"Nothing's wrong with him, Janet," the man scoffed derisively. "You're overreacting . . . but what else is new?"

Janice bit back her immediate response: that as a mother, she knew when something was wrong with her baby. Her husband didn't believe in gut feelings. Especially not hers.

"Regular checkups are perfectly normal for newborns, Thamish," she replied instead. She spoke quietly with a rational, reasoned answer that she hoped her husband would be willing to accept.

The couple stood in the front lobby of their spacious home. Thamish was dressed smartly in a blue business suit so dark it looked nearly black, while Janet wore slippers and a housecoat stained with various baby-related messes.

"Not every week!" Thamish declared. "My son is perfectly healthy! Doctors are too expensive! Damned thieves." The tall, dark-haired man stood stiffly upright, as he always did. He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose with one finger and glared down at the woman who'd birthed his firstborn son. "Despite what you seem to think, money doesn't grow on trees," he added snidely.

Janet couldn't help but flinch back from his derisive words. Thamish had never been what could be called a loving husband. But after their - or 'his' son, as he liked to say - was born, he'd lost any pretense of warmth entirely and seemed to take sick pleasure in making his wife feel as worthless as possible.

Janet felt her resolve wavering. Thamish wasn't entirely wrong. The doctor had said their son was healthy. Was she overreacting . . ?

Just then, a small noise came from somewhere inside Janet's housecoat. She reached into a large pocket to pull out an electronic baby monitor and brought it to her ear. Within a few seconds, the noise from the monitor got progressively louder and quickly turned into outright crying. 

Janet instinctively turned towards the stairs leading to the second floor and their baby's room.

"I don't have time for this," Thamish clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. He raised his wrist to look at his watch. "The next regular checkup will be soon enough. Don't book anything before then."

Janet hardly paid attention to her husband's words, though she did nod distractedly in acknowledgement. Thamish reached down and retrieved a black briefcase, then turned to the front door, while Janet hurried up the stairs without looking back.

Neither offered so much as a goodbye to the other as they parted.

\ - / - \ - /

Janet waited in the exam room, speaking softly and lovingly to the small baby cradled in her arms. Her still-youthful face was lined with worry, though she did her best to ensure none of it seeped into her voice. For his part, the baby cooed back and waved a chubby little arm happily, safe in his mother's embrace.

The door to the small room opened with a faint sound. Janet turned her head to watch as the doctor entered. A thin man dressed in a white lab coat, it took a few seconds before Doctor Walters looked up from his clipboard and acknowledged his patients.

"Good afternoon, Mrs. Stoneberg," the doctor said. "I see you've brought little . . .", a quick glance at the clipboard, ". . . Thamish Junior in for his six-month checkup."

"Please, Doctor Walters. Call him Junior," Janet replied, just as she had for each of their previous visits. "Please . . . can you check his eyes? I'm worried that they're a little crossed . . . . almost all the time. . . and he doesn't seem to focus on my face . . . or really anything . . . as much as I think he should . . . Is that normal?"

Despite her efforts, a hit of anxiety started to creep into Janet's voice. As she had begun to expect from the last few months, her son reacted to her change in tone. His little face scrunched up and a small, plaintive cry escaped his tiny lips. Janet immediately turned back to the little boy and started to whisper calm, loving words which helped calm him down again.

The thin-faced doctor still stood at the door and had observed this somewhat impatiently. He made a brief note on the clipboard with a plastic pen.

"We will, of course, be doing a most thorough checkup today." The doctor walked further into the room and sat on a stool beside the young mother and child. He placed his clipboard on the desk and lifted the stethoscope from where it hung around his neck. A forced smile appeared on his face with a visible effort. "Let's get started, shall we?"

/ - \ - / - \

"Why wasn't this caught earlier and how will you fix it?!"

Janet sang to her son as soothingly and lovingly as she could. But her husband's angry voice - despite his being in an entirely different room of their large home - was so loud that it was hardly even muffled by the walls of the baby's bedroom.

Tears rolled down Janet's cheeks and little Thamish Junior wailed plaintively as she clutched him in her arms.

"What do you mean there weren't any signs?! I told you something was wrong with him but you wouldn't damned well listen!"

Janet couldn't help but laugh bitterly through her tears at Thamish the senior's words.

"Congenital . . what? I don't know what that means and I don't care! That's what I'm paying you for?! Just fix it!"

Janet slowly rocked back and forth in the rocking chair and clutched the wailing child to her chest as tightly as she could. Through both her son's tears and her own, she couldn't help but watch her son's beautiful grey eyes . . . 

. . . Even though they were perpetually crossed and tracked around the room aimlessly.

\ - / - \ - /

"Mama, can we go home?"

A sad-looking boy was dressed in a blue coat and wore dark sunglasses over his eyes. He stood on the sidewalk before an open gate placed in a large brick wall. The gate had the words 'Saint Genevieve Frechette Private School' in a metal, filigree arch above it.

The boy tightly clutched the hand of the woman standing beside him. The woman, Janet, looked small and very tired. She wore a long coat and had an umbrella in her other hand, which she held above them both to protect them from rain falling from the grey, overcast skies.

The gate was busy, though it was wide enough to not be crowded. Cars drove up the driveway while foot traffic was made up of children being escorted past the gate by one or two parents. Some of the other parents looked at the young boy wearing sunglasses in the rain oddly, but they said nothing.

For her part, Janet couldn't help but sigh as she glanced back at them in turn, especially at the couples.

The young boy tilted his head upwards to face his mother, though with his opaque sunglasses his eyes couldn't be seen. 

"Mama, why is your voice . . .", the young boy hesitated. "It makes my mouth taste tingly. Like . . . lemon?"

Janet turned to look down at her son even as she inwardly scolded herself for slipping up. But outwardly she smiled and spoke with a bright voice.

"I think you mean: 'Why do I sound bitter,' Junior," she responded with forced, though practiced cheerfulness. "Remember what I told you about the words we use to describe how we feel?"

"Sorry Mama, I forgot." The small boy frowned. "Why do you sound bitter?"

"It's just because of the rain," Janet lied. She felt bad of course but how could she tell her son the truth? "Let's go inside. Don't worry, you'll be fine. I promise."

Janet started walking through the gate. Her son didn't follow at first but a gentle tug prompted him to move eventually, albeit slowly.

On the other side of the wall was the open grounds of a large school. It was the first day of the new school year and everyone was busy trying to get where they needed to be. The cars stopped long enough to let out their little passengers, before they continued through the roundabout and exited back through the school's gate. Despite the rain, excited children still ran about. They shouted and played while more somber-looking adults looked on or chatted amongst themselves.

Janet and her son had barely walked through the gate before the boy spoke again.

"What if no one likes me?" Thamish Junior asked his mother. "What if they think I'm weird?"

Janet's heart clenched within her chest but she pushed through the familiar pain, maintaining her false cheer. She squeezed the small hand clasped within her own.

"Don't ever say that, Junior. You're not weird, not even a little bit. Everyone is special in their own way. You were just born more special than most."

"I don't feel special," the boy mumbled, barely loud enough to cause his mother's heart to clench tighter. "I just want to go home."

By then Janet had spotted a familiar-looking face amongst the crowd and hurried forward, even as she tried to reassure her son. When they got close enough, she stopped before the older woman with greying hair. The woman held an umbrella in one hand and what looked like a small baton in the other.

"Mrs. Stoneberg!" the other woman said with a genuinely warm smile. "A pleasure to meet you again!"

"Same to you, Miss Mallory," Janet replied politely.

The older woman turned to smile at Janet's son. "And of course it's a pleasure to meet you again as well, Junior!"

"Hi Miss Mallory," the boy replied quietly. 

The small, tentative smile that touched Thamish Junior's lips warmed Janet as if a bright ray of sunshine had just burst through the dreary clouds.

/ - \ - / - \

Janet looked at the unassuming sheets of paper in front of her numbly.

"You've been served," Thamish said smugly, a cruel smile on his lips. "Pack your things. I want you and your spawn out of my house by tomorrow."

Janet and her husband . . . her soon-to-be former husband were in the dining room of their . . . her soon-to-be former home. Janet had prepared dinner for herself and Junior, and had just started to set the table. Though the dining table was quite large, she'd only set two places. Thamish hadn't come to share dinner with them in years, though Janet had only stopped setting a place for him about a year ago. She didn't know where he ate, though she knew he wouldn't cook for himself. Probably he went to a restaurant somewhere.

Those were the thoughts which spun uselessly through her head as Janet reached out with a trembling hand to brush the papers with her fingertips. Her heart beat rapidly in her chest. Through her blurring vision, only one, bolded word seemed to stand out from the densely packed text before her.

Divorce.

Janet's soon-to-be former husband laughed.

"That look! Right there! That's exactly the look I wanted to see on your face." Although Janet didn't see it, Thamish's smile got even wider. "My lawyers advised me to serve the divorce papers by mail, or let one of them do it instead. But where's the fun in that?"

"Why are you doing this?"

Janet was surprised when she heard the voice. It sounded so weak . . . so frail. Who could it be? And whoever it was had asked the same question she'd wanted to ask. How strange.

Thamish's expression changed from boisterous laughter to fury in a heartbeat. He slammed a fist onto the table, causing the plates and cutlery to jump and rattle loudly.

"How dare you ask that question?" He asked. "Why? Because you ruined everything! I had it all planned out. All you had to do was give me a son. Instead, all you gave me was that little freak!" By the end of his tirade, Thamish was shouting.

"Keep your voice down."

There was that voice again. Who was that poor, weak sounding woman, Janet wondered. Someone should help her. But Janet couldn't help that poor woman. She was too busy looking at her fingers. The trembling had gotten worse, which probably wasn't a good thing. But she didn't feel bad . . . . or good . . . or anything. So she was probably fine. Right?

Thamish actually looked shocked for a moment, until his face darkened even further with anger. "You don't get to tell me what to do in my house, you worthless leech!" he hissed through clenched teeth. "I changed my mind. A full day to pack was far too generous. I want you out of my house tonight!" he'd raised his voice again until he was practically screaming. "Get out!"

"Mama?" 

A new, different voice said. Janet knew that voice. That was her son. Her precious, baby boy.

Slowly, she looked up from her fingers towards the dining room entrance. She found Thamish Junior standing with his thin, collapsible walking cane in hand. Looking at his face, Janet could see that the boy was beyond scared and finally the numbness that seemed to have frozen her heart started to crack.

He wasn't wearing his sunglasses, since Janet always reassured him he didn't need to at home. His eyes were crossed, unfocused, and seemed to wander the room without his conscious control. 

He has such beautiful eyes, Janet idly thought

"Mama," Thamish Junior said again. "Why is Papa yelling? It hurts. It feels like -"

"Yelling doesn't feel like anything, you little freak!" Thamish yelled at his son. "What's wrong with you? Why couldn't you just be normal?!"

Janet watched her son's face crumble before her eyes. She saw the tears forming and watched them flow down his cheeks. She watched his shoulders hunch over as he dropped his cane and started to sob.

"Mama? Where are you?" The boy started to stumble into the room. He accidentally kicked the cane he'd dropped and it skittered across the floor. Then he bumped into the table and cried out in pain. "It hurts, Mama," he said as he caught himself against the table. Then he started to rub his arms, his chest, his legs. "It hurts. It hurts."

Thamish turned his back to Janet as he taunted the young boy mercilessly. But Janet didn't hear the mocking words the stranger who used to be her husband started to pile onto their own flesh and blood. 

All Janet could hear was the rushing sound of her own blood as it pounded in her ears. 

All Janet could see was her precious boy sobbing as he clung to the dining room table, eyes sightlessly, endlessly searching . . . for her.

All Janet could feel . . . 

. . . was the handle of the dinner fork she'd raised above her head with both hands.