Rules for 50/50 Chances (6 page)

We eat mostly in silence. As I get up to clear the table, Dad grabs a takeout container from out of my hands. “I got this, Ro,” he says.

“Why?” I always clear the dinner table.

Dad shrugs exaggeratedly. “Consider it a beginning-of-senior-year present.”

I eye him suspiciously as he crushes the Styrofoam platters into the trash. There's probably a landfill somewhere in the greater Boston area with our family's name on it. “Herein lies the waste produced by the Alexander-Levenson family. They used their oven for storage.”

“What, Dad?”

“What what?”

“You're acting weird.”

Dad gives up on trying to stuff the trash bin closed and yanks the full bag out, the detritus of many nights of takeout dinners stretching at the white plastic. “I'm not acting weird. Am I acting weird?” He glances around at Mom and Gram for backup but they both ignore him. “Maybe it's just sinking in that my only daughter is a senior in high school. You're growing up. A father is allowed to feel sentimental without being accused of acting weird, is he not?”

I look across the table to Mom and cross my eyes. She can't really cross hers in response, but she smiles crookedly.

“Anyway,” Dad goes on. “Go do your thing. Talk to Lena. Go on the Twitter.”

“It's not ‘the Twitter,' Dad. No article.”

“You know what I meant.”

I'm relieved that he's just being sentimental about my senior year. I thought he might try to bring up the HD test again. I go over to him and give him a pat on the back. “Okay, Dad. Love you. Don't be weird.”

“Love you more!” he calls after me as I head upstairs. “Not being weird!”

 

 

I already have a paper to start researching for my history class, but I decide to ignore it for now. I click on a new post on this hilarious blog I follow called
Teens with Bad Genes
, in which a kid whose sister has Tay-Sachs regularly turns life with genetic disorders into material worthy of Comedy Central, while also sharing news items of interest to people like him—presumably, teens with bad genes.

This week the blogger kid has written about an experimental program at some Orthodox Jewish high schools, where they test kids for a whole battery of genetic conditions that are common among Ashkenazi Jews—Tay-Sachs, Niemann-Pick, Canavan—a lot of pretty bad stuff. (Jews have a lot of lousy genetic luck—something about being a small population that has traditionally intermarried. We keep passing around those killer genes. I'm only Jewish on my dad's side, and I honestly think he feels a little vindicated, on behalf of his people, that I got genetically short-changed from the gentile side of the family.)

Anyway, according to his blog post, each kid gets a number that goes with his or her test results, and when they start dating someone else from the community, they call up a hotline with both ID numbers and the person on the phone basically tells them if they're genetically compatible or not. If they both carry the gene for the same condition, they'll get a big fat no, and then they're supposed to stop dating and go back to the drawing board before things get too serious. Pretty clever, if you ask me.

Of course, I'm not surprised to read that the program only tests for recessive conditions—things where you have to inherit the bad gene from both parents. The program doesn't even bother testing for dominant conditions, where only one parent needs to pass on the gene for their child to get the disease. (Case in point: Huntington's.) Apparently the program directors believe it's “unhelpful” to identify someone as carrying a mutation for a dominant condition because in the community, those people would be “marked as unmarriable.” And, clearly, who would sign up for that? I think of Dad, and wonder what he would've done if someone had handed him a genetic test before he fell in love with Mom.

I'm halfway through the blog post when a red Facebook notification pops up on my screen. “Caleb Franklin has added you.”

My stomach lurches. So he was serious about the Internet stalking. I accept him as a friend and click over to his profile to see what's on offer, when a chat message appears in the corner.

Caleb Franklin:
Ah, HD girl. Is it really you?

Me:
Indeed. You found me. Stalker.

Caleb Franklin:
Yup. I warned you.

Me:
Next you're going to lure me into the woods?

Caleb Franklin:
Considering it. Just out of curiosity, which woods would you suggest in the greater Boston area?

Me:
Fresh Pond?

Caleb Franklin:
Too many dog walkers.

Me:
Walden Pond?

Caleb Franklin:
It would be a little crass to stash a body in Henry Thoreau's place of peace and solitude, wouldn't it?

Me:
Fair enough.

Caleb Franklin:
In that case, I suppose we could skip the woods-luring stage of our relationship. All right?

I'm so thrown by his casual use of the phrase “our relationship” that I don't respond immediately to his message. Fortunately, he changes the subject right away.

Caleb Franklin:
So what's on your docket this evening?

Me:
My “docket,” huh?

Caleb Franklin:
Mock away, HD girl. Mock away …

My cheeks flush. I glance over my shoulder at my open bedroom door, just to see if Dad or Gram is hovering. Not that I'm doing anything wrong, but somehow the conversation feels private.

Me:
History paper.

Caleb Franklin:
Anything interesting?

Me:
I guess. It's a women's history elective, so it's not bad. I'm writing about the early history of reproductive choice advocacy. Margaret Sanger, birth control, you know. Etc.

I can't believe I just said “birth control” to Caleb Franklin.

Caleb Franklin:
Cool. So the whole medical thing is a big interest for you?

Me:
“The whole medical thing” is sort of broad …

Caleb Franklin:
Genes, birth control, etc.

Me:
Fair enough. Sort of comes with the genetic-disorder-in-the-family territory, don't you think?

Caleb Franklin:
I can see that. You're a nerd, basically.

Me:
Hey!

Caleb Franklin:
Hey, I'm a major nerd. I like nerds.

By which he means … he likes this nerd? At the very least, he's still talking to me. Suddenly I want to tell Lena every word that Caleb Franklin has said to me to date, and let her dissect them all with me. I never thought I'd be that person, but here I am.

Me:
So I did some research. You were right. The HD test's not that expensive.

Caleb Franklin:
Oh yeah?

Me:
I can take it once I turn eighteen. This February.

Caleb Franklin:
Wow. What are you thinking?

If only I knew what I was thinking, Caleb Franklin. If only I knew. I hesitate before settling on a response. I want Caleb to think I'm self-assured, clever, confident—like he is. But there's no way to sound clever and confident about something so completely uncertain.

Me:
It's complicated.

Caleb Franklin:
Indeed.

Me:
My HD status is this piece of information that hangs over literally EVERYTHING I do. Every choice I make about my future, about how I want to live, about the things I want to experience. You know? I had been going along with the idea that I wouldn't know one way or another for a long time. You kind of threw a wrench in that.

Caleb Franklin:
Sorry about that.
☺

Me:
Don't be. It's just opened things up for me. Possibilities. A positive result might make me … do things differently.

Caleb Franklin (after a long-ish pause):
So might a negative result, right?

Me (after another long-ish pause):
Yeah. I guess it would.

Caleb Franklin:
Do you have to decide now? Maybe you're overthinking this at this stage.

I let out a snort at the computer. Caleb already knows his genetic lot. Some of us don't have that luxury. He might understand what it's like to live with sick people, but he doesn't get what it's like to have your whole life held hostage by one fifty-fifty chance.

Me:
Maybe, Caleb Franklin. Or maybe not. I'll let you know when I figure it out.

After Caleb and I say goodnight a few minutes later—“Hasta la vista,” he says, which makes me feel weirdly hopeful that I will “see him later”—I pull my phone out. I text Lena the words I know will make her call immediately: “I think I met a noteworthy boy.”

Sure enough, her face pops up on my phone screen within seconds.

“Yell-o,” I say. “What's up?”

“What's up?”
she says. “What is up with the text you just sent me?” I can barely hear her—it sounds like there are people yelling in the background.

“Where are you?”

“Supermarket with my mother. Hold on,” she says. “I don't care, Ma, chicken is fine.” She sounds muffled, like she's holding the phone away from her ear. “I have to talk to Rose. She met a boy!”

“Lena!” I yell into the phone. “Please do not tell your mother about this! It's so not a big deal!” Lena tells her mother everything. They've been like that ever since her dad died, even after her mother got remarried. I can see how the disappearance of one parent can forge a kind of superglued bond with the other, but I can't imagine telling my father all the stuff Lena tells her mom. Certainly not the parts about boys.

Lena comes back on the line, with less background noise. “Sorry. I just went out to the car. So, wait. What?”

I tell her about the walk—she squeals at the part when Caleb brings me the small T-shirt—and then about our online conversation just now. When I finish, there's a long pause.

“Are you still there?” I ask.

“Mmm-hmm,” she says. “Rose. I think this is a thing.”

I stretch my legs out in front of me on my bedroom floor and lean out over them, pressing my face to my knees. I inhale and exhale twice before I roll back up to respond.

“I don't know. Maybe.”

 

 

After I hang up with Lena, I go down to the kitchen and find my mother trying to make a cup of tea. We still have the knobs on the stove, but it's one of the things Dr. Howard says we're going to need to “deal with” soon. We're going to have to Mom-proof the house so she doesn't hurt herself or light us all on fire, in other words.

I stand in the doorway, watching her fumble with the kettle. She tries to get her index finger to engage properly with the trigger for the spout, but misses. Tries again, another miss. She sets the kettle down and takes a slow, shallow breath. The third time, she gets the spout open, and pours the boiling water to the left of the mug she's set on the counter. It splashes off the counter and splatters her hand.

“Dammit!” The kettle clatters to the floor, and Mom shakes her burnt wrist.

“Let me,” I say. If she were normal she would hear the slight edge in my voice and tell me not to be so impatient.

“I can make a g-g-goddamn c-c-cup of tea.”

“You burned yourself, Mom. Here, run it under cold water.”

I turn the tap on and hold her jerking arm under the running water. “Hold it there for five minutes.” That's what Dad said the last time she burned herself trying to make tea.

“F-f-five minutes is a long f-f-fucking time.”

She never used to swear in front of me. I can't tell if it's her frustration or her declining inhibition that makes curses come so easily from her mouth these days.

“Just do it, Mom, or you'll have a scar.”

I let go of her wrist and watch as she makes an effort to keep it steady under the water. I pick up the kettle and drop a dishtowel over the puddle on the tiles.

Quietly, her voice clearer than before, she asks, “Rose, c-c-can you make me a cup of tea?”

Gram appears in the kitchen doorway and just hovers there, assessing the situation. She looks from me to Mom with a slight crinkle at the edges of her eyes.

“She spilled the water for tea. She's fine,” I say.

“I'm f-f-fine,” says Mom, her words slurring again. It's hard for her to concentrate on two things at once: keeping her arm under the running water, articulating her words clearly.

“Let me see.” Gram reaches for Mom's arm and looks at the red splash across her wrist. “We should put some butter on this.”

“No one puts butter on burns anymore, Gram. That's a myth.” My grandmother also still thinks you get a cold from not buttoning your coat up all the way.

“All right, Rose. Do it your way.” She turns on her heel and disappears.

Even a year ago, Mom would've snapped at me for talking back to Gram (even though I'm right—butter on burns? Come on). Now I don't think she can bother making the effort to be annoyed with me, if she even notices my snippy tone at all.

I don't mean to be short with my grandmother. It just slips out. She's a good grandma, and I'm pretty sure she did not see her life turning out like this. She had her three kids—two girls and my dad—and then my grandfather split, leaving her to navigate a foreign country and childrearing on her own. She got a degree in library science and once all the kids were out of the house, she picked up and moved back to England. She ended up in Stanmore, a little Jewish neighborhood in northwest London where she could be close to the sisters and cousins she'd left behind when she married the apparently quite dashing (and unfaithful) American who was my grandfather and followed him to Shaker Heights, Ohio.