Adrienne Moore sat motionless in the family room, gazing out the large window toward the river and clear sky. It was late afternoon, and the water was dark and rolling with a restlessness she felt. She heard Ian walk in.
This new house they had built and waited nine months to occupy was a mess. Boxes of their former lives filled each room, contents written on the outside for easy unpacking, but there were so many of them—everywhere she looked, as far as the eye could see. It was overwhelming.
“Ian.” She watched as he brought another box of books to be placed on the built-in shelves surrounding the fireplace. He smiled. “Yes?”
She took a mournful breath. “Have we made a mistake?”
He carefully put the box down, walked over to her, and squatted down so they would be at eye level, placing a large hand over hers.
“This is a trick question, right?” His eyes swept over the boxes and the clutter as he shook his head and thought of the last several weeks and all the changes that had taken place.
“Not really. But do you think we were too hasty?”
He sat down next to her, his voice patient and conciliatory as if to humor her. “All right, Adrienne, if you want to regress, I’ll see if we can buy our house back. I kind of doubt it, though, since the family who brought their six kids and two dogs have been settled in for, what, six months.” A deep, long-suffering sigh was expelled. “But I’ll try.” His puppy dog eyes drooped even as he tried to hide the twinkle lurking in those depths. He was so pathetic, it made Adrienne giggle.
“Oh, stop, you poor beleaguered soul.” She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed his cheek. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I get a little scared sometimes.”
“I know, I know,” he murmured, holding her, comforting her, wanting her to know everything would be just fine. Even though they both knew better.
“I keep wondering, Did I try hard enough? Surely I could have gone back, I could have made it work . . . if only I had tried harder?” Her eyes searched his face.
He thought of all the heartache she’d encountered on the Hill, people too busy pitying her to listen, people flying by her to get to their own destinations, not thinking twice about leaving her behind, about how she had felt seeing herself reflected in their eyes, their uneasiness . . .
“You did more than enough. They didn’t and don’t deserve you.” She took small comfort in this, but still couldn’t shake the doubts.
“You know, in the paper today, I read that a new congressman is being sworn in. He’s a quadriplegic . . . Maybe that will set a new tone; maybe if I went back and tried again . . .” Her voice trailed off at the quick shake of his head.
His voice was firm. “We are retired. There is no going back in our lives, only going forward. And don’t think we won’t have plenty of adventures here, my girl. You just wait and see. My only apprehension is—” And at this point his eyes dropped and he was silent.
Immediately concerned, Adrienne asked, “What? What on earth could make you apprehensive here? You told me just yesterday we were in God’s country, remember?”
“My one big fear is that living with me twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, you will get fed up and send me packing.” He had mustered just enough sincerity to make her throw back her head and laugh.
“You dog!” Adrienne hooked her arms around his neck and they both rocked with shared laughter. Suddenly, the daunting task of opening all these boxes and unpacking a new life didn’t seem so awful.
“Come, help me get these books on the shelves. And later I want to go and take a look at that splendid Gothic church down the way. We could go there Sunday?”
She considered, her face tilted. “The one on the main road?” He nodded and she frowned. “There’s no handicapped ramp there.”
“There’s one in the back. I saw it as I was rounding the bend in the road.”
“In the back? How inviting,” she said with sarcasm.
“Now, now, Adrienne,” he chided gently, wanting to interest her in a possible new project. “At least they’re trying. Don’t you think you could help expand their consciousness to see why a ramp in the back of the church is not . . . very welcoming?”
He saw her face flush, her shoulders straighten. “You bet I could! Sure. Let’s go on Sunday. What do you want me to do now?” She knew what he was doing; it didn’t take much to play along but, oddly enough, she did feel energized. And it helped to push away the insecurities that always seemed to be hovering in the background, as annoying and taunting as a gnat.
He pointed to the boxes of books and she began sorting through them and filling up shelves.
The small old man pushed the door open to the sanctuary and welcomed the smell of incense and aging wood; this had been his spiritual home for more than fifty years.
He needed the guidance of a higher authority every day, but especially on this one. Dr. Milton M. Meade was facing one of the hardest tasks a doctor has to face—telling a patient bad news.
Lord knew, this had happened many times since he had begun practicing medicine in this river village a half century ago. He made it his practice to rise early, eat a small breakfast, and come here to pray before he opened the doors of his office. When there were far fewer years to tote around, he had served in all the church offices diligently. Some would say too diligently; hadn’t this old doctor been the reason more than one rector had left?
Oh, well, it didn’t matter now. He had reached that place in his life, mellowed by years of being too right and too wrong, realizing the simple importance of doing what he did best . . . and letting the rest slide where it may.
Age had taken much from his body in these last years, putting boundaries on his practice. Now in his seventies, this had forced him to become semiretired. Hard to believe that only ten years before he had still made house calls. It was at that time, with a lot less trepidation than he had ever thought possible, he had also turned over the running of the church to younger people. That said, these solitary moments inside his sanctuary were the most important part of his day. It was here he felt the presence of his wife, dead now three years. What felt more real to him were all those years they had worshiped in this very pew, holding hands. God, where had that time gone? It had rushed right by him like the waters that rushed by this county before flowing into the bay that emptied into the Atlantic, never to be seen again. All those years gone, in the snap of fingers.
On his knees, eyes closed, his heart heavy, he put his petition to the Lord and asked for guidance in how to tell a young person whose time was stretching out in front of him what that future would probably hold.
Lord, have mercy. Most merciful God, give my mind the words to say what needs to be said, with the wisdom that only You can provide . . .
The doctor was finishing up his morning hours in a brick one-story office as weathered as he was. He had built it behind his home the year he started practicing medicine, when most of the things in his medicine bag were herbs and tinctures to make patients feel better.
In his long career, he easily recalled the immense importance of antibiotics, of the inching toward the future of medical miracles and now the explosive growth of biochemical engineering and genetics. What he had seen in his lifetime was incredible. And with a memory that age couldn’t touch, Dr. Meade held all those threads at his fingertips. But everything he knew wouldn’t help him this day. He walked out into the small waiting room and found what he expected, the strong, handsome young man who was the boy he had kept healthy for all of his twenty-eight years.
Dr. Meade couldn’t look Gregory Jamison in the eyes. Instead he waved him through the door with a quick greeting. “Come on in, Gregory. Good to see you, son.” Dr. Meade led the way past the main examining room with its long tables, shelves, and counters that had seen thousands of tests conducted.
Since he had cut back his time, Dr. Meade did no testing there. He sent vials away to licensed laboratories. This is what he had done for Gregory Jamison three months ago. He had sent out the blood to be tested under the name of John Doe for privacy.
Dr. Meade had tried to talk him out of it. Presymptomatic testing for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis was of no useful benefit, since there was no treatment available—as of yet. There was no sense in it, he insisted, but found deaf ears. He pointed out in a lengthy diatribe to the boy that the test would only confirm if he had the defective gene, meaning his chances of developing it were fifty-fifty or less. Even if he did get it, he might die of something else because no one could predict when it would happen. There were just too many variables, but Gregory wouldn’t listen.
Gregory had hoped for the best until he saw Dr. Meade; alarm bells buzzed and his throat tightened.
The bottom line was, he had to know. Not only for himself, but also for his fiancée, Melanie. Just her name caused a smile to crease his face, even while waiting for the disaster to be confirmed.
“Well, Dr. Meade. You said the results are back. So. What do they say?”
The question hung like an insurmountable fence until Dr. Meade removed his glasses, sighed heavily, and simply said, “I’m sorry, son. God knows, I’m so very sorry.”
Gregory Jamison didn’t crumple, didn’t dissolve into a wash of tears, but sat there in the chair and understood within himself that he had known it all along.
“God.” He could barely think. “Dammit.” He had just uttered the most profound and sincere prayer that had ever passed his lips.
“You have to realize, Gregory, this may very well not even be a problem until you’re seventy or so. Think of that! You’ve got your best years ahead of you. And all the while, research is finally getting within spitting distance of doing something. Are you listening to me?” Dr. Meade had seen the eyes darken, seen the young man look aimlessly out the back window toward the rose garden.
“How many years have you been cultivating that garden?” Gregory’s voice was toneless.
Dr. Meade thought a moment, aware of the regret and stillness in this young man’s question. “Forty years, give or take a few. Why?”
Gregory blew out a deflated sigh. “Your roses are older than I am.” His smile was brief before he looked directly at the doctor. “You can’t tell me with any certainty that what happened to my uncle won’t happen to me. Can you?”
Dr. Meade wasn’t letting him get away with that. “Statistically speaking, I most assuredly can! And don’t forget what I said about research. And there’s another thing. Just think, my boy, you can relish every minute you’ve got and take comfort in the fact that you have time. Time! Your uncle, God rest his soul, didn’t know what hit him. If he had, don’t you think he would have lived his life a little differently?”
“Would it have mattered?” Gregory didn’t think so. He wondered if his uncle had lived and played so hard because he knew his life was going to end so quickly.
The doctor shrugged. “I would think so, but no, I don’t know for sure. The point is to stay as healthy as you can. You work out; you take care of yourself. Your mother, whenever she sees me here or at the grocery store, tells me how fantastic that business of yours is doing, the one you and your friends started. You’ve got a lot of things going for you. Don’t give up!” The doctor was firm.
Gregory’s nod was a faint, tiny movement. “Right. I’m not going to give up.”
He was incapable of keeping the most important question facing him silent.
“What do I tell Melanie?” Startled that he actually heard himself say those words out loud, his white face colored.
“Does it matter?” Dr. Meade asked sharply, sternly implying that it should not.
Gregory, slumped back in the chair, looked at the ceiling and then passed a trembling hand over his brow, raking back the hair that had fallen into his eyes. “Oh, yeah. Yeah, it really, really matters.”
Melanie, with dark hair, luminous eyes that engulfed him, lips that entranced him. Melanie, who played hard and loved hard, who had stolen his heart the first time he’d caught sight of her.
As soon as Gregory knew there was a blood test he could take to find out if ALS was in his future, he agonized for several months over whether to take it. The agony of not knowing, he finally decided, couldn’t be worse than knowing.
He looked out at the roses through the window. Forty years? Would he have that long before it was over? Would he have even half that long?
Melanie loved him too much to wait for their wedding vows, something he was perfectly willing to go along with. She loved him so much, wanted him so much, and since he fully intended to spend the rest of his life making her happy, he didn’t think it mattered. But now? Dear God, if she wasn’t willing to wait for something as wonderful and sacred as their vows, how on earth would she ever be able to wait for him . . . to die?
She couldn’t. And he wouldn’t let her. It was his burden.
He shuddered as he watched his future shattering and falling around him, invisible boulders that no one could salvage.