Rummaging in the kitchen dresser for some hangover relief, I find a packet of Advil and take two out of the pack.

‘How’s Nancy?’ Joanna says, her false eyelashes lined up like synchronized swimmers preparing to dive into her eyes.

‘Fine, the same as usual,’ I say, filling a glass with water. I don’t want to get into the details of what my mother said, not with Joanna.

After swallowing the tablets, I unzip my jacket and fling it onto the closest chair. Please let her move on to the next subject, I can’t handle this today, not with this blinding headache and burning guilt.

‘Poor Nancy,’ she says, ‘it’s so sad seeing her like that.’ She pauses for a moment, giving me a flicker of hope. But no, here she comes again. ‘Have you ever thought about getting tested for the gene?’ she says just as Danny walks in the door.

‘Not really,’ I say.

‘It’s just, with your mom having gotten it so young, you should maybe think about it.’

It kills me to admit it, but Joanna has a point. My mom is one of the youngest ever to be diagnosed with Alzheimer’s at the Mass General Hospital. Early-onset Familial Alzheimer’s Disease, to be exact, or eFAD, which is different to the more common one that older people get, LOAD. Which means Mom has a fifty-five-year-old heart in what looks like a hundred-and-five-year-old body, with a less than a five-second memory. Nowadays they know a lot more about the gene that carries the possibility of this elongated death sentence.

Sure, there is a possibility that I may have inherited the gene, so I will think about getting tested. Whenever I have spare money. Or top tier health insurance like Danny. I just don’t want to discuss it now, not with Joanna, and definitely not with Danny.

‘What are you talking about?’ Danny says, washing his hands. Danny is a lot taller than me, keeps himself fit, and has parted his hair the exact same way for as long as I can remember. His clothes always sport an expensive logo, so they’ll do his boasting for him. And he is always doing something, anything; he just can’t sit down or keep still.

‘Nothing much,’ Joanna says, handing him a paper towel. ‘I was just asking Becca if she’d thought about getting tested for the Alzheimer’s gene.’

‘And why would she want to do that?’ he says, drying his hands a little too vigorously.

‘I just thought…’ Joanna says, turning away.

‘Well, don’t. Becca has no interest in getting tested.’ Then, for her sake or mine, or his, I can’t really be sure, he turns to me. ‘Do you, Becca?’

‘Does she what?’ says Dad, walking in.

‘Get tested,’ Danny says.

‘It’s no big deal,’ Joanna says. ‘I only asked Becca if she’d considered getting tested for the eFAD gene.’