Gray Matter

“Well, it could be several things. It’s possible he’s experiencing some emotional difficulties at home.”

“I can assure you that we’re happily married,” Rachel said defensively. “And if my husband and I have a problem, we make it a point not to discuss it in front of Dylan.”

“I’m sure. But my point is that Dylan has some kind of LD problem.”

“LD?”

“Learning disability.”

“Learning disability?” She uttered the words as if testing a foreign expression.

“He seems to be developmentally delayed. One possibility is that he’s dyslexic. Or he may have some form of ADD—attention deficit disorder. These problems are not uncommon. Twenty percent of all schoolchildren have some form of disability. But it’s something that can be tested for and dealt with very effectively.”

“You mean drugs? Ritalin or whatever?”

“That or other effective drugs. But I think you should consult your pediatrician and look for specialists to evaluate him. Maybe a neurophysician.”

Rachel felt her insides clutch. Learning disability. Dyslexia. Developmentally delayed. Attention deficit disorder. Ritalin. In a matter of moments her son had graduated from class clown to a child suffering neurological dysfunctions.

While she sat there, Rachel’s mind had scrambled for explanations—external realities that she could point to.

The environment. She had taken every precaution possible. Their first house had been built in 1935, and had tested positive for lead paint. So they had the place stripped of every square inch of old paint—which cost a fortune. Then they had all the asbestos insulation removed from the basement heating pipes and replaced with a nontoxic substitute. She had even tested the house for radon gas, finding it perfectly safe. Although Rockville water came from a local reservoir, Rachel took no chances and had spring water delivered to the house every two weeks.

Television. Even though she had restricted Dylan to maybe an hour or two a day— and exclusively to PBS children’s shows—she would sometimes catch him watching it on the sly. God knows how all the rapid-fire cuts could mess up a child’s brain development. Maybe Dylan had a special susceptibility to all the flash, compromising his powers of concentration. She knew Martin would resist because they already had fights over letting Dylan watch sporting events and comedy shows. “It’s quality time—what fathers and sons do,” he had protested. “Sitting passively in front of a baseball game broken up by two hundred beer and car commercials isn’t quality time,” she had shot back. “If you want some quality time take him to Fenway Park or go in the backyard and play catch.” Two hours after her meeting with Karen Andrews, Rachel had their cable TV service terminated in the family room. Martin grumbled for days.

Looking back, she realized how futile all that ramrod determination now seemed. Because the problem went back before that October morning, before Dylan’s first day at preschool. Before his birth.

It went back to Halloween night of her junior year in college. She was at an all-night party at a friend’s house, and everybody was doing acid. She had been dating a chemistry grad who made his own LSD in the school’s lab. The stuff was easy to synthesize, and a lot cheaper than that sold on the street. But this one night he had introduced her to a variation—acid laced with another drug he had synthesized—the combo, he said, would make sex “cosmic.” The street name was TNT. Like acid, the stuff was psychedelic, turning the bedroom walls into polychrome liquid crystal surfaces. But the real kick was sex: An orgiastic pulsation of light and sound where every physical sensation was amplified into starburst scintillations that climaxed in a supernova explosion.

As she pulled her car into the parking space behind Dr. Rose’s office, the sick irony struck her: She was joining the ranks of other mothers and fathers of LD kids, fluent in the statistics, the lingo, and that antiseptic alphabet soup—ADD, ADHD, LD, FAS, WISC. IQ. MRI. LSD.

And the disorder had its source in her: TNT.

“You can take a seat, Mrs. Whitman. The doctor will be with you in a few minutes,” said Liz, Dr. Rose’s secretary, when Rachel entered the office.

Working to calm herself, she picked up a copy of Parenting magazine and thumbed through the pages, trying to focus her mind. It seemed every other story in the magazine was directed at her: “Raising an Eager Reader.” “Baby Games that Teach.” “Hyperactivity Hype?” “How to Help Your Kids Learn Better.” “Great Expectations.”

God, let him be okay. I beg you.

Liz opened the door. “The doctor will see you now.”

Rachel followed her down the corridor to the doctor’s office. “Sorry about the wait.” Dr. Rose was a handsome man of about fifty with a simpatico face and large warm exotic eyes.

Rachel tried to read them as she shook his hand.

“Have a seat, please.” When he sat back down behind his desk he picked up a folder from a pile of material. “Well, the results of the brain scan are back.”

Tumor, whispered a voice in her head. He’s going to say Dylan has a brain tumor.

The doctor got up and slipped the MRI scan on the light display board.

There were three separate black-and-white negative sheets with sixteen shots on each from different angles. It was shocking to see her little boy rendered as a specimen, stripped to his bones and teeth.

“As I explained the other day, brain scanners can’t see individual cells, nor can they tell if brain cells have been rearranged or are missing. Only tissue samples or an autopsy can tell us that. But the images can tell us if there are anomalous structures or deformities—”

But Rachel cut him off. “Is he okay?”

“Well, there is an anomaly.”

“An anomaly?”

With his pencil he pointed to an area on the left side of Dylan’s brain. “Neurology is not my specialty, so I consulted with Dr. Gerald Cormier, a neurosurgeon at the Lahey Clinic, and according to his report there appears to be some developmental abnormality in the ventricular system over here.” He pointed to a white area on the left. “It seems that Dylan has slightly dilated ventricles in this area which suggests some maldevelopment of the thalamus, which is deep in the brain in this area.” He moved the pencil to the lower part of the brain scan. “This kind of malformation in this area is associated with the type of learning problems that Dylan has, I’m told.”

Rachel’s eyes flooded with tears. “My God, what does that mean?”

“I’m not really the one to say. But I did ask Dr. Cormier what the prognosis was for Dylan’s cognitive development, and he said that, unfortunately, this kind of underdevelopment usually results in a reduction in learning abilities.”

Rachel let out a groan.

“This really is not my area, but I’ve read that there’s sometimes a compensatory phenomenon,” he added. “When one side of the brain has deficient wiring, it’s been found that the corresponding healthy region in the opposite hemisphere tends to develop more extensive patterns of connections than is normal. There’s no way to tell from the scan, but it’s entirely possible that the right side of Dylan’s brain is developing excessive connections.”

Rachel nodded, knowing that the doctor wanted to put Dylan’s condition in the best possible light.

“If it’s any consolation, both Einstein and the painter Rodin had deficient left-hemisphere language skills, yet they excelled in the right-brain skills as we all know.”

His attempt to make her feel better produced the opposite effect, because she knew in her heart of hearts that Dylan was damaged, and to suggest he might grow up to be a mathematical or artistic prodigy was all the more painful for its improbability.

“How do you think it happened?”

The doctor handed her a box of tissues. “Well, there’s no way of knowing for sure, but since there’s no evidence of head trauma, my guess is that it either happened in utero or it’s genetic. Given his medical history, we can pretty much rule out diseases. One possibility is prenatal exposure to