“But people live with it, right?”
“There is a shortened life expectancy with the disease.”
“Shortened?” My brother finally spoke up. “How much shortened?”
“On average, from the time symptoms appear, people live between ten and thirty years when they are diagnosed as adults. But with early-onset like you’ve experienced, the lifespan is generally ten years or less. I’m sorry, Jayce. I’m so sorry.”
The three of us sat in complete silence for a long time after that. Eventually, Dr. Kohan came in and joined us. He spent another two hours going over things, although I’m not so sure either Jayce or I absorbed much.
I couldn’t get past the life expectancy—ten years was the maximum from the time symptoms first appeared. Jayce had said yesterday that he’d started to notice small issues as far back as five years ago. My brother had just turned twenty-one.
“I’ll leave you boys my card.” Dr. Kohan took a pen from his lab coat pocket and jotted down something on the back. “If you have any questions, my cell phone number is here. Call me day or night. It’s a lot to take in. I know that. You’re going to have questions once everything really sinks in. That’s what I’m here for.”
Dr. Kohan and Uncle Joe spoke for a few minutes, and then Dr. Kohan extended his hand to my brother and me. “I’ll have my office manager give you both a call to set up appointments for this week in my office to follow up.”
“Both of us?” I shook the doctor’s hand.
“Yes. I’d like you to meet with our genetic counselor before you get tested. She works in my office on Thursdays.”
“Tested?”
The two doctors looked at each other before my uncle spoke gently.
He placed a hand on my shoulder. “As Dr. Kohan explained, Huntington’s is hereditary. Fifty percent of children inherit the gene from a parent.”
I’d been so freaked out about my brother, that part of the conversation had slid right by me. I’d heard the fifty-percent statistic, but it didn’t register correctly. I guess I assumed if fifty percent got it from a parent, and there were two of us…my brother had been the unlucky one. But the actual words our uncle had said sunk in now. Fifty percent of children—meaning each child had a fifty-fifty chance.
My brother would be dead within five years, and I had the same odds as a coin flip of having the same disease.
Chapter 29
Natalia
The bed was empty.
I must’ve drifted off in post-coital bliss. Lifting my head, I went to turn around and grab my phone off the nightstand, but I nearly jumped out of my skin when I saw Hunter sitting in the rocking chair across from the bed.
Springing upright, I clutched the sheet to my chest. “Holy shit. I didn’t realize you were there.”
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”
He’d slipped on jeans and sat with the top button open, sans shirt or shoes.
“What are you doing?”
The corner of his mouth curled. “Watching you sleep.”
“That’s weird. Was it interesting?”
“Riveting.” He stood and crossed to the bed, leaning down to kiss my forehead. “I gotta get going. I have to meet the building department in a little while, and you have an appointment in an hour.”
“Oh. Okay.”
He searched my face and spoke quietly. “Do you regret it?”
I wasn’t sure if he was referring to this morning or our relationship in general. “Us or today?”
“You tell me.”
I gave real thought to the question before answering. I might be disappointed, but I couldn’t say I regretted my time with Hunter. “No. I don’t.”
“Dinner this weekend?”
“Sure. That sounds good.”
He brushed his lips with mine, and then left.
***
I should’ve been paying Minnie this time. At a minimum we should’ve called it even. We’d finished our session, but I’d stayed to chat while doing a little first aid.
The blisters on her fingers from her incessant checking that the front door was locked and the stove was off had opened, and I was concerned that they might get infected. Snapping on rubber gloves, I cleaned out the raw wounds and wrapped her fingers as we chatted away about my life. I’d told her all about Hunter over the last two months.
“There are only three reasons a man is noncommittal. Either he’s a fisherman, a milkman, or a priest.”
I glanced up at her. “You’re going to have to explain that one.”
“A fisherman knows there are plenty of fish in the sea, and he doesn’t want to spend his life eating cod when there’s tuna and striped bass that he still hasn’t tasted yet.”