Deirdre’s rounds until Janice asked him to stand a little farther away. Lily’s manager from the hardware and salvage store came, built like a shagbark hickory yet so persnickety that she sold acne cleanser by the register. She presented us with an economy-size bottle of hand sanitizer. “Happy housewarming,” she said, but Helen wouldn’t take it from her.
“This crap is exactly what’s wrong with the world,” Helen said. “I’d put it in the trash, but there’s no safe way to dispose of it. It’s not fair to sanitation workers.”
“But thanks so much for thinking of us,” said Lily, taking the bottle.
The mill operator kissed her boyfriend with tongue right there in front of everyone. Lily elbowed Helen. “When are you going to date again?” she asked.
“Leave me alone,” Helen said. “Perley needs a maiden aunt.”
I passed around the guacamole, chips, and beer. I caught our guests glancing over at the new house. I braced myself, but they took their time commenting on it. The kids took handfuls of chips down onto the porch and sat around blowing across empty beer bottles. They didn’t ask to go inside. Instead, by way of conversation, Frank told us what he’d heard on what he called the news. Chewing the wrong kind of gum could make all of his children go instantly brain-dead. Then Mike started in on fluoride in the water, and Lily’s manager joined in.
“It messes with proper hormone messaging,” she said. “And that’s just the beginning.”
“Sounds like that orangutan thing,” Helen said.
“What orangutan thing?” asked Lily.
“In some orangutan communities, there’s only one male, and he can’t stop growing,” Helen said. “He grows giant flat cheeks and a big fat throat. It’s called a flange. It’s all about hormonal messaging. Everyone in the medical community is talking about it. They’re wondering what kind of implications it has for humans.”
“I’ve never heard of that,” I said.
“Sure you have,” she said.
“No, I haven’t,” I said. “And I’m a nurse.” I was a nurse, but I hadn’t talked to another nurse since Perley was born. There were no nurses at our party. I hadn’t invited them. I couldn’t bear to hear their plans for improving Perley: shots, doctor visits, regular bathing, combing out his cradle cap. I couldn’t bear to be around people who thought of my son as just another body to be managed. Now that I knew Perley, I’d stopped believing in the ordinariness of humans, or at least didn’t want to be made aware of it. I didn’t want to know about other bodies, other baths, other wiping, other chapping and applications of ointments and administering of medicines. All these duties that I’d been proud to see to, now I wanted to reserve only for my son. When the clinic number showed up on my tiny screen, I held my breath until it disappeared. Still, everyone in the medical community? Everyone?
“This is bullshit, Helen,” I said.
“Why does the flanged orangutan get so big?” asked Lily, shifting Perley to her other hip.
“He’s the only male,” Helen said. “There’s no other male in the vicinity to compete with, so his hormones are unchecked.”
“And is he the strongest?” asked Lily.
“No,” Helen said. “That’s the peculiar thing. He’s not that strong. He’s got a weak heart and he doesn’t live very long.”
“We have to do something,” Lily said.
“About what?” I asked.
“About Perley,” Lily said.
“What does this have to do with Perley?” I asked.
“He’s the only male in the vicinity,” said Lily. “What if that happens to him?”
“It’s the hormonal message that’s important,” Helen said. “You just need to get his brain to send the hormonal message.”
“So we need Perley to, what, smell men?” Lily asked.
“I think that would do it,” Helen said. Perley looked into all of our faces and laughed, kicking Lily in the stomach. Our neighbors just watched us, respectful as cable TV. I took Perley out of Lily’s arms, against his squirming. “He’s my kid, Helen, and I’m telling you to back off,” I said. “This is ridiculous.”
“But what if it isn’t?” asked Lily.
From the moment I met my son, blue as a cave troll, coated in vernix, gasping in the new air, my mission became to not undo all he was born with. To watch him develop habits was painful to me. I resented each neural pathway as it was blazed in his brain. These made him more familiar to me, and I wanted him to stay choose-your-own-adventure. We’d been given a perfect thing, a wild animal, ours to domesticate and diminish.