staedtler pencils

"Fishing once more? "staedtler pencils staedtler pencilststaedtler pencilse 128 .In using this system, absentee voters werestaedtler pencils instructed to mark their ballots with number two pencils. The optical scanner rejected ballots which were marked withstaedtler pencils instruments other than number two pencil. 2006, Barbara Slater Stern, curriculum and teaching dialogue: V. 8, page 33I felt elated at the time. It never occurred to me that Michael might balk. "It would be a sin," he said in the evening, after the girls were asleep, within seconds after he understood what we were proposing.
Richard took the offensive, arguing that the staedtler pencilsentire concept of sin was an anachronism even on Earth and that Michael was just being silly. "Do you really want me to do this?" Michael asked Richard directly at the end of the conversation.
"No," Richard answered after a brief hesitation, "but it's clearly in the best interests of our children." I should have paid more attention to the "no."
It never occurred to me that my plan might not work. I tracked my ovulation cycle very carefully. Whstaedtler pencilsen the designated night finally arrived, I informed Richard and he stalked out of the lair for one of his long hikes in Rama. Michael was nervous and fighting his feelings of guilt, but even in my worst doomsday scenario I had not . imagined that he might be unable to have intercourse with me.
When we took off our clothes (in the dark, so Michael would not feel uncomfortable) and lay beside each other on the mats, I discovered that his body was rigid and tense. I kissed him on the forehead and cheeks. Then I tried to loosen him up by rubbing his back and neck. After about thirty minutes of touching (but nothing that would be considered sexual foreplay), I snuggled my body against his in a suggestive way. It was obvious we had a problem. His penis was still completely flaccid.
I did not know what to do. My initial thought, which of course was complestaedtler pencilstely irrational, was that Michael did not find me attractive. I felt terrible, as if someone had slapped me in the face. All my repressed feelings of inadequacy burst to the surface and I was surprisingly angry. Luckily I didn't say anything (neither of us talked during this entire period) and Michael couldn't see my face in the dark. But my body language must have signaled my disappointment.
"I'm sorry," he said softly.
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"It's all right," I answered, trying to be nonchalant.
staedtler pencils I propped myself up on an elbow and caressed his forehead with my other hand. I expanded my light massage, letting my fingers ran gently around his face, neck, and shoulders. Michael was completely passive. He lay on his back without moving, his eyes closed most of the time. Although I am certain he was enjoying the rub, he neither said anything nor uttered any murmurs of pleasure. By this time I was becoming exceedingly anxious. I found myself wanting Michael to caress me, to tell me that I was all right.
At length I rolled over with part of my bodystaedtler pencils across his. I let my breasts drop gently on his torso while my right hand played with the hah- on his chest. I leaned up to kiss him on the lips, intending to arouse him elsewhere with my left hand, but he pulled away quickly and then sat up.
"I can't do this," Michael said, shaking his head.
"Why not?" I asked quietly, my body now in an awkward position beside him.
staedtler pencils "It's wrong," he answered with great solemnity.
I tried several times in the next few minutes to start a conversation, but Michael did not want to talk. Eventually, because there was nothing else for me to do, I dressed silently in the dark. Michael barely managed a meager "Good night" when I left.
I did not return immediately to my room. Once Istaedtler pencils was out in the corridor I realized that I was not yet ready to confront Richard. I leaned against the wall and struggled with the powerful emotions engulfing me. Why had I assumed everything would be so simple? And what would I tell Richard now?
From the sound of Richard's breathing I, knew that he was not asleep when I entered our room. If I had staedtler pencilshad more courage, I might have told him right then what had happened with Michael. But it was easier to ignore it for the moment. That was a serious mistake.
The next two days were strained. Nobody mentioned what Richard had once referred to as the "fertilization event." The men tried to act as if everything was normal. After dinner the second night I persuaded Richard to take a walk with me while Michael put the girls to bed.
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Richard was explaining the chemistry of his new wine fermentation process asstaedtler pencils we stood on the ramparts overlooking the Cylindrical Sea. At one point I interrupted him and took his hand. "Richard," I said, my eyes searching for love and reassurance in his, "this is very difficult. ..." My voice trailed off.
"What is it, Nikki?" he asked, forcing a smile.
"Well," I answered, "it's Michael. You see," I blurted out, "nothing really happened. ... He couldn't . . ."
Richard stared at me for a long time. "You mean he's impotent?" he asstaedtler pencilsked.
I nodded first and then completely confused him by shaking my head. "Probably not really," I stammered, "but he was the other night with me. I think he's just too tense or feels guilty or maybe it's been too long�" I stopped myself, realizing I was saying too much.
Richard gazed across the sea for what seemed like an eternity. "Do you want to try again?" he said eventually in a completely expressionless voice. He did not turn to look at me.
"I... I don't know," I answered. I squeezed his hand. I was going to say staedtler pencilssomething else, to ask him if he could deal with the situation if I tried one more time, but Richard abruptly walked away from me. "Let me know when you make up your mind," he said tersely.
For a week or two I was certain that I was going to abandon the entire idea. Slowly, very slowly, a semblance of cheer returned to our little family. The night after my period was over Richard and I made love twice for the first time in a year. He seemed especially pleased and was very talkative as we cuddled after the second intercourse.
"I must say I was really worried there for a while," he said. "The thought of your having sex with Michael, even for supposedly logical reasons, was driving me crazy. I know it doesn't make rational sense, but I was terribly afraid that you might like it�do you understand?�and mat somehow our relationship might be affected."
Richard was obviously assuming that I wasn't going to try again to become pregnant with Michael's child. I didn't argue with him that night because I too was momentarily content. A few days later, however, when I began reading
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about impotence in my medical books, I realized myself that I was still determined to proceed with my plan.
During the week before I ovulated again, Richard was busy brewing his wine (and maybe tasting it a bit more often than necestaedtler pencilsssary�more than once he was a little drunk before dinner) and creating little robots out of Samuel Beckett's characters. My attention was focused on impotence. My curriculum at medical school had virtually ignored the subject. And since my own sexual experience has been comparatively limited, I had never personally been exposed to it before. I was surprised to learn that impotence is an extremely common malady, primarily psychological but very often with an exacerbating physical component as well, and that there are many well-defined treatment patterns, all of which focus on lessening the "performance anxiety" in the man.
Richard saw me preparing my urine for ovulation testing one morning. He didn't say anything, but I could tell from his face that he was hurt and disappointed. I wanted to reassure him, but the children were in the room and I was afraid there might be a scene.
I didn't tell Michael that we were going to make a second attempt. I thought thatstaedtler pencils his anxiety would be reduced if he didn'tstaedtler pencils have time to think about it. My plan almost worked. I went with Michael to his room, after we had put the children to bed, and explained to him what was happening while we undressed. He had the beginnings of an erection and, despite his mild protests, I moved quickly to sustain it. I am certain that we would have been successful if Katie had not started screaming "Mommy, Mommy" just when we were ready to begin intercourse.
Of course I left Michael and ran down the corridor to the nursery. Richard was already there. He was holding Katie in his arms. Simone was sitting up on her mat, rubbing her eyes. The three of them all stared at my naked body in the doorway. "I had a terrible dream," Katie said, holding tightly to Richard. "An octospider was eating me."
I walked into the room. "Are you feeling better now?" I asked, reaching out to take Katie. Richard continued to hold her and she made no effort to come to me. After an
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uncomfortable moment I went over to Simone and draped my arm across her shoulder.
"Where are your pajamas, Mother?" my four-year-old asked. Most of thstaedtler pencilse time both Richard and I sleep in the Raman version of pajamas. The girls are quite accustomed to my naked body�the three of us shower together virtually every day�but at night, when I come into the nursery, I'm almost always wearing my pajamas.
I was going to give Simone a flippant answer when I noticed that Richard too was staring at me. His eyes were definitely hostile. "I can take care of things here," he said harshly. "Why don't you finish what you were doing?"
I returned to Michael to try one more time to achieve intercourse and conception. It was a bad decision. I made a futile attempt to arouse Michael for a couple of minutes and then he pushed my hand away. "It's useless," he said. "I'm almost sixty-three years old and I haven't had intercourse for five years. I never masturbate and I consciously try not to think about sex. My erection earlier was just a temporary stroke of luck." He was silent for almost a minute. "I'm sorry, Nicole," he then added, "but it's not going to work."
We lay silently side by side for several minutes. I was dressing and preparing to leave when I noticed that Michael had fallen into the rhythmic breathing pattern that precedes sleep. I suddenly remembered from my reading that men with psychological impotence often have erections during their sleep, and my mind dreamed up another crazy idea. I laid awake beside Michael for quite a while, waiting until I was certain he was in a deep sleep.
I stroked him very softly at first. I was delighted that he responded very quicklstaedtler pencilsy. After a while I slightly increased the vigor of my massage, but I was extremely careful not to wake him up. When he was definitely ready I prepared myself and moved over on top of him. I was only moments away from achieving intercourse when I jostled him too roughly and he awakened. I tried to continue, but in my haste I must have hurt him, for he uttered a yelp and looked at me with wild, startled eyes. Within seconds his erection had vanished.
I rolled over on my back and heaved a deep sigh. I was
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terribly disappointed. Michael was asking me questions, but 1 was too distraught tostaedtler pencils answer. Tears suffused my eyes. I dressed in a hurry, kissed Michael lightly on the forehead, and stumbled out into the corridor. I stood there for another five minutes before I had the strength to return to Richard.
My husband was still working. He was down on his knees beside Pozzo, from Waiting for Godot. The little robot was in the middle of one of his long, rambling speeches about the uselessness of everything. Richard ignored me at first. Then, after silencing Pozzo, he turned around. "Do you think you took long enough?" he asked sarcastically.
"It still didn't work," I answered dejectedly. "I guess�''
staedtler pencils "Don't give me that shit," Richard suddenly shouted angrily. "I'm not that stupid. Do you expect me to believe that you spent two hours naked with him and nothing happened? I know about you women. You think that..."
I don't remember the rest of what he said. I do recall my terror as he advanced toward me, his eyes full of anger. I thought he was going to hit me and I braced myself. Tears burst from my eyes and rolled down my cheeks. Richard called me horrible names and even made a racist slur. He was insane. When he raised his arm in a fury I bolted from the room, rushing down the corridor toward the stairs to New York. I nearly ran over little Katie, who had been awakened by the shouting and was standing dumbfounded at the door of the nursery.
It was light in Rama. I walked around, crying intermittently, for most of an hour. I was furious with Richard, but I was also deeply unhappy with myself. In his rage Richard had said that I was "obsessed" with this idea of mine and that it was just a "clever excuse" to have intercourse with Michael so that I could be the "queen bee of the hive." I hadn't replied to any of his rantings. Was there even a smidgin of truth in his accusation? Was any part of my excitement about the project a desire on my part to have sex with Michael?
I convinced myself that my motivations had all been "proper," whatever that staedtler pencilsmeans, but that I had been in-
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credibly stupid about this entire affair from the very beginning. I, of all people, staedtler pencilsshould have known that what I was suggesting was impossible. Certainly after I saw Richard's initial response (and Michael's too, for that matter), I should have immediately forsaken the idea. Maybe Richard was right in some ways. Maybe I am stubborn, even obsessed with the idea of providing maximum genetic variation to our offspring. But I know for certain that I did not concoct the entire thing just so I could have sex with Michael.
It was dark in our room when I returned. I changed into my pajamas and plopped down, exhausted, on my mat. After a few seconds Richard rolled over, hugged me fiercely, and said, "My darling, Nicole, I'm so so sorry. Please forgive me."
I have not heard his voice since then. He has been gone now for six days. I slept soundly that night, unaware mat Richard was packing his things and leaving me a note. At seven o'clock in the morning, an alarm sounded. There was a message filling the black screen. It said, "FOR NICOLE DBS JARDINS ONLY�Push K when you want to read." The children were not yet awake, so I pushed the K button on the keyboard.
Dearest Nicole, this is the most difficult letter I have ever written in my life. I am temporarily leaving you and the family. I know that this will create considerable hardship for you, Michael, and the girls, but believe me, it is the only way. After last night it is apparent to me that there is no other solution.
My darling, I love you with all my heart and know, when my brain is in control of mstaedtler pencilsy emotions, that what you are trying to do is in the best interests of the family. I feel terrible about the accusations that I made last night. I feel even worse about all the names I called you, especially the racial epithets and my frequent use of the word "bitch." I hope that you can forgive me, even though I'm not certain I can forgive myself, and will remember my love for you instead of my insane, unbridled anger.
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Jealousy is a terrible thing. "It doth mock the meat it feeds upon" is an understatement. Jealousy is completely consuming, totally irrational, and absolutely debilitating. The most wonderful people in the world are nothing but raging animals when trapped in the throes of jealousy.
Nicole, darling, I did not tell you the complete truth last year about the end of my marriage to Sarah. I suspected for months that she was seeing other men on those nights she was spending in London. There were plenty of telltale signs�her uneven interest in sex, new clothes that were never worn with me, sudden fascinations with new positions or different sexual practices, phone calls with nobody on the other end�but I loved her so madly, and was so certain that our marriage would be over if I confronted her, that I didn't do anything until I was enraged by my jealousy.
Actually, as I would lie in my bed at Cambridge and picture Sarah having intercourse staedtler pencilswith another man, my jealousy would become so powerful that I could not fall asleep until I had imagined Sarah dead. When Mrs. Sinclair called me that night and I knew I could no longer pretend that Sarah was faithful, I went to London with the express intention of killing both my wife and her lover.
Luckily I had no gun and my rage upon seeing them together made me forget the knife I had placed in the pocket of my overcoat. But I definitely would have killed them if the melee had not aroused the neighbors and I had not been restrained.
You may be wondering what all this has to do with you. You see, my love, each of us destaedtler pencilsvelops definitive patterns of behavior in his life. My pattern of insane jealousy was already present before I met you. During the two times that you have gone to be intimate with Michael, I have been unable to stop the memories of Sarah from returning. I know you are not Sarah, and that you are not cheating on me, but nevertheless, my emotions return in that same lunatic pattern. In a very strange sense, because the idea of your betraying me is
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so impossible to conceive, I feel worse, more frightened, when you are with Michael than I did when Sarah was with Hugh Sinclair or any of her other actor friends.
I hope some of this makes sense. I am leaving because I cannot control my jealousy, even though I acknowledge it to be irrational. I do not want to become like my father, drinking away my misery and ruining the lives of everyone around me. I sense that you will achieve this conception, one way or another, and I would prefer to spare you my bad behavior during the process.
I expect that I will be back soon, unless I encounter unforeseen dangers in my explstaedtler pencilsorations, but I do not know exactly when. I need a period of healing, so that I can again be a solid contributor to our family. Tell the girls that I am off on a journey. Be kind especially to Katie�she will miss me the most.
I love you, Nicole. I know that it will be difficult for you to understand why I am leaving, but please try.
Richard
1 3 May 2205
Today I spent five hours topside in New York searching for Richard. I went over to the pits, to both lattices, to all three plazas. I walked the perimeters of the island along the ramparts. I shook the grill on the octospider lair and descended briefly into the land of the avians. Everywhere I called his name. I remember that Richard found me five years ago because of the navigation beacon he had placed on his Shakespearean robot Prince Hal. I could have used a beacon today.
There were no signs of Richard anywhere. I believe that he has left the island. Richard is an excellent swimmer� he could easily have made it across to the Northern Hemi-cylinder�but what about the weird creatures inhabiting the Cylindrical Sea? Did they let him across?
Come back, Richard. I miss you. I love you.
He had obviously been thinking about leaving for sev-
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era! days. He had updated and arranged our catalog of interactions with the Ramansstaedtler pencils to make it as easy as possible for Michael and me. He took the largest of our packs and his best friend TB, but he left the Beckett robots behind.
Our family meals have been dreadful affairs since Richard left. Katie is nearly always angry. She wants to know when her daddy will be back and why he has been gone so long. Michael and Simone endure their sorrow in quiet. Their bond continues to deepen�they seem to be able to comfort one another quite well. For my part, I have tried to pay more attention to Katie, but I am no substitute for her beloved daddy.
The nights are terrible. I do not sleep. I go over and over all my interactions witstaedtler pencilsh Richard the last two months and relive all my mistakes. His letter before departing was very revealing. I never would have thought that his earlier difficulties with Sarah would have had the slightest impact on his marriage to me, but I recognize now what he was saying about patterns.
There are patterns in my emotional life as well. My mother's death when I was only ten taught me the terror of abandonment. Fear of losing a strong connection has made intimacy and trust difficult for me. Since my mother, I have lost Genevieve, my father, and now, at least temporarily, Richard. Each time the pattern recurs all the chimeras of the past are reactivated. When I cried myself to sleep two nights ago, I realized that I was missing not only Richard, but also Mother, Genevieve, and my mar-velous father. I was feeling each of those losses all over again. So I can understand how my being with Michael could trigger Richard's painful memories of Sarah.
The process of learning never stops. Here I am, forty-one years old, and 1 am discovering another facet of the truth about human relationships. I have obviously wounded Richard deeply. It doesn't matter that there is no logical basis for Richard's concern that my sleeping with Michael might lead to an alienation of my affection for him. Logic has no application here. Perception and feeling are what count.
I had forgotten how devastating loneliness can be. Richard and I have been together for five years. He might not
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staedtler pencils have had all the attributes of my prince charming, but he has been a wonderful companion and is, without a doubt, the smartest human being I have ever met. It would be an immeasurable tragedy if he were never to return. I grieve when I think, even for a moment, that I may have seen him for the last time.
At nights, when I am especially lonely, I often read poetry. Baudelaire and Eliot have been my favorites since my university days, but the last few evenings I have been finding comfort in the poems of Benita Garcia. During her days as a cadet at the Space Academy in Colorado, her wild passion for life caused her lots of pain. She threw herself into her cosmonaut studies and the arms of the men surrounding her with equal elan. When Benita was called before the cadet disciplinary committee for no transgression except her uninhibited sexuality, she realized how schizophrenic men were where sex was concerned.
Most of the literary critics prefer her first volume of poetry, Dreams of a Mstaedtler pencilsexican Girl, which established her reputation when she was still a teenager, over the wiser, less lyrical book of poems she published during her final year at the academy. With Richard now gone and my mind still struggling to understand what has really occurred during these last months, it is Benita's poems of late adolescent angst and questioning that resonate with me. Her path to adulthood was extremely difficult. Although her work remained rich in images, Benita was no longer Pollyanna walking among the ruins at Uxmal. Tonight I read several times one of her university poems that I particularly like.
My childhood dreams were not like this, My prince came only for a kiss, Then carried me away from pain, Can I not see him once again? The masks offend me, college boy, I wear my dress without much joy. The price I pay to hold your hand, Belittles me as you have planned.
My dresses brighten up my room, Like desert flowers after rain. You come tonight, my newest love, But which me do you want to see? The pale pastels are best for books, My blues and greens, an evening make, As friend, or even wife to be. But if it's sex that's in your mind, Then red or black and darkened eyes, Become the whore that I must be.
9
14 December 2205 I guess I should celebrate,
I but I feel that I have won
a Pyrrhic victory. I am finally pregnant with Michael's child. But what a cost. We still have heard nothing from Richard and I fear that I may have alienated Michael as well.
Michael and I each separately accepted the full responsibility for Richard's departure. I dealt with my culpability as well as I could, recognizing that I would have to put it behind me to be any kind of meaningful mother to the girls. Michael, on the other hand, responded to Richard's action and his own guilt by pouring himself into religious devotion. He is still reading his Bible at least twice every day. He prays before and after every meal, and often chooses not to take part in family activities so that he can "communicate" with God. The word atonement is currently very big in Michael's vocabulary.
He has swept Simone along in his reborn Christian zeal. My mild protests are essstaedtler pencilsentially ignored. She loves the story of Jesus, even though she can't have more than the slightest notion of what it is really about. The miracles
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especially fascinate Simone. Like most children, she has no difficulty suspending her disbelief. Her mind never asks "how" when Jesus walks on the water or turns the water into wine.
My comments are not completely fair. I'm probably jealous of the rapport that exists between Michael and Simone. As her mother I should be delighted that they are so compatible. At least they have each other. Try as we might, poor Katie and I remain unable to make that deep connection.
Part of the problem is that Katie and I are both extremely stubborn. Although she is only two and a half years old, she already wants to control her own life. Take something simple, for example, like the planned set of activities for the day. I have been creating the schedules for everybody in the family since our first days in Rama. Nobody else has ever argued seriously with me, not even Richard. Michael and Simone always accept whatever I recommend�as long as there is ample unstructured time.
But Katie is a different story. If I schedule a walk topside in New York before an alphabet lesson, she wants to change the order. If I plan chicken for dinner, she wants pork or beef. We start virtually every morning with a fight about the activities for the day. When she doesn't like my decisions, Katie sulks, or pouts, or cries for her "daddy." It really hurts when she calls for Richard.
Michael says that I should acquiesce to her desires. He insists that it's just a phase of growing up. But when I point out to him that neither Genevieve nor Simone were ever like Katie, he smiles and shrugs.
Michael and I do not always agree on parenting techniques. We have had several interesting discussions about family life in our bizarre circumstances. Toward the end of one of the conversations, I was slightly miffed about Michael's assertion that I was "too strict" with the girls, so I decided to bring up the religion issue. I asked Michael why it was so important to him that Simone learn about the minutiae in Jesus' life.
"Someone has to cany on the tradition," he said vaguely.
"So you believe that there will be a tradition to carry
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on, that we are not going to drift forever in space and die one by one in terrifstaedtler pencilsying loneliness."
"I believe that God has a plan for all human beings," he answered.
"But what is His plan for us?" I asked. "We don't know," Michael replied. "Any mor,e than those billions of people still back on Earth know what His plan is for them. The process of living is searching for His plan."
I shook my head and Michael continued. "You see, Nicole, it should be much easier for us. We have far fewer distractions. There is no excuse for our not remaining close to God. That's why my earlier preoccupations with food and art history are so difficult to forgive. In Rama, human beings have to make a major effort to fill up their time with something other than prayer and devotion."
I admit that his certitude annoys me at times. In our present circumstances, the life of Jesus seems to have no more relevance than the life of Attila the Hun or any other human being who has ever been alive on that distant planet two light-years away. We are no longer part of the human race. We are either doomed, or the beginning of what will essentially be a new species. Did Jesus die for all our sins as well, those of us who will never see the Earth again? If Michael had not been a Catholic and programmed from birth in favor of procreation, I never would have convinced him to conceive a child. He had a hundred reasons why it was not the right thing to do. But in the end, maybe because I was disturbing his nightly devotions with my persistent attempts to persuade him, he finally consented. He warned me (hat it was highly likely that "it would never work" and that he "would not take any responsibility" for my frustration.
It took us three months to produce an embryo. During the first two ovulation cycles I was unable to arouse him. I tried laughter, body massage, music, food�everything mentioned in any of the articles about impotence. His guilt and tension were always stronger than my ardor. Fantasy finally provided the solution. When I suggested to Michael one night that he should imagine I was his wife Kathleen
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throughout the entire affair, he was finally able to sustain an erection. The mind is indeed a wonderful creation.
Even with fantasy, making love with Michael was not an easy task. In the first place, and this is probably an unkind thing for me to say, his preparations alone were enough to put any ordinary woman out of the mood. Just before he took off his clothes, Michael always offered a prayer to God. What did he pray for? It would be fascinating to know the answer.
Eleanor of Aquitaine's first husband, Louis VII of France, had been raised as a monk and only became king because of a historical accident. In my father's novel about Eleanor there is a long interior monologue in which she complains about making love "surrounded by solemnity and piety and the coarse cloth of the Cistercians." She longed for gaiety and laughter in the bedroom, for bawdy talk and wanton passion. I can understand why she divorced Louis and married Henry Plantagenet.
So I am now pregnant with the boy child (I hope) who will bring genetic variation to our progeny. It has been quite a struggle and almost certainly not worth it. Because of my desire to have Michael's child, Richard is gone and Michael is, at least temporarily, no longer the close friend and companion that he was during our first years on Rama. I have paid the price for my success. Now I must hope that this spacecraft does indeed have a destination.
1 March 2206
I repeated the partial genome test this morning to verify my initial results. There is no doubt about it. Our unborn baby boy definitely has Whittingham's syndrome. Fortunately there are no other identifiable defects, but Whittingham's is bad enough.
I showed the data to Michael when we had a few moments alone after breakfast. At first he didn't understand what I was telling him, but when I used the word retarded, he reacted immediately. I could tell that he was envisioning a child who would be completely unable to take
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care of himself. His concerns were only partially allayed 'when I explained that Whittingham's is nothing more man a learning disability, a simple failure of the electrochemical processes in the brain to operate properly.
When I performed the first partial genome test last week, I suspected Whittingham's, but since there was a possible ambiguity in the results, I didn't say anything to Michael. Before drawing a second amniotic sample, I wanted to review what was known about the condition. My abridged medical encyclopedia unfortunately did not contain enough information to satisfy me.
This afternoon, while Katie was napping, Michael and I asked Simone if she would read a book in the nursery for an hour or so. Our perfect angel readily complied. Michael was much calmer than he had been in the morning. He acknowledged that he had been devastated at first by the news about Benjy (Michael wants to name the child Benjamin Ryan OToole, after his grandfather). Apparently reading the Book of Job had played a major role in helping him regain his perspective.
I explained to Michael that Benjy's mental development would be slow and tedious. He was comforted, however, when I informed him that many Whittingham's sufferers had eventually achieved twelve-year-old equivalency after twenty years of schooling. I assured Michael there would be no physical signs of the defect, as there are in Down's, and that since Whittingham's is a blocked recessive trait, there was little likelihood that any possible offspring would be affected before the third generation at the earliest.
"Is there any way of knowing which one of us has the syndrome in our genes?" Michael asked when we were near the end of our conversation.
"No," I replied. "It's a very difficult disorder to isolate because it apparently arises from several different defective genes. Only if the syndrome is active is the diagnosis straightforward. Even on Earth attempts to identify carriers have not been successful."
I started to tell him that since the disease was first diagnosed in 2068, there have been almost no cases in either Africa or Asia. It has been basically a Caucasian disorder,
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with the highest frequency of occurrence in Ireland. I decided Michael would learn this information soon enough (it is all in the main article in the medical encyclopedia� which he is reading now), and I didn't want him to feel any worse than he already did.
"Is there any cure?" he asked next.
"None for us," I said, shaking my head. "There was some indication in the last decade that genetic countermea-sures could be effective, if used during the second trimester of pregnancy. However, the procedure is complicated, even on Earth, and can result in losing the fetus altogether."
That would have been a perfect time in the discussion for Michael to mention the word abortion. He didn't. His set of beliefs is so steadfast and unwavering that I'm certain he never even considered it. For him, abortion is an absolute wrong, on Rama as well as Earth. I found myself wondering if there were any conditions under which Michael would have considered an abortion. What if the baby had Down's syndrome and also was blind? Or had multiple congenital problems that guaranteed an early death?
If Richard had been here, we would have had a logical discussion about the advantages and disadvantages of an abortion. He would have created one of his famous Ben Franklin sheets, with pros and cons listed separately on the two sides of the large screen. I would have added a long list of emotional reasons (which Richard would have omitted in his original list) for not having an abortion, and in the end we almost certainly would have all agreed to bring Benjy into Rama. It would have been a rational, community decision.
I want to have this baby. But I also want Michael to reaffirm his commitment as Benjy's father. A discussion of the possibility of abortion would have elicited that renewed commitment. Blind acceptance of the rules of God or the church or any structured dogma can sometimes make it too easy for an individual to withhold his own support for a specific decision. I hope that Michael is not that kind of person.
10
30 August 2206
Benjy came early. Despite my repeated assurances
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