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Amy nodded politely. “Yes, I’m Jason’s sister.”
“You don’t look much like Grant,” Sarah said. “More like your mother, then? My replacement.”
I felt Amy bristle, but she kept silent. Sarah waited for a reaction and, not getting one, she turned to me. “Why are you here? I didn’t think I would ever see you again. Did Jason send you?”
“He didn’t.”
Her lips twisted. “Then why are you here?”
“I need to understand what you meant by the things you said to me. I don’t want to believe you’re crazy, but I need to know if Jason is in danger from you.”
She stared at me for a moment then burst into laughter. I gave Amy a quick glance.
“Crazy,” she mouthed silently.
Sarah stopped laughing and gave me a pitying smile. “You’re so in love with him,” she cooed. “I told you he was going to kill your children and break your heart, but you’re more concerned about him.”
“I don’t have any children,” I retorted.
“Yet.” She gave me a serious look. “Don’t have any, not with him, anyway.”
“Well, it’s not something we’ve discussed, but you have to be a little more forthcoming than these abstract hints of future horror.”
“Abstract hints of future horror,” she repeated. “That’s a good one. Are you a writer?”
I shook my head, losing patience. “Look, maybe if you tell me something that makes sense, I can get Jason to change his mind about talking to you.”
“So, you haven’t told him what I said to you?”
“Of course not.” I snorted. “It didn’t make any sense.”
“It does make sense,” she said slowly. She went to sit on the armchair, still facing me. “My dad was a mean drunk—violent, too. He would drink until he didn’t remember who I was, or even who he was, and sometimes, he just didn’t remember. He died young. I didn’t miss him.”
“I had a sister too. We weren’t close, and she left me behind as soon as she saved enough to buy a bus ticket. After my father died, I went to art school, met a
handsome, sexy man, had a son, and then learned that my sister had killed herself. She was a couple of years older than me, had a good career cutting trailers for movies here in LA. I found out she’d been sick, just like my father had been.”
“You said he was a drunk,” I reminded her.
“But that’s not what killed him—or maybe it was, I don’t know—but he was so drunk most of the time that when he wasn’t, it was easy to ignore the signs, like when he got lost in a town so small you could walk all the streets in an hour or two, or when he couldn’t remember my name. He left enough of his poisoned genes to make my sister start showing symptoms at the peak of her life, and now, he’s gotten me, too. One day, in a decade or so if he’s lucky, it will be Jason.”
“What…?” I closed my eyes. I didn’t want to hear or believe what she was saying. “Symptoms of what?” I asked, the words bitter on my tongue.
“You’re saying he has a genetic disease?’ Amy choked.
“Early-onset Alzheimer’s.” Sarah shrugged. “Sometimes very early, like in my sister’s case, sometimes a little later, like mine.”
She got up and walked to a window that looked out onto the street. I couldn’t think of anything to say. I stared at her, wishing I could un-hear what she’d just told me.
“When I found out, Jason was four years old. I knew he was going to watch me turn into a raving lunatic mess like my father and I’d have to tell him the same fate awaited him, so I left.”
I got up, trembling. “I don’t believe you,” I said. “You’re just saying this to inveigle your way back into his life.” I cast a despairing glance toward Amy, and she looked as confused as I felt. “Why didn’t you tell him all this when he came to see you? Why did you send him away instead?”
“Would you have told him?” She turned back to hold my gaze. “Would you have told him there was a chance he would never get to enjoy the future he had planned for himself?”
“So you broke his heart instead,” Amy said.
“I did what I thought was right at the time.”
