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someone
else's life
Katie Dale
For my wonderful parents.
Thank you so much, for everything.
And for all those whose lives have been touched by
the shadow of Huntington’s disease. Your courage
and strength are humbling and truly inspirational.
May a cure be found soon.
Prologue
“Are you turned on?” Josh whispers, his breath
tickling my ear in the dark.
“Shh,”
chide, my eyes glued to the screen as
Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore sit at the potter’s wheel,
their hands sliding over each other in the slippery clay.
“It’s romantic.”
“And very suggestive …,” he says, delicious shiver
thrilling down my spine at his touch in the dark—secret
and sensual.
Is this how it feels?
gaze at the screen as the lovers’ kisses get
stronger, deeper, the pot long forgotten, goose bumps
tingling all over my body as Josh’s skin strokes mine.
bite my lip. Is this what I’ve been waiting for?
watch as the lovers come together for the last time
in this life—their love for each other real and passionate
and achingly visible.
Is that what we have? True love?
look at Josh.
love that will last forever, no matter what …?
He smiles, his deep brown eyes sparkling in the
dark as he gently cups my face.
“God,
love you,” he whispers, his gaze deep in
mine.
stare at him, my heart thrumming madly against
my chest. He’s never said it before—neither of us has.
This is it …
“I love you too.” smile, my grin splitting my face,
my stomach erupting with butterflies as dissolve in his
arms, pulling him closer than ever before
This is really it …
PART ONE
Someone Else’s Footprints
What’s in a name?
That which we call a rose by any other
name would smell as sweet.
—William Shakespeare,
Romeo and Juliet
Chapter One
Sunlight dances over the little girl’s dark curls as she
toddles clumsily through the dry grass. Her rosy cheeks
dimple as she grins, her green eyes sparkling as she lunges sticky fingers toward the camera. Suddenly she trips
The picture immediately jolts and twists into the
grass, continuing at
skewed angle as
chestnut- haired
woman rushes over to the child. But she is not crying. The
screen fills with silent giggles as her mother scoops her up, her beautiful face filled with tenderness as she cuddles her daughter tightly, protectively, holding her so close it seems she’ll never let go The picture begins to blur …
click the remote and the image flicks off, plunging
the room into darkness. stare at the blank screen. It’s
weird watching your memories on TV, like watching
movie. It’s like somewhere, in some wonderful world,
those moments are trapped, bottled, to be enjoyed again.
wonder if heaven’s like that—if you get to choose the best
moments of your life and just relive them over and over.
hope so.
The world outside looks different already.
desert
of white—the first white Christmas Eve in Sussex in years.
The snow hides everything, glossing over the lumps and
dips and tufts to leave perfect, smooth surface. Like icing
7
on
Christmas cake. It’s all still there, though. The dirty
gravel that hisses and spits as you drive over it, the jagged
rocks in the garden, the muddy patch where nothing
grows—they’re all still there, hidden, sleeping, beneath
the mask of snow.
Like my mother.
Nothing on the inside changed, the doctors said. She
could still understand what we were saying, she just
couldn’t respond like she used to. Couldn’t hug me and tell
me everything was going to be all right, like she always
had. Like needed her to. Because everything was not all
right.
pull the blanket tighter, but it makes no difference.
I’m already wearing three sweaters. Ever since Mum got
ill I’m always too hot or too cold—I can’t explain it.
Yesterday was one of the hot days, even though it snowed
practically nonstop. Everyone looked at me like
was
crazy, standing in the snowy graveyard in Mum’s strappy
stilettos and my red velvet dress among the whispering
sea of black, disapproving sighs rising like smoke signals
in the frosty air. But didn’t care—the biddies could tut all
they liked—she was my mother and the dress was her
favorite on me. She called me her Rose Red.
The shoes were her favorites too—I remember her
dancing in them at my cousin Lucy’s wedding. was about
four or five at the time, hiding beneath the buffet table in
protest at the fuchsia meringue I’d been forced to wear as
flower girl. But when Mum started dancing
forgot all
about that.
crawled out and just stared at her,
8
mesmerized. God, she was graceful. Everyone stopped to
watch her whirling, swirling form as she glided around
the room, those heels clacking like castanets.
When the song ended she stopped, breathless and
slightly dizzy, and looked around as if unsure where she
was. Then someone started to clap. Embarrassment
flushing her cheeks, she ran hand through her hair and
scooped me up into
tight hug, her eyes shining with
tears. It was only later that discovered it was the first
song she and Daddy had danced to at their wedding.
The stilettos were one of the first heartbreaks of the
diagnosis. remember hearing Mum crying in her room
one day and padding up to find her sitting on her bed,
placing them carefully into
silver box like
coffin,
shrouded with beautiful rose-colored tissue paper. The
doctors said high heels were just an accident waiting to
happen, and that, with everything else, was something she
really didn’t need.
watched as she kissed each shoe
before pressing the lid down gently and tying the whole
precious package together with blue ribbon. The first of
many sacrifices to Huntington’s.
That was
long time ago, though. That Mum died
long before her heart stopped beating last Tuesday. The
real Mum. The way I’ll always remember her, wearing
those precious shoes and swirling and whirling away to
her heart’s content. Not lying alone, small and frail and
empty, in hospital bed.
9
The sharp ringing of the telephone makes me jump.
count the rings—one, two, three—and the machine kicks
in.
“Hello!” Mum’s voice sings, and my heart leaps.
“You have reached the Ke
Rosie are out at the mo, but if you’d like to leave
message—you know what to do!”
swallow painfully. Aunt Sarah’s been on at me to
change it—and
know
should—but
just can’t bring
myself to erase her voice. She sounds so happy. So alive.
The caller clears his throat uncertainly.
familiar
trait, no matter how much time’s passed. My eyes flick to