Fighting to Avoid Her Mother’s Fate, for Her Daughters’ Sake
Linde Jacobs paced back and forth across her bedroom, eyeing the open laptop on the dresser and willing the doctor to appear. Her husband was dropping off their older daughter at school. Their younger daughter was downstairs, occupied by a screen. Linde wanted to be alone when she learned whether she carried the family curse.
Linde’s mother, Allison, had died just four weeks before, after a mutant gene gradually laid waste to her brain. In her 50s, Allison transformed from a joyful family ringleader into an impulsive, deceptive pariah. She drove like a maniac on cul-de-sacs. She pinched strangers, shoplifted craft supplies and stole money from her daughter.
She had a bad feeling. She and her mother had been so alike. Allison had been a physical therapist and Linde was a nurse. They were both doers — taking charge, mending wounds, planning theme parties. They were both chipper and a bit unfiltered, easy to a smirk or a four-letter word.
The doctor finally popped up on the computer. Wasting no time on pleasantries, she shared her screen and zoomed in on one line of laboratory paperwork: POSITIVE.
