“Well, I was doing some of the DNA mapping, and there seems to be a problem with the blood samples that we have. I couldn’t get any acceptable results.”
An exasperated Dr. Mensen sighed inaudibly. Couldn’t these post-docs do anything right these days? From what he remembered, post-docs used to be able to do simple experiments without needing you to look over their shoulder. Nowadays no one seemed to be able to do anything. What was going to happen to the NIH once he retired? It would be chaos. He stood up and moved around the desk, “Show me the problem,” he said.
The two walked down the hallway to the main laboratory floor. The place was filled with beakers, vials, biohazard symbols, and other paraphernalia. They passed two of his other post-docs, who were busy abusing his precious PCR-sequencer. “Good afternoon Dr. Mensen,” they said in unison. Mensen grumbled a greeting as they walked past. “OK, tell me what you did.”
“Well, Dr. Mensen, I’m working on how HS is transmitted to children like you said to do. I was trying to look at mutations in the parent’s genes that may have led to the mutation in the children. According to biology, the gene defects in the children should show up in the parents.”
“Yes, we don’t yet know the cause of HS. It could be some sort of mutation that happens because the ovaries mess up the creation of the eggs, like in Downs’ Syndrome. It could also be caused by some rare recessive gene. If both parents have it, you’ve got an HS child.”
“Well, we got a batch of child blood samples, along with blood samples from their respective mothers. As a first step, I did a Southern Blot test to ensure that the samples hadn’t gotten mixed up in transit. I wanted to make sure that each sample from a mother was attached to the correct child sample.”
“That’s a pretty simple procedure, why couldn’t you do it correctly?”
“Well, I couldn’t get any of the samples to match up Dr. Mensen.” The post-doc reached across the lab bench and picked up the gels that she had run some of the tests with. I couldn’t get a single mother-child match. They’re not the same at all.” She handed the gels to the Doctor.
“Maybe there was systemic problem and all the samples got switched. Just check each child against all the mother samples until you find the right one.
“That was my first thought Dr. Mensen, but none of the samples matched up. None of these mothers match up to any of the children. I think that the batches must have gotten mixed up.”
“That can’t be, there was only one batch. The parent samples were taken at the same time as the child samples, it was all shipped in one shipment. There should be a match somewhere.”
Damn grad students can’t do anything right, thought Dr. Mensen. Now he was going to have to spend all afternoon tracking down the samples and running them himself.
Four months later, at the Hayes residence, Fredrick, MD
Colin was in the process of tucking in his child for the night. He could hear his wife washing dishes in the kitchen. The light was still on, but the boy was already asleep. He had fallen asleep in the living room while the family was watching television. Colin carried him into the bedroom himself. He paused to rub his son’s head. Already his hair was full and thick and red, just like Colin’s. He looked like a very normal, one-year-old child. That was a bit disconcerting for Colin considering all the research he had done lately. He knew what was going on. His research had confirmed what Ray had been thinking. It wasn’t good. He wondered about his child’s life. How would it be? How would he deal with the coming storm? How lucky he was. He’d made it just under the gun.
Colin’s wife turned off the faucet and came to see what Colin was up to. “Let him sleep,” she said quietly, so as not to wake the boy. Colin left the room stealthily and joined his wife in the hallway. As he stepped from the room she reached inside and switched off the light. Colin gently closed the door. “Hopefully he’ll sleep through the night,” she whispered as they walked down the hallway. Their house was plain and a bit old, but it was clean and warm. It needed new rugs and a coat of paint, but Colin hadn’t had time to do any fixing up during the past few months. He had been working so much overtime lately at the lab. The money was great and all, but Colin’s wife really would have preferred if he was home more often to help with the running of the household.
“I’m sorry that I haven’t been around so much Janice. That’ll change soon. This project is almost done. Maybe then we’ll go away together. Well take a long vacation. Up in the mountains, maybe.”
“...Or maybe we could have another baby?” Janice said hesitantly.
“What? Janice I don’t think that’s a good idea. I really don’t.”
“But Colin, you promised. Don’t you remember, back when we were first going out? You said that you always wanted two children. You said that you didn’t want to space them out too far, so they’d be able to relate to each other.”
“It’s out of the question right now. Maybe someday, but now is a very bad time.”
“But you said that your project is almost done. You want to spend more time at home. We don’t have any money troubles. What’s wrong with doing it now?”
“You don’t understand Janice. Things are changed... will change. It just isn’t a good time. You don’t know what’s going on. There’s a lot that you don’t see. There are... problems. It’s out of the question.”
“Just like that? You don’t even want to discuss it?” said Janice pleadingly.
“No. I don’t want to discuss it. Let’s just be thankful for what we have. You’ve got a beautiful baby boy in there, console yourself with that. I’ll explain someday, but I can’t today. You’ll just have to trust me for now.”
This was unlike Colin. He wasn’t usually so stubborn. In fact, he was often pretty easy to manipulate. Janice figured that there must be something unsaid that was bothering him. Something he didn’t want to talk about just yet. She would get it out of him sooner or later. She had a way with these things. She would keep subtly bringing the issue up until she found out what was wrong, neutralized the threat, and got her way. She didn’t consider herself so, but she was really a very manipulative person. She dropped the subject for now. Colin just went wordlessly into the bedroom, leaving Janice to turn off the lights and close up the house for bed.
She went back into the kitchen and put away the rest of the dishes. Then she walked through the various rooms and made sure that the lights were off and the doors were locked. On her way to bed she stopped by her son’s room. She opened the door quietly as to not wake him. It was dark, but the moon provided enough light to make out the outlines of the crib and furniture. She moved towards her child instinctively. She could hear him breathing lightly under his covers. She stood there watching for a while, thinking about Colin’s reaction. She had always wanted many children. She didn’t think it would be fair to only have one. He’d grow up so lonely. What could the problem be? Colin had always expressed a desire to have several kids. That’s one of the things that first attracted her to him, he was a family man.
Was he sick? Maybe that was the problem. Maybe he had come down with cancer or something and he hadn’t told her yet? That would be like him, always trying to play the hero, always trying to be the strong one in times of adversity. Janice quickly dismissed the thought from her head. No, he wasn’t sick, he couldn’t be. Perhaps the thought was too horrific to finish, perhaps she subconsciously believed that she understood her partner enough to notice if he was sick, but for whatever reason she dismissed the thought.
She considered other possibilities, sexual dysfunction, money problems, fear of nuclear war. Nothing made sense. She eventually decided that it was just the stress of his job that was bothering him, and that he would go back to his old self as soon as he stopped working so much overtime. Perhaps she would suggest that he find a new job. There were a lot of places a biochemist like Colin could go. Maybe move out of the DC area, somewhere with better weather. She looked down at her son. Her maternal instincts were revving up again. She had been feeling a strong desire to have another child for some time now. Almost since she gave birth to her first one. She considered the possibilities for a long time. She thought of all sorts of ways that she could approach the subject again without riling Colin too much. She considered different things that she could do to change his mind. Eventually, after almost a half hour of standing in the dark, she had formulated a plan. Everything was going to be all right. She headed off to bed.
A few days later, at the residence of Dr. Heinrich Mensen, Potomac, MD
After cleaning up from dinner, Dr. Mensen was just sitting down in a big, comfy, leather chair in his wood-paneled living room. He had just poured himself a snifter of brandy and was about to settle down with a good book for the evening. He needed to do some relaxing after a difficult day. He had always wanted to be a scientist, to probe the secrets of life itself, to help people. But more and more he found himself to be just an administrator, just a middle manager. He shouldn’t have to spend half his day begging for grant money. That job should be left for someone better qualified at schmoozing. He needed to get back to the lab. He had been thinking lately that he might resign his position as department chair and go back to pure research. But thoughts like that could wait until tomorrow he decided. There was not point in ruining a perfectly good evening by thinking about work. He settled down into his chair and picked up his novel.
Riiiinnnnngggg.
The phone rang. Perfect timing. The doctor considered just not answering, but he decided that he must. It could have something to do with the grant applications that he had been submitting all week. He rose from the big, comfy, leather chair moved across the study to the phone sitting on the wood desk.
“Hello?” inquired Dr. Mensen.
A voice that sounded suspiciously like Ray Johnston (although at the time the doctor wouldn’t understand the significance of that name) was on the other end of the line. “Dr. Mensen, it is good to finally speak with you. I read your paper on the causes of HS.”
“Who is this?” said Dr. Mensen. “How did you get this number?”
“Never mind who I am Doctor, and how I got this number doesn’t matter. I’m a friend. I want to help you. I know that your funding has been cut back severely, and I know why. I have some information that you might find very useful.”
“My funding has been cut back because the appropriations committee didn’t give NIH as much money as last year.” He had been told that HS was not a very common disease, and cuts had to be made somewhere. “What are you implying sir?”
“I’m implying that there are forces at work that don’t want your research to succeed. They don’t want to hear what you would tell them. They aren’t ready to face up to this news. But I’m going to give you a valuable piece of the puzzle.” The person on the other end of the line certainly had a flare for the dramatic.
“Who is this?” demanded Dr. Mensen again.
“I read your paper on HS genetics. You’ve noted that the children have a mutation that doesn’t appear in the parent. Your report likens HS to Downs’ Syndrome. You make the assumption that there is some problem during fertilization, that the DNA in the egg gets mixed up. That’s why the kids have little genetic similarity to their own parents.”
“I know my own research.”
“Well, I want to tell you that you are off-track on this. I can’t explain how I know, but I want you to do a test. Find a woman pregnant with an HS child. Do a DNA test on both the blood and the amniotic fluid.”
“What’s that supposed to prove?”
“That’s what you are going to find out doctor. That’s all I have to say. Do the test, you won’t be disappointed.”
The voice on the other end of the phone was replaced by a click as the phone was hung up. Dr. Mensen stood by his desk for a while, receiver still in hand. He wasn’t used to getting strange calls in the middle of the night from unnamed men telling him to perform experiments. And what was the voice implying about his inability to get grant money the last few months? The phone started beeping in his hand with the ‘off the hook’ sound, so the doctor hung it up and went back to his chair. He wasn’t too happy about the call, but perhaps he should follow it up. The experiment that was suggested was simple enough after all. He could get Nancy to do it in the morning. Of course, if this guy was a researcher, why was he using such strange tactics? If he was legitimate, there are many journals that he could publish in, why resort to spooky phone calls? Dr. Mensen shook off his thoughts. He’d worry about it in the morning. Now it was time for relaxation, brandy, and a good book.
The Miller farm, on the outskirts of Tyler, TX
Tom sat on the floor of his living room. A few feet away from him was his son, who was sitting up on his own now. The doctors had been worried that the child may never sit up straight. His head was so much larger than the rest of his body that it might be tough for his neck muscles to support the weight. But the doctors were wrong, doctors are sometimes wrong. Tom sat across from his son. Now that the kid was a bit older, and was wearing clothes, he looked almost normal. He sat in his little blue jeans and a striped shirt that Lorraine had made for him. He had to wear special shirts because the ones from the store wouldn’t fit over his head. Tom had been hoping that the kid would grow some hair, but as for now little Jim was still bald as the day he was born. Lorraine was sitting on the couch, watching TV and doing the crossword puzzle. Tom was trying an experiment. He was still hoping for a sports career from his son and, as everyone knows, you have to start them early on that path. Tom had a little pink rubber ball he had picked up last time he was in town. He rolled it slowly towards his child. As the ball passed by, Jim made no move to get it, but he did turn his head and watch it pass by. That was a good sign. The doctors had told Tom that his kid was likely to be blind, or at least have very poor eyesight, but as far as Tom could tell, he could see just fine. He played with his mobile, he turned his head when you walked into the room. No, that boy could see just fine. The doctors were wrong. The doctors were often wrong.