PART 2: The Secret Hidden In His Blood
The photograph showed a thin man sitting in a wheelchair outside a nursing home, his arms twisted awkwardly and his expression strangely vacant. He looked far older and frailer than Greg, yet his eyes, his jawline and his distinctive hair were almost identical to my husband’s.
“Who is this man, and why does he look exactly like Greg?”
“His name was Raymond Cole. He was my father, and he was Greg’s father too.”
The stranger introduced himself as Elliot Cole and explained that he was Greg’s half-brother. I protested that Greg had grown up believing he was an only child. Elliot told me that their father had abandoned Greg’s mother and gone on to start another family in Ohio.
Elliot had not known about Greg either until a genealogy website flagged an unexpected DNA match. Suddenly I remembered the ancestry kit Sophie had given Greg the previous Christmas, hoping he might finally discover something about his family history.
“Greg contacted me last March. We met at a diner in April, and he spent hours showing me pictures of you and Sophie.”
Elliot said that Greg had been delighted to learn he had a brother, especially after growing up without ever knowing his father. The mood of their conversation changed, however, when Greg asked what had happened to Raymond.
“Our father died in 2003. He had Huntington’s disease, and his final years were extremely difficult.”
I knew very little about the condition, so Elliot explained it as gently as he could. Huntington’s was an inherited neurological disorder that slowly damaged movement, thinking and behavior. Each child of an affected parent, he said, had a fifty-percent chance of inheriting the genetic change that caused it.
As he described the symptoms, my mind filled with images of Greg: the trembling fingers, the dropped coffee mugs, the sudden bursts of irritability and the restless, fidgeting movements. The changes I had noticed during the previous year suddenly seemed far more frightening.
“Greg asked whether I’d been tested. My result was negative, but he decided to undergo testing himself in June.”
Elliot told me that Greg had attended genetic counseling before taking the test and had received his results several weeks later. Elliot had waited outside the clinic that day, and when Greg finally returned to the car, he looked completely devastated.
“He tested positive, Claire. His doctor also believed some of his symptoms could be early signs of the disease.”
I began to cry as I realized that Greg had known about his condition for months without telling me. The personal days Denise mentioned had been medical appointments, and his withdrawn, secretive behavior at last had a terrible explanation.
“Why would he hide something like this from his wife? We’ve shared everything for twenty-two years.”
Elliot admitted that his own family’s experience had shaped Greg’s decision. Their father had needed extensive care for years, and Elliot’s mother, Carol, had spent fourteen years looking after him as his condition worsened.
Carol had sacrificed her savings, her home, her friendships and eventually her own health while caring for Raymond. She died only two years after her husband, and Elliot remained convinced that the long strain had hastened her decline.
“When Greg heard what my mother went through, he became terrified that the same thing would happen to you.”
After receiving his diagnosis, Greg had called Elliot and declared that he would never allow Claire to spend her remaining years caring for him. Elliot had urged him to tell me the truth, but Greg was certain that I would refuse to leave if I understood what was happening.
“He thought that if you believed he’d stopped loving you, you’d eventually move on and find happiness with someone else.”
At last I understood why Greg had insisted that we weren’t meant to grow old together. He had never stopped loving me. He had simply decided that ending our marriage was the only way to shield me from his future.
“He made that decision without asking me. He took away my right to choose.”
Elliot nodded sadly. Then he told me that Greg’s illness was not the only reason he had come looking for me. He had boarded this cruise because someone else’s future could be affected by the secret.
“Claire, there’s something else we need to discuss. It’s about Sophie.”
I stared at him as the meaning of his words sank in. If Greg had inherited Huntington’s disease from his father, then our twenty-year-old daughter could have inherited the same genetic change, and she knew absolutely nothing about it.
