Inside the O'Briens by Lisa Genova Page A

her face has gone ashen, her eyes withdrawn.
    Dr. Hagler retrieves her clipboard. She slides her glasses back over her eyes and writes in Joe’s chart. She then sits down, places the clipboard on the counter, removes her glasses, and sighs.
    â€œOkay, you have some symptoms here. Your movements don’t look completely normal. It’s possible that you have Huntington’s disease, but I want to do some blood tests and an MRI.”
    â€œAn MRI of my knee?” asks Joe.
    â€œNo, not your knee. Your head.”
    â€œMy head? What about my knee?”
    â€œDr. Levine checked out your knee and found it to be stable. Your knee looks fine, Joe.”
    â€œBut my head doesn’t?”
    â€œWe’ll do the MRI and the blood work and go from there.”
    â€œWait,” says Rosie. “What’s Hunningtin’s disease?”
    â€œHun-ting-ton’s,” says Dr. Hagler. “It’s an inherited neurological disease, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. We’ll do the MRI and the blood work. We’ll do a genetic test to confirm whether or not it’s Huntington’s, and if it is, we can treat the symptoms, but we can talk about all that next visit if that’s what we’re dealing with.”
    Moments later, Joe and Rosie are led back into purgatory, where a new set of lost souls waits in silence, and Rosie schedules Joe’s appointments with the receptionist. His next visit with Dr. Hagler isn’t until March, exactly two months from today. Rosie asks for something sooner, but the receptionist says it’s the soonest she has.
    They proceed through the automatic doors of the Wang building, and the biting January air rushes at them. Joe takes a deep breath. Even polluted with car exhaust, the cold air feels fresh and healthy in his lungs. He pauses on the sidewalk, the air blowing against his face, moving through his lungs, and he feels real again. Whatever just happened in that building wasn’t real.
    Rosie leads him to their car on the fourth floor of the garage. Joe’s grateful that she came with him as he admits to himself and not aloud to Rosie that he couldn’t remember where they parked. They get in, and Rosie hands him the garage ticket.
    â€œAt least we know my knee works,” says Joe.
    Rosie doesn’t comment. She’s frowning, her eyebrows knotted, tapping her iPhone screen with her finger.
    â€œWhaddaya doin’, hun?” asks Joe.
    â€œGoogling Hun-ting-ton’s disease.”
    â€œOh.”
    Joe drives the dizzying spiral out of the garage. It’s a quick, unmemorable drive back to Charlestown and then the longer hunt for a parking space. As Joe zigzags up and down the hilly streets of their neighborhood, he keeps glancing at Rosie, her attention still buried in her phone. He doesn’t like the shape of her face, her frown deepening, ruining her pretty mouth. He doesn’t like that she’s not sharing any of what she’s reading. She doesn’t say anything to reassure him. She’s not saying anything at all. She taps, frowns, reads, and says nothing.
    He finds and doesn’t mess with two parking spaces “reserved” with trash barrels before finally landing a spot only a block away. They walk home in silence. They dump their coats and shoes in the front hallway. Joe goes straight to the kitchen. He pulls the largest jelly jar from the cabinet and pours a glass of wine. He grabs a can of Bud from the fridge and looks for Rosie.
    The living room shades are drawn, making it feel like early evening instead of noon. Joe doesn’t flip on the light. Rosie is wrapped in her ivory afghan on the couch, reading her phone. Joe places the jar of wine in front of her on the coffee table and sits in his chair. Rosie doesn’t look up.
    Joe waits. Pictures of the kids from their high school graduations and JJ’s wedding hang on the wall over the couch. There are pictures all over the