Dad stood very tall and very stiff, not even looking at him. "They won't take your brain, just your memory for the past two years."
A corner of Mom's mouth twitched. "David, I didn't want anything like this. I thought maybe Ronnie could have a few private psychiatric treatments. They can do wonderful things now—permi-hypnosis, creations of artificial psychic blocks. A memory-wash would mean that Ronnie'd have the mind of a six-year-old child again. He'd have to start to school all over again."
Dad returned to his chair. He buried his face in trembling hands, and some of his anger seemed replaced by despair. "Lord, Edith, I don't know what to do."
He looked up abruptly, as if struck by a chilling new thought. "You can't keep a two-year memory-wash a secret. I never thought of that before. Why, that alone would mean the end of my promotions."
Silence settled over the room, punctuated only by the ticking of the antique clock. All movement seemed frozen, as if the room lay at the bottom of a cold, thick sea.
"David," Mom finally said.
"Yes?"
"There's only one solution. We can't destroy two years of Ronnie's memory—you said that yourself. So we'll have to take him to a psychiatrist or maybe a psychoneurologist. A few short treatments—"
Dad interrupted: "But he'd still remember how to read, unconsciously anyway. Even permi-hypnosis would wear off in time. The boy can't keep going to psychiatrists for the rest of his life."
Thoughtfully he laced his fingers together. "Edith, what kind of a book was he reading?"
A tremor passed through Mom's slender body. "There were three books on his bed. I'm not sure which one he was actually reading."
Dad groaned. "Three of them. Did you burn them?"
"No, dear, not yet."
"Why not?"
"I don't know. Ronnie seemed to like them so much. I thought that maybe tonight, after you d seen them—"
"Get them, damn it. Let's burn the filthy things."
Mom went to a mahogany chest in the dining room, produced three faded volumes. She put them on the hassock at Dad's feet.
Dad gingerly turned a cover. His lips curled in disgust as if he were touching a rotting corpse.
"Old," he mused, "—so very old. Ironic, isn't it? Our lives are being wrecked by things that should have been destroyed and forgotten a hundred years ago."
A sudden frown contorted his dark features.
Tick-de-tock, tick-de-tock, said the antique clock.
"A hundred years old," he repeated. His mouth became a hard, thin line. "Edith, I think I know why Ronnie wanted to read, why he fell into the trap so easily."
"What do you mean, David?"
Dad nodded at the clock, and the slow, smouldering anger returned to his face. "It's your fault, Edith. You've always liked old things. That clock of your great-great-grandmother's. Those old prints on the wall. That stamp collection you started for Ronnie—stamps dated way back to the 1940's."
Mom's face paled. "I don't understand."
"You've interested Ronnie in old things. To a child in its formative years, in a pleasant house, these things symbolize peace and security. Ronnie's been conditioned from the very time of his birth to like old things. It was natural for him to be attracted by books. And we were just too stupid to realize it."
Mom whispered hoarsely, "I'm sorry, David."
Hot anger flashed in Dad's eyes. "It isn't enough to be sorry. Don't you see what this means? Ronnie'll have to be memory-washed back to the time of birth. He'll have to start life all over again."
"No, David, no!"
"And in my position I can't afford to have an eight-year-old son with the mind of a new-born baby. It's got to be Abandonment, Edith, there's no other way. The boy can start life over in a reformatory, with a complete memory-wash. He'll never know we existed, and he'll never bother us again."
Mom ran up to Dad. She put her hands on his shoulders. Great sobs burst from her shaking body.
"You can't, David! I won't let—"
He slapped her then with the palm of his hand. The sound was like a pistol shot in the hot, tight air.
Dad stood now like a colossus carved of black ice. His right hand was still upraised, ready to strike again.
Then his hand fell. His mind seemed to be toying with a new thought, a new concept.
He seized one of the books on the hassock.
"Edith," he said crisply, "just what was Ronnie reading? What's the name of this book?"
"The—The Adventures of Tom Sawyer," said Mom through her sobs.
He grabbed the second book, held it before her shimmering vision.
"And the name of this?"
"Tarzan of The Apes." Mom's voice was a barely audible croak.
"Who's the author?"
"Edgar Rice Burroughs."
"And this one?"
"The Wizard of Oz."
"Who wrote it?"
"L. Frank Baum."
He threw the books to the floor. He stepped backward. His face was a mask of combined sorrow, disbelief, and rage.
"Edith." He spat the name as if it were acid on his tongue. "Edith, you can read!"