for so long. Then he changed his clothes and went for a run, Simon opting to join him on his bike. Jill went instead to visit Aunt Bert as she did most afternoons. Simon still found it hard to visit his great aunt, and Jill didn’t pressure him. It hurt to see her so quiet and still, and all but unresponsive. She wasn’t doing well that day and had seemed distressed, so Jill didn’t stay long, and was glad that he hadn’t come.
She was home already by the time Alex and Simon returned. “This guy is a machine,” said Simon, collapsing on the couch. “We must have gone at least 10 k’s in an hour, up a bunch of hills. I am finished and I was on the bike!” Alex grinned and sat down on a chair next to him, gratefully accepting the glass of water Jill offered him as he caught his breath. He’s looking better, Jill thought. A little more like his old self. Less haunted, perhaps.
Later, Simon went out on his skateboard to a friend’s house and Jill started making supper. Alex showered and changed and came into the kitchen. He sat on an old metal chair at the kitchen table, looking at some of the photos Jill had stuck on the fridge. There was one of a big group of people, in hiking clothes on a mountain, that caught his attention.
“Who’s this in the photo?” asked Alex. “This guy with his arm around you?” He lifted the photo off the fridge. Yes, a blonde guy with a big grin had his arm around Jill.
“That’s Mark.” Jill was standing at the counter with her back to him, and seemed to be focussed on chopping onions.
“Boyfriend?”
“No. Not any more, at least.”
Alex didn’t say anything, just put the photo back on the fridge.
“Go on, say it,” she said, still chopping.
“No,” he said. “I don’t want to give you a hard time. I’m curious, though.”
“I really should take that picture down. I met him at church at the end of last year. We dated, not for long. I broke up with him a few months ago. I see him all the time at church. It’s awkward.”
“That is awkward.”
Jill turned around, halfway through an onion. “I think he hopes we’ll get back together. He thinks he rushed me and I got spooked.” “Did he?”
“Yes! He was making wedding plans after two weeks. He would say things like, ‘We are just crazy about each other’ when I had never said that. It freaked me out.”
“Does he have a chance?”
“No. Maybe. I don’t think so.”
“You must have thought he was future husband material if you were dating him.”
“I did. He is. It just didn’t go the way I thought it would. I didn’t feel the way I thought I would. Maybe we can change the subject.”
“Of course,” said Alex. “Can I help you with those onions?”
“Thanks,” said Jill, putting the knife and cutting board down on the table in front of him, and getting a pan out of the cupboard. “What about you?”
“Do I have an ex who wants to marry me?”
Jill burst out laughing and shook her head as she put the pan on the stove. “Oh Alex, I remember this so well – we would be talking about something serious and you’d make a joke and make me laugh. Talking about Mark makes me confused and stressed but now … I feel better.”
“I remember it too,” said Alex. “And it’s been a while since I made a joke. I feel better too.”
“Fantastic,” said Jill. “You know what I meant. Are you seeing anyone?”
“I’m not,” he said. “Maybe I have the opposite problem to your Mark.”
“Please, do not say ‘my Mark’,” said Jill, shuddering. “The old ladies at church say that and it drives me nuts.”
“Sorry,” said Alex. “I was with someone for a few months earlier this year but then she met another guy and I didn’t even mind that much. I want a relationship. I want a connection with someone. But even when I’ve met girls and liked them a lot, it’s just always faded.
Definitely no wedding plans after two weeks.” “Not a bad thing,” said Jill.
Alex finished chopping his onion and put the knife down. When he spoke, his voice was quiet. “If I have Huntington’s … how can I ever find someone, Jill? How could I ever ask anyone to take that on?” He put his hands over his face, the thought of that dark lonely future too much to bear. “I’m sorry,” he managed to say. “I can’t … I don’t want to …”
“Oh Alex,” she said, putting a hand on his shoulder. “Here, don’t put your oniony hands on your face.” She handed him some paper towel to wipe his streaming tears, which they both knew could not be entirely blamed on onions. As she stood there beside him, she had another realisation about why he was here. Being here with her was somewhere safe to be falling apart. No one in his real life had to witness it if it happened here, and for some reason she was someone whose sympathy he could stand. He had said it all those years ago, and she knew it was true: “Jill, you understand me, you get me, you listen to me and I can say anything.” She could have felt that it was all a huge imposition, but she didn’t. She just stood there with him, as he stood over the sink and washed his hands, his tears falling into the warm, soapy water, and she felt only one thing – that his pain hurt her too.