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chair back from the table and called the creature, holding out his arms to him, but the child just ran around the table, as is his wont, babbling and giving high-pitched shrieks for no reason. At length he passed close enough for his father to grab him. “Hold still,” he said, struggling with his squirming catch. “Hold still, hold still, and I will give you some muffin.” He pinned the boy’s arms behind his back with one hand and with the other reached out to Sarah, demanding “Muffin, muffin.” She quickly broke up a few pieces onto a plate and set it before him. This got the boy’s attention. He began a low crooning, straining his head toward the plate. My husband took up a bit and pressed it to the child’s lips, quieting him momentarily. “How old is he now?” he asked Sarah.
    “He seven,” she said.
    He ran his hand through the boy’s wild red hair. “Doesn’t anyone ever comb his hair?” he asked.
    “He won’ stand for it.”
    My husband looked into Walter’s mad face, feeding him another bit of muffin to keep his attention. “No,” he said approvingly. “Why should he?”
    Walter’s eyes opened wide; he brought his face close to his father’s, swallowed the last bite, and shouted “Poo-poo, poo-poo” at the top of his lungs. Sarah jumped away from the sideboard, grabbed the horrid creature by one arm, and dragged him toward the doors. “He have to go out,” she said. When the doors were open, he scurried across the bricks into the azaleas and squatted down in the dirt.
    “A charming child,” I observed.
    Sarah closed the doors and resumed her post at the sideboard. “More coffee,” I said.
    My husband looked abashed. It delighted me to see him trying to make his dull brain work over the problem presented by this monster he has brought among us. “So he can speak?” he said.
    “Delphine taught him that.”
    “Can he say anything else?”
    “Maybe Delphine understand him sometime.”
    “But you don’t.”
    Sarah studied his face for a moment without speaking. Then she said, “Delphine say he don’t hear.”
    “He’s deaf,” my husband said softly, as if a deep revelation had just come to him. Then, tersely, “I shall send for Dr. Landry today.”

    I RARELY VISIT in town because I can’t bear my mother’s prying into the state of my marriage, her constant insinuations about my failure to conceive a child. For a few years I didn’t mind, I even felt a mild curiosity about it myself; as I explained to Mother, it wasn’t for lack of trying. She cherished the hope that the fault was with my husband, and I foolishly did too, until Walter was born. Then I knew the reason. In a way, Walter is the reason, but I could speak to no one about it. In the fifth year of my marriage, Mother and my husband consulted a doctor reputed to have helped other childless couples, and then there was no living with either of them until I agreed to be examined by this man. So I went to town and, at the appointed time, presented myself at the offices of Dr. Gabriel Sanchez.
    He was a small, swarthy man, his thin hair gray at the temples, his eyes slightly crossed; perhaps one eye was only weak. I was required to undress behind a screen, wrapped in sheets by a nurse, then partially unwrapped, my modesty consulted to absurd lengths. The physical examination was extremely repugnant, but I did not object to it. I thought if I would submit, the doctor might find some physical reason for my failure to conceive, thereby freeing me of my detested conjugal duties, and also putting an end to my mother’s tiresome queries. When it was over, a girl was sent in to help me dress and I was escorted into the office where Dr. Sanchez awaited me. It was a surprisingly sunny room. The floor was covered with a rush mat; the chairs were in summer covers. The doctor motioned me into one facing his desk, which was really a table covered with papers, books, and, oddly enough, a potted geranium. As I took my seat I