Mutation

He was in his bedroom on the third floor of the Murray townhouse on Beacon Hill. “Whenever I move I feel pressure behind my eyes and in my sinuses.” The precise terms were a startling contrast to the tiny toddler’s palms with which the child clutched his head.

“It’s worse than before dinner?” Colette asked, smoothing back his tightly curled blond hair. She was no longer startled by her toddler’s exceptional vocabulary. The boy was lying in a standard-size bed, even though he was only two and a half years old. At thirteen months he’d demanded that the crib be put in the basement.

“It’s much worse,” Mark said.

“Let’s take your temperature once more,” Colette said, slipping a thermometer into his mouth. Colette was becoming progressively alarmed even though she tried to reassure herself it was just the beginning of a cold or flu. It had started about an hour after her husband, Horace, had brought Mark home from the day-care center at Chimera. Mark told her he wasn’t hungry, and for Mark that was distinctly abnormal.

The next symptom was sweating. It started just as they were about to sit down to eat. Although he told his parents that he didn’t feel hot, the sweat poured out of him. A few minutes later he vomited. That was when Colette put him to bed.

As an accountant who’d been too queasy even to take biology in college, Horace was happy to leave the sickroom chores to Colette, not that she had any real experience. She was a lawyer and her busy practice had forced her to start Mark at day care when he was only a year old. She adored their brilliant only child, but getting him had been an ordeal the likes of which she had never anticipated.

After three years of marriage, she and Horace had decided to start a family. But after nearly a year of trying with no luck, they’d both gone in for fertility consultation. It was then they learned the hard truth: Colette was infertile. Mark resulted from their last resort: in-vitro fertilization and the use of a surrogate mother. It had been a nightmare, especially with all the controversy generated by the Baby M

case.

Colette slipped the thermometer from Mark’s lips, then rotated the cylinder, looking for the column of mercury.

Normal. Colette sighed. She was at a loss. “Are you hungry or thirsty?” she asked.

Mark shook his head. “I’m starting not to see very well,”

he said.

“What do you mean, not see very well?” she asked, alarmed.

She covered Mark’s eyes alternately. “Can you see out of both eyes?”

“Yes,” Mark responded. “But things are getting blurry. Out of focus.”

“Okay, you stay here and rest,” Colette said. “I’m going to talk with your father.”

Leaving the child, Colette went downstairs and found Horace hiding in the study, watching a basketball game on the miniature TV.

When Horace saw his wife in the doorway, he guiltily switched it off. “The Celtics,” he said as an explanation.

Colette dismissed a fleeting sense of irritation. “He’s much worse,” she said hoarsely. “I’m worried. He says he can’t see well. I think we should call the doctor.”

“Are you sure?” Horace asked. “It is Sunday night.”

“I can’t help that!” Colette said sharply.

Just then an earsplitting shriek made them rush for the stairs.

To their horror, Mark was writhing around in the bed, clutching his head as if in terrible agony, and screaming at the top of his lungs. Horace grabbed the child by the shoulders and tried to restrain him as Colette went for the phone.

Horace was surprised at the boy’s strength. It was all he could do to keep the child from hurling himself off the bed.

Then, as suddenly as it had begun, the screaming stopped.

For a moment, Mark lay still, his small hands still pressed against his temples, his eyes squeezed shut.

“Mark?” Horace whispered.

Mark’s arms relaxed. He opened his blue eyes and looked up at his father. But recognition failed to register in them and when he opened his mouth he spouted pure gibberish.

Sitting at her vanity, brushing her long hair, Marsha studied Victor in the mirror. He was at the sink, brushing his teeth with rapid, forceful strokes. VJ had long since gone to bed. Marsha had checked him when she’d come upstairs fifteen minutes earlier. Looking at his angelic face, she again considered his apparent ploy in the pool.

“Victor!” she called suddenly.

Victor spun around, toothpaste foaming out of his mouth like a mad dog. She’d startled him.

“Do you realize VJ let you win that race?”

Victor spat noisily into the sink. “Now just a second. It might have been close, but I won the contest fair and square.”

“VJ had the lead through most of the race,” Marsha said.

“He deliberately slowed down to let you win.”

“That’s absurd,” Victor said indignantly.