Dear Brother, You Loved Me Too Late novel · Chapter 7 of 24
Chapter 7: The Variant
On Monday morning, Dixon sat beside her in the genetic counselor's office with his hands between his knees.
He had traded a shift to come.
He had not asked her to explain why she'd said his name when the nurse said to bring someone.
The counselor was a small woman with round glasses and a folder of printed pages.
"Angie, I'll be direct," she said. "The panel found a pathogenic variant in the CDH1 gene."
"In English?"
"A gene that normally helps cells stick together has a fault in it. People born with the fault have a very high chance of this kind of stomach cancer, often young. It is inherited."
"From who?"
"One parent. Each child of a carrier has a fifty percent chance."
Angie sat very still.
"My father is healthy," she said. "And he isn't my biological father. My mother married him when she was pregnant."
"Then it came from your mother. Or from the man who left."
"My mother died when I was born. Nobody ever told me what from."
"Complications of childbirth can be very real. I can't say what happened to her." The counselor chose her words with care. "But a woman who carried this fault would very likely have developed the cancer herself, and young. Her records would show it."
Angie looked at the pages in front of her.
The word variant was printed there in black, again and again.
"Do you have siblings?" the counselor asked. "Anyone who should be tested?"
"I have a stepbrother. Colin. Twenty-four."
"Then he isn't at risk from your mother's side."
"Good," Angie said. She meant it, and her chest loosened.
Then something else came up, slowly, from the bottom of her memory.
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