Rope

A single strand is easily snapped; it’s the many strands woven together that gives a rope its strength.  And strength is silent.  It endures.

Jenny and I became friends the day she learned of her potential sickness.  She had a half-half chance of getting Huntingtons, the genetic disease that could one day reduce her to a slobbering, helpless shell.  I remember her being shocked, too stunned to speak to anyone, as if that would stop the word from spreading.  She soon became known as the Huntington’s girl, though not to her face.  She knew so just the same.

By then I went everywhere with her.  I helped her develop the pattern of life that would get her through the first year.  Wake up.  Eat. School.  Eat. Sleep.

“I guess I could end it at any time.”  She told me once.  “But I won’t.  I want to make the most of the time I have left.  Maybe be brave enough to make some friends.”  I said nothing back.

The next day she came back with a girl named Alice, but did not introduce me to her.  She was the type of girl who wore black ribbons in her hair and colourful stockings beneath Mary-Jane shoes.  She was cute, but not in the generic sense of the word.  I didn’t mind giving up my friend.  Alice was good for her.

They hung out most of the time in the library, hidden in the castle of books that seemed to pile up on their study desk near the window.  People always seemed to understand their need to giggle and poke each other.  I, of course, was always nearby.

“I admire you.  Everyone does.” Alice suddenly said one day.  She had a container of bubbles hidden beneath the desk and was waiting for the librarian to look away.  A wobbly pile of storybooks did little to hide their guilty-looking faces from her stern view.

“Why?” Jenny asked as she added another book to the pile.  She opened a new one and scanned through the first few lines.  Non-fiction, something about sculpting judging by the pictures.  She studied the minute figures carefully, already making plans for her own hunk of air-dry clay at home.

“You’re so happy.”  Alice replied, eyes narrowed at the librarian, as if engaging her into a staring contest.  The aging woman didn’t seem to notice.  “And so nice to everyone.  I don’t know, if I knew I was dying I’d be a little more depressed.  I don’t think I’d have it in me to be that brave.  That’s my favourite thing about you.”  She seized the opportunity—a couple applying for library cards—to whip out the wand and send a few bubbles wafting into the air.  The two girls quickly popped them, sending them into tiny rainbow explosions of soap.

Jenny seemed abashed and she opened another book on top of the first one.  It was stamped with bright pictures of the Presidents.  “I didn’t used to be so brave.  I mean, before when I first moved here last year I was too afraid to talk to anyone.  I just didn’t feel like I fit in.  But now, I figure it’s kind of like my duty to meet as many people as possible.  To hear their stories.  I don’t want to miss anything this world has to offer cuz I don’t know how much time I have left.  I mean, there’s still a half chance that I don’t even have the disease.” She sighed and scanned over the page in her friend’s silence.  “Oh my gosh, Nixon looks funny!”  she exclaimed, jabbing her finger down onto the page.

Alice began to laugh.  “You’re so ADD!”  She caught her breath, met her friend’s eye, and burst into another fit of giggles.  Jenny joined in.

The vibrating of her cell phone cut her off.  Do you want to know?  Jenny stood up, holding the cell phone, suddenly unable to figure out how to send the simple response.  “I gotta go.”  She said without looking back.  “I got a text from my dad.”  The colour had drained from her face as she scurried past the bookshelves and out the door.

Naturally I went with her.

Her dad was a psychology teacher who did everything by the worn teacher’s manual.  He had messy, sprouting hair, a nervous thin mouth, and round glasses that he constantly fidgeted with.  As his daughter burst in through the door, he adjusted them on his long nose and stared down at her as if not sure where to begin.  In his hands, on top of his stack of teaching materials, was an envelope.

“Dad?”  Jenny asked.  She began picking at her nails in the silence.

He handed her the envelope.  “You’re thirteen years old.  That’s how old your mother was when she found out.  

Jenny nodded solemnly, about to speak.

“You don’t have to open it.”  He said.  “You have that freedom of choice.  You can keep it, burn it, open it, whatever you want. “

Jenny couldn’t help but wonder if this was part of some ‘curriculum’ that he and her mother had made up before her mother passed away.  She took the envelope just the same and hugged it to her middle, uncomfortable as her father watched her expectantly.  She darted down the hallway and into her room, safe behind the heavy oak door with the tacked on keep-out signs.

Her room was little more than a plethora of projects that she had started but never finished.  On her desk was a half knitted scarf, forgotten instantly as she discovered the calligraphy pens at Walmart.  A few scraps of paper showed their use with shaky lettering.  Her bed was covered in books she had borrowed from everyone.  Story books, manuals, how-tos.  Internet articles of potential projects plastered her walls, hi-lighted, circled, written upon.  She called that whole wall her bucket list.  Her door was reserved for the articles about Huntington’s.  The symptoms, the causes, research articles of people trying to find the cure, and a picture of her mother.  On a “My name is” sticker in the middle, she had written the word Strong.

“I don’t know what to do.”  She told me.  I was seated on her bed on top of an article about colour theory.  She placed the envelope on my lap.  “I don’t even know how to feel about this.”  She picked up her phone and stared at the text message that just came in.  Is everything ok?  She sighed and started to dial Alice’s number but stopped as she looked back at me.  She dropped the phone on the bed and seized the envelope, ripping it open.

She stared at it for five minutes flat.  She fell to her knees, the paper swooping down to the floor.

Negative.

It was reason to be happy, to celebrate, but why couldn’t she move?  This was the state she was in when she first learned of her chances of having the genetic disorder.  Hot tears sprang to her eyes and down her face and to the ground.  Tear after tear.  Sobs heaved at her chest.  “I’m free.”  She finally croaked.  “It’s like the future is looming up…I don’t know what to do anymore.  I never planned on actually having a full life.”  She put her head in her hands and cried until her nose was running and her throat was scratchy.

Finally she stood, wiping her eyes, and stared at the picture of her mother on the door.  “Mommy, I don’t know who I am.”  She whispered.  Her knees were shaking.  She laughed nervously.   She marked out the word ‘strong’ on the sticker and crammed the words “just like everyone else” in with a pink gel pen.

I stayed with her all night, my arms around her neck until she worked up her last bit of bravery and kicked the stool aside.  She fell through space before jerking to a stop, just inches away from the floor, hanging from the bar above the window that let morning light shine down onto the door.  But the pink curtains were closed and the room swathed in rosy darkness.

And I, the rope around her neck, held her there not by my own strength but by the strength of her doubts.