Coming In From the Cold(24)

Or maybe that was just a cop out.

The decision was plenty difficult even without Dane's acidic  disapproval. Willow wanted a baby. That part was easy. But she never  thought she'd do it alone. Yet waiting around for the right partner  didn't seem to be working. They would be a tiny family of two. It  wouldn't be easy, but nothing good ever was.

Willow turned off the stove's heat and stirred her candle wax with a chopstick.

There was only one hurdle she really couldn't see how to get over. Someday, the baby would ask her. "Who is my father?"

And Willow feared the only answer she could give the child would be: "a  man who won't even look at us." It just didn't seem fair. Willow herself  had grown up knowing that her parents didn't want her enough to keep  her. And now she would inflict at least a portion of that same doubt on  her child, from the moment of his or her birth.

Which decision was more selfish? To keep the baby, knowing it would be  shadowed by its father's animosity forever? Or to take another way out,  and never have to try to explain?

She just didn't know.





* * *



Dane heard the gravel under Willow's wheels just after six thirty. By  seven, Coach was sitting on the end of his bed, and they were watching a  boxing match. The knock came a few minutes later.

"Are you expecting anyone?" Coach asked, getting up to answer it.

"Actually I am."

Coach's eyebrows went up, and he opened the door. "Hello, there!"

Dane recognized Callie from that night at the bar. Her eyes flickered between Coach and Dane. "Hi, I'm Willow's friend Callie."

"Nice to meet you, Callie!" Coach said. "Can I get you a drink?"

She shook her head.

"Coach," Dane said. "I'm sorry, but could you give us ten minutes?"

His face fell. "Sure, kid. I'm going to run out for beer." He shrugged  his jacket on and went outside, closing the door behind him.

Callie carried a small blue cooler with her. He knew she would show up  and do this thing for him, because he'd really left her no other choice.  She sat down on a wooden dining chair. "I brought the stuff, but first  you have to tell me what this is about." Her eyes were wide and  questioning.

"Did Willow have an abortion?" he asked.

Callie's jaw dropped. "I'm not going to tell you that. You dragged me out here for that? To invade her privacy?"                       
       
           



       

Dane pointed at her cooler. "I'm just trying to figure out if we need that."

The doctor's face creased with confusion. "Well, don't we? If you're infected with … "

"With what, Callie? I'm sure you came up with a few theories on the trip over here. Let's hear them."

She blinked. "I won't play games with you. You tell me right now what the danger is, or I'm leaving."

Dane swallowed, reading on her face that she meant it. The trouble was  that Dane had never said it aloud. Never. Not once. I probably have …  The  words stuck in his throat as she stared at him.

"Enough." She stood up.

He coughed once. "My mother died from Huntington's disease." He watched her face.

Callie sucked in her breath and dropped back onto the chair. Slowly, her eyes filled with tears.

Dane chuckled. "That's what everyone says. Everyone who's been to  medical school." He shifted in the bed. "You were thinking HIV, right?  That would have been a bummer, but controllable with drugs." He rolled  up the sleeve of his flannel shirt. "Or maybe you thought about  hepatitis C. Now there's a nasty disease. But look on the bright side,  Dr. Callie. Even if you're clumsy with that needle, you can't catch what  I've got. And neither did Willow, obviously."

"But the baby might have it," Callie whispered, wiping her tears away  with the palms of her hands. "And you've never had the genetic test? And  now you have to. For Willow."

He looked up at the ceiling. "If she already had an abortion, then I don't need it at all." He waited.

She gaped at him. "You're putting me in an impossible situation."

"Really? Would you like to trade places with me?" She didn't say  anything, so he continued. "When I was a kid, waiting outside my  mother's hospital room, this whole crowd of medical students files out.  The attending brought them all in to see the Huntington's patient.  Because they'd probably never see another one again, right? Too weird,  too rare. So one of these students says to his friend, ‘That's the  disease that makes me say, whatever happens to me, I'll be fine. Because  I don't have to die of Huntington's.'"

He looked at Callie, but she just stared at him, fear in her face. And  then, very slowly, she leaned over and picked up the cooler. "Willow  hasn't … " she stopped herself. "I think you do need the test. Have you  considered that knowing might be a relief?"

He couldn't take his eyes off her hands, which were unwrapping the  sterile tube. His stomach knotted. "No way. I would never have done the  test. But Willow's forcing me."

"This isn't Willow's fault."

"Yeah, it kind of is," he said as his hands began to sweat. Liar. You  broke your own rule. He took in a shaky breath. "At least I got a little  something out of it. Willow was a good lay."

The look on Callie's face could have been bottled and sold as repellent.  "Here's a tip, Dane. Don't say things like that to a woman who's about  to stab you." She snapped on a pair of latex gloves, and then ripped  open an alcohol wipe.

He thrust his arm toward her. "I have a broken leg and a fatal disease.  You couldn't hurt me with that thing worse than I hurt already." It  should have sounded tough, but his throat caught on the words.

She scraped his arm with the disinfectant. "If my memory is correct,  your odds of inheriting Huntington's are fifty percent," she said. "What  if you're in the clear and a total asshole for nothing?"

Dane shook his head. "In my family, we don't do fifty percent," he explained.

She hooked the tube to the vial and uncapped the syringe. "You'll feel a-"

"Do it," he cut her off. "I get blood drawn every fucking month for drug tests."

He felt the tug of his blood into the syringe, where it would flow through the tube and into the vial.

"Other people have troubles, too, you know," the doctor said softly.

"Cry me a river," he said.

She sighed. "I don't suppose you know that Willow lived in six different foster homes before she turned eighteen."

"No shit?" he whispered.

"No shit," the doctor answered. In the silence she changed vials.

"Well. I guess her bad luck hadn't run out yet, then," he said.

"I guess not," Callie said, her voice shaking with fury.

And then it was done. She put the vials on ice, and slapped a bandage on his arm. "What name am I putting on these?"                       
       
           



       

"Daffy Duck," he said. "If you put my own name on it, you might as well kill me right now."

She took two steps toward the door.

"I'll pay in cash," he said. "Just tell me where to send it."

She sighed and turned around. "You know, it can probably be tested in utero, too. Even if you are positive … "

"You won't be telling Willow. Doctor-patient privilege."

Her eyes were wet. "If it weren't for Willow, I would tell you to go right to hell."

Dane adjusted his pillow. "Everyone else does." He picked up the TV  remote. "We need the results before the end of her first trimester," he  said. "The abortion will be easier on her."

The door slammed shut after Callie went out.

Coach came back a few minutes later. "You okay?" he asked.

Dane turned the volume of the fight up. "Good as I ever was," he said over the noise.





Nineteen





On a very cold night the following week, Willow made homemade gnocchi  for dinner. She was still craving carbs. And her dinner guest-Callie-was  a willing accomplice. She made a long-simmered sauce Bolognese as well.

"So, how goes it with your surly neighbor?" Callie asked.

Willow shook her head. "I've seen him once since his episode. And the  only thing he wanted to talk about was your phone number. He wanted to  ask you about specialists at the hospital. Did he call?"

Callie looked pained. "I didn't return the call."

"I told him you wouldn't." They ate in silence for a few minutes, but  there was something weighing on Willow. "Callie," she asked. "I want to  ask you something. But don't assume … " she trailed off.

"What is it, sweetie?"

Willow put down her fork. "I just want to make sure I've weighed every  single option, okay? So I'm curious about what doctors think of  abortion. How does medical school, well, inform your opinion about it?"