Free Double Helix by Nancy Werlin Page B

couldn’t. Little as I was, it made me afraid. Somewhere in me, I thought it was a bad idea to draw too much attention. To have people watch me too closely. And so one day I told my parents that I didn’t want to play sports anymore.
    I remember my dad looking at me. “Okay,” he said. I had been prepared for him to ask questions, or to protest, but he - hadn’t. “If that’s what you want,” he said.
    Of course, after my mother became symptomatic, there - wasn’t time for organized sports. At school, I hung out with nerdy unathletic types like Viv. And after a while, despite my size, nobody thought about me as a potential jock anymore. And except when something like this pickup game happened, I rarely thought about it myself.
    It wasn’t like I didn’t get any exercise. I ran a few times a week, and in the summer, I liked to kayak. I played the occasional, slightly careful game of tennis on the courts at the Y in the summer, when they had open sign-up for games. It was enough. It was okay.
    Inevitably, my thoughts drifted back to my visit with my mother—and the testing thoughts that seeing her always stirred up. My eighteenth birthday had been back in March. Of course, that was before I’d found the HD-negative letter addressed to my father, before I knew that he, too, had been at risk.
    Things had been tense between us, anyway, about other things. I’d made sure I was busy with Viv on my birthday, but afterward I’d come home and my father had laid out all the genetic testing information on the kitchen table.
    Just as I’d known he would.
    The first step: the phone number to call to schedule the psychological counseling that they wanted you to have before you were tested, to make sure you could handle the results, either way.
    I’d felt my father come up behind me. I hadn’t turned around. My voice was steady.
    â€” Dad, listen. I don’t think I want to know. I’m not ready. At least not now, and maybe not ever.
    â€”But I’m sure . . . I tell you, Eli, I’m sure that you’re negative. Just do this. Put your mind at rest.
    â€”You mean put your mind at rest.
    â€”No! This is what’s best for you. Get it over with. It’ll be a huge relief when you know, when you see the results, that you can just get on with your life.
    â€”I’m not ready.
    â€”Please, Eli . . . trust me on this. I just know you’re negative.
    â€”But you can’t be sure, Dad. It’s fifty-fifty. That’s a scientific fact .
    Unbelievably, after that, the conversation had degenerated into a childish bout of “I do know!” “You can’t!” “I do! I sense it!” until finally we’d both stomped away, angry and frustrated. It had become yet another area of silence between us, but the phone number was tacked up on the bulletin board in the kitchen. I never looked at it, but I knew it was there.
    Making that appointment was more than I could bear to do. More than I could risk. How could my father not even try to understand that? I couldn’t understand his attitude, especially now that I knew he’d gone through the same thing himself.
    Although . . . maybe that was why.
    Thinking about it now, feeling my muscles tighten even more, I realized that despite the pickup game, I was still full of adrenaline. I needed Viv, and would see her tonight—we were going out for dinner—but today she was at her summer job, doing gardening for a local landscaper. I hoped she wasn’t going to be working every Saturday this summer. Even if we made plans every Saturday night, that would be a little tough.
    I needed Viv. I needed someone today. Someone. Right now. Someone . . .
    I had reached Central Square. I was only a few blocks from home, and the remainder of the afternoon stretched before me. I wondered if my father was home, or if he had scheduled clients this afternoon at his office. If he were