Brain Child

by Andrew Neiderman

  “Some people need to think that, though, Lois. Take your mother, for example …”

  “In time, she won’t need it. She’ll face reality and go on.”

  He studied her a moment, sitting back with his arms folded across his chest.

  “What if she doesn’t?”

  “Oh, she will. I’ll help her. I know I can,” she added, this time smiling with obvious self-assurance and pride. It was at that moment that McShane permitted himself to admit to himself that he disliked this girl. He had fought it all this time because she so personified all the things he believed in and subscribed to, and in disliking her he was actually disliking a large part of himself and what he felt he represented. He resolved to bring about some changes in Lois Wilson, important changes.

  What Lois Wilson needed, he thought, was a sense of balance between science and humanism. What good was all the invention and discovery if it didn’t improve the quality of life as well as the quantity? It was Sherry’s argument and he’d often deliberately oppose her just to tease her, but of course, she was right. Maybe he should turn her loose on this Wilson girl? Then again, no, he couldn’t do that to Sherry.

  “What are you going to do this summer?”

  “It depends. If the store is sold, as I hope it will be, I’ll have more freedom to try some projects and read. Why?”

  “I’m teaching a six-week sociology course. Just introductory material, but you might find it interesting. Why don’t you audit?” This could be a way to get some of those humanistic concerns across to her, he thought.

  “I might just do that.”

  “We can throw some ideas about.”

  “I’d like that. Thank you.” She was flattered. Obviously, he was very impressed with her.

  “Oh, by the way, whatever happened to that paper you were going to do on obedience?”

  “I’m still working on it. It’s become somewhat more involved than I originally intended.”

  “Well, stick with it.”

  “I will. I’m more like that ant when it comes to behavioral concepts,” she said and offered him the warmest smile she was capable of giving.

  That night, more aggressive than usual in his lovemaking, he told Sherry he was behaving like an ant and laughed.

  “What’s the joke?”

  He told her, and then he told her about his conversation with Lois concerning her father.

  “I mean, it’s almost as though she feels absolutely no blood relationship. Can you imagine how this kid must’ve been brought up?”

  “I get the feeling it wouldn’t have mattered how she was brought up.”

  “What d’ya mean?”

  “From what I’ve seen of her and from what you’ve told me, she’s just … emotionally disabled. I think it’s genetic.”

  “Doesn’t sound like your interpretation of things.”

  “I know, I know. It’s frightening. You’re going to laugh again, but I think such a girl, such a person, is dangerous. Don’t you dare call me a romantic,” she added quickly. He didn’t say a thing, not a thing.

  When Lois returned home that afternoon, she found her mother in the darkest corner of the living room. Her posture was so stiff and erect that she looked like a clothing-store manikin. Her hands were folded in her lap. One of the side-table lamps was on, but it succeeded in throwing only a pale yellow glow over the room, silhouetting the furniture and other lamps on the far wall. The curtains were drawn tight, permitting very little of the dull gray afternoon light to enter the room. Lois stood in the doorway for a moment and then walked into the room.

  “Why are you sitting there like that? Mother?”

  “What?”

  “I asked you why you were sitting in the dark like that.”

  “Is it dark? It wasn’t this dark when I first sat down.”

  “Where’s Billy?”

  “In his room, I guess. Lois, you’d better come sit down. I have some rather bad news to tell you,” she said. She spoke as though hypnotized, a tone of voice Lois recognized from previous occasions when her mother was faced with some difficult emotional problems. It was her retreat from hysteria.

  “Is Daddy dead?” She sat on the couch and put her books beside her.

  “You’ve got such strength, such strength. I should be more like you,” Dorothy said and laughed a silly little laugh. “No, your father’s not dead, although he’d probably be the first to say he’s as good as dead. I’m sure he’d rather be dead.”

  “All life is relative. I’m not a moralist, but I oppose euthanasia. There is always something to be learned and—”

  “Please, Lois, please.” She held her hand up like a policeman stopping traffic. “I just can’t deal with your lectures right now.”

  “Well, what is it? What’s the bad news?”

  “I had a long talk today with the doctor—as a matter of fact, with all the doctors taking care of your father. They don’t hold any hope of his making much improvement.”

  “I could have told you that long ago.”

  “What do you mean? Do you think you’re a trained doctor too?”

  “The incidence of complete recovery from such a massive stroke is simply—”

  “I don’t want to argue about it.” She paused and lowered her voice. “I don’t have the strength. They don’t want to keep him there anymore. They don’t think there’s any point to it.”

  “I see. What does that mean?”

  “They want me to institutionalize him. I realize now that it’s going to have to be done … eventually.”

  “What do you mean, ‘eventually’?”

  “Well, one of the doctors said he could make some progress faster if he were in his own home, in a familiar environment.”

  “Of course, the environment is terribly important for any behavioral changes, even in his case. Perhaps especially in his case,” Lois added, more to herself than to her mother. “It’s very interesting.”

  “Interesting? I’m talking about your father. Don’t you understand?”

  “Of course I understand. So what are you planning to do?”

  “I got a call from Bob Peterson an hour ago. He’s got a buyer for the drugstore.”

  “That’s great. I knew we would sell it.”

  “So with that out of the way … I think we can bring your father home, at least for the summer. I’ve learned how to handle his therapy, and the therapist did say he would stop in shortly after we bring Greg home. He’ll review everything with both of us.” She paused and took a deep breath. “I’m still thinking about sending Billy to sleep-away camp. It’ll make for less responsibility for both of us.”

  Lois’s thoughts went immediately to her obedience paper.

  “I don’t know if he’d be that much of a problem, and there is the added expense.”

  “With your father here in the condition he’s in … I don’t know if I can handle it … we might have to give up after a week or so.”

  Lois thought about her father upstairs in his room. He was like a large one-celled animal with a man’s intelligence. What an object of study. What potential for understanding and developing concepts. She might do her greatest paper before she even entered college.

  Of course, her mother could be something of an obstacle. If that should happen, she could work around her or perhaps (and this possibility held out even greater potentials) work on her.

  “Well, what do you think?”

  “Think?”

  “About all that I’ve been saying. I’m going to need your help.”

  “I’d have to agree with the doctor. Bring Daddy home. Let’s try. Let’s give him the best care we can.”

  “And Billy?”

  “I don’t see him as a problem. If he is or becomes one, we can always take him to the camp then. He can even be of great help.”

  “O God,” Dorothy said, wringing her hands some, “give me the strength. I hope we’re doing the right thing.”

  “We’re doing the right thing,” Lois
said. She got up and left her mother in the shadows. It was better that her mother didn’t see the light burning in her daughter’s eyes.

  11

  The arrival of the ambulance bringing Gregory Wilson back to his house was traumatic for each member of his family for different reasons. Billy was excited at the sight of it, but he was also frightened by it because he had known it only as a sign of illness, death, or accident. Its siren quickened heartbeats. No matter where he was or what he was doing, all play would stop, the movement from fantasy back to reality was instantaneous, and the images it brought to mind lingered to haunt him the rest of the day. When he saw his father emerging on the stretcher, he felt as if a movie he had seen before were now being played backward. His father’s eyes were shut, his face was pale and gaunt; he, looked just as small and as helpless as he did when the ambulance came to take him away.

  “Is he dead, Lois?” Billy whispered. “Did they bring Daddy back dead?”

  “In a manner of speaking, maybe,” she said and then looked at him. “No, she said. “He’s not dead, but he’s not completely alive either.” Billy remained confused but asked no more questions.

  Dorothy Wilson stood with her hands pressed against her cheeks. She looked like a woman watching furniture movers, afraid they might damage a family heirloom. Greg was placed on a stretcher with legs that unfolded. It had wheels at the bottom, making it possible for the attendants to roll him toward the front door. She had the sensation that she was receiving a delivery. In this case it was her husband on a slab. Confronting him like this, out of the hospital environment where there was all that equipment, the security of nursing personnel nearby, where she could go to visit and then leave him behind, confident that what could be done was being done, she suddenly felt terribly afraid.

  Because of his condition, there was very little happiness to be felt in his homecoming. Instead of being washed in joy, ecstatic and lightheaded, she experienced the impression that a great weight was now being lowered onto her shoulders. Panic began to set in—she had taken on too much. And now it was too late. Could she start to shout “Stop”? Tell them to put him back in and take him away again? What had she done? She turned to Lois for confirmation of her fears, but Lois looked as intent and as calm as usual. In fact, she looked even satisfied.

  Lois had determined that from the beginning she would avoid thinking that the man on the stretcher was her father. She would deliberately repress the thought in order to avoid any emotional obstacles. He wasn’t much like the father she had known anyway, so it wasn’t that difficult to do.

  Her concern at this moment was to catch her father’s reaction to being brought home. She wished she could follow alongside the stretcher, taking his pulse, observing his physiological reactions. She could see from the way his eyes were moving from side to side that he was trying to take in as much of the familiar scene as he could. No doubt he wanted them to stop the stretcher, lift him up, and permit him to look completely at the front yard and the front of the house. He was hungry for the past, desperately reaching back for the way things had been.

  All the while she considered his homecoming, Lois wondered about the way someone in her father’s condition reacted to conflict. Who could be at a higher frustration level than a man who was once very active and was now almost a vegetable? There were a number of ways in which people reacted to their frustrations. How many of them would her father now exhibit? He couldn’t continually deny the problem. He could pretend he was asleep and this was all a terrible nightmare, but he couldn’t sustain that pretense long.

  Of course, he must be going through great fear and anxiety, she concluded. That could easily lead to a distortion of the reality he now knew. Certainly not able to blame himself for his condition, he was surely going through a defense mechanism known as projection: he was shifting the blame. Perhaps he blamed Dorothy or faulty medicine. Perhaps he blamed the doctors. She was eager to find out.

  Someone in his condition had to embrace fantasy eventually, she thought. Perhaps he would envision himself a futuristic creature who had gone beyond the body, a creature who existed only in the mental process. She determined that she would keep her father aware of his body for as long as she could. There were plans that depended upon that.

  “Easy, now,” one of the attendants said as they lifted and tilted the mobile stretcher to go up the small front-porch steps. Dorothy moved closer to the action. Billy hovered around Lois, who remained aloof.

  “Takes a lot of courage to do this,” Patty said, coming up behind Lois and Billy. “Your mother’s got a lot of guts. Let’s hope it works out for the best.”

  “It will.”

  “If you need me for anything, don’t hesitate to call. No matter what time of the night or day.”

  “Thank you.”

  Billy followed Lois into the house. She and her mother had determined, after some conversation, that it would be of greater psychological benefit to keep Greg in his own bedroom, even though it was upstairs and that meant a lot more difficulty for them. Lois had agreed to give up her bedroom if it proved too difficult. Throughout the conversation, Lois could sense that her mother was somewhat hesitant about sharing her room with Greg now that he was in this condition. Lois relieved that problem somewhat when she suggested they buy a motorized hospital bed for him.

  After they rolled him through the entranceway and to the foot of the stairs, the attendants stopped the mobile stretcher and lifted Greg off it. The walk up was obviously very difficult because of the stairway’s narrow width. After he was finally secured into the bed, they raised him to a sitting position. The attendants said their goodbyes to him. Greg’s mouth moved, but no sounds emerged. He closed his eyes and struggled to utter his indistinct guttural noise. Each attendant squeezed his hand and left.

  Dorothy stood to the left of the bed, smiling stupidly. Billy was so close beside Lois he continually touched her with his head and shoulders.

  “Well,” Dorothy said, slapping her hands together, “it’s so good to get you home. The children …” She turned to Lois and Billy. “The children are so happy. Come closer, Billy, so your father can see you.”

  Billy hesitated, but Lois pushed him forward. He inched up to the side of the bed. Lois thought she detected a definite smile on her father’s face now, although it was difficult because of the slack-muscled look he now wore.

  “Say something,” Dorothy prompted. Billy looked to Lois and then shook his head. “Go ahead; he wants to hear your voice.”

  Gregory’s eyelids closed and opened slowly.

  “I don’t wanna,” Billy said and ran back to the doorway.

  “Give him time, Mother,” Lois said, approaching her father’s bed. “The doctors told us you’ve been saying yes and no with your eyelids: once for yes and twice for no. Is that right, Dad?” He closed his eyes and opened them. “Good.”

  “I don’t want you to worry about any of the financial problems,” Dorothy said. She sat herself at the foot of his bed and took his limp left hand into her hands. “We’ve done everything we had to do. Lois has been a great help. She remembered so much about our affairs. You can be very proud of her. We’ve considered everything very carefully.” Gregory looked away from Dorothy. He seemed to be searching Lois’s face for some confirmation.

  They had decided not to tell him about the sale of the drugstore just yet, figuring that might be too devastating a blow. The doctors had agreed. Despite Gregory Wilson’s medical knowledge, he would cling to hope for himself.

  Later, Lois elaborated for her mother. “His mind won’t permit itself to think in terms of finality. He’s like a man about to be hanged, dreaming that the rope will break. The imagination provides some respite. If we shut off all avenues of escape he might withdraw into a complete coma.”

  “What’ll we do?”

  “Lie to him. Tell him we’ve hired a pharmacist until he gets well enough to take on his responsibilities again.”

  “But he’ll wonder why I�
�m not at the store anymore.”

  “You’ll stay away from him enough during the day to give him the impression you do go to the store, and we’ll tell him we’ve hired more help, responsible help. He’ll let you lie to him. You’ll see. He doesn’t want to face the truth.”

  That was just what Dorothy set out to do. Lois observed that she wasn’t very good at it, and every time she turned to Lois for support and her father studied her face, she knew none of it was very convincing.

  “The bottom line is we won’t starve; we’re provided for until you get well again,” she concluded. She held his hand, but there was no change in his facial expression. He stared with watery eyes. “It’s so good to have you home, Greg. It’s so good.” She kissed his hand.

  “I’ll go down and work on supper,” Lois said.

  “Good.” Dorothy straightened up and nodded, wiping her cheeks. “I’ll just keep him company. You can stay if you want, Billy.”

  “I don’t wanna. I wanna help Lois.” He followed Lois down the stairs eagerly. “Maybe I should give her back those earrings now,” he whispered. “Maybe that’ll help make Daddy better, huh?”

  “What?”

  “You know, those big earrings.”

  “That doesn’t have anything to do with it. He was sick for a long time before that. I told you that. Forget about those earrings. And why are you so afraid of him? He’s still your father.”

  “I don’t like the way he looks. When will he talk again?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “He will, though, right?”

  “Maybe,” she said, taking on that dreamy, far-off look he had grown accustomed to. “He’ll change, I guarantee that.”

  She said it with such certainty it made Billy feel reassured. Still, he wondered if he shouldn’t give. back those earrings. Maybe he would just sneak them back. Maybe.

  “I was thinking about Helen Keller and Annie Sullivan the other day.”

  “Yes?” McShane said. He couldn’t help but notice a subtle but definite change that had come over Lois recently. Although it would have seemed impossible to him before, she appeared even more confident, more assured, more (and he hated to use the word even though it fit) powerful to him. It was as though she had quickened her steps to maturity. What brought it to his attention was the fact that she wasn’t asking as many questions; she was making more definite statements. Analyzing the moment, he felt as though he were sitting with one of his peers, someone else who taught in the department. To go even further, he felt as though Lois were the teacher now and he the student.