When he was almost four, Timmy spoke his first words. He said clearly and matter-of-factly, “I want that one, Helen.”

His mother’s mouth slowly opened while her face turned gray with shock. The buckling of her knees in cataplexy forced her to sit down heavily on a kitchen chair not cushioned for such descents, but she was hardly aware of it. Timmy, seated on the kitchen floor and surrounded by half-grown pups owned by a neighbor, screwed his head around to glance at her impatiently over his shoulder.

“I want that one,” he repeated confidently, and pointed to the most ill-proportioned of an ill-conceived litter of mongrels. Helen raised shaking hands to her face, and screamed.

The quick scrape of a chair in the living room and the sound of hasty footsteps glissading on the throw-rug in the hall heralded the approach of Timmy’s father. The doorway filled with flexing muscles that flexed in vain, but somewhat at a disadvantage by the strictly static tableaux. Helen sat at the table, her staring eyes fixed on the child who looked back in blank astonishment. Even the pups were motionless, having cowered in alarm at Helen’s scream.

“What’s the matter?” Timmy’s father asked.

His voice was a spur rudely galvanizing her into action, into an awkward convulsion that landed her on her knees beside Timmy. She gripped his little shoulders with fierce intensity and almost glared into his eyes.

Say it again, Timmy say it again!” She looked around wildly. “He spoke, Jerry, as clear as anyone! He said ‘I want that one,’ and pointed! Timmy ... darling ... angel ... say it again!”

Timmy’s face twitched uncertainly, giving the effect of a confused play of expressions. For a moment he looked as though he would cry, but then the crumpled, puckered lines magically smoothed. The eyes, dull and blank, stayed dry. He made a senseless noise and slobbered in doing so. His jaw was slack, his chin wet.

Jerry felt slightly sick.

“Get up, Helen.” He lifted her somewhat roughly to her feet, overrode her babble. “You’re frightening the ... the child.”

“He talked, Jerry ... you heard him! Didn’t you hear him!”

“Come in the living room and sit down.” She was half-carried, her protests ignored. There was a certain grim determination in his actions as he made her comfortable. “Now we’re going to face it, Helen. It can’t be put off. Timmy was heart-wrenching enough by himself, but I’ve had to watch the change in you in the past few months. You’re getting ... well, we’ll call it hysterical. I could cut off my arm for saying this, honey, but, if we keep Timmy any longer, you’ll just have a breakdown, that’s all!”

She moaned softly, rocking back and forth in misery’s timeless attitude. “I can’t help it, Jerry. I ... just ... can’t ... help it.”

“I know, I know. So I’m making the decision for both of us, here and now, and on my head be it. Timmy will have to be put away this week, permanently.”

“No!” Her wail was more of anguish than of protest.

“Yes! I can’t stand coming home from work day after day to find you’ve manufactured some new evidence to delude yourself there’s hope for him. One day he took the spoon in his hand to feed himself, another day he focused his eyes and looked around the room as though he was really taking everything in

“You said you believed me!”

“So I did at first. So I’d sit around all evening watching him, willing him to do something intelligent. And did he? No. Hon, I don’t want to be unkind to you or to him, but I can’t stand seeing you delude yourself, making yourself sick. We’ve both taken more than is good for us. We’re at the end of our rope. We’ve got to face it now and do what should have been done long ago. It’s not as if Timmy will miss us. He doesn’t even know us, after four years!”

She gathered her forces, shut her eyes tight as if to deny his existence. “It’s no use, Jerry, I won’t do it. I am not deluding myself. I heard him speak. If that was illusion, it was so real to me that you may as well put us both away together!”

“Hysterical hallucinations

“Jerry, don’t say that again. I heard him say ’I want that one, Helen!’”

“You see! Already you’re embroidering what you heard! Now he’s calling his mother by her first name. Honest, Helen, can’t you see how ridiculous you’re being? If you’d thought he said da-da or goo-goo I could have gone along with the gag, but to have him jump the whole learning stage and come out with a complete, concise, explicit little sentence ending familiarly with your Christian name

“I don’t know how he did it, but he did it.”

Jerry rose from his seat beside her, his lips tight. “I can’t honestly say I love my own child, hard as I’ve tried. But I can say that I love his mother. If I have to bankrupt myself to give Timmy proper care in an institution, then I’ll do just that, and do it gladly. But I won’t falsely place his interests above yours. He was born an idiot and he will live and die an idiot. Nothing can change that. Timmy goes, and that’s final.”

He clamped his mouth shut and turned toward the kitchen where he knew his son sat, a stupid lump that couldn’t even crawl of its own volition. The stupid lump stood firmly in the doorway, an uncertain, placating smile on its lips, a pup cradled in the slender arms.

“Jerry? I want this one.”