Read Online Double Helix by Nancy Werlin - Free Book Online Page B

impulse to add that it turned out that Larry liked to make jokes about microbes, but managed to restrain myself.
    â€œYou have a question?” said Judith Ryan.
    â€œI was just wondering if Dr. Wyatt had left a message for me down here. Welcome to the company or something, or—or maybe he wants to have lunch one day and couldn’t find me . . .”
    â€œI assure you that if Dr. Wyatt wants to see anyone who works here, he can find them.” Without waiting for a response, she turned and reached for the lower drawer of a file cabinet.
    I slunk away.
    And then it was Saturday. Nursing home visit day. And yes, I know a good son would have gone daily, but I couldn’t bear to, lately. I had hit some kind of emotional wall last winter, and couldn’t make myself visit her any more often than once a week. My father could have insisted, and we both knew it. But he did not. He said it was my decision. In a secret, irrational part of my soul, I hated him a little for that. I hated him for it - every time he went to see my mother, while I went to Viv to hide.
    If Viv ever met my mother, she—even she, even sweet, generous, intelligent Viv—would stiffen in horror and revulsion.
    â€œHello, Mom,” I said. I found her with an aide on the airy screened porch of the nursing home. She was sitting in the big padded expensive wheelchair that protected her somewhat as the muscles all over her body and face twitched erratically. “It’s a beautiful day,” I said with that falsely cheerful note in my voice. “The lilacs are blooming. There’s a big set of bushes just outside. They smell incredible.”
    I pulled out the three-ring binder that I’d retrieved from her room. I opened it to the laminated page of photos of me. Me as an infant; me as a toddler; me at ten, twelve, fifteen. Beneath the photos we had printed my name in large letters. I held the page up before her. “Eli,” I said. “It’s Eli visiting you, Mom.”
    I had no idea if she recognized me, or the photos, or the word Eli anymore. I didn’t even know if she’d recognize the page of photos of herself.
    â€œShe’s just been unfortunate,” the neurologist had told us. “The—” He had paused for a second, searching for a word other than insanity . “—final deterioration associated with Huntington’s disease doesn’t always happen this rapidly.”
    I remembered staring at him, wondering if it would actually have been better to have more years with my mother in which the so-called early stages of HD dominated our lives. I remembered something I’d read in the HD literature. Intellect is not affected in the early stages, only access to the information .
    Better or worse, to have things happen so fast with her? Better for her, worse for us? The reverse? I didn’t know.
    Or maybe I did. Maybe I was glad she couldn’t live with us now. Maybe I was glad it would be over—relatively—soon. Weeks, or months, at best.
    I knew I was glad that her rages had slowed and softened, becoming sad rather than dangerous. Glad that, because of her total inability to keep her balance, she could no longer walk at all. Glad even for the stupors she fell into now, in which she was totally alien, totally unreachable.
    Evil thoughts. I know. I know.
    I know.
    The mass of twisted muscles that was my mother twitched and jerked beneath the soft blue cotton wrap dress she’d been put in that day.
    â€œShall I leave you two alone for an hour or so?” asked the aide.
    â€œOkay,” I said, as I always said, even while I wanted to scream no . “I know where to find you if I need you. All right if I wheel her out into the garden?”
    â€œGood idea,” said the aide. Her name was Patty, I recalled as she walked away. It was too late to use the name to her, of course.
    I could never easily remember the names of anyone who cared for my mother,