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“When?”
“On Friday.”
So, she kept it from me an entire weekend. No wonder she acted weird.
Charlie added, “She told me to tell you, or she would. She was never going to keep you in the dark about it.”
Not that it mattered. Being mad at her was redirecting my rage where it didn’t belong. If anything, I now knew why she’d spent the weekend nagging me about getting checked.
“So, I might have Huntington’s disease,” I said to sum it up. “And could die.”
“No,” Charlie said dryly. “Youwilldie. That is a guarantee for all of us. But if you have the disease, it’ll happen sooner rather than later, so you better get your ass in gear and get checked.”
The more I looked at his face, the more I debated beating it to a pulp. “You don’t seem very sorry for passing it on.”
He laughed and coughed at the same time. “I’m only sorry for things I can control. I didn’t even know I was a carrier until I was in my fifties. I had no way to protect you. And I don’t think your headaches have anything to do with the disease. Now, neglecting you, I take full responsibility for that. But I want you to know that there hasn’t been a day—an hour—that I didn’t think about you. That I didn’t wonder who you were now, what you were up to, what you were doing. Every day, when I fell onto the mattress at night, I praised myself for not yielding to temptation and seeking you out.” He sucked in a breath. “And when I finally met you, man, you exceeded all expectations. You were all I ever wished for, and much more. My biggest punishment is knowing who you are and not having the privilege to spend time with you.”
I digested all of this, feeling ... hell, howwasI feeling? Sad, angry, disappointed, startled, annoyed, frustrated. All of the above, multiplied by a fucking hundred. More than anything, I was confused. Because even though he had ruined my life, arguably killed my mother, then neglected me (and on top of that maybe passed on a dangerous disease to me), I still couldn’t hate him all the way.
I rubbed at my jaw. “Now I get why you were all buddy-buddy with my ass. Wanting to meet up, go on vacation together. I thought you were hitting on me.”
He made a face. “Not everyone who wants your company wants to screw you.”
“You’d be surprised.”
I thought about Christian and Arsène. The looks they exchanged when they saw Charlie and me together. They knew. Or, at the very least, heavily suspected.
“So.” Charlie cleared his throat, looking very childlike all of a sudden, staring up at me with azure eyes. “What now?”
I thought about his question, then stood from the bench.
“Now’s the time I tell you to go fuck yourself, remind you that you’re a selfish bastard, and thank you for the heads-up about the disease you might’ve given me that will ensure I die a slow, painful death.”
“It’s not gonna be so slow,” he said, coughing out a joke.
I laughed, too tired to be mad at him. Yeah, he’d screwed up my life, but he was right in saying his situation sucked even more.
“Believe it or not, I hope the rest of your life isn’t terrible.” I tipped an imaginary hat down in his direction. “However short it may be.”
“That is very charitable of you.” He sat back in his wheelchair, eyeing me. “So does that mean I shouldn’t expect you back?”
“Correct.”
His throat bobbed. “Just making sure you’re aware—I don’t have much time. The nurse you met, Malcolm, he grabbed my stuff from the apartment because I’m not coming back.”
“Yeah ...” I reached to rest a hand on his shoulder. “I understand why you didn’t come for me when I was young. Now it’s time you understand why I won’t come for you when you’re old.”
He put his hand on mine on his shoulder, trying to squeeze, and it seemed wild that I was holding hands with myfather. The faceless figure I had spent so many nights secretly imagining in my head.
“I do understand.” He looked down, and I knew by the quake of his shoulders that he was crying. “Have a nice life, Riggs.”
I turned around and didn’t look back.
When I walked out of the hospital, I made two phone calls.
The first was to my health insurance provider, to get my blood work done and get myself checked for Huntington’s disease. I paid a hefty fee to get it done that same afternoon, at a private lab, for a quick answer.
The second was a conference call to Christian and Arsène. They both picked up instantly, probably because I was notorious for never calling anyone about anything.
