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“The right ones,” Ima repeats. “Were they the ones you wanted to take?”
“Some of them.” Not all of them, though. Not student council, not really. And I always thought it would be fun to try an elective like photography or newspaper, but I filled my schedule with APs instead.
“When you get to college, you can take anything you want. It doesn’t have to be biology, or premed, and you can join clubs just because you want to.” She touches my hair, her fingers gently combing the short strands. “I know it seems overwhelming now, but you are going to love college.”
I picture all the torn-up pages of Gray’s Anatomy in a dump somewhere. Adi found her niche so early on; is that why I was so desperate to claim one for myself? I found something I liked, something people told me I was good at, and suddenly it became my thing. I wasn’t the invisible twin anymore.
Surgery and medicine don’t have to be my entire life, though. I have time—time my si
ster may not have—to test out another path. I can try something new and fail at it a dozen times until I find a passion that fits me as well as viola fits Adina. If I stay at home this year, maybe I could learn more about my stranger-mother, too.
“Have you ever seen Singin’ in the Rain?” Ima asks.
I shake my head, and her face lights up. So I turn it on and we drink our tea and watch a movie together just the two of us, no Adina, for the very first time.
Thirty-five
Adina
THE LAST TIME I WORE these jeans, I must have been twelve or thirteen. They’re too tight on my hips and they flare out at the ankles, a style I’m certain hasn’t been popular for years. I keep reaching down to pick at loose threads, but there aren’t any, so instead I scrub away fuzz that’s accumulated over years of living inside a drawer. I didn’t want to wear any of my dresses today. I don’t care about looking good.
When I explained my symptoms, Dr. Simon told me she could do a whole neurological and psychiatric exam. So we did the tests and now I’m back. Waiting.
If she tells me I’m sick, I have to begin preparations. I will have to figure out what to do with my viola, obviously, because I do not want it to wind up at a thrift shop or in a Dumpster. I will have to come to terms with the fact that I will never hear music again, never watch another black-and-white movie, never eat another cheeseburger, never see Israel. I will never see Ima or Aba or Tovah or Oscar at Muse and Music or Connor Mattingly or Laurel the pianist or Boris Bialik or the woman who drives the 44 bus.
I will have to find a doctor who can give me lethal medication. Will it be a pill or an injection? Would I feel each organ shutting down, feel my blood stop flowing, my heart slowing? Do I have to write some kind of good-bye-cruel-world letter, or is that just something they do in movies? What should I wear before I do it? My nicest dress? Pajamas? Many Conservative Jews are against cremation, so would my parents bury me? Where? Would my eyes and kidneys go to someone else? There is a little heart on my driver’s license that means I am an organ donor. . . . Is this what that is for?
I’d have to figure all this out, and oh my God, I’m not ready. The night of the party, I was so sure I’d still go through with my plan. I assumed it would mean ultimate peace for me. An escape from what I’ve seen Ima endure.
Now I am really fucking scared of everything I’m going to miss out on. I have been so glib about suicide—possibly because death terrifies me more than I can admit.
Please, I think to myself. Please Not yet.
“Adina,” Dr. Simon says when she finally calls me back. “There’s nothing on our tests that indicates you have Huntington’s right now.”
“What?” This was the answer I wanted, but I don’t quite believe her. “But, but the clumsiness, and the delusions . . .”
Dr. Simon leans forward, propping her elbows on her knees. “Here’s what I think is happening. Sometimes anxiety can bring on delusions and occasionally hallucinations. You’re dealing with a tremendous amount of anxiety. You likely experienced an auditory hallucination on the train.”
“So this is all in my head. That’s what you’re saying.”
“It does happen. I’ve seen many patients go through it.”
I don’t want her to tell me how many other people go through it. I want her to tell me how to fix it.
“How do I make it stop?”
“Counseling is a good option, and we can discuss medication for anxiety.”
But I have more questions. “Honestly, how much time do you think I have? I’m not trying to be morbid, but . . . a ballpark. Like, how much time before it starts getting bad?”
“I wish I could give you a real answer, but that’s the tricky part of this disease,” she says. “There’s a chance you won’t experience symptoms for another twenty years.”
“But there’s also a chance they could start in my twenties. Or before.”
“A chance, yes,” she says. “A very small one. There hasn’t been enough research about those cases to have really solid statistics, but some numbers indicate about five percent of all HD cases start that early. But you know we can’t predict that.”
With my fingernails, I scrape harder at the fuzz on my jeans. In this room, talking to Dr. Simon about this disease I am surely going to start suffering from at some point, with Tovah knowing my secrets and limited time, I’m certain, before she tells our parents, I feel trapped. I am utterly trapped in this body, my skin stretched too tight across my bones, my ribs about to snap. Without the plan, there is no escape, and the unknown terrifies me.
