Pandora's Key (4 page)

There was a knock on the exam room door. “
Entrée,
” Juliette called, and Dr. Aali walked in carrying Malledy’s thick medical chart.

Dr. Aali was a skinny man with rectangular glasses too wide for his narrow face. He was only five-foot-four and with his wiry gray-hair looked like a wise, old man in a child’s body. He shook Juliette’s hand and then patted Malledy on the shoulder. “Nice to see you,” he said, sitting down on a stool and rolling forward until he was perched in the space between Malledy and Juliette.

“You’ve reviewed my MRIs and the new tests?” Malledy asked.

Dr. Aali nodded and opened Malledy’s file, scanning it quickly. “Your original physician, Dr. Cantori, diagnosed you with Huntington’s disease four months ago based on a genetic test combined with emerging symptoms. But your own research led you to believe you’re too young to contract the disease so you came to me for a second opinion.”

“That’s right.” Malledy nodded. “Symptoms usually occur after age thirty-five. In addition, I’ve had none of the typical warning signs that usually accompany the disease.” His heart was beating so hard against his chest that the sensation was painful.
This is what hope feels like.

“Yes,” Dr. Aali said, momentarily distracted as he flipped through his notes. “It’s always important to get another opinion—especially when facing this sort of diagnosis.”

“Has there been some mistake?” Juliette asked, leaning forward, her hands gripping the edge of the chair. Again Malledy felt irritated. Juliette’s fear and need to help both embarrassed him and made him feel guilty.
She cares
, Malledy reminded himself.
She’s the only one who ever has.

Dr. Aali met Malledy’s gaze with compassionate brown eyes. “I’m very sorry,” he said.

Malledy’s stomach cramped violently, and then dropped. His body felt unbearably heavy, weighed down by those three words: I’m very sorry. Malledy had known, hadn’t he? Of course he had. After all, his fellow Archivists considered him a genius, and they, themselves, had staggering IQs. Strange, Malledy thought, how he’d spent his entire life unemotionally evaluating facts but when they were personal he’d lost all perspective.
Why did Juliette allow me on this wild goose chase? Because she didn’t want to see clearly either.

“The original diagnosis was correct,” Dr. Aali continued. “You have early onset Huntington’s disease. While it’s rare in a teenager, it’s not unheard of. And it progresses much more rapidly in the young. Unfortunately, despite my own and others’ research, we still have no cure for the disease.”

Dr. Aali closed Malledy’s file. “You are clearly a thoughtful young man. I’m going to be straight with you because knowing what to expect will make this process easier. Your chorea will lead to weakened muscles until you’ll be unable to walk, talk, or swallow. At some point, the disease will attack your brain causing hallucinations, delusions, and violent outbursts.”

Dr. Aali took off his glasses and folded them. “Malledy, you and your mother will need to prepare for the latter stages of this disease because you’ll require full-time care. There are also groups that can provide counseling and I’ll prescribe drugs to ease the process.”

Ease the process—he means drugs to help me die.
For a split-second Malledy imagined swinging his right fist and connecting with Dr. Aali’s stubby nose, watching the blood splatter across the exam room’s bright walls.
This isn’t a violent outburst. This is a normal reaction to a horrific death sentence.

“I don’t want to take any more drugs until I need them,” Malledy said with forced calm, trying to ignore the fact that Juliette was crying. “Can we increase the dosage of Paroxetine?” The doctor nodded.

Kneeling beside Juliette’s chair, Malledy said gently, “It’s okay—it was a long shot. We’ll get through this together.”
Don’t make this any worse. Please stop crying.

Malledy stood and reached out to shake Dr. Aali’s hand, making sure his own grip was firm. “Thank you for your time,” he said, his throat tight with emotion.

“I’m honored, young man. Now, I’d like to put you on a specific diet. Sometimes eliminating certain food groups can slow the course of the disease. We can monitor you—”

“We’ll be going home now,” Juliette interrupted, wiping her tears and squaring her shoulders, once again all Archivist.

“No,” Malledy said. “I want to stay in town and be treated as an out-patient by Dr. Aali.
For once I’m going to choose how I live…and how I die.

Evangeline and her best friend, Melia, walked down a tree-lined sidewalk. Bare branches covered with buds still hid tender leaves from the crisp spring air. Evangeline wore her usual school outfit—an oversized sweatshirt, loose Levis, and black Adidas with white stripes.
No sense advertising the fact that I have no curves, right?
Melia, on the other hand, was wearing a jean skirt, tight cashmere sweater that accentuated her 36C’s, and black leather knee-high boots.

They passed Evangeline’s favorite house—a light-green cottage with pale-blue trim around the windows. The white fence surrounding the cottage was made from wooden slats in all widths and heights that looked like crooked teeth. Evangeline had always assumed an artist lived there because the mailbox was hand-painted. Last year the occupant had depicted Mount Hood, Mount Adams, and Mount Saint Helens on the dented metal. It was a view only the rich people who lived high in the hills of Portland could afford. A few months ago the scene on the mailbox changed. Now it depicted a dense forest of emerald-green ferns and an aquamarine waterfall cascading onto shiny stones.

Evangeline paused to look at the scene on the mailbox—it seemed three-dimensional and so real she could actually see mist rising from the water tumbling over the edge of the rocks. And she could hear the sound of the rushing water pounding the receiving stones. Evangeline looked up at the sky—blue with fluffy clouds.

“E, what’re you looking at?” Melia asked.

“Um…I think I hear rain or something,” Evangeline said. She heard it again—a gurgling gush—and looked down. The toe of her sneaker was wet. Water-wet. Evangeline brushed her fingers over the waterfall, wondering if the clear finish the artist had used was dripping, but all she felt was dry paint.

“It’s a sunny day! Quit daydreaming—we’re gonna miss the bus.”

“Sorry.”

The girls moved past an old brick clock tower connected to a crumbling rectangular building. The clock chimes began to play a song Evangeline knew she’d heard before, but couldn’t quite recall.

“So,” Melia teased, “what about Raphe?”

“We’re just friends,” Evangeline said for the millionth time. Melia had boyfriends on the brain. Evangeline was sixteen and had never been kissed because who’d want to kiss some big-footed giraffe? There were only a few boys in her class tall enough to reach her lips—she was already five-foot-ten and still growing. Her best guy friend, Raphe, always said she’d grow into herself, but she knew he was just being nice.

Raphe’s awkward days were long past. He was almost six feet tall with amber-colored eyes framed by dark eyelashes and an olive complexion that flattered his dirty-blonde hair and dimples. Raphe wasn’t in any clique or on a sports team, but everyone liked him anyway because he was simply cool. Evangeline had a secret crush on Raphe that she hadn’t told Melia about because she knew, without a doubt, that Raphe wouldn’t be interested. Plus, there were very few people Evangeline wasn’t shy around and Raphe was one of them.
Why make a friendship I cherish awkward by sharing my feelings?

“Just friends,” Evangeline repeated.

“Un-huh.” Melia shrugged, flipping her shiny dark-brown hair over one shoulder. Evangeline noticed her friend was toying with the silver bracelet she always wore now, the one with an oversized ruby in its center—probably made of plastic. At the core of the dark-pink stone were thin veins of purple in the shape of a starburst. Melia’s boyfriend, Tristin, had given it to her when they’d gone to the spring formal and she never took it off, even though the silver was leaving greenish tarnish marks on her wrist. “Well, I’m totally into Tristin—we’re not
just friends
.” Melia grinned like the cat that’d swallowed the canary.

“Understandable,” Evangeline said, kicking a fallen branch off the sidewalk. Tristin Quin was a transfer kid from the Midwest. He was really good-looking—tall, wavy brown hair, and gorgeous hazel eyes. He hung out with the lacrosse jocks, fascinated with the sport (even though he didn’t know how to play), and he was really popular. He’d needed tutoring in math and Melia was a math whiz, so Mrs. Cranmar had asked her to tutor the kid. One thing had led to another. Melia said Tristin told her it was a turn-on that she was so smart. And it was obvious why her best friend liked Tristin. Who wouldn’t?

Evangeline was the first to admit that she was more than a little jealous. Melia was super-cute with all the right curves. Boys loved her and although part of that was because she was a huge flirt, most of it was because she was pretty, funny, and smart. Evangeline and Melia had known each other since they were little kids; sometimes Evangeline wondered why Melia had ever stayed her best friend once they got older and Melia became so popular.

“Hey!” Tristin called. Carrying a lacrosse stick one of his buddies had loaned him so he could learn the game, he loped across the street, and casually draped his arm around Melia’s waist, hand sliding into her jeans pocket. The trio continued to walk toward the bus that would take them to Jefferson High School.

“It’s E’s sixteenth birthday,” Melia told Tristin.

“Sweet—what’d you get from your folks?”

“It’s just me and my mom,” Evangeline said. Tristin raised an eyebrow. Evangeline’s words began to tumble out before she could stop them because that’s what happened when you were bashful and you held all your words in—sometimes they just escaped in a messy, embarrassing jumble: “My mom got pregnant young and the guy split. I never knew him.” She finally paused, her cheeks burning.

They reached the bus stop and Tristin flicked stones across the street with the lacrosse stick. “Don’t you ever want to try to find your dad?” he asked.

“She asked her mom about him once,” Melia said, over sharing, “but she doesn’t know where he is.”

Evangeline looked away. What Melia didn’t know was that her mom had looked so sad that she hadn’t had the heart to ask for any details. Her father’s name was Richard—that’s all she knew or was ever likely to know.

“Dads are overrated,” Melia said.

Easy to say when you have one, Evangeline thought. Not only didn’t she know her father or his family, but there was no one left living in her mother’s line. Her mom’s own mother had been a famous prima ballerina named Cleo who’d died in a car accident when her mom was seventeen. It turned out that Cleo had spent much more than she’d ever made and owned none of the extravagant jewels she wore or mansions she lived in. The expensive boarding school Olivia was attending kicked her out when she couldn’t pay the tuition. The bank took Cleo’s clothes, furs, and cars to pay back some of what she owed them—although they generously allowed Olivia to keep her mom’s cat.

All that was left to Evangeline’s mom from some distant and long-dead aunt was a small bungalow in Portland, Oregon, so she moved there right after her mother died—alone, and with only $9000.00 and a beat-up guitar to her name. A week later, she discovered that she was pregnant. She tried to contact her boyfriend (the owner of the guitar), but it seemed his dad had been transferred to Europe and the kid hadn’t even bothered to tell her he was leaving school or give her an address or telephone number or anything.

It was pure luck that Samantha Harris, a local Portland art dealer, discovered Olivia at a Saturday Market where she was desperately trying to make some money to support herself and her new baby. She’d resorted to painting flowers on glass bottles she’d fished out of recycling bins. Olivia sold them as vases and people lined up to buy them. Samantha saw something unique and marketable in the young woman’s work and became her agent, providing Olivia with canvases and quickly selling several small pieces.

Those early sales made it possible for Olivia to have the heat turned on in the bungalow and to buy necessities for the baby. For the next sixteen years Samantha had shepherded Olivia’s painting career, turning her into a sought-after artist whose work sold for a lot of money. Sam was also a big sister to Olivia and godmother to Evangeline; they both loved her fiercely.

“So what’d you get?” Melia’s question snapped Evangeline back to reality. She unzipped her hoodie to show off the chain and key. Melia’s eyes widened. “No way! Your mom never takes that off.”

“I know. But she said it’s a tradition in our family. Every daughter gets it when she turns sixteen.”

Tristin looked up. “Why?”

“She doesn’t know, but since we don’t have any relatives or other traditions it’s important,” Evangeline said, then felt idiotic for sounding so serious and added, “to her.”

Tristin flicked a stone at a stunning gold and orange butterfly fluttering by and the insect dropped to the pavement by Evangeline’s sneaker, one wing torn. “Damn—I didn’t mean to hit it,” Tristin said, looking at the insect struggling on the concrete.