by Harry Kraus
“Eventually, John came into the picture, and I pulled away from Steve. But he was heartsick and never gave up trying to win me back. On the night before my wedding to John, he came to my window again.” She paused with a distant look in her eyes, unfocused, not seeing the present, but lost in a view of the past. “I was lying in bed, fantasizing of the marriage bed that soon would be mine. And then I heard the tapping on my window, pebbles from the hand of my first love.” She shook her head. “I should never have agreed to meet him. I went to the barn, intending to say a final good-bye.”
Claire looked at Della as she leaned forward, focused on the story.
“He cried when I told him it was over. He had tears in his eyes. He was crying for me, heartbroken and lost. I was so touched. I kissed him. I wanted it to be good-bye, but I felt more.”
Elizabeth looked up, the memory bringing a fear to her expression. “He felt it, too. He knew that I was teetering. I pushed him away, but he pulled me into the barn. I resisted, but in my heart, I knew I’d led him on. I kissed him that night. I enjoyed knowing he wanted me so bad. It gave me such power.” She thrust a napkin to her eyes. “It was so wrong. I tried to stop him, but I never cried out for help. I initiated his passion. I brought it on myself.”
“Grandma, having feelings for someone is just being human. It’s not a sin to be tempted.”
Della nodded. “You can’t blame yourself for this. A kiss, even if accompanied by desire, is not an open invitation for sex.”
“What he did was wrong, Grandma. You can’t blame yourself for what he did.”
Elizabeth sniffed and blew her nose. “Oh, ladies, I shouldn’t have dredged all of this up.”
“I’m afraid it’s my fault that you’ve been forced to bring this all up. It’s because of my questions about Daddy,” Claire said.
Elizabeth sighed heavily. “As much as I’d like to believe that, it’s not really true. Just seeing Wally at your graduation brought much of this back to me. I’d kept it buried for so long, I didn’t think it could ever bother me again.” She shook her head. “But things have a way of catching up with you.” She looked at Claire. “Don’t blame yourself. I’m not so upset. I think it was good to get this out. But I’m not sure telling Wally that I don’t know who his father was is such a good idea.”
Della said, “I agree. He’s in no shape to hear this news now.” She dropped her eyes to her plate. “If he lives at all.”
Claire reached for her mother’s hand. “I have a feeling he’s gonna make it, Mom.” She offered a smile. “Something I feel as Wally’s daughter, not as a doctor.”
A chirping sound suddenly alerted Claire to refocus. Her cellular phone!
“Hello.”
The voice on the other end was masculine. “Claire? It’s Mike, from the clerk’s office.”
Brad. “Hi. Did you find out anything for me?”
“Plenty. You want to meet me for a drink? We can go over it.”
Claire rolled her eyes at her mother and grandmother. “Oh, Mike, I can’t make it. Can you give me the information over the phone?”
She heard him sigh. “Sure, uh, I guess so.”
“I’m taking notes. Go slow.”
“You asked me about Rachel Morris. Her mother was Lydia Treevy. Her father was Greg Morris.”
“Greg Morris? How did he die?”
“Don’t know. The records just list an accident, age twenty-five.”
“Who was his father?”
“Ronald. And you know what? The other guy you wanted me to check into, Harold Morris? Ronald is his father too.”
Claire felt her forehead begin to sweat. This was unbelievable. “What about Peter Garret?”
“Mother was Judy Dorman. She died age thirty-five of breast cancer. Father was Bill Garret. He’s still alive.”
So if Peter had HD, it didn’t come from his father. He’d be too old. “Who was Judy’s mother and father?”
“Mother was Lillie Dorman. Evidently Lillie had a baby out of wedlock. The name on the birth certificate for Judy was a man named Leroy Morris.”
“Leroy?”
“Right.”
“And this Leroy’s dad was Harold, right?”
“Right. Hey, I thought you didn’t know this stuff yet.”
“I didn’t. Not all of it anyway.” She looked at the notes she’d scribbled. “You’ve given me exactly what I needed. If I need you again, can I call you at the clerk’s office?”
“Anytime.” He paused. “Call me.”
“Bye.” She clicked off the phone and stared at the information in front of her, then pulled out a second piece of paper. Elizabeth and Della’s eyes widened as they watched Claire’s frantic scribblings. Starting with Ronald Morris, she drew a line to Harold and his brother, Greg. From Harold’s name, Claire drew a line to Steve, and from Steve to Wally. Then, she drew a line from Harold to Leroy to Judy to Peter, and finally a line from Greg to Rachel to William Jr. to William Wampler III.
She shook her head. “It’s unbelievable. All of these people rumored to be affected by the Stoney Creek curse are related. It all traces back to Harold Morris and his brother, Greg.”
“Sins of the fathers are visited to the third and fourth generation,” Elizabeth spoke softly.
“It’s not that, Grandma. This looks like genetics, pure and simple. Only people didn’t realize it because too many carriers of the Huntington’s disease gene appear to have died young. Look, this one here had breast cancer. She died before she could have symptoms of HD. Greg Morris died young of an accidental death. Harold died of suicide, but probably after symptoms started. Steve Hudson died of suicide, also likely after his symptoms started. Leroy died of suicide too. And here, Rachel Morris Wampler died in an automobile accident before she could have shown the disease.”
“I’m not sure I get it.” Della looked puzzled.
“Huntington’s disease doesn’t start affecting you until midlife, at least in the usual situations. People may not have any symptoms until their thirties, forties, maybe fifties. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t carriers of the gene responsible. In the cases around Stoney Creek, it looks like so many generations were skipped because the carriers died young of something else. These early deaths combined with the cases where the paternity was completely unknown, as in Wally’s case, kept people from realizing that all of these people rumored to be suffering from a curse were actually related. It kept anyone from suspecting a genetic illness.”
“So maybe all of Wally’s problems can’t be blamed on alcohol?” Della looked sad.
“Maybe not, Momma. Maybe not.”
Claire folded the papers carefully and shivered. Now she had the information she needed to call Dr. V at Brighton University.
Elizabeth seemed to be grasping the implications of Claire’s theory. “I hope you’re wrong about this, Claire. For your sake, I hope you’re wrong.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Late that evening, Claire called Dr. Visvalingam, professor of neurology, Brighton University, and asked for help. She explained her theory, and her father’s symptoms, and asked him to come to Carlisle to consult on her father.
Dr. V’s excitement grew as Claire told the story. The possibility of a previously undiagnosed family of HD patients fascinated him.
“Can you have the paralyzing agent removed so we can observe his movements?”
“I can ask Dr. Smuland. I think he’s concerned that the jerking movements were evidence of his agitation, possible alcohol withdrawal. My father was also fighting the ventilator, so they kept him on the medicine for that.”
“Hmmm. I really don’t want to make the trip until your father is off the ventilator. It won’t be a fruitful trip for me unless I can see him as he normally is.”
Claire’s heart sank. “I understand.”
“Can you call my office in the morning? If he is able to come off the ventilator, I could make the trip tomorrow afternoon. And I’d like to bring one of my residents.
If you’re right, Claire, this will make the neurology literature for sure.”
Claire took down his office number. “I’ll call first thing in the morning.”
She set the phone in the cradle and yawned. The Stoney Creek curse could make the medical literature? That was something that hadn’t occurred to her. Her father’s case, and the intrigue of discovery of a hidden pocket of HD patients masquerading as a town curse, would be important enough for publication. Claire shook her head and made a mental note to tell Dr. V to change her name if he reported a new HD family in the literature.
Now Dr. V was all excited about getting another paper published, and Claire was not completely sure her father had anything rare at all. Dr. Smuland could be right, and she’d end up looking like a fool.
Better to look like a fool than be at risk for Huntington’s disease.
And if I’m right, it looks like a lot of people are going to find out about Stoney Creek.
Claire slept in her old bed and rose early, partly from her excitement to get back to Carlisle, and partly because the eerie stillness of her childhood home unnerved her. She made coffee and sipped it while looking at the Blue Ridge mountains. Fog had settled in the low elevations, but the mountain peaks above were clearly seen, poking through the pillowy cotton of the morning mist.
She was more peaceful here, sitting on her father’s porch in Stoney Creek. The anxiety of residency life was far away, with the pressures it held seeming almost imaginary. She thought of the hectic ICU in Lafayette, and of her nights on trauma call, and of her disaster with Sierra Jones. It all seemed unreal and far away, shrouded in a haze like the Blue Ridge mountain fog. Had she really been away at all?
Intern life, the pursuit of a dream, had crowded everything else aside. Surgery was a bulldozer, forcing its way ahead, carving a path through Claire’s soul. Her family life offered little resistance and had easily surrendered to the bulldozer’s blade.
She found her mother’s Bible on the porch swing. Somehow, it warmed her, knowing her mother also came to this spot, this shelter, for renewal. She lifted the book. Its leather cover was soft and worn.
It had been so long since Claire had sought comfort or guidance from these pages. She opened to the passages her mother had highlighted with a yellow marker. She paused, feeling hesitant to continue. It seemed like an invasion of her mother’s private world, something Della did without thought that anyone else would see. Claire lifted her eyes to the mountains again wondering if she should proceed.
Claire shook away her apprehension. Sharing these words with her mother was the right thing, a way of restoration for Claire, a returning not just to her home, but to an intimacy with her mother that she’d long left behind.
She read in the Psalms, words of despair and longing, words of hope and confidence in a better life. She read from the book of Hebrews of men and women who overcame trouble with their focus on Christ. Claire lifted a small piece of notebook paper that was folded within the pages of the Bible. There, printed in her mother’s small handwriting, was a quotation, perhaps written during a recent sermon: “We are not necessarily doubting that God will do the best for us; we are wondering how painful the best will turn out to be. C. S. Lewis.”
Tears welled up in her eyes. She wasn’t sure it was the message she read, or the realization that her mother had a depth she’d never appreciated. The image she had of a weak country woman trapped in a bad marriage, too insecure to leave and make it on her own, was not the woman Claire was seeing now.
The words her mother had often spoken in jest echoed in Claire’s mind. “I know I’m pretty, but you’re pretty and smart.”
“No, Momma,” she whispered, “you’re the one who’s pretty and smart.”
Back in Carlisle, with some minor arm-twisting by Claire, Dr. Smuland agreed to remove the paralyzing agent to see how Wally would behave.
Within an hour, his eyes were open, and a facial twitch began. A few minutes later, the irregular jerking movements of his arms and legs resumed. It was nothing new for Wally. Della had seen it a thousand times before.
Two hours later, with Wally’s oxygen level holding steady, Dr. Smuland instructed the respiratory therapist to remove the endotracheal tube which connected Wally to the ventilator.
After thirty minutes, Dr. Smuland seemed satisfied with the progress. He was uncharacteristically curt. “Call Dr. Visvalingam if you must. I think he’ll agree with my assessment.”
Claire watched the attending exit the ICU with stooped shoulders, obviously offended by her persistence at playing Wally’s doctor. It bothered her, but she felt certain she needed to continue. She shrugged off the feeling and opened her cell phone, only to be stopped by a hand on her arm.
“You can’t use that in here,” a nurse informed her. “It interferes with our monitoring.”
She shrugged and left in search of a pay phone.
She made the call and was transferred to Dr. V’s clinic. Dr. V and a resident would make time for the consult later in the day. He’d had a cancellation, and late afternoon would suit his schedule. Claire hung up the phone and sucked in a deep breath. She was on the edge of confirming an anxiety she’d carried for a long time. A black cloud had hovered ever since she’d sutured Wilson Davis’s scalp in the ER a month ago. Now she couldn’t escape the feeling that she was seeding the clouds for rain. She had a dagger in her hand destined to slice open the thunderhead and release a torrent of water.
There was little to do but wait. Della wanted to stay with Wally, but the nurses were insisting on strict observance of the visiting hour limitation, especially since he had just been removed from the ventilator. So Claire and her mother found a corner booth in the hospital cafeteria and waited.
Claire worked on diagramming a large family tree, spreading her work over half the table. Across from her, Della sat in silence, paging through an old gardening magazine she’d borrowed from the ICU waiting room. Claire studied her with stolen glances, looking up from her work on the table. Something was eating her mother. She should have been encouraged by Wally’s progress, but something seemed to prevent it from showing. Perhaps Claire was misreading her. There were certainly multiple reasons for her mother to be quiet. Della chewed the inside of her lower lip and haphazardly flipped the magazine pages. Claire yawned and brushed away the intuition that her mother was sitting on a secret.
At four-thirty, they met Dr. V and Dr. Nadienne Rice. She was tall, with shoulder-length brown curls and beautiful nails. She wore a flattering navy suit.
Claire shook Nadienne’s hand before touching her own fingernails with her thumb, lightly caressing the nails she’d sacrificed for surgery.
Dr. V smiled. “Claire McCall,” he said, reaching for Claire’s hand, but eyeing Della. “One of my brightest students. I tried to talk her into neurology, but she was too stubborn.”
Claire laughed and kept quiet. Sitting around figuring out chronic neurologic problems all day long sounded like pure torture to her. Give her a scalpel, where she could make a difference.
“She’s been like that all her life,” Della responded.
Claire lifted her hand to her hair, now above her ears in a feminine and practical style, and studied the neurology resident again. Boy, she looked rested. Nothing like the surgery residents at Lafayette.
They sat in a private consulting room just outside the ICU. There, for the next hour, Dr. V interviewed Della about Wally’s symptoms and studied Claire’s diagram of the family tree. “It all makes sense, Claire. But we still need to examine your father. Very likely, I will want him to come to Brighton in a few weeks when he is stronger, so he can undergo a battery of tests.”
“Can you do a genetic screening for Huntington’s?” Claire asked.
“If he looks characteristic enough,” Dr. V responded, tugging at his bow tie. “Let’s take a look at him.”
Claire stayed with Della while Dr. V and his resident entered the ICU. She stood and paced in the little room. “Waiting is
torture,” she whined.
Della pushed a chair forward. “Patience is not a common characteristic of surgeons. Sit down, Doctor. You’re making me nervous.”
Thirty minutes later, the neurology duo returned. Dr. V raised his eyebrows. “He’s quite weak now, as you might expect from all he’s been through, but he is showing classic choreiform movements of HD.”
Nadienne nodded. “He’s doing the dance, all right.”
Della wrinkled her forehead. “The dance?”
Dr. V explained. “Chorea is the type of movements we observe in a variety of neurologic disorders. They are involuntary, very complicated, and endless. It comes from the Greek word choreia, which means ‘dance.’” He looked over at Nadienne. “So our residents have become fond of describing chorea movements in this way. They say, ‘He’s doing the dance.’” He flailed his arms to the side in imitation of typical choreiform movements. After a second, he added leg movements, then facial and head movements in a demonstration that would have been funny if it didn’t look so much like Wally.
Dr. V stopped when he saw Della’s horrified expression.
“Does this mean my husband has Huntington’s disease?”
“Not necessarily. We see these dance movements in other diseases as well.” He looked at Claire. “I think we’re justified in ordering a gene test. I’ve instructed the nurses to do it.”
To Nadienne he continued, “I’d like you to get a more detailed look into this family tree, with exact dates of birth and causes of death.”
“You can get the information at the county clerk’s office here in Carlisle,” Claire volunteered. “A man that works there will be glad to help you. Just ask for Brad—er, Mike.”
