Splinters of Light

by Rachael Herron

  Dylan said, “Shut the fuck up,” but the other men laughed.

  Ellie held up the joint, examining the glowing red end. If she held it close to her eyes, she could cover the whole Oakland skyline.

  “Come on,” Jasper said, sounding more exasperated. “If you’re gonna be a fuckin’ baby, pass it back. That’s good shit.”

  She wasn’t a baby.

  Ellie didn’t really know what she was, but she knew she wasn’t a fucking baby.

  She considered the lit tip for another few seconds. Then she carefully dropped the joint into the water. She waited until Jasper was done spluttering and hurling epithets at her, and then she said, “You don’t fire flares into the night sky on the Fourth of July. You ruin the show that way, you fucking idiot.” Directly over her head, the first sky flyer exploded and she turned her face up to the light.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Harrison folded his hands behind his head and leaned back. “So let’s walk through it again. Did you hear a car?”

  “I heard a bunch of cars. I didn’t think about it.”

  “And you’ve tried her cell.”

  “Five times. Fifteen texts.”

  “She’ll be back.”

  Nora shook her head. “She’ll never forgive me.” She would never forgive herself.

  “So, what, you just think she’s going to go live on the streets? Because you gave her one slap?”

  Nora sighed and pressed her fingers against her forehead. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  “You’re overreacting. Where do you think she went?”

  “Probably out with Dylan. He’s in a band—did I tell you that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Guitar. Of course it has to be the guitar player. If she’s out at a club right now, underage, I’ll . . .” But her voice trailed off. There was nothing she could do.

  Harrison left his seat, going to stand behind her.

  “Oh,” Nora said. “God, will you . . . ?”

  “Of course.”

  She leaned back against her chair and closed her eyes. Harrison’s hands were in her hair, his thumbs and the pads of his strong fingers rubbing exactly where it felt the best. He’d taken a massage class years before. He’d gotten two different girlfriends out of it, too, if she remembered correctly.

  His hands were perfect. Nora groaned and said, “If I were a millionaire, I’d hire you to do this all day long.”

  “This knot is the size of a coffee cup. What are you doing to yourself?”

  She had to tell him. It would explain so much—how she hadn’t been able to touch him, to let him touch her. How she’d been avoiding him, going in from the garden when she heard his car pull into the driveway next door. She hadn’t been able to, though. Not until now, now that she’d fucked up so big with Ellie, now that she had her back to him and she couldn’t see his face. “I’m sick.”

  His hands stopped moving.

  God, it wasn’t fair to him, not to face him with this. She spun in her chair. Harrison’s hands hung helplessly in the air. “I’ve been trying to think of a way to tell you . . .”

  “Okay.” He sat heavily, placing his hands carefully on his lap. “What is it?”

  “Early-onset Alzheimer’s.”

  “Fuck.” His voice said he knew what she meant. She wouldn’t have to explain it to him, thank god.

  “How do you know it?”

  “I knew a family with it.”

  “In your practice?” Harrison was a psychotherapist. A good one, she knew.

  “Yeah.”

  “Ahhh.” Nora thought about that for a second. “How many of them were affected?”

  “Five of the six siblings.”

  “Oh.”

  Harrison nodded.

  “How old were they when they came down with symptoms?” Why hadn’t they ever talked about this? Why wasn’t EOAD something people talked about at dinner parties? Did you know there’s a disease that takes your brain away from you in the middle of your prime? No! Tell me more!

  “Two were midforties, I think. One was over fifty. One was thirty-six. She was the one who was my patient.”

  “When was that?”

  “A while. Maybe five years ago?”

  “How many are left?”

  Harrison’s look was soft. “How many do you think?”

  Nora threaded her fingers in her lap and wished for her knitting. It was in the living room, much too far away. “Just the one sibling who didn’t have it.”

  “Yes.” His voice was kind, too.

  “I want to talk to her.”

  “Nora,” Harrison started.

  “Can you help get me in touch with her?”

  “It’s not a good idea. Besides, I wouldn’t be able to find her now even if I wanted to.”

  “Why?” No, Harrison didn’t get to say what a good idea was and what wasn’t. That was up to her. Only her. “Are you her therapist now?”

  “No, I only saw her sister.”

  “So put us in touch.”

  “No.”

  “Maybe she needs someone to talk to.” God, no. It was a ridiculous idea. “I’m losing it. I bet she has someone to talk to. A shrink. A husband. Maybe I need to get some of those. I should go to one of those care homes and see what it’s like. Talk to a patient. I’m a journalist, I know how to research things. No, I don’t want to—I can’t . . . I’m totally losing my mind.” Nora paused. She’d hit her daughter.

  Harrison said, “I’m a shrink. Just talk to me.”

  Nora tilted her head and looked at him. Harrison. Even now, with his lower lip stiff from emotion, he was calming to her. She loved the way his hair stuck straight up by the end of an evening, strangely confident curls breaking free of whatever hair product he used in the morning to keep them under control.

  He lifted her hand and kissed the back of the knuckles. “Do I get to cry in front of you?” His voice was thick but didn’t shake.

  “Absolutely not. Thank you for asking.”

  “There are better drugs now, better than what was available even five years ago.”

  “I know. I’m on all of them. One makes me poop like crazy. One stops me up. The Namenda, get this, can make you feel confused. Ha! Isn’t that funny?”

  Harrison didn’t look up. While keeping his gaze on her palm, he ran one finger from her wrist over her lifeline, all the way down her middle finger to its very tip. “How’s Ellie doing with it?”

  “Well, considering that she’d already hit the apex of her teenage career of hating me and I just made it a thousand times worse, I think she’s . . . doing the best she can. I thought . . . No, it doesn’t matter what I thought.” Nora smiled but her mouth felt crooked. “She thought I was pregnant.”

  Harrison’s whole body jerked. “What?”

  “I’m not. Obviously.”

  “Right.” He rubbed his face.

  “But she thought I was. She told me not to have twins.”

  Harrison pointed at Nora and then back at himself. “So she knows . . .”

  “Apparently.”

  “I thought we’d been so careful.”

  “She’s smart.”

  “Scary fucking smart,” agreed Harrison with a grin, and Nora felt a lump rise in her throat so sticky and sweet it felt like she was choking on syrup. She hadn’t expressly chosen Harrison to be the man in Ellie’s life, but for all intents and purposes, he’d been the one. He’d been the man snapping her picture at her grade school and then middle school graduations. He was the guy cheering at the top of his lungs at her water polo games. He was the one who picked Ellie up on the rare nights Nora got stuck at the paper at meetings. When Ellie had gotten her period, Nora had been at work, and she’d run to his house. And the thing that got Nora, the thing that made the lump even bigger and sweeter
in her throat when she thought about that now, was that he’d had supplies in his house in the guest bathroom, along with a little instruction book for teens. How did you know to do that? Nora had asked him. He’d said, I didn’t think I’d need it, but what if I did? I’ve got lots of little plans you don’t know about.

  “It doesn’t matter that she knows,” said Harrison. “She’s old enough to understand that grown-ups make their own choices, and . . .”

  “It matters,” said Nora.

  “Damn it. It does. I’m sorry.”

  “I’m not. It’s just one more thing for her to process. That’s the only part I don’t like, but honestly, with the weight of my diagnosis, I don’t think she’s worried about my sex life right now.”

  “Is she going to get tested?”

  “No.” It was impossible. She’d never let Ellie be tested.

  “What did she say to that?”

  “We haven’t talked about it.”

  Harrison groaned and stood, picking up the plates. As usual, since she cooked, he’d clean. It had always been so sweet, so familiar. Now that they’d slept together, it felt different somehow. She hadn’t predicted that, and she didn’t like it. An image of him, naked above her, holding himself up on his arms just before he entered her, his dark eyes so startlingly intense, flashed through her mind, and she felt the spot between her thighs dampen. It wasn’t fair that while her body was betraying her in so many ways, it included this one—she’d like to be able to control her sexual urges in the same way she’d always controlled herself, carefully, with great thought.

  She stood. “I’ll do them.”

  “It’s okay.” He grabbed the water glasses. “I’ll get them. The fireworks should be starting soon. You want more wine?”

  “No. And I said I’ll do the dishes.” Her voice was too strong, too angry.

  He placed the glasses carefully next to the sink and then turned slowly to face her. “I know you’re upset, Nora. What happened tonight with Ellie—”

  “You don’t know anything,” said Nora, wishing she could stop talking, but she couldn’t, not just yet. “I’m so sorry, but you know crap, Harrison. You knew someone with this disease once, but beyond that, you know shit about what’s going on inside me. No one knows. This is July. You know how long I’ve known? Since February.”

  Harrison opened his mouth as if to speak, but Nora held up her hand. “Don’t,” she said. “I didn’t even tell Ellie and Mariana till six weeks ago. Don’t feel bad or apologize or do any of the other things you might feel like doing right now. Whatever it is, I don’t think I can take it.”

  “Easy, tiger. You’re forgetting who I am.”

  She’d thought he was her closest non-blood-related friend. She hadn’t forgotten. Not that, anyway.

  “What symptoms are you presenting?”

  “You even say the right medical words. Presenting.”

  “I’m a doctor. You should have come to me, Nora.”

  He was hurt that she hadn’t. She could see that. She should have told him earlier. She shouldn’t have held on to it for so long, keeping it away from him like she’d hid the bottle of Miracle-Gro she’d sprinkled on his roses when he wasn’t looking (that said, they’d sprung back to life gorgeously). “Not many symptoms. I forget where I put things.”

  “I do that, too.” He smiled lightly.

  “Don’t do that. Don’t trivialize it. I forgot where I was when I was driving last month. I got completely lost in downtown Tiburon.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I made Ellie drive. Called it a lesson.”

  “Smart. Quick thinking.”

  If it was designed to make her feel better, it was working. She scowled at him. “I’m having trouble sleeping. Insomnia. It could be a side effect of the Aricept, or . . . I’ve forgotten to pick up Ellie twice, and now she won’t let me pick her up at all—she’s arranging all her rides with friends until she gets her license.”

  Nora held up her wrist and showed him the smudged black ink. Minstrel, she said now in her mind while she held her wrist toward Harrison, grateful to have remembered the word again without looking. Eventually, the inside of her wrist had become blue-gray, the Sharpie ink never quite washing off at night. It was something she would have worried about in the past. All that ink, seeping into her blood. Strange chemicals with many letters. Now Nora thought the more letters in her blood, the better. Maybe she would hang on to them longer. She slept with Q clutched in her fist, wrapping the tendrils of S around fingers, memorizing the way A jutted up forcefully, the way P could be used as a hammer if necessary.

  “I’m not me anymore. I don’t feel like myself—I’m snapping when I never snap, and that’s part of the disease, they say. Personality changes.” He touched her wrist so lightly it felt like a breath. “I could blame hitting her on that, but I don’t think that’s fair. I did it. Not the disease. She knows that, too. You can’t make this better, Harrison.” That was Harrison’s thing—she had to cut him off at the pass, before he made a run at fixing her. It was what he did, after all. He made things better. He helped people, whoever was in front of him. He helped his patients, staying late and wiping out bills that couldn’t be paid. Nora had seen him carry groceries out of the store and pack them into the cars of the elderly and mothers who had more children than bags. He always, always had cash in his front pocket for panhandlers. He mowed Nora’s lawn every week, even though she’d told him a million times she could do it herself. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d put her own garbage can at the curb. As much as she teased him for dating women less intelligent than him, he was kind to them, too. He liked his girlfriends, even if they didn’t stick around longer than a spin around the calendar. He’d given his old Ford to Sherry the astrologist, Nora remembered now. Sherry’s car had broken down, and he hadn’t even thought about it, just took out the pink slip and signed it over to her. They’d broken up a week later (Sherry had dumped him for not wanting to move in with her) and he hadn’t even asked for the car back. How could you not love a guy like him?

  And that was it. It was infuriating and terrifying to realize how much she loved him when she’d never agreed to do so. It was just one more thing that had happened while she hadn’t been watching.

  “Anything else, other symptoms?”

  He should be snapping at her. She deserved it. She didn’t deserve the look of patience he gave her. “Just the confusion, so far. I get it in the middle of the night, mostly.” Horrible long minutes where she woke and couldn’t remember where Paul was. Twice she’d thought she heard Ellie fussing in her crib. Once she’d thought she was in the room she’d shared with Mariana in high school. She’d been frozen, the scratchy nightdress bunched at her waist, fear inside her teeth and tongue. Her feet had searched the bed; then her arms had turned over her pillows, throwing them to the floor. Where was Mariana? Where was her sister?

  Then she’d come back into place, standing next to her own bed in her own house, wearing her own normal soft cotton T-shirt and panties. Her heart had thumped in her ears so hard she thought it was the pipes in the wall banging.

  She hadn’t slept for the rest of the night.

  “And anger. They said it was a thing. I have a way lower flash point.”

  “That goes with stress, too, so combined with the EOAD, that could be hard to deal with.”

  Of course he just understood it. “Do you have any idea how frustrating you are to deal with?”

  “You know what?” His voice was tight, the words like chips of glass.

  “What?” Nora stuck her chin out and scowled.

  Instead of responding, Harrison took a deep breath.

  Nora was furious, the inside of her brain a dark red. “What? Just say it already.”

  “What about Mariana?”

  Angry tears sprang to her eyes. “She’s fine. She doesn’
t have it. Of course.”

  “You’re mad about that?”

  “No!”

  “Not what it sounds like to me.”

  She covered her face with her hands. It was dark and quiet for one long second. Then she looked at him. “I don’t know what I am. I don’t know how I am. I just want to get off the ride, and I’m terrified I can’t make it stop. I’m on one of those spinning things, you know, in the playground—what are they called? Damn it.”

  “Carousel?”

  “No, no.” Was this another symptom? “The metal thing. You can fit, like, five kids on it, and then you push it . . .”

  “Merry-go-round.”

  “That. I’m on a merry, go, round, and someone’s pushing it and I can’t jump off because I’ll die if I do, but the problem is that it’s speeding up, and in time it’s going to throw me. I’m smart enough to know that, and not smart enough to figure out how to get off.”

  “Nora,” Harrison reached for her, pain in his eyes.

  “I’m fine,” Nora said quickly.

  “You’re not. You can’t be. I’m not.”

  “I’m just worried because Ellie isn’t home. That’s all. Thanks for hanging out with me, though. And thanks for eating the chicken. I needed your help with that—”

  “Goddamn, you’re an idiot.”

  “Hey!”

  His stood, his forehead red. “This is what you do? You hit me with the fact that you’re dying of an incurable disease and then get pissed off when I have a reaction to that fact? Fuck off, Nora.” Harrison’s voice shook. She’d never seen this particular expression on his face, savage in its unvarnished fury. “Fuck all the way off.” He barreled out the kitchen door.

  Nora didn’t realize she was crying until she wondered what the snuffling noise was. For more than a few seconds she was tempted to stay there, in her chair, feeling sorry for herself, feeling angry at him. The two simplest, most boring feelings in the whole world.

  Then she stood. She walked out her door, across their lawns, and into his kitchen. She was still crying, and so was he, standing next to the sink, the water running, his arms loose at his sides, tears streaming down his face.