“I don’t blame her for being alarmed, doctor. Don’t you realize how unreliable computers are? What if it bombed off while the boy was unsupervised? Suppose he was climbing off a chair when all of a sudden his senses…?”
Alma didn’t hear any more. She was halfway down the hall and saw Ethan at the other end staring at a photograph hanging on the wall: two old women, one of them a dwarf.
Yes, she thought suddenly. What if it did bomb off when she was not around? She had never really thought of that before.
The colors were bright and clear. And he could make them appear on the paper by rubbing the “crayon” back and forth. Rub-rub. But stay inside the circle. The crayons had a pleasant, waxy smell. Rub-rub. He had smelled that smell before. Rub-rub. But he had never connected the smell with the colorful little cylinders. It was wonderful. Did the different colors have different smells? He put down the brown one and picked up the green one and held it to his nose. He took a deep breath. Maybe. It was hard to be sure.
Alma watched Ethan from the corner of her eye as she washed the dishes. He sat at the kitchen table with a box of crayons and a sheet of butcher paper. He clutched the green crayon in his fist, and the tip of his tongue peeked from the corner of his mouth. The fist moved over the paper.
“Don’t put the crayon in your mouth dear.”
Ethan blinked and looked at her, looked back at the crayon. He continued doodling. “No, momma.”
Alma rinsed a plastic cup and set it in the drainer. “What are you doing, Ethan, dear?”
“Drawn a picher,” he said without breaking his frown.
“Of what?”
“Jus’ pichers.”
“Pic-tures,” she said, enunciating clearly. “Pictures have to be pictures of something, don’t they?”
He shrugged and hunched over the paper. “Doggie,” he said.
“Do you want a doggie?” She hoped not. She couldn’t take care of an animal besides.
“No. Jus’ drawn doggie pik-churs.”
“But a green doggie? Why are you making the doggie green?”
He stopped drawing. “I dunno.”
“You can make the grass green. And the trees.” She finished the last of the dishes and opened the drain in the sink. She dried her hands on a tea towel.
“Can I dry the dishsh—dishes, momma?”
“You might drop them on the floor, dear. You know how you still drop things sometimes.”
“Plastick don’t break. I can pickup.” Pride in the voice. I can pick up.
“I know you can, Ethan, dear. And it’s wonderful. But I would have to wash the dish over again after it was on the dirty floor. Don’t you like drawing pictures?”
Silence. She looked over at the table. Had the computer bombed? She hung the towel on its rack. Honestly. She had had such hopes for Zachariah’s implant; but Ethan still dropped things, and he was still slow to answer sometimes. It was a bother having to run the diagnostic program every morning and drag the computer with them everywhere—and the stares they received! Not that she minded. It was for her Ethan. Still, it was extra work.
Ethan slid off the kitchen chair and put the crayon box atop his wheely. He reached for the butcher paper.
“Where are you going, dear?”
“Bedroom.”
“There’s no table in there to draw on. I don’t want crayons all over my bedroom. Isn’t it much easier to draw at the kitchen table? You can show the picture to Uncle Vinnie when he comes here tonight.”
“Sto’room?”
“You know the storeroom is full—”
“Make sto’room my bedroom?”
“Then where would I put all the things that are in there?” Sewing machine. Ironing board. Winter clothes in the closet. And never mind the bright, happy wallpaper that Nate had hung himself. The smiling birds and happy squirrels. That had been when they had planned to use the room for something else. When they had thought they could have plans. Before they had known how impossible that would be.
“You’ll be able to do much better work out here. You have the table and the sunlight coming through the window.”
Ethan threw the crayon box onto the table. The lid came open and the little wax cylinders rolled across the formica surface. The red one reached the other side and fell to the floor.
“Ethan,” she said. But the boy was already rolling his cart toward the bedroom. She shook her head. Most of the time his coordination was good, but every now and then something would screw up and Ethan would miss what he aimed at—as with the crayons just now—or he would fail to hear what she said to him. She should keep track of these glitches. Tell Zachariah. Maybe there was a bug in the software.
She bent behind the table and retrieved the fallen crayon. Then she sorted the crayons out into proper order and placed them back in their box. Ethan’s drawing lay on the table. She picked it up and studied it. It was crudely drawn. Head and body were simple ovals. The legs were sticks. Both ears were atop the head; one of the eyes was outside the oval of the skull. Well, he was new to hand-eye coordination; and Picasso had become famous for work like this. Standing on a patch of green, the dog was brown after all.
She awoke that night from inchoate dreams into the darkness of her bedroom. What was it? What had woken her? A sound? Voices! Was it Vinnie? No, he had left early. She fumbled with the lamp on the night stand. Six o’clock? Something was wrong.
And Ethan’s crib was empty.
He’s roaming the house! She threw the covers aside and, clutching her nightgown tight around her throat, left the bedroom. They really should move to an apartment. Someplace smaller. There were only the two of them. There would only ever be the two of them. Rattling around in a half dozen rooms, it was too easy to lose track of him. She should have let Nate keep the house in the settlement.
She found him sitting on the living room floor with a bowl of cereal. The television was on and the roadrunner was giving it to the coyote again.
“Ethan!”
He jerked as if punched and a brief scowl crossed his face. “Yes, momma?”
“What are you doing up alone?”
“Watchin teebee.”
“You know I don’t want you playing with the TV. It’s dangerous. You could electrocute yourself.”
“You play it.” He cast his eyes down as he said it. Alma thought there was a hint of fear in his voice. Was he afraid that his mother would electrocute herself?
“Don’t worry, Ethan. Grown-ups know how to work the TV without being electrocuted.” She stooped and took his bowl and spoon. “Here. I’ll take care of that. I don’t want you spilling on the rug.”
“No, I throw’t out. Lemme. Can do’t myself.” He tugged on the bowl and it tipped and the milk splashed on him and on the rug. He froze and stared at the stain. Then he cried and hugged her. “M’sorry, momma. M’sorry. Din’t mean to do’t.”
After a moment, she hugged him back. Was it going to be like this from now on? Waiting for the next random computer glitch? What if the next time he fumbled something, it was not a bowl of milk and cereal but something dangerous? What if the next time he failed to hear her advice in time, it was a warning? She knew suddenly and clearly what she had to do.
Alma stepped into Doctor Silverman’s office and was immediately struck by the number of people present. Silverman and Zachariah, of course. Zachariah looked especially distressed and his big, brown cow-eyes regarded her with puzzlement. And the thin, dusky woman standing by the bookcase must be the Institute’s lawyer.
But Mick? What was he doing here?
Ethan wrested free of her grasp. “Uncle Mick!” he said, rolling across the room. Alma caught up with him just as Mick hoisted him up. “I missed you, Uncle Mick.”
“And I missed you.”
Alma seized Ethan under the arms and lifted him away. “Be careful,” she told Mick. “You’ve got to remember how long the umbilical is.”
She heard his voice over her shoulder as she turned her back on h
im. “Six feet, Alma. Six feet with a spring-loaded take-up reel. Plenty of slack for picking kids up and hugging them.”
She turned and stared at him.
“Whose company did you think supplied the components?”
So, that was why he was here. An investment to be protected. Profits. “I should have known,” she said.
She set Ethan with his legs dangling over the edge of the sofa and (flash on the day she had sat there listening to Doctor Silverman explain what it was she had to deal with) she turned and introduced the man still standing in the doorway. “This is Sèan FitzPatrick, my lawyer.”
“Not Vinnie Patterson?” said Mick.
There was an odd twist to his voice. She looked at him. “What, do you follow me around, Mick? That’s sad. Get a life. I have. Vinnie…makes me feel good about myself.”
“Right.”
“What do you mean by that crack?”
“For God’s sake, Alma. He looks like a kid.”
“Who, Vinnie? What of it?”
“So. I suppose you’ve always wanted one.”
She took two long steps across the room and slapped him. A long, roundhouse slap that started nearly from her knees. It rocked his head to the side. “How dare you!”
Silverman stood up from behind his desk. “Please!”
FitzPatrick laid a restraining hand on her arm. She looked at him and nodded and let herself be led to the sofa to sit beside a bewildered Ethan. “Mommy, why? What? Uncamick?” She hugged him hard around the shoulders, feeling the way the umbilical draped across her forearm. There, let them see for themselves that the wheely did not always help Ethan process his sensory inputs. Sometimes they were still garbled. “This is business,” she announced to the room at large. “Let’s keep my social life out of it.” She turned to the lawyer. “Sèan?”
FitzPatrick had dark brown hair threaded with white. His three-piece pinstripe suit fit him like a glove, and the trouser creases could slice cheese. Silverman favored the lawyer with a hard stare.
“We’ve spoken. On the phone.”
FitzPatrick responded to Silverman’s irony with a pleasant smile. “And had we settled the matter then, we would not have to have this meeting.”
Silverman introduced the Institute lawyer as Antoinette daSouza. FitzPatrick gave her a three-fingered scout salute. “Hello, Nettie. It’s been a while since we crossed swords, hasn’t it? I haven’t seen you down at Hogan’s since D.A. Copperfield’s retirement party.”
“I’ve been back home to see my parents,” she said, returning his handshake. She had an odd accent. Not quite Spanish. Brazilian, probably.
Hired guns, thought Alma. They didn’t care about her Ethan or about the Institute. Tomorrow, paid by someone else, they would just as cheerfully argue the other side. Shake hands and come out fighting. It was the fighting that mattered, not the fight.
Silverman’s first words were directed to her. “I don’t understand, Alma. I don’t understand, at all.” Turning to face him, she seized her resolution and held it tightly to her. “What don’t you understand, doctor? I want Ethan disconnected. Is that too hard to comprehend?”
Tom Zachariah was seated in a padded armchair beside Silverman’s desk. He had his elbows resting on the arms of the chair and his hands were clasped into a ball under his chin. His eyes were troubled. “Why?” he asked.
Before she could respond, FitzPatrick laid a hand on her arm. “Mrs. Seakirt does not have to answer any questions. It is her decision not to continue the extraordinary medical treatment that her son has been receiving.”
“But that is foolish,” said Zachariah. He looked at Alma, but she would not meet his eyes.
“Irrelevant,” said FitzPatrick. “In re Maida Yetter, citing Roe v. Wade, the constitutional right to privacy includes the right to refuse medical treatment even if the refusal is ‘unwise, foolish or ridiculous.’”
“Alma can decide for herself if she wants medical treatment,” Mick interrupted. “But is that what Ethan wants?” The mark of her palm stood out dull red against the pale skin of his cheek. I shouldn’t have slapped him, she thought. I shouldn’t have given in like that. It made her look foolish and hysterical.
FitzPatrick looked at Mick. “Being retarded, Ethan is incompetent under the law. A court would hear his preferences, but they would not be controlling. Alma Seakirt, as Ethan’s parent, is entitled to make his decisions in his name.”
“But the electro-neural transformer has reduced Ethan’s retardation,” Silverman pointed out.
“True,” FitzPatrick riposted, “but it does not make him any older. He is still under eighteen and still legally incompetent.” He smiled at the doctor.
A lawyer’s trick, thought Alma. A rhetorical ambush. FitzPatrick used words the way a fencer used a foil. What was it he had said to her when Vinnie had introduced them? Among the Irish, conversation is regarded as one of the martial arts. But he didn’t have to look as if he were enjoying himself.
DaSouza spoke up. “The state also has parens patriae interests, Sèan, to look out for those who cannot look out for themselves. That’s the basis for child labor laws and mandatory school attendance. In re Mildred Terwilliger, the court must consider only the interests of the incompetent person, and not merely the interests or convenience of the parent.”
“My convenience?” said Alma. “My convenience? Do you know how difficult it is to—” FitzPatrick raised his hand palm out and she stopped herself. Yes, he was right. Why hire someone to argue your point and then argue it yourself? FitzPatrick knew what he was doing; and, at Vinnie’s request, he was even doing it pro bono. Otherwise, the Institute might have been able to bully or trick her into backing down.
“The U.S. Supreme Court,” FitzPatrick reminded daSouza, “held in Parham v. J.R. that simply because a parent’s decision is disagreeable to the child or because it involves risks, the power to make the decision does not automatically transfer to the state. And a parent is presumed to be acting in the best interests of her child.”
“Parham is federal law,” said daSouza. “This will be tried in Orphan’s Court.”
FitzPatrick shrugged. “If it is tried, at all. State courts take cognizance of federal precedent on constitutional questions. Chief Justice Scalia—”
“Courts have appointed guardians to make the decisions in many cases,” daSouza pointed out. “Parents may not refuse blood transfusions for their child’s operation, for example—even where their religious beliefs are at stake. Nor may they refuse medical treatment for fetuses that remain viable after abortion. Besides, you’re forgetting Cruzan. The State is not required to accept a family member’s substituted judgment for an incompetent loved one!”
“Yes,” FitzPatrick admitted, “but the examples you cite involve risk of death. In re Green, the court ruled that the state does not have parens patriae interest of sufficient magnitude to interfere with a parent’s decision when the child’s life is not immediately imperiled by his physical condition. So here the individual’s liberty interest to refuse unwanted medical treatment—either for themselves or for their incompetent wards—is unaffected.”
“Dammit!” Mick brought his hand down hard on the bookcase he had been leaning against. “What is the point to all this jawboning? Alma, it’s wrong to take Ethan off that transformer. Ethan? Ethan.” He stepped forward and stooped down to face the boy on the sofa. “Ethan, what do you want?”
Ethan took his finger out of his mouth. “I dunno.”
“Do you want to be disconnected from your wheely?”
Ethan scowled and looked down.
“Do you?”
Alma put a hand on his shoulder. “You don’t have to answer him.”
He looked up at her and smiled. “I wanna do what momma wants.”
Mick’s head jerked up and he looked from Ethan to her and back. “He doesn’t know what he’s saying.”
“Which is why,” FitzPatrick reminded them, “children are legally incompetent to make
this sort of decision for themselves.”
Mick looked at her and she stared back without flinching. “You’ve brainwashed him,” he said. “You and that Vinnie Patterson.”
She set her jaw. “Why, because he pointed out the dangers of relying on the transformer? Because I don’t feel right about torturing animals?”
“No animals were ‘tortured,’” said Silverman. “That photograph you sent us was not of one of our chimpanzees. It was a sick monkey in Gabon being taken to a veterinarian, and was restrained only to prevent it from harming itself. That photograph,” he added darkly, “reappears from time to time, always out of context.”
“And none of the diagnostic records show any evidence of computer malfunctions,” said Zachariah. “Why not give as much weight to what did happen as to what might have happened?”
“No,” said Mick, still looking her in the eyes. “I don’t think those are your real reasons.”
She gave him an indignant look and held it between them. “And what are my real reasons?”
Mick shook his head and stood up. He dusted off the knees of his trousers. “The jailer envies the captive’s dreams,” he said, looking at no one in particular.
She wanted to know what he meant by that, but did not want to give him the satisfaction of explaining. “No one questioned me,” she said, and they all looked at her. Silverman, Zachariah, Mick, the lawyers. “No one questioned me when I agreed to hook Ethan up to that thing. Why do you question me now that I’ve decided not to continue? Do I only have the right to choose when you approve of my choice?”
“It’s not that,” said Silverman. “It’s—”
“Bad publicity for the Institute,” she said, ignoring FitzPatrick’s attempts to silence her. “After all the big announcements, how would it look when your star patient wants to be taken off? That’s the only reason you’re fighting me.”
Silverman shook his head. “Not the only reason. And a trial would be just as bad.”
“Worse,” said FitzPatrick. “That’s why it won’t come to trial.” He cocked an eyebrow in daSouza’s direction.
Captive Dreams Page 17