Finding Cassidy

by Laura Langston

  I envied the way my parents got along. I argued with them lots. Being sixteen, I figured it was part of my job description. But it sometimes left me feeling like an outsider in my own family. Brynna said it was because I had no brother or a sister to take my side. “What do you mean, Dad’s not well? He slipped. That’s not such a big deal.”

  “The doctor suspects an underlying condition.”

  “Is it his heart?” Dad had had a mild heart attack when I was in grade eight, the year after he’d become a city councillor.

  “It’s not his heart.” Mom’s lower lip trembled; she bit down on it.

  “Cancer?” I whispered, trying hard not to think of Nana in those last few months.

  “Not that either.”

  I was both relieved and exasperated. “What, then?”

  “It’s—” She licked her lips. “They think it’s some kind of neurological disease. It’s affecting his behaviour. There was a reporter nosing around the hospital tonight. Dad had those two car accidents last month; the reporter seems to think he has a drinking problem.”

  “That’s ridiculous.” It was; Dad rarely drank. “The roads were icy. Dad was tired.” At least that’s what he’d said. Maybe he hadn’t been tired at all. “What kind of neurological problem? What’s it called?”

  Mom plucked nervously at the sleeve of her red dressing gown. “Huntington’s chorea.”

  I was so afraid it was going to be one of the biggies like Alzheimer’s or Lou Gehrig’s Disease. I’d never heard of this one before. “How bad is this…this Huntington’s thing?”

  “Chorea,” she corrected absently. “Huntington’s chorea.”

  “How bad is it?”

  She shrugged. “We don’t know for sure, baby. Let’s not speculate. Let’s just wait and see what they find.”

  I didn’t want to wait. This was my father she was talking about. My father. The guy who had the best brain of the three of us—for sure, the calmest and most practical one. “But what does it do? It affects the brain how?”

  “Cassidy, please! I’m too upset to think straight. We don’t even have a diagnosis yet.”

  I didn’t want to upset Mom any more, but I needed to know one thing for sure. “Will it kill him?” I blurted.

  She didn’t answer. Instead she stared at the floor.

  My heart jumped into my throat. This couldn’t be happening. Not to my dependable, throw-himself-at-life dad. My daddy. “Will it?” I whispered again. As desperate as I was for her answer, I was also afraid to hear it.

  “Maybe.” She looked up. The pain I saw in her eyes took my breath away. “But we’re all gonna die of something, baby.”

  Avoidance again. “If he has it, how long…”

  “Does he have?” There was a Texas twang in Mom’s voice as she finished the question for me. A sure sign of stress.

  “Yeah.”

  “If,” she stressed, “If it is Huntington’s, he could live a very long time. Ten, twenty, even twenty-five years.”

  Whoa. I could breathe again. “That’s a relief.” Twenty years was time to find the right doctors, find a cure even. “When can I see him?”

  “He’ll be at the hospital for observation tonight.” Mom stood and wearily combed her fingers through her hair. “He should be home midday tomorrow.”

  “I’ll go see him first thing in the morning.” I rinsed my glass and put it in the dishwasher.

  “You need to go to school,” Mom said. “You missed a week with that cold. You can’t afford to miss any more time. Tomorrow’s Friday. You can spend the whole weekend with Dad. I’ll be with him at the hospital. So will the doctors.”

  Which was precisely the point. My parents subscribed to the mushroom school of parenting—keep the kid in the dark. I wanted to ask the doctors a few questions of my own, like, what is this Huntington’s thing, and does my father have it?

  My mother clearly read my mind. “I’ll ask the right questions, baby. You can count on that.”

  I could count on it, all right. What I couldn’t count on was Mom sharing the answers. But I didn’t argue. It was after eleven—too late to call Jason, but not too late to go online and find out all I could about Huntington’s chorea.

  TWO

  In the wild, birds hide sickness. They do this to trick predators. Predators are those attacking things like wolves, other birds, people even.

  Cassidy MacLaughlin, Grade Four Science Project

  When I typed “Huntington’s chorea” into my computer a few minutes later, I got over forty-four thousand hits.

  I scrolled past chat rooms, e-zines, and the Ecure Me.com sites. I needed a site I could depend on. I can’t help it—I have scientific leanings. They might be hidden behind my Guess jeans and Fleshpot lipstick, but dig deep and they’re there.

  Words jumped out as I scanned: Spastic. Ballistic. Central nervous system. Disabling. Dementia. My stomach flipped. This sounded bad.

  Finally I found the Northwestern University Medical School site. I clicked it open.

  The first page was dry, to the point and laid out in logical order: symptoms, stages, progression, treatment, complications and prognosis. I read quickly through the section marked “symptoms.” Clumsiness. Twitching. Irritability. Accident-prone. Dad was clumsy and irritable, but he didn’t twitch. He did tap his finger a lot though. Did that count?

  There was a bang on my door. I jumped.

  “Cass!” Mom called.

  Fingers shaking, I minimized the screen. The last thing I wanted was to upset her more. “What?” I braced myself in case she walked in.

  But she stayed in the hall. “Make sure you get some sleep. If you don’t take care of yourself, you’ll end up with a cold again and it could turn into bronchitis or pneumonia or mono or God knows what.”

  Now that sounded like my mother. I smiled in spite of myself. “Okay,” I said. Only after a long minute of silence did I maximize the screen.

  My eyes jumped to the list of stages: early, intermediate, advanced. Wanting to get the worst over with, I skipped to the advanced stage. Dementia. Purposeless movements. Rigidity.

  Pictures of Dad flashed through my mind. Dad quitting smoking after his last heart attack. Losing that last twenty pounds. Dad skiing. Laughing.

  This wasn’t happening. This couldn’t be happening.

  I skipped over treatment and complications and went right to prognosis.

  My blood froze.

  Huntington’s had no cure. It was a death sentence.

  It was also genetic.

  That couldn’t be right. I read the section again.

  It was so right and so genetic that Huntington’s rarely skipped a generation. Genetic.

  My stomach did a nauseous little somersault. The day was going to shit faster than geese could. “If Dad has it,” I whispered into the silence, “then I could have it too.”

  I guess I turned off the computer at some point, or maybe I didn’t. I don’t know. All I remember is lying on my bed watching the numbers on my clock tick over and over. Two a.m. Three a.m. Four a.m. As the numbers added up to morning, I added up my blessings.

  And there were lots of them. Because I was under no illusions. I had lived a ridiculously, unbelievably, almost perfect life.

  I was one of the lucky ones. Sure, part of it was because Mom had inherited that Texas oil money when Nana died—I had a car, money to spend whenever I wanted it, trips to Aspen at Christmas, France every second summer. But there was more to my perfect life than money, and I knew that too. I had two parents who loved me. I had Jason. I had friends like Prissy and Brynna.

  I mean, there was nothing bad to say.

  All I could do was pray there’d be nothing bad to say tomorrow. That Dad would be okay. And that I would be, too.

  I had to check in at school the next morning before I went to the hospital. Mom was right—I’d missed so much time I was behind in a couple of classes, including environmental studies, which I had first block.

  Prestwoo
d High had an agreement with the powers that be at Circle Lake. We held our environmental studies class there, and the naturalists taught us about stewardship. In exchange we helped them with projects around the lake. It was an easy class—people rarely failed—and there was usually a spectacular year-end trip. This year, organizers were talking about visiting a sister nature sanctuary in Costa Rica. That’s how Dad had convinced me to enrol. He said it would be a good opportunity to get involved in the community, and to explore my love of birds, but he also mentioned the trip about fifty times. I did too when I convinced Prissy to take the class with me.

  The parking lot was almost full. I pulled my Cabrio in beside a navy blue Smart car and hurried down the path to the nature house.

  We met in the library. Luckily, attendance hadn’t been taken yet. Mr. Edwards was at the front of the room, deep in conversation with one of the naturalists. Scowling, I slid into a chair. I hoped they wrapped it up fast—I wanted to get excused and go to the hospital.

  “What’s wrong, Cass?” James demanded. “Your dog die or something?”

  “She doesn’t have a dog, moron.”

  The words came from Quinn. How would she know? We hadn’t been close since grade eight. I could be on my second set of puppies by now.

  I stared out the window, across the lake. Last night’s clear sky was obliterated by clouds, and a cold front had moved in. Wind rippled across the water, creating a froth of whitecaps on top of grey sludge.

  The whole depressing picture suited my mood perfectly. I must have lost track of time, because before I knew it, Mr. Edwards—Eddie to most of us—started attendance. Then he said, “Okay, people, listen up. There was a party on the dock last night. There’s garbage to dispose of.” Prissy gave me a tiny half-smile. I dropped my eyes. I wasn’t thrilled that the marsh had been trampled, and I was less thrilled at the idea of cleaning up smelly beer cans. “Team A can start with that.”

  Team A was us: Quinn, Prissy and I. My worst nightmare come true. Quinn hated Prissy and her crowd. At first, when the Harpers had sent Quinn to the same private high school as me, I’d been thrilled. I figured I’d make new friends but hold on to my oldest and best friend from elementary school. Unfortunately, Quinn had resented Prissy and her crowd from the start. She hated their values. She said they wouldn’t have given me the time of day if Mom hadn’t inherited that money. That hurt. So did her comment that I was as superficial as they were. But then Quinn crossed a line and did something to try and destroy my new friendships. Instead she’d destroyed ours.

  Now we had to work together for three months. Oh, joy.

  Eddie outlined the day’s work for the rest of the teams. Then he said, “Next week we start egg addling.”

  People broke into their groups. I stood. Eddie’s cellphone rang. He turned his back to the class, covered his free ear, walked to the corner. Sighing, I sat back down.

  Quinn wandered over just as Prissy asked, “What’s addling?”

  “Goosicide.” Quinn launched into a disgusting explanation of how viable eggs were rendered useless. Clearly she hated the idea. Me too. I hadn’t joined this class to kill birds.

  “But that’s why we’re here, isn’t it?” Prissy retorted. “You heard Mr. Edwards. The goose population is way too high. They’re nuisance birds. They’re loud and they’re ugly. They have to be controlled.” Her eyes lingered distastefully on Quinn.

  Quinn apparently still thought worrying about clothes was a waste of time. Today she wore a pair of pathetic beige sweats, a purple sweater and yellow gum boots, and she’d fastened her hair with a striped scrunchie.

  “You’re right—some of the loud, ugly things in life do have to be controlled.” Quinn stared pointedly at the Louis Vuitton bag flung over Prissy’s shoulder. “But geese aren’t one of them. They should be able to nest if they want to. Did you know that geese mate for life?”

  “Trust you to care,” Prissy said. I smothered a giggle. Quinn was a cause queen, always standing up for the underdog. Anger flared in her dark eyes, but before she could respond, Prissy added, “Environmental studies is all about the balance between man and nature.” She was quoting Eddie’s course write-up.

  Quinn glowered. “Nature can balance itself.”

  Of course Quinn would think that. She was the poster child for all natural, all the time. She didn’t eat meat, she didn’t wear leather—or at least she never used to—and her favourite saying used to be “Man should tread lightly upon the earth.” Treading lightly I could live with, but all natural? No way. In my opinion, life without mascara wasn’t worth living. I tuned out their bickering and stared at Eddie’s back, willing him to hang up. Seconds later, he did. “You guys are on your own.” I stood up. “I’ve got to go.”

  Even though I was an assignment behind, Mr. Edwards was more than reasonable when he heard that Dad was in the hospital. He not only excused me, but promised to let my other teachers know I was away on a family emergency.

  Hurrying out the door, I headed down the barkchip path to the parking lot.

  “Cass!”

  I recognized Quinn’s voice without turning around. “I’m in a hurry,” I yelled over my shoulder.

  But she caught up before I reached my car. “What’s wrong?” There was a quizzical look in her brown eyes. “I can tell it’s something serious.”

  “Nothing.” I zigzagged around a branch on the path and dug in my pocket for my keys.

  “Don’t bullshit me. What is it?”

  The parking lot was just up ahead. “My dad’s sick.” I knew Quinn wouldn’t let me drive away until I told her. “Mom thinks it’s some kind of neurological thing. They’re running tests.” My fingers fastened on my keys.

  “What kind of neurological thing?”

  I didn’t want to confide in her. I just wanted to get to the hospital. “Huntington’s something or other.” Gravel crunched underfoot as I hurried across the lot to my Cabrio.

  She smothered a gasp. “Huntington’s chorea?”

  Quinn’s mother was a lab technician, and her father was an anaesthesiologist. Medicine was in her blood. Of course she would know. “Yeah.” I turned to face her.

  Her eyes were full of sympathy. “That sucks.”

  I didn’t want her compassion—not after what she’d done. Dropping my gaze, I swivelled back to the car and stabbed at the lock with my key. “Yeah, well, they’re just running tests. It’s probably not that.”

  “Sure.” But Quinn didn’t sound sure at all. She hesitated, then touched my arm. “Call me, okay? Let me know how it goes?”

  “Yeah, whatever.” I got in the car and slammed the door. There was no damn way I would call but I didn’t look at her as I pulled away.

  Located at the north end of town, Victoria General is surrounded by a ring of trees and open fields. Originally it had been out in the boonies, but with urban sprawl, houses had sprouted around it, leaving only a small bit of wilderness.

  Enough wilderness for the bunnies.

  Years ago, people used to dump unwanted bunnies in the surrounding fields after Easter. Bunnies being bunnies, they reproduced faster than McDonald’s produced fries. And people being people, they fed the cute bunnies scraps of sandwiches and apple cores. Every year or so, there were complaints of overpopulation, demands for mass slaughter. A rallying cry went out and people picketed and wrote letters to the newspaper.

  Or rescued bunnies, as Quinn had persuaded me to do in grade six. We’d ridden out on our bikes, grabbed one black bunny and one white one, and taken them home in ice cream buckets hung over our handlebars. I smiled, remembering how we’d had to poke holes in the bucket lids and squash the poor animals down to prevent them from jumping out on the ride home. Our parents weren’t thrilled. Nevertheless, Quinn’s dad built a couple of shelters for our backyards. It was all good until the bunnies turned out to be pregnant and we had to find homes for mothers and babies.

  Quinn’s concern for bunnies and all living things had turned to fanaticism b
y grade eight, which was something I didn’t want to think about now. Weaving through the maze of blue-gowned sick people smoking outside the hospital entrance, I forced thoughts of her aside.

  The front desk wasn’t busy. I got Dad’s room number and hurried up to the sixth floor. When I got off the elevator, two nurses in pastel-coloured uniforms stared curiously at me before resuming their whispered conversation. Were they talking about Dad? I was being irrational, but I figured I was entitled.

  The hallway was deserted; my footsteps echoed off the pale green walls. As I got closer, I heard the rumble of wheels, a clink of dishes. Turning the corner, I practically ran into a towering lunch trolley. It wasn’t even eleven o’clock yet and already they were serving lunch?

  The smell of soup combined with that sick hospital odour choked the back of my throat. How could anybody eat in a place that smelled this bad? Two doors from Dad’s room, I slowed down. I’m not sure I’m ready for this.

  I heard a man’s voice, deep and steady. I edged close to the doorway.

  “There’s still one more test to come in, but the odds are not favourable,” the man said.

  Not favourable. Doctor-speak for bad. My breath caught in my throat.

  “Particularly given the results we already have from the tests your GP ordered last month,” the doctor added.

  Last month? Had my parents known about this for an entire month and not said anything?

  I heard the deep rumble of my father’s response, but I couldn’t make out the words. I slid closer to the door.

  “Certainly by three o’clock this afternoon, we should have the final lab report back, and one way or another, you can go home after that,” the doctor promised.

  One way or another.

  My mother spoke then, her voice too high and too fast. “There must be other options? Other tests?”

  Blood rushed through my head. I pulled away from the door, steadied myself against the wall, tried to make sense of it all. Dad had it. He really had Huntington’s. There was no cure; he was going to turn into a vegetable. Minutes ticked by as I tried to comprehend the incomprehensible.