The Upside of Down Read Online Free Page B

politics. My mom volunteered at a hospital while I steered clear. Apart from a few sports-related injuries, I managed to avoid white coats and waiting rooms altogether. Sports and fitness formed the core of my life. When aged eighteen I won a scholarship to play volleyball at Duke University, playing and training more than twenty-five hours each week. As life went on I assumed I would remain indefinitely in that exclusive class of healthy people, an elite group who pass by hospitals without entering, dropping gold coins in buckets labelled with unpronounceable medical conditions—giving partly out of generosity, partly as a superstitious offering to the gods of good health.
    Then, while studying at Stanford University several years later, I met Darryl. I should have known better. I mean, it wouldn’t take a rocket scientist to see that a relationship with a man from the furthest end of the planet was going to be complicated. And, oddly enough, I actually had about four Stanford PhD rocket scientists as friends at the time. But even they didn’t warn me.
    I first encountered Darryl at one of those unpleasant beginning-of-the-year student parties where everyone is a stranger. He was about my height with a sinewy runner’s build and perfect shoulders. I only noticed the striking blue eyes later when he made his way over to introduce himself, accompanied by his Indian roommate, Jayant. His faint Kiwi accent might have been enough to sell me on the man, except our first conversation throbbed with awkwardness. I learned he was from New Zealand; he was intrigued to discover that I played competitive volleyball (I suspect he knew about the tiny shorts worn in the sport). Then we discussed our academic plans.
    â€˜I’m stressed about my economics class,’ I confessed, after discovering he was working on a PhD in the subject.
    â€˜Why?’
    â€˜The maths may do me in; I’m not really a maths person.’ Later I would discover that he was a ‘maths person’, with a First Class degree in the subject from Cambridge.
    â€˜Oh, I wouldn’t worry. Anyone with good calculus skills will be fine.’
    â€˜Uh, I never, er, actually got around to taking calculus …’ I admit, as though confessing to not showering for the past month.
    â€˜Really?’
    I nod my head, grimly.
    â€˜It must have been hard to get into the program without calculus …’ he trails off, genuinely shocked.
    Already panicked about studying at Stanford, half-convinced that my admission is some kind of an administrative mix-up, this doesn’t help. I quickly excuse myself to have a crisis of confidence in the bathroom.
    ***
    Two and a half years later two remarkable events had occurred. First, I was able to finish my degree without calculus. Second, a relationship emerged after that first dismal conversation and became a marriage.
    Darryl was athletic, intelligent and attractive. About five years after our marriage, more or less in line with my supposed life plans, we had a baby. It took us a while to conceive, the pregnancy was slightly troublesome and then there was the surprise of Aidan turning up early. Those things happen. But apart from being premature, he came with fierce blue eyes, no hair, a curly toe and cystic fibrosis. In my naïve view of the world, this wasn’t meant to happen.
    But here we are, sitting in a room that is completely devoid of personality, furnished like millions of other hospital consulting rooms around the world. It’s the day of Aidan’s diagnosis and we’re waiting for the doctor and geneticist to arrive. I look around at the pastel print on one wall, a clock on another, several stiff upholstered chairs and a small beige couch. It even smells clinical, sterile. When the doctor enters, he’s carrying only a thin manila folder: Aidan’s medical file. How long will it be before this file is too heavy to hold in one hand, each page representing