Murder at the Washington Tribune - Margaret Truman [87]
“Yes. She says—”
“It’s none of your mother’s business, damn it!”
“It isn’t? Our child will be her grandchild.”
“What does she know about genes and heredity, Georgia?”
“I’m not saying she knows anything about it, Joe. But she does have concerns, just as I do.”
“Let’s talk about this another time,” he said.
“All right.”
A few minutes later, the lights out, everything silent and peaceful, she said, “Would you agree to talk to a doctor about it?”
“What doctor?”
“Someone with medical knowledge about such things. A pediatrician maybe, a psychiatrist?”
His deep sigh said to her that he wouldn’t consider what she’d suggested. But to her surprise, he said, “Sure. You pick a doctor and we’ll go talk to him.”
She kissed him lightly on the lips and turned over, her tears absorbed by her pillowcase. She desperately wanted a child.
After considerable research, she found a female pediatrician who also boasted a doctorate in psychology, and they made an appointment for a consultation. It pained Wilcox to talk with a stranger about his family, particularly his brother’s past, but the doctor was a kindly older woman with gray hair pulled back into a tight bun, and whose glasses were large, round, and framed in red. She listened carefully and exuded warmth and nonjudgmental concern. After she’d heard Wilcox’s thumbnail sketch of his family and Michael’s incarceration as a mental patient, the doctor smiled, sat back in her chair and said, “You understand, of course, that it’s impossible for me to comment with any assuredness about your brother’s mental condition without having had the opportunity to examine him and review his records. Is it possible that he suffered a brain abnormality that was eventually overridden by therapy and counseling? Yes, that’s possible. And if that brain abnormality had a genetic component, is it likely that it would have been passed along to you, Mr. Wilcox? That’s highly unlikely—unless, of course, either of your parents suffered the same abnormal genetic makeup. You say your mother and father were very religious.”
“My father especially,” Wilcox said, “although my mother was deeply religious, too. Is that significant?”
“It could be. Your brother might have been deathly afraid of your father’s reaction if the young lady next door had accused him of sexually accosting her. He might have killed out of that fear. I find it interesting that your brother was declared not guilty by reason of insanity based almost entirely on his attorney’s pleading to the jury to find him insane.”
“Are you saying that Michael might not have been insane?” Georgia asked.
“No, I’m not saying that. I’m simply raising the possibility that legal considerations overrode medical ones. Your parents wanted his life spared, and his attorney achieved that. Again, as I said earlier, I’m in no position to judge Michael’s level of sanity or insanity. But I will say this.”
Joe and Georgia leaned forward in their chairs.
“My instincts tell me that for you to forgo the joy of having children because of a vague fear that your child might—and I emphasize might—inherit Michael’s mental problem would be a shame, in my opinion. My advice? Go home, screw your brains out, get pregnant, and enjoy your lives. Michael isn’t a part of it, literally and figuratively. He’s past tense. This is your life together in the here and now, and I remind you that this isn’t a dress rehearsal for life. This is it!”
They giggled on the way home over the older therapist’s use of the vernacular but took her advice, spent that afternoon making love, and nine months and three days later, Georgia gave birth to a healthy baby girl they named Roberta.
• • •
Joe rejoined Michael and Roberta on the patio.
“Dad, Michael emulated the fellow playing the guitar, Joe—?”
“Joe Pass.”
“He learned to play the guitar while he was—while he was away, and—”
“I must interrupt,” Michael said. “I know how much you want to spare my feelings by using euphemisms for the past forty years of my life. I was not ‘away.’ That sounds too much like an extended holiday. I was remanded