Sentence:  Max , in a fit of despair , takes Alicia and runs off for two marvelous weeks in Burbank ( Fink calls it `` the most wonderful and lovely fourteen days in my whole life '' ) , at the end of which Alicia tragically <WSD>contracts</WSD> Parkinson's disease and dies . 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  be stricken by an illness, fall victim to an illness