The Condition Read online

  Her father had hired Neil on the recommendation of an old friend, one of Neil’s professors at Harvard. One look at the kid had undoubtedly clinched the deal. If you had a daughter as stunning as Paulette, Neil’s awkwardness would have to be reassuring. Her virtue, surely, would be safe with him. After Paulette entered Wellesley, the tutoring stopped; but she and Neil kept in touch. When she invited Neil to a Wellesley Christmas mixer, Frank did something he’d never done before. He tagged along.

  He was free then, and on the make. He’d tired quickly of Janet Smart; but when he tried dating other Radcliffe girls, they all seemed to know about him. Blackballed his first semester, he was forced to look elsewhere.

  The Wellesley girls, by and large, did not impress him. They struck him as opinionated, even strident. Though beautifully dressed, they were nothing special in the looks department. He’d known prettier girls, loads of them, at Penn State. Wellesley to wed, Wheaton to bed, Frank thought, and wondered why they weren’t at a Wheaton mixer instead.

  He was dancing with an especially irritating girl, a willowy redhead, when Neil Windsor sailed past with a girl in his arms. A dark-haired girl with an exquisite face. Not merely pretty: a knockout. The most beautiful girl in the room.

  Excusing himself, Frank disengaged from the redhead, crossed the dance floor, and tapped Neil’s shoulder. And before they’d exchanged a single word, he had Paulette in his arms.

  That girl you were dancing with is Edith Anderson, she said. You were very rude to her. You left her stranded on the dance floor.

  I didn’t like her, he said. I liked you better.

  You could have waited.

  I couldn’t wait. He spotted the redhead across the room, dancing with a new partner. Is Edith a friend of yours?

  Paulette giggled. I can’t stand her. She’s a witch.

  I’m glad I ditched her, then. Frank pulled her closer. Come on. Let’s go dance next to her.

  They met in baggage claim, their usual arrangement. Frank stood next to the belt, waiting for his daughter’s small purple suitcase. It was easier than finding Gwen in a crowd.

  “Hi, Daddy,” said a voice near his elbow, startling him. She’d always had a way of sneaking up on him.

  Frank stooped to embrace her. His natural inclination was to lift her into his arms; but years ago a counselor had admonished him against this.

  “How was the flight?” he asked. Her appearance hadn’t changed in twenty years. Pale skin dotted with freckles; carrot red hair cut short and choppy, with a cowlick that couldn’t be subdued. She wore jeans and a Pittsburgh Steelers sweatshirt, boys’ size Large. Gwen was the only one of Frank’s children who followed sports. Together they’d watched the Steelers win four Super Bowls. Two at home in Concord. Two more in a bare, drafty apartment on Mass Ave, where Frank had squatted after the divorce.

  “Wait a minute,” he said. “Where are your glasses?”

  “No more glasses.” She grinned. “I had the surgery.”

  “Radial keratotomy?” He stared at her, confounded. Gwen’s childhood had left her with a lifelong horror of doctors. It was inconceivable to Frank that she’d let someone take a knife to her eyes. That she’d seen a doctor of any kind.

  He kissed the top of her head. “What’s gotten into you?”

  “I’m taking a dive trip next month. I figure as long as I’m down there, I might as well see something.” For years she’d complained about her prescription dive mask, heavy and, in warm waters, perennially fogged. Her vision was so poor that a regular mask was out of the question, and despite years of nagging by Paulette, she refused to consider contacts.

  “That’s wonderful, Gwen. Good for you.” He spotted her suitcase and swung it easily from the belt. Gwen was a famously light packer. She’d learned long ago not to pack more than she could carry.

  “Is that everything?” And then, with a twinkle: “No pocketbook?”

  Gwen rolled her eyes, and they both laughed. Paulette was outraged at Gwen’s refusal to carry a pocketbook. It was a dialogue Frank had witnessed many times—years ago, when his presence was tolerated at school functions and graduations.

  But where do you keep your wallet? Paulette would demand.

  In my pocket.

  What about your lipstick?

  I don’t wear lipstick.

  If you carried a pocketbook, Paulette insisted, you could start.

  They headed for the car-rental counter. “Reservation for Gwen McKotch,” Frank told the clerk, a bald Latino with a lobeful of earrings.

  “Where’s the driver?” he asked.

  “Here,” Gwen said.

  The clerk looked down at her, and frowned. “Can I see a license?”

  Gwen fished in her pocket and handed over her driver’s license. He stared at it a long time, his eyes returning twice to her face, which had flushed a deep red. Frank understood that his daughter’s life was full of such moments, the stares of strangers trying to figure out what she was. At thirty-four, Gwen was four feet eight, the height of an eleven-year-old child. Even her voice was childlike, clear and high pitched. In elementary school she’d been a regular soloist in the school choir, with a voice that astonished her teachers: more boyish than girlish, the joyful banshee cry of a young hooligan making mischief. A voice with perfect pitch, remarkable in its clarity and power.

  The clerk handed back her license. “All right,” he said uncertainly. “We got you in a Chrysler LeBaron. Or for an extra thirty bucks, you can get a Cadillac.”

  Frank knew without asking that Gwen had requested a tiny Ford Festiva, as she did every year.

  “The LeBaron is a mid-size,” he told the clerk. “The reservation was for a compact.” He could hear the counselor’s voice in his ear: She’s a grown woman. Let her fight her own battles. But she shouldn’t have to, he thought, glancing at Gwen’s scarlet cheeks. She shouldn’t have to fight at all.

  “I didn’t take the reservation, so I don’t know what she asked for,” the clerk said. “But don’t worry. I ain’t charging her for the upgrade.”

  Finally Gwen spoke. “That’s not the point. I can’t drive a mid-size.”

  The clerk’s eyes widened. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think.”

  “No problem,” Gwen said, putting away her license. “It isn’t your fault.”

  They retrieved Frank’s Saab from the parking garage and began the slow rush-hour crawl toward downtown. The clerk had been unable to locate a compact. Screw the counselor, Frank thought, and stepped in to give the guy a dressing-down. His outburst hadn’t changed a thing—Gwen still had no rental car—but Frank couldn’t help himself.

  “That jackass,” he fumed. “A simple car rental. How difficult is that?”

  “Dad, don’t worry about it.” Gwen fumbled under the passenger seat and found the lever to raise it.

  “They can bring the Chrysler to the house tomorrow morning,” Frank suggested. “Billy can drive it up to Concord.”

  “That won’t work,” Gwen said.

  “Why not?”

  “Bad news, Dad. Billy isn’t coming.”

  Reflexively Frank slammed on the brake. “What do you mean, not coming?” He glanced over at his daughter. She sat strapped into her seat, staring straight ahead.

  “He’s on call tonight.”

  “When did that happen?” Disappointment pressed on his chest like a bully’s hand, goading him into a fight. “I thought we had a plan.”

  “I don’t know the details, Dad. Just that he’s on call.”

  “Why didn’t he tell me? Would it have killed him to pick up the phone?”

  “He’s pretty busy. Honestly, I hardly hear from him myself.”

  Frank eyed her suspiciously. When Gwen clammed up, there was no way to pry her open. Billy phoned him twice a year, on his birthday and Father’s Day, and responded politely to his e-mails; but when Frank traveled to New York for the occasional conference, his son was never free for lunch. Frank had wondered lately if Billy were avoiding him.
Always he pushed the thought away.

  He changed lanes quickly, cutting off a Jeep Cherokee in the passing lane. The other driver leaned on the horn.

  “I could have invited Scott,” said Gwen. “I doubt he would have come, though. He’s got his hands full with Penny and the kids.”

  “Sure.” Frank couldn’t remember the last time he and Scott had spoken. He wondered, now, if his son were like the young fathers he saw trekking along the Charles on Sunday afternoons, carrying babies in backpacks or slung across their chests. It was the sort of spectacle you never saw back in the sixties, when Frank’s children were small. He was privately glad to have been spared the indignity of toting a baby in a sling, which struck him as unmanly. Was this why his kids didn’t want to see him? he thought irritably. Because he’d never pushed them around town in a stroller?

  He felt suddenly unmoored, unsure what to do next. Stop by the lab and see Margit? That, he thought despairingly, would kill some time. The evening, so promising a moment ago, stretched dismally before him. How strange it was, this annual tradition, how stripped down and hollow: father and daughter exchanging gifts in a restaurant, two days before Christmas. Billy’s presence would have changed everything. For once it might have felt like a family gathering, something Frank hadn’t experienced in years. Of course, the kids got plenty of that at their mother’s house. Year after year, Paulette was hell-bent on reenacting the genteel New England Christmas of her childhood: formal dinner, midnight mass, opening presents around the Douglas fir; rituals in which, to his everlasting relief, he was no longer required to take part. Only Gwen continued to make time for her father. Only Gwen, perhaps, had nothing better to do.

  He glanced over at his daughter. To anyone who knew Turners syndrome, her condition was obvious. She was short but not petite; her broad chest seemed to be sized for a much taller person. Her short legs were thick and muscular. She had the powerful build of an Olympic child gymnast: the narrow hips, the shield chest. Watching the games last summer, Frank found himself wondering if all the team were Turners. At their young ages—thirteen or fourteen—it was hard to tell.

  Severe cases of Turner’s, where a girl’s second X chromosome was missing entirely, were easy to identify. Small stature plus certain telltale physical features—low-set ears, a low hairline, folds of excess skin at the sides of the neck—could have no other cause. But Gwen’s second X chromosome wasn’t missing, just partially deleted. This explained her asymptomatic childhood and probably, her good health as an adult: by Gwen’s age, many Turners women developed serious ailments. Thirty percent had kidney abnormalities; a congenital bicuspid aortic valve was extremely common. But with most of her second X chromosome intact, Gwen had escaped these complications entirely.

  Frank was still married to Paulette when he’d had Gwen karyo-typed. From a medical standpoint, the news could hardly have been better; but Paulette refused to hear it; she was simply furious. Frank’s explanations were wasted on her. To his amazement, she seemed determined to learn as little about Turner’s as possible, as if ignorance would make Gwen’s condition disappear. Any objective discussion of Turner’s incensed her. What sort of man—sort of person—could think this way? she demanded. What sort of father could talk about his own child in such a cold and clinical way?

  The truth was that Frank had been a scientist longer than he’d been a father. If he’d been trained to observe in a certain way, to describe his observations in precise terms, that did not imply a lack of feeling for the subject. Concern for the subject, deep concern; anger and protectiveness on her behalf. A powerful urge to kick the shit out of an Avis clerk who couldn’t handle a simple car rental, to tear out all his hoop earrings and grind them savagely under his heel. Frank had never failed to love his daughter. He wanted simply to help her, to give her the best life possible. Presumably Paulette wanted the same. Yet how to do that was a subject on which they’d never managed to agree.

  They climbed the stairs to the lab, Gwen leading the way, her sneakers squeaking on the steps. They reached the landing just as the elevator doors were opening.

  “Frank?” Cristina Spiliotes stepped out of the elevator, smiling warmly. She wore a green velvet pullover with a deep V neckline. A diamond hung in the soft hollow at the base of her throat. She seemed dressed for somewhere more festive than the lab—a Christmas party, perhaps.

  “How are you, Frank?” She touched his elbow. “Merry Christmas to you.”

  He smiled uncertainly, bewildered by her friendliness. Most days they exchanged a perfunctory hello, or nothing at all.

  “Is this your little girl?” she asked.

  A sick feeling in his stomach. Jesus, no, he thought. But Gwen’s back was to Cristina; from the rear, she certainly looked like a child. It occurred to him that the two women were about the same age.

  He laid a hand on Gwen’s shoulder. “Gwen, this is Cristina Spiliotes, one of my postdoctoral fellows. My daughter, Gwen McKotch.”

  He willed her to step forward, to offer her hand in a confident way. But Gwen seemed to be hiding behind him. “Hi,” she said, her voice small.

  For the first time he could remember, Cristina seemed genuinely rattled. She looked from Gwen to Frank, and back again.

  “I’m sorry,” she stammered. “My mistake. Please forgive me.”

  “No problem,” Gwen said for the second time in an hour. “It’s not your fault.”

  The snow was falling, falling on the house in Concord, and this more than anything else—more than gifts or garlands, more than the familiar old carols or the insipid new ones playing in the bank and hair salon and grocery store that afternoon—made December twenty-fourth feel like a holiday. Her errands done, Paulette stood at the front door and stared out through the frosted glass. As a girl she’d loved the snow, its first appearance each year a thing to celebrate, Roy and Martine dragging their Flexible Flyers to the top of the hill behind their house, stopping periodically to wait for her, too little to keep up. Now her brother and sister lived in warmer climates—Martine in Taos, New Mexico; Roy and his new wife in Arizona—and only Paulette was left to witness the crystalline scratching at the windowpanes, the heavy blanket accruing on the front step.

  The house, on a wide tree-lined street at the edge of town, had seen many winters; one hundred ninety-nine, according to the town clerk. It had been the boyhood home of Josiah Hobhouse, a Unitarian minister and ardent abolitionist. Paulette cherished this history as though it belonged to her, as though it were her very own ancestor who’d fought at Harpers Ferry alongside John Brown. Perhaps because of this, she couldn’t imagine selling the place, as the men in her family—Billy, her brother, Roy—periodically urged her to do. In financial terms, the house was a disaster. Like all the elderly, it had begun to break down.

  Walls, floors, nothing lasted forever. Paulette had not arrived at this insight on her own. For years she’d served on the local Patriots’ Day committee, which planned the annual reenactment of the Battle of Concord; and last Patriots’ Day, she’d met a young carpenter named Gilbert Pyle. He was a direct descendant of John Hawes Gilbert, a Concord Minuteman; each April, Pyle donned a tricorn and breeches and played the role of his ancestor in the skirmish at North Bridge. When not in costume, he specialized in historic restorations; in Concord his skills were much in demand. He had walked Paulette through the house, pointing out cracks in the foundation, the sagging porch, the ominous settling of the kitchen floor. Problems expensive to correct and—for a homeowner blinded by sentiment—all too easy to ignore. To Paulette the house was not a simple investment. The place was like a beloved grandfather, mute and broken, plagued by a host of hidden ailments, but still sentient. Still aware of this new winter descending, silently, on a clean wind from the north.

  For Christmas she’d taken pains to make the house inviting. There were huge bouquets of white flowers in the foyer and dining room: orchids and lilies, a few roses; eucalyptus leaves for fragrance and green. She had a wonderful florist, acc
ommodating and inventive. She disliked anything too seasonal—mistletoe, with all the silly business about kissing; poinsettias, available now in grocery stores, in vulgar shades of peach and pink.

  Outside the wind was howling, a sound that thrilled her. She had prepared for a storm—firewood in the basement, boxes of candles in case the power failed. She longed secretly for this to happen, the family gathered around the fireplace, wrapped in blankets, looking out occasionally to monitor the snowfall.

  The one problem with this fantasy, she realized, was her pottery. In an upstairs room were three hundred-odd urns and vases, plates and paperweights, shelved and cataloged by age and manufacturer. The room was drafty and faced north; if the power failed, the temperature would quickly drop below freezing, a frightening thought. Her oldest pieces were vulnerable to crazing, the tiny hairline cracks that appeared, weblike, in the porcelain’s glaze. A sudden drop in temperature increased the risk. An antiques dealer had told her that fifty-five degrees was optimal, and Paulette tried to keep the house at that temperature. If that meant wearing a wool sweater eight months of the year, it seemed a small sacrifice to make.

  She felt it her mission to protect these pieces, noble survivors from another age. Time was the enemy; with each passing year she became more aware of its momentum, the destruction it wrought. Her own face was a constant reminder: still beautiful, her son insisted, but Paulette was not fooled. Her skin was delicate, etched with tiny lines. She was so vigilant about her weight that her features were sharper than they used to be; her hair, if she were to stop coloring it, would be more gray than dark. Most shocking were her hands, knotted with ropy veins. How transparent her skin had grown! It struck her as faintly indecent, her inner workings, the circulation of her blood, so utterly exposed.

  She climbed the stairs to the back bedroom and switched on the light. The glass and pottery were neatly arranged on floor-to-ceiling shelves. Against an inside wall were the most precious pieces, manufactured by the Mount Washington Glass Company a century before. They moved her in ways she could scarcely articulate, partly because they were beautiful and partly because they were manufactured in New Bedford, Massachusetts, a city Clarence Hubbard Drew had helped build. In his day it was the wealthiest city in America, flush with whaling money. Paulette’s first pieces, a Mount Washington tea set and nosegay vase, had come down to her from her grandmother. Paulette had admired them all through her childhood, imagined them displayed at the original Drew house on County Street in New Bedford, which had been sold to the city and turned into a museum when her father was still a boy. The tea set and vase were the centerpieces of her collection, which now included Hull and Roseville pottery, Hall china, and two dozen ornamental glass paperweights.