CHAPTER TWO

ONLY A FEW DAYS PASSED before Zara found herself waiting in a medical facility for answers. Chad must have cashed in more than a few favors at work to get the appointment with the genetic specialist inside a week. That first night, Zara and Chad had agreed to put a ban on further Google searches, realizing a bit too late that the information on the web was high on shock value and low on usable material.

After fifteen minutes in the waiting room that felt like hours, they were escorted down a hall and into Dr. Cramer’s private office. Degrees and certificates lined the walls above waist-high bookshelves. Though the room had a somewhat personal feel, the pictures seemed oddly lacking in family images. Maybe smiling faces were too much for the kinds of broken, mutated patients seen here. Patients like Zara.

She dug into her purse and pulled out two fun-sized Snickers bars. Some people drank or used drugs when faced with this kind of life-leveling stress. Zara had a verified chocolate addiction. Seriously, who really cared about something so trivial? It wasn’t like she couldn’t give up sugar. She could. If she really wanted to.

Chad wrapped his hand over hers, sending a shiver of surprise across her skin. Somehow, she’d managed to eat both candies in the time she’d been lost in a mental list of excuses.

“There’s nothing to worry about.” His thumb stroked the inner ridge of her hand. “We’ll deal with this together, just like whatever else comes up in our lives. We’re a team now.”

Zara bit at the inside of her lower lip, forcing emotion into compliance with the sting of pain. “Don’t say that. It really isn’t too late.” Nine days was a tiny blip in the length of most lives. They could walk away. Pretend their wedding never took place. If sins really did visit the second and third generations, wouldn’t that mean tragedy and dysfunction came along for the show? “You’re not bound to me. My life is going to keep taking me down. It’s not what you signed up for.”

“No way.” Chad shook his head, his jaw tense and lips tight. “We made a commitment. You and I are tied together forever.” He put a stiff arm around her, pulling her close and kissing the top of her head. “You’re the one for me. I signed up for the whole thing. The trials we have and will have don’t change that.”

The gene inside of Zara felt like something dirty, distasteful. It was a stowaway that could sink the entire ship. If only she could throw it overboard. “I’m not who you thought I was when we took those vows.”

“Ha. I’m betting there are more than a few things about me that you haven’t discovered yet. I know you think I’m pretty studly, but you might not be too impressed the first time I have to deal with a bat.” He gave an exaggerated shiver for her benefit.

“That’s not a comparable flaw.” Zara’s head relaxed onto his shoulder. “Unless you have some genetic time bomb of your own, we aren’t even.”

A deep voice echoed behind them. “I’m sure I can find one, if I look hard enough.” Dr. Cramer came around his desk and sat down. “We all have some sort of genetic abnormality. You’d have to go back to Adam and Eve to find a person with perfectly formed DNA. Usually, we don’t notice many of these things until sperm and an egg with the same mutations come together.”

Chad leaned forward in his seat, his arm leaving cold behind in its absence from Zara’s shoulder. “Does that mean we’re safe if I don’t carry the Hunter gene?”

Dr. Cramer’s face grew serious. “There are a few times when it doesn’t take two to tango. In the case of Hunter syndrome, we’re talking about an X-linked recessive syndrome. The mutation only occurs on the X chromosome. For a woman, this means she doesn’t have to worry about getting the disease, because her other X chromosome will take over where the malformed one is weak. But for a guy who inherits the gene, there is no other X chromosome to make up the difference. For them, the gene equals Hunter syndrome, and I’m not going to downplay this: It’s serious and fatal.”

Flashes of her brother’s face came with a burst of deep grief. The way his voice changed, slurred. The features that weren’t quite what they’d been when he was a toddler. And the agony he faced until the day he died. Tyson had been only six years old. A child whose life didn’t have time to be lived.

Chad’s arm reached across her again, settling on the outside of Zara’s opposite thigh. “Is there anything we can do to prevent having an affected child?”

Dr. Cramer blinked red eyelashes.

“You could do everything in your power to have only girls. Sperm sorting is widely used. It’s not a guarantee, but it changes your odds significantly.”

Chad cleared his throat. “So any boy we had would get the disease?”

She made the mistake of looking at Chad’s face. His skin had paled to a pasty, washed-out hue, dreams of a son flowing away with his usually rosy color. She couldn’t do this to him. He deserved the opportunity to pass down all the rich Mahoney traditions the way his father had.

Dr. Cramer stood and came around the desk. He half sat on the edge closest to Zara. “No. You’re still looking at a fifty-fifty chance of an affected son. I did a little reading on recent studies before this appointment. There are some promising advancements in gene therapy. Hope is coming for patients with this disease, but I can’t make any promises as to when.” He crossed his arms. “Zara, from what you’ve told me, your brother had the most severe form. It’s not always like that, but it is a rough life. It’s not my job to make decisions for you.”

There was no decision to be made. She couldn’t take even a tiny risk that her child would suffer because she wanted to gamble with his life. Zara stood. “Thank you for your time. You’ve been a great help.”

Without a look back, Zara walked out the door.

Alone.

The genetics center sat next to the hospital, both buildings on a hill overlooking the valley. As she stepped into the damp chill, she was overwhelmed by the view. How could so much beauty exist in the midst of such pain?

Reaching the SUV, she realized her mistake. No keys. And no escape.

Zara hadn’t believed Chad when he’d tried to motivate her that morning with his belief that good would come from their appointment. Good didn’t cling to her life like it did to his. She’d always known, somewhere in the shadow of her thoughts, that tragedy would tear them apart.

Welcome to reality. She didn’t wish any bad on her husband. She only needed him to understand that life didn’t always have a silver lining. For some people, it was unwaveringly difficult. Hardship and loss were attached to their actual DNA. And now she even had a name for it. Hunter syndrome.

Zara leaned up against the passenger door and let her purse fall to the wet asphalt.

By the time Chad arrived, she’d discovered a hole in her shoe that must have absorbed half the puddles between the building and the car. Her foot had gone from cold to freezing to numb and probably pruned.

He walked across the parking lot with a file under his arm and the look of a man ready to face a challenge. But she wasn’t a challenge he should try to conquer. She was as dangerous as a Himalayan peak, and she could feel her lungs burning with the need for oxygen.

“I worried you left without me.” He pulled the keys from his pocket and pressed the button on the fob, releasing the locks. “Are you all right?”

She flung open the door. “I’m fine. Could you take me home, please?”

He stood beside her as she buckled her seatbelt. It’s not like she was a child who needed assistance. “Zara, this isn’t all bad. There are many options.” He dropped the folder on her lap and shut the door.

Chad climbed in his side, eyeing the information still unopened on her legs. “Just check out some of that literature. Did you know there are embryos available for adoption? Seriously, we could adopt, and you’d still have the whole pregnancy thing.”

She let her hand settle on the smooth surface of the folder. Pregnancy wasn’t something she’d dreamed of. She hadn’t even given it much thought. When Zara pictured them together, growing their family, she saw children playing on the farm, 4-H projects, and tree forts. This broken gene forced her to ponder stages of life she wasn’t ready to consider, much less commit to giving up or salvaging.

“There are so many things we can do.” He started the engine and backed out of the parking space. “To be honest, I was really worried coming into this. I mean, I had no idea what we were going to do. But now, it’s so clear. Why on earth would we need to have biological children? My mother was adopted. She and my grandma were so close. It’s not like sharing DNA created that bond. It was love.” He wrapped his hand around Zara’s knee and squeezed. “We have plenty of that.”

Zara was the older half of a set of identical twins. She’d never imagined a family that didn’t look like a reflection of herself, but biology hadn’t held her and Eve together any more than it had pushed Chad’s mother and grandmother apart.

“Are you sure you can give up something as basic as having your own child?”

“No matter how our kids come into our family, they’ll be our own.” His lips pressed together as if they were holding back the emotion that shone in his eyes.

A seed of hope expanded in Zara’s chest until it curled into a tiny sprout.

Eve

May 3, 2019

The baby’s screams woke me up this morning. My brain is still pounding. I love him, but I want him to quit howling all the time. Sweat’s dripping down my hairline, and I’m pretty sure I’m going to die soon if things don’t change.

At least it’s quiet now. Charlotte is feeding her brother what’s left of the evaporated milk mixed with water. She’s pretty capable for a five-year-old. I’m grateful for that. Yet she still drags around the scrap of what was her blanket and chews all the time on her thumbnail.

I’m doing the best I can.

The two of them, they’re always hungry.

All we have to eat is a can of pork and beans. I promised Charlotte we’d have more by tomorrow, but I’m not sure that’s true.

Why hasn’t Joey come back? I know he’s got business, and I shouldn’t complain when he lets us stay here. But it’s been so long, and I don’t dare go to the food bank. Last time, he was so mad, I thought he’d kill us all. He said it made him look bad, but what would his people say if they saw us now?

The person I saw in the mirror this morning was unrecognizable. I’m a ghost of who I was.

Food isn’t the only thing we’re running out of. Inside the cup that holds our toothbrushes, there are just two more balloons of heroin. Only enough to get through tonight, so I can do what has to be done to feed my kids.