Coming in from the Cold (17 page)

* * *

Dane had heard the car pull into Willow’s driveway, and then the sound of women’s voices. He steeled himself against what was coming. Even so, his palms began to sweat. There were two knocks on the door, and then it opened. Callie appeared on the threshold.

His mouth went dry.

Coach popped up off the couch. “I’ll step outside,” he said, before Callie could even ask.

“Actually—” the doctor cleared her throat “—I might need you nearby.”

“No, you won’t,” Dane spit out. “Coach, this is private.” He wiped his hands on his T-shirt and took a deep breath in through his nose.
Steady
, he coached himself. Whatever the doctor said, it didn’t change anything. The die had been cast a long time ago.

Still, he found himself studying Callie’s stony face, looking for clues. Doctors gave out test results all the time. Callie probably had plenty of practice delivering bad news. But she couldn’t know how desperately he wished he could duck the truth a little longer. Just a few more years of not knowing—that’s all he had wanted. And now he couldn’t have even that.

Quicker than Dane would have liked, Coach put on his coat and disappeared, shutting the door behind him.

Callie approached the sofa, where Dane sat with his broken leg propped onto a chair. She took something out of her bag and held it up to show him.
A syringe
. “This is a sedative. If you can’t control your reaction, if I think you’re going to hurt either one of us, I’m going to sedate you.”

“You won’t need it. My test results won’t really be news.” In spite of the brave words, his chest felt tight.

With a grim face, Callie drew a piece of paper out of her purse.
Fuck
. He locked a defiant stare onto his face.

“Your test came back, Dane. You’re negative for Huntington’s. You’re
don’t
have the gene.”

A second passed, then two. Dane, his jaw cemented together, was having trouble understanding what she’d said. For a long moment he replayed her words in her head, trying to make sense of them. Then he felt his face sag, and the room got fuzzy around the edges. “No,” he heard himself say.

Callie knelt down into his line of sight. “Yes. I have the lab report right here.” She handed the paper to him. “You don’t have it.”

Dane’s throat clenched as he took it from her, curling his fist around it, crimping the paper. “It’s wrong.” It had to be. And whenever the correct diagnosis was eventually revealed, this moment of uncertainty would come back to burn him like a hot poker. He knew how badly misplaced hopes could cut a man. He’d spent his teenaged years waiting for someone to tell him that there’d been a mistake—that Finn would live.

But the disease always won. He’d seen it too many times to believe that he’d be any different.

Callie reached into her purse again and took out a second sheet of paper. “I did two different labs, Dane. Two results, from two different states. Same answer. You’re going to have to get old like the rest of us.”

“You’re a liar,” he whispered. It wasn’t fair, trying to make him think that.

She shook her head. “I’m not lying.”

“Bitch.” He stared her down, looking for any sign of weakness. Watching for a flinch.

She returned his gaze with clear eyes. “I did what you asked. Now it’s all on you.”

When he spoke again, his voice cracked. “You’re just fucking with me.”

“No, I’m not. And that means every other ugly thought you’ve ever had, every muscle tremor, those weren’t symptoms, okay? You’re fine, and now you have to figure out how to live with yourself.”

Throwing the beer bottle in his hand was purely a reflex. As he watched, it went whistling past Callie’s head, landing with a bright crash on the other side of the room. Along with the sound of shattering glass, he heard a scream of frustration from his own mouth. Then the door flew open and Coach ran inside. “Don’t FUCK with me!” Dane yelled.

“Dane!” Coach cried, running across the room. He laid a hand on Dane’s shoulder.

But Dane swatted him off, and then swung himself unsteadily to his feet. The room was too hot, and there were too many people in it. He couldn’t think. If he could just get outside, the world might become a recognizable place again.

“Sit
down
,” Coach ordered.

“I’m leaving,” Dane said, his heart galloping around his chest.

Coach tried to press him back toward the couch, but Dane wasn’t having it. He swung an arm into his coach’s gut, sending the older man stumbling. But because he was standing on just one leg, the swing put Dane off kilter, too. He began to topple.

That’s when Callie dove at him, aiming his body back into the sofa. “Hold him!” she yelled, and Coach fumbled towards them both, leaning onto Dane’s shoulder, pinning him awkwardly to the couch.

And then he was trapped there, like an animal. His broken knee throbbed, and bile crawled into his throat. The room spun, and he closed his eyes to blot it out.

“Can’t believe you made me go there,” Callie hissed. He heard a plastic snap, and then felt a hand snatch the back of his sweatpants down. A second later, there was a sharp stab in his ass.

“Oww…” he roared. “Get OFF me.” His chest felt as if it would break apart, and the next breath came out as a heated sob.

“You owe me seven-hundred dollars. And you owe Willow an apology,” Callie muttered behind him. Her warm hand pressed into his back. Dane wrapped one arm around his face and focused on not throwing up. His limbs began to feel strangely heavy.

* * *

At the sound of shouting, Willow shoved her feet into her shoes and threw open her kitchen door. It was only five quick paces to the apartment door. But when she arrived, it was hard to make sense of what she saw there.

Callie held a syringe in one hand, its plastic top still between her teeth. As Willow watched, she let go of Dane and replaced the cap over the needle.

“What’s
happened?
” Willow demanded. Dane lay on the couch, his head buried, his chest heaving.

“Willow, look at me,” Callie said. Willow found her friend’s comforting face. “It’s okay, honey. Everything is
okay
,” Callie repeated.

But it couldn’t be. Because Coach snatched a piece of paper off the floor as if his life depended on it. After scanning it, he sunk to his knees on the rug and covered his eyes. “My God. I can’t believe it.”

“Coach,” Callie warned. “You’re scaring Willow.”

Willow strode into the room and took the paper out of Coach’s hands. It was a lab report, with a strange name at the top. “Who’s Igor Maniac?”

Callie jerked a thumb at Dane, who had melted into the couch. “I made up the name…” Callie’s head dropped, as if exhausted. “Willow? The prisoner got let out of jail. I’m not sure what happens next. But right now I need us to go and sit in your kitchen. Put the kettle on, and I’ll be there in a minute.”

Willow nodded, but her feet wouldn’t un-root from the floor.

“Coach?” Callie asked, picking up her purse. He looked up at her, his eyes wet. “Did you know about this?” Callie walked over to Dane, picking up his arm to feel for his pulse.

Coach nodded. “I dug up his mother’s obituary on a hunch.”

Callie replaced Dane’s arm beside his head. Then she tipped his shoulder against the back of the sofa, so that he wouldn’t roll off. “He won’t wake up until tomorrow, okay? The next few days will be tough.” She handed him her card. “Call me if you think you’re in over your head.”

“Thank you,” he whispered.

* * *

“It’s really an amazing disease, in a sick sort of way,” Callie told her. “You’re absolutely fine for thirty years or so—the symptoms are undetectable until well into adulthood. At first you begin to have muscle spasms, and you become forgetful,” Callie said. “And then it just goes downhill from there. Your body fails, and your personality darkens. You can’t chew your food or speak. But you don’t lose all your marbles until the end, so the patient is always aware of every bit of suffering.”

Their cups of tea sat untouched on the table. “Oh, my God,” Willow said.

“It’s extremely rare. His mother died of it.”

“And his brother died,” Willow said. “Last month.”

“Okay…” Callie said. “He didn’t bother to tell me about that. No wonder he’s batshit crazy. I swear to God, Wills—the guy could not have been a bigger asshole to me if he’d tried.”

“So…” Willow put her hands on her belly. “He thought the baby…”

Callie nodded. “Dane never had the test, because he didn’t want to know. But then you were pregnant…” She rolled her eyes. “If I didn’t have to listen to all his bullshit, it would all sound quite noble. He did it for you, Willow.”

“No wonder he was so angry.” Willow put her head in her hands. “I was really reckless, Callie. My prescription was lapsed, and I lied about it. I thought I could just skate by.”

“Well…” Callie cleared her throat. “Someday he’s going to look back on this and realize that you did him a big favor. But it’s really hard to say when that day might be. First he’s going to have to get past a whole encyclopedia of issues. Survivor’s guilt…”

“Anger,” Willow added. “Denial, grief, isolation. Even his issues have issues.”

Callie smiled. “At least you have the training to understand what he’s going through.”

“I
knew
there was something, Callie.”

“You’re a gifted shrink.”

“He referred to himself as toxic.”

Callie blew out a breath. “He wasn’t kidding. He meant it quite literally, didn’t he?”

Willow nodded. “And if that’s why he was so adamant that I have an abortion…” she rubbed a finger around the rim of her teacup. “That’s basically admitting that he wished he’d never been born.”

“That’s fear talking,” Callie said.

“It’s years of pain talking. He…he actually
cried.
Right after we…” She cleared her throat. “He sounded broken.”

“Don’t go all soft on me, Willow. I think you have to leave him out of it, now. And make up your own mind. What does your gut say?”

“My gut is worried about money. How can I even weather a few months with a newborn on nothing? It’s not like my temp job will give me a maternity leave.”

Callie flinched. “Things could be pretty tight for a while. But with a couple of lucky breaks, you could be a practicing psychologist in a couple years with a great job. It’s not impossible.”

Willow put her chin on her fist. “If only I knew where to get a lucky break. They are in short supply around here. I do want a child. But is it even fair to have one, if I know I’m on the path to becoming a welfare mom?”

“I’m not going to tell you what to do, Willow,” Callie said carefully. “But I do know that being a welfare mom isn’t necessarily a permanent condition.”

“I just don’t know the answer,” Willow sighed. “If you have a crystal ball lying around somewhere, don’t hold out on me.”

“I would never,” Callie laughed. “I’d be peering into it myself, trying to figure out if I’m ever going to meet Mr. Right.”

Even though it was already March, Vermont was about to be hit with one more blizzard. On his back on the sofa, Dane listened to it roll in. The wind rattled the windows, and snow sped past the glass, flying first in one direction and then the other.

He had spent the last few days in a stupor, barely speaking. After whatever powerful drug Callie had injected wore off, he woke the next day shaking. Coach had been treating him as if he had the flu, bringing him soup and sodas. And at first, he’d felt exactly like a flu patient—he’d had a crushing headache and zero interest in food. He slept for hours at a time.

But whether it was the sound of the storm approaching or that his shock was wearing off, today his brain had come back online. He’d spent the day lying still, trying to look at his life through a completely new lens.

And it was excruciating.

Every minute of Dane’s past had been colored by dread. Intellectually, he understood that his negative blood test ought to change that. The problem, he was beginning to realize, was that words on a page didn’t change
him
. Not overnight, anyway. Instead of joy, he felt scared. He would have fifty more years instead of ten. But since he’d tried so hard to keep people out of his life—except for Finn, who was gone—it was going to be a pretty lonely half-century, unless he underwent a complete personality transplant.

And maybe it was too late. Once an asshole with a death wish, always an asshole with a death wish?

In a matter of days, Dane would get the go-ahead to put weight on his leg and go back out into the world. He would have to start physical therapy. He would have to look people in the eye. He wasn’t sure he remembered how.

A heavy cloud of self-loathing hung over him. And whenever he thought of Willow, it twisted his guts into a knot.

“I’m going for groceries.” Dane looked up to see Coach stepping into his boots. “We might be snowed in,” Coach said, grabbing his jacket.

“Could you…” Dane’s voice was scratchy. He had barely spoken for three days. “Would you see if Willow has everything she needs?”

Coach tilted his head, his expression soft. “I would do that,” he said. “But she isn’t home. Callie picked her up a couple of hours ago, they went off to some appointment at the hospital.” He snatched his keys off the nail by the door. “I hope they make it back before the snow gets any feistier. See you in an hour.” Then he went out the door.

Appointment at the hospital
.

Dane sat up quickly, bile rising in his throat. Had Willow gone to have a…? His heart banged against his ribcage. He should already have apologized. He should have already told her that whatever she decided, it was okay.

He’d been such a shit.

Dane put his head in his hands. The room threatened to spin. He could still apologize. He would. But what if she’d already listened? What if she believed he thought she was…all those nasty things he’d said.

He took a deep, shuddering breath.

The sound of the wind grew increasingly loud, rattling the roof. For the first time in hours, Dane got up off the sofa. Pulling his crutches off the floor, he maneuvered over to the window. The snow had begun in earnest about an hour ago, and now Dane saw that the flakes had already covered the patches of grass that had shown through the recent thaw. The window revealed its slice of Willow’s yard and the barn beyond. Dane waited, watching.