The Devil You Know

by Freida McFadden

  He lifts his blue eyes to meet mine. I had expected him to look as freaked out as I feel, but he doesn’t. And that’s what really freaks me out.

  “What was what?” he says.

  “The way your arm moved,” I say.

  He’s quiet for a moment. Finally, he says, “I don’t know. Nothing.”

  “Ryan…” I look into his eyes and all I can see is sadness. And that’s when I know for sure. “How long have you been having symptoms?”

  He sighs and drops down onto the sofa. He leans his head back, staring up at the ceiling. “A year.”

  “A year?”

  Oh my God, he’s known about this for a year. An entire year. So that means…

  No wonder he came to work at the VA. He probably couldn’t keep up the pace of private practice. I can’t believe I thought he came here because of me. I’m such an idiot.

  “Have you gotten an official diagnosis?” I ask him.

  He nods slowly. “Yeah. After the symptoms started, I knew I had to be tested. And… big surprise. I’ve got Huntington’s disease. Just like my dad and my brother.”

  I cover my mouth with my hand. I can’t believe this. Despite everything, Ryan always seemed indestructible. I can’t imagine him degenerating the way his father did. But he will. It’s in his genes. Stupid genes.

  As I watch him run a shaky hand through his hair, something occurs to me: “Are you safe to operate like that?”

  Ryan narrows his eyes at me. “Yes. Christ, Jane, you think I would operate if I felt that it wasn’t safe?”

  I don’t say anything. I know Ryan loves to operate—it’s what he loves the most, what he lives for. I don’t know if he’d give it up so easily.

  “I wouldn’t,” he says firmly. “I only get the symptoms when I’m really tired or stressed. And I take a medication to block them. But I couldn’t handle the private practice. It was too many surgeries. I had to cut back.”

  It must kill him that he’s in his mid-forties and should be in the prime of his career, but instead, he’s cutting back. “And what about when it gets worse?”

  “That’s what’s great about the VA,” he says. “I can still work here doing administrative and research stuff even if I can’t operate. And when I can’t do that anymore…”

  I raise my eyebrows. “What?”

  “Well.” He looks down at his hands, which are perfectly steady now. “I’ve got a gun locked away in my desk drawer at home.”

  I try my best to mask how horrified I feel. He’s always told me, from the day I found out about him, that he refused to live like his father did. If it ever came down to the point where he needed nursing care, he’d rather end it.

  But that’s a long time away.

  We stare at each other for a minute, but it’s not the same way as before this revelation. It’s not the same as that day when he rescued me in the parking lot by shoveling out my car. And then it occurs to me that in five years, he probably won’t be able to shovel off my car anymore. The thought of it makes me almost start crying again.

  “Come on,” he says. “I’ll walk you to your car.”

  “You don’t have to…”

  “Please.” He holds up his hand. “Let me protect you while I still can.”

  He takes his jacket because it really is very cold outside. I don’t see any other jerky movements on his part, but I know that they’re there, under the surface. He’s just going to get worse. Not if, but when.

  My boots are still useless. My feet get absolutely soaked during the trek out to my car. As soon as I get home, I’ll have to peel off my socks. And Ben will be waiting for me. God, I don’t even want to think about what’s going to happen when I see him.

  When we get to my car, Ryan nods at me. He doesn’t say a cheesy goodbye, and for that, I’m glad. It’s not his style. As for me, I didn’t make a speech when I dumped him for Ben the first time around, and I’m not going to make one now.

  Chapter 26

  After I pull into our garage, I sit there for a minute to figure things out. I’m going to see Ben in the immediate future and I have to figure out what I’m going to say to him. How am I supposed to explain why I was two hours late?

  Traffic was really, really bad during the fifteen-minute drive from the hospital.

  It was such a nice evening, I decided to take the scenic route home via Connecticut.

  Two words: Time warp.

  Or, I suppose, I could tell the truth. It was just a kiss after all. I wasn’t the one to initiate it.

  And anyway, this is his fault. He’s the one who said he didn’t think he wanted to be with me and that he was going to stay at a hotel. How was I supposed to know that he’d changed his mind and was suddenly sorry?

  I’m sure he heard the garage door open, so I know I don’t have forever. I finally get out of the car and enter the house as quietly as I can. Maybe he’s asleep. Maybe he just plum forgot that we had a gigantic fight and I decided to come home two hours late without any explanation.

  No such luck. Ben is standing in the living room to greet me when I walk in. He isn’t smiling. He actually looks awful. His hair is standing up in ten different directions, his face is unshaven, his shirt is smeared with peanut butter (I hope that’s peanut butter), and his eyes are wet and red-rimmed. Oh my God, has he been crying? Seriously?

  I’ve never seen Ben cry before. Maybe a tear or two when Leah was born, but that was it.

  Christ, this is bad.

  “Jane,” he says when he sees me. And before I can get out a word, he comes over to me and throws his arms around me. He holds me close to his warm body, whispering into my neck, “I was so worried…”

  “Sorry about that,” I manage. I pull away from him and he releases me somewhat reluctantly. “My clinic… ran late.”

  Is that the lie I’m going with? Guess so.

  “And I didn’t see your text messages,” I babble on. “I mean, not until I was already driving and by then—”

  “I’m sorry,” Ben interrupts me.

  I blink up at him. “What?”

  “About last night,” he says, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. The things I said to you… I can’t believe I said all that. I just… I’ve been doing this project for work and it’s all gone to hell lately and it’s really frustrating. More than frustrating—all I do is stare at screens of code until I want to poke my eyes out. And then I look at you being so successful and I just felt like… I don’t know… inadequate. I felt like you wouldn’t understand. Not that that’s an excuse, but…” He shakes his head. “I didn’t mean what I said.”

  I don’t know what to say to that. He sure sounded like he meant it last night. And it’s not like this was an isolated incident.

  “Okay, that’s a lie,” he admits. “I did mean some of it. It’s been… rough lately.” He sighs and looks away from me. “I’ve been having so much trouble focusing on work lately and when I stayed that extra time at my mother’s house, it was just… so peaceful. I admit it—it was nice. But…” He bites his lip. “Look, I’m not being entirely honest with you about what happened last night.”

  My stomach churns. What happened last night? Was there another woman involved? If there was, it would certainly make things easier guilt-wise, but the thought of Ben being with another woman makes me feel physically ill.

  “I did go to a hotel,” he says softly. “I paid for a room and I went up there, thinking I’d at least spend the night. But then… the second I walked in, it just felt wrong. I knew I had made a horrible mistake. All I could think about was how miserable I’d feel if I never got to spend another night with you. So I left and came back home.”

  “Oh,” I murmur. So he really did mean to leave me. It wasn’t just talk.

  “I’m sorry,” he says again. His eyes fill with tears. Honest to God, tears. “I know I fucked up. We were just fighting so much and I was so frustrated with work and… no excuses though.” He takes a deep breath.
“I’ll do anything to make things right between us again. Anything. I’ll go to counseling, I’ll build a temple in your honor—whatever you want. I love you. I mean, Leah’s my daughter and all, but you’re the one I’m going to grow old with.”

  I allow my eyes to meet his. “I want to grow old with you too.”

  He reaches out and gently eases his warm fingers into mine. “You’re the one whose hand I’m going to be holding in our matching rocking chairs on the patio.”

  “Is that what you fantasize about?” I tease him gently. “Matching rocking chairs on the patio?”

  “Hell yeah.” He manages a smile. “And matching walkers. And dentures. We’re going to be the envy of all the old people on the block.”

  I return his smile. The great thing about Ben is that he was always the kind of guy I could imagine getting old with. I never felt that way about Ryan, even when things were at their best. That was sort of prophetic, considering he’s not going to get old with anybody.

  “But when you didn’t come home tonight…” he says. “I just thought I blew it…”

  I swallow hard. This is the tricky part. I can’t lie to him. If we’re going to have a fresh start, I need to be honest. But then again, if I tell him the truth, I don’t know how he’ll react. It was just a kiss. But still, no man is going to want to hear that his wife kissed another man.

  “Ben…” I begin.

  Ben looks at me and his eyes fill with tears again. And that’s when I realize that he knows. Maybe he doesn’t know everything, but he knows something went on tonight. He saw those text messages from Ryan on my phone. He knows that he walked out on me and how awful that must have made me feel. And he isn’t a complete idiot.

  “Ben,” I say again.

  “No,” he whispers. “It’s okay. You don’t have to… listen, I love you. Whatever you have to say, just don’t say it. Okay, Jane?”

  I nod.

  He pulls me to him again. We stay that way, embracing in the living room of our home, for a long, long time. I love Ben so much. We’re going to be old people on the porch together someday. And I tell myself that tonight will be the very last time I ever see or speak to Ryan Reilly.

  I couldn’t possibly know how wrong I turn out to be.

  Chapter 27

  One Month Later

  “Mommy, I need to go potty!”

  I had been so excited for Leah to be toilet trained. I thought it would herald a new golden era in which Ben and I wouldn’t argue over who was going to be wiping up Leah’s poop. I thought of the fortune I would save on overpriced pull-ups. It didn’t seem like there could possibly be a downside.

  Yet somehow, there is.

  Leah needs to use the bathroom all the time, except when we’re actually toilet-adjacent. When we took her to Chuck E. Cheese to celebrate her fourth birthday a couple of weeks ago, she needed to use the toilet on the way to the restaurant and on the way back, but never while we were actually at the bathroom-equipped restaurant. And when I picked her up from the preschool five minutes ago, she seemed affronted by my suggestion that she use the potty before we leave. But now that we’re in my car, she suddenly needs the potty. Immediately.

  “Sweetie,” I say. I’m trying not to lose it. I’m so sick of changing urine-soaked clothing. “Can’t you wait until we get home? We’re almost home.”

  “No!” Leah wails. “I need to go nooooooooooowwwwwwwwwwwww!”

  I glance back at her and see that she’s clutching her crotch—the universal sign of needing to pee. I think there’s a reasonable chance that she might be able to hold it. And the only places we can pull over are stores where we’ll undoubtedly be told the toilet is staff only.

  We could also try the gas station coming up, but that only has a porta potty. Leah is not a fan of the porta potty. When I took her to one once during a carnival, she looked utterly horrified. “Mommy, this is ‘sgusting!” she gasped when she saw the hole filled with shit. As if she hadn’t just been sitting in her own shit on a daily basis one month earlier.

  So I drive as fast as I can, speeding through yellow lights, all in a desperate race against Leah’s bladder. “Mommy, I need the potty!” she sobs. As if I could snap my fingers and make a toilet appear.

  When I pull into the garage, I realize that I’ve lost the race. The familiar smell of urine wafts across the car, and when I look back at Leah in her car seat, I see a circular stain on her crotch.

  Damn it!

  “Leah,” I say sharply, “this is why I told you to go at the preschool!”

  She looks up at me, her lower lip trembling. “But I didn’t have to go then.”

  I sigh.

  I unbuckle Leah from her car seat and bring her into the house. She walks extra slowly because she’s covered in urine. When I get into the living room, I see Ben sitting on the couch with his laptop, eating from a jar of peanut butter. He immediately notices the urine stains on Leah’s legs and jumps up. “Another accident?”

  I nod miserably. “It’s all over her car seat.”

  Ben leans in to kiss me on the lips. “Okay, I’ll go clean out the car seat. You take care of Leah’s clothes.”

  I smile gratefully at him. Over the last month, Ben has gotten much better at helping out with Leah-related chores without my having to ask. It also hasn’t hurt that we started going to marriage counseling two weeks ago. I always thought that kind of thing was bullshit, but amazingly, it really helps. Just knowing that a third party is going to be listening helps us to talk things out more rationally. Also, in all honesty, knowing that a third party is going to hear about everything bad that I say helps keep me from saying bad things. The marriage counselor, on his part, has congratulated us both on being really dedicated to making the marriage work.

  “But first…” I nod at the jar in his hand. “Let me have a scoop of that peanut butter.”

  He grins at me. “Don’t you want to know what flavor it is first?”

  “That’s okay,” I say. “I’d rather live dangerously.”

  Ben scoops out some peanut butter from the jar. It’s brown and roughly the normal color for peanut butter, so that’s a good sign. He puts the spoon in my mouth and I let the peanut butter dissolve. I taste a hint of vanilla. And honey. And cinnamon.

  “It’s really good!” I say. “What flavor is it?”

  “French toast,” he says.

  “I want to try!” Leah yelps.

  A minute later, the three of us are still standing in the living room, eating peanut butter. Even though Leah is still covered in pee.

  _____

  “This is for you, Dr. McGill.”

  I have to say, I’m a sucker for presents. When a patient brings me a present, I always get really excited. Especially if that present turns out to be food, which it usually does. Usually they bring me chocolate or cookies or something along those lines. A few times, I’ve gotten candles. Once, I got a huge jug of vodka.

  Today Robert Hopkins has brought me a plant.

  I don’t love plants. Not to say that I’m not a nurturing kind of person, but I’m not good at nurturing plants. I’m already having enough trouble taking care of the human being I created—the last thing I need is a plant to worry about. I know all you have to do is water them, but even that’s too much trouble. (And aren’t you supposed to give them food? I know that’s counterintuitive because of, you know, photosynthesis, but I know there is such a thing as plant food.)

  And this is not just a plant. It is a ginormous plant. The plant easily weighs more than Leah does and she’s a good forty pounds. When I take it from Mr. Hopkins, I have to grunt with the effort of holding it. The pot comes up past my knees and the leaves run well above my head. It’s like something you would find in a jungle. What am I supposed to do with this plant? How am I even supposed to get it home?

  Mr. Hopkins beams at me. “My wife picked it out. Do you like it, Dr. McGill?”

  “I love it!” I hate it. “Thank you so much.”

  Actuall
y, maybe I shouldn’t be so enthusiastic. I don’t want another of these things.

  “We both wanted to thank you,” he says. “You’ve helped me more than any other doctor I’ve ever been to in my whole life.”

  “Really?” I’m so flattered. Maybe I’m really making a difference here at the VA. “What did I do that helped so much, if you don’t mind my asking?”

  “You prescribed me Prozac!” he says.

  Oh.

  Mr. Hopkins spends the next ten minutes raving about Prozac. And apparently, his wife likes it a lot too, because not only is her husband a lot more mellow, but it’s also killed his sex drive. “She likes that I’m not always pestering her anymore.” Win-win.

  My next patient is Mr. Herman Katz.

  I know Mr. Katz is a nice man, but I can’t help it—I cringe when I see his name on the schedule. What’s wrong this time? Did he get a papercut? And is he worried the papercut is going to get infected? And that the infection will spread up his whole arm and he’ll need IV antibiotics? And then the IV antibiotics won’t work and the infection will evolve into a cancerous tumor? Is that what I’m going to be reassuring him about today? Because honestly, I’m not sure I have the strength.

  “So what’s bothering you today?” I say to Mr. Katz.

  “Well, Dr. McGill…” His bushy white eyebrows knit together. “I had this episode. It was sort of weird and I thought I should come get it checked out.”

  “Sure,” I say. “What happened?”

  “So yesterday,” he says, “I was mowing my lawn and all of a sudden… well, it was like this curtain dropped down in front of my left eye. And everything was dark for, I don’t know, maybe a minute. Then it just went away.”

  Holy crap. I think Mr. Katz may have a real medical problem.

  “That is a little concerning,” I say carefully. “Has this ever happened to you before?”

  He shakes his head. “No, never. Do you think it’s something really bad? Do you think it’s cancer?”

  There are things out there that are as bad or worse than cancer. Either way, that’s not what I think Mr. Katz has. Amaurosis fugax, or transient painless loss of vision in one eye, has a lot of causes, but based on his cholesterol and the contents of his grocery cart the other day, I’m betting that Mr. Katz had something called a Transient Ischemic Attack or TIA. That’s like a stroke that lasts less than a day (and usually much less than that) and doesn’t show up on imaging.