being, for that matter, except herself and her twin sister-less often
Candy and Frank-because she had so little in common with other people.
Her life was with the wild things. In them emotions were so much more
pnmitive and intense, pleasure so much more easily found and enjoyed
without guilt. She hadn’t really known her mother or been close to her;
and Violet would not have been close, even if her mother had been
willing to share affection with anyone but Candy.
But now Violet was riveted by what Fogarty was telling them, not because
it was news to her (which it was), but because anything that had
affected Roselle’s life this completely also had profound effects on
Violet’s life. And of the countless attitudes and perceptions that
Violet had absorbed from the myriad wild creatures whose minds and
bodies she shared, a fascination with self was perhaps paramount. She
had an animal’s narcissistic preoccupatior. with grooming, with her own
wants and needs. From her prnt of view, nothing in the world was of
interest unless it served her, satisfied her, or affected the
possibility of her future happiness.
Dimly she realized that she should find her brother and tell him that
Frank was less than two miles away from them. Not long ago she had
heard the wind-music of Candy’s return.
FOGARTY TURNED away from Bobby and Julie and circled behind his desk
again, where he walked along the bookshelf snapping his finger against
the spines of the volumes to punctuate his story.
As the physician spoke of this family that had seened genetic
catastrophe, Julie could not help but think how Thomas’s affliction had
been visited upon him though his parents had lived healthy and normal
lives.
played as cruelly with the innocent as with the guilty.
I think Ya ‘When he saw the baby’s abnormability he would have killed it
and thrown it out with the garbage at least put it in the hands of an
institution. But she wouldn’t part with it, she said it was her child,
deformed or not, and she named it Roselle, after her dead grandmother. I
suspect she wanted to keep it largely because she saw how it repulsed
him, and she wanted to have Roselle around as a reminder to him of the
consequences of what he forced her to do.”
“Couldn’t surgery have been used to make her unable to have another?”
Bobby asked.
“Easier today. Harder then.” Fogarty had stopped at the desk, where he
had removed a bottle of Wild Turkey and a glass from one of the side
drawers. He poured a few ounces of bourbon for himself and recap the
bottle without offering them a drink. That was fine with Julie. Though
Fogarty’s house was spotless, she wouldn’t have felt clean after
drinking or eating anything in it.
After taking a swallow of the warm bourbon, neat, Fogarty said,
“Besides, wouldn’t want to remove one set of organs to discover that, as
the child grew older, it proved to look and act more like the sex you
denied it than like the one it was born with. Secondary sex
characteristics are visible in infants of course, but not as easily
read-certainly not in 1946. Anyway Cynthia wouldn’t have authorized
surgery. Remember I said-she probably welcomed the child’s deformity
weapon against her brother.”
“You could have stepped between them and the bar BObby said.
“You could’ve brought the child’s plight to attention of the public
health authorities.”
“Why on earth would I want to do that? For the psychological well-being
of the child, you mean? Don’t be naive.” He drank some more bourbon.
“I was paid well to make the delivery and keep my mouth shut about it,
and that was fine by me. They took her home, stuck to their story about
the itinerant rapist.
Julie said, “The baby… Roselle… she had no serious medical
problems?”
“None,” Fogarty said.
“Other than this abnormality, she was as healthy as a horse. Her mental
skills and her body developed right on schedule, like any child, and
before long it became obvious that, to all outward appearances, she was
going to look like a woman. As she grew even older, you could see she’d