Gray Matter

Sometime later, Rachel awoke.

She was in a hospital ward. For a moment, she was totally confused and frightened because she couldn’t recall how she got here. Maybe she had had a stroke, that while putting Dylan to bed she’d been struck by an aneurysm, sending her into a blackout.

She was in a bed and hooked up to an IV and a vital-functions monitor that chirped as neon lines made spikes across the screens. They appeared normal. In fact, she felt normal. So what was she doing in a hospital?

As she stared around the room, odd features began to assume a pattern of familiarity: A small crib sat at the foot of the bed; flowers sprouted from vases on the tables; stuffed animals filled a visitor’s chair. Hanging across the mirror was a CONGRATULATIONS streamer. And cards. Lots of cards on the food table to her right. Some with cartoons of naked bouncing babies. IT’S A BOY!!!

My God. She was in a maternity ward.

That couldn’t be. She didn’t recall being pregnant. Besides, that was medically impossible. She had had a hysterectomy two years ago. It made no sense.

Of course it made no sense, she told herself. This was all a dream. A flashback dream. And the sounds of someone approaching the room cut through the thick mist of sleep. And fear and confusion gave way to a sudden rush of joy.

“Here he is,” announced the nurse.

Through the door came a nurse who looked vaguely familiar. But Rachel was too confused to rummage for an identity because the woman was holding a newborn baby. “Here he is,” she sang out. And she gently placed the little bundle in Rachel’s arms.

Rachel couldn’t believe her eyes. It was Dylan, and a replay of the day he was born.

Tears of joy flooded her eyes. She was reliving the most beautiful moments of her life. The birth of her only child. Her beautiful little boy. What a wonderful dream.

In that hazy margin between wakefulness and dream-sleep, she wished it wouldn’t end. She wished the moment would telescope indefinitely. Because deep down in the lightless regions of her conscious mind she recalled a stalking fear born out of a report she had read somewhere. In the article a phrase had cut through all the technobabble like a seismic shock—the single solitary phrase: chromosomal damage.

Not my baby.

The moment passed as somebody put a hand on her shoulder. Through her tears she recognized Martin beside her in a chair. She hadn’t noticed him before, but that was part of the Lewis Carroll absurdity of dreams.

“He’s got your head.”

“Yes,” she said, not wanting to break the spell by questioning his odd wording. So she nodded as if Martin had said, He’s got your eyes.

Dylan was wearing one of the little knitted caps they put on newborns. With the little point at the top he looked like a baby elf. But he was beginning to fuss. And though his face was still red and a little wrinkled, Rachel decided that the cap looked tight across his brow.

“It’s okay, little man, it’s okay. Mommy will remove this thing.”

“I don’t think it’s a good idea,” said the nurse. “It’s a little cool in here.”

“Oh, just for a moment. Besides, he’s half-hidden.”

The nurse rocked. “Well, I suppose.”

Ever so delicately Rachel peeled back the little cap with her fingers. For a moment, Rachel froze.

Then from deep inside, a scream rose out of her as her mind tried to process what her eyes were taking in: The top of Dylan’s skull was missing. And in its place was a gaping dark hole, edged with red raw tissue and a white layer of bone.

Rachel was still screaming as she stared into the gaping brain pan of her infant’s head, wondering in a crazy side thought why no blood had stained the tiny white cap, and why Dylan was still alive, in fact, behaving like a perfectly healthy infant, staring at her wide-eyed, his little pink berry mouth sucking for her nipple, his hands making little pudgy fists—all in spite of the fact that the top of his head was missing.

Rachel’s scream caught in her throat like a shard of glass. In the overhead light she spotted something inside his skull. It was his brain, but it was a tiny shrunken thing lying at the bottom.

“Boy, oh boy! He’s sure got an appetite, haven’t you, little guy?” the nurse chortled.

“Well, that’s Something he inherited from his old man,” Martin said with a big happy grin.

Was it possible that they didn’t notice? Rachel wondered. But how could that be under these harsh lights? Or maybe she was hallucinating?

While Dylan nursed happily at her breast, Rachel closed her eyes tightly, counted to three, then opened them again, hoping against hope that that hideous vision would go away. But it persisted. “Wh-what happened to his brain?” she cried.

“Oh, that.” The nurse glanced over her glasses at Dylan. “Just your basic DBS.”

“DBS?”

“Dope brain syndrome.”

“WHAT?”

“Dope brain syndrome. Dysgenic occi-parietal encephalation. We see that from time to time. It’s from mothers who did a lot of TNT when they were younger. Take enough of that stuff, and it discombobulates the chromosomes,” she added while straightening out Rachel’s sheet. “But, you know, except for the minibrain, you almost never see any funny physical stuff—flippers or webbed fingers or extra toes. Really, just the ole dope brain.”

“Dope brain,” Martin said simply, his voice without inflection. “He takes after you.”

Then they both looked at Rachel and in unison said, “DOPE BRAIN DOPE BRAIN DOPE BRAIN—”

“Stop!” Rachel screamed. “Please stop.”

“Nothing to get upset about,” the nurse said, and poked her fingers into Dylan’s skull and pulled out his brain as he continued to suckle. “Pardon my French, but you musta done a lot of shit, if you ask me, ma’am.”

Paralyzed with horror, Rachel stared at the poor pathetic little thing in the palm of the nurse’s hand. Like all the pictures of brains she had seen, it was yellow and split down the middle and wrinkled with convolutions. But so small. Like a peeled chestnut.

“See? It doesn’t even bother him,” the nurse said, and she dropped the thing back into Dylan’s skull. “There you go, little guy.”

Dylan burped and went back to the nipple.

“He’s awfully cute, though,” the nurse said, grinning expansively. “Aren’t you, you little monkey.”

“Don’t call him that,” Rachel protested.

Suddenly the nurse’s face shifted as if the flesh were re-forming across her skull. Her eyes narrowed shrewdly and suddenly she was Sheila MacPhearson. She pressed her face to Rachel’s until it filled her vision. Her lips were big and rubbery and they muttered something.

“What did you say?” Rachel asked and woke herself up.

For a long spell, she looked around the room. The maternity ward had turned back into Dylan’s room, still lit by the little night-light. The book they had been reading had slipped to the floor with a thud. Dylan stirred but did not wake.

A dream, she told herself as she sat in the dim light. No, nightmare. A wretched, brutal nightmare that has left my mind tender and begging for forgetfulness.

She closed her eyes for a minute, Sheila’s voice still humming in her head. She had said something that had gotten cut off.

Rachel got up to adjust Dylan’s blanket when in the dim light all she saw staring up at her from the pillow was a dark little monkey head. She nearly fainted in the moment before she recognized Curious George. Suddenly she hated that thing with its insipid grin and stupid blank eyes.

She folded back the sheet to expose Dylan’s face, and covered George with the blanket.