Nick called in a favor with some lab buddies, and they put the results in his hand just in time for the weekend. As Gina requested, he brought the results home before opening. He'd been anxious to take a look right away, but the delight on his face was an acceptable reward for his patience. Her wandering hands and smothering kisses were bonus.
Gina tore open the envelope, and set her sights on the results graphs, leaving the data sets for Nick's perusal. The topmost result triggered a squeal of delight from Gina. "It's a boy, Nick, it's a boy!"
"It's a Glen!" Nick whooped.
"Honey, he's gonna have your eyes!"
"Shape or color?"
Gina showed him the bell curves. "Both, I think. Is that right?"
"Yeah. That means predominantly brown; that curve there is deep set-" Nick began tracing the features of his eyes as he described. "-and that curve goes for upturned corners, and this curve... that's for protruding eyelids. Not like muppets."
"-and he's going to have my nose." Gina giggled and covered her nose. "Oh no!"
Nick kissed the tip of her nose. "It's a magic nose. Glen should be so lucky. What else?"
Gina looked at the next page. "... I think he's going to be a mesomorph frame."
"Let me see." Nick consulted his notes. "Yeah, 18 markers for mesomorph, with 6 for endomorph. Woo-ha!" They executed a no-look high-five, and kept reading.
"Nick, he's leaning towards left-handed. What do you got?"
"He's got 33 markers for higher analytical and mathematical skills."
"Wow! That's all you, too!"
"You gave him 6 of them, honey. Besides, some of those markers are musical, too; that did not come from me. What about his spatial relationing chart? Where's his trend there?"
"What about his pre-dispositions? I mean, what cancers should we be watching out for?"
"Honey, you're teasing me. I already know Glen's a softpaw that'll be built like a wide receiver. I just want to know if he's gonna catch, throw, or block."
"Nick..."
"Fine! Cancers: colo-rectal, 6; melanoma, 6-"
"-Oops! that's mine!"
"Okay, my turn. Socialization slope; what do you got?"
"Uh... he's not on the slope?"
"-there he is. On the individualist side."
"Like, self-motivated?"
"Like, not a team player."
"Maybe more solo sports?"
"Eh, that could work. He's competitive, I see." Nick returned to the papers in his hand. "Here's something; MS, 9."
"Oh! We'll get that vaccine first."
"Okay- Alzheimer's, 8, like me. Autism, 3-"
Gina laughed. "Your 3 or my 3?... Nick?"
Nick was no longer reading the paper, only staring at it. When Gina tried to pull it away to peek, Nick recoiled from her grasp. From the other side of the room, he apologized with a glance, and said. "...he has 19 markers for psychopathy. 11 markers for APD."
"So?" Gina blurted. After a moment, she sat down, too.
"Are you sure? Is this a prank? Did your boss catch you and your fr-"
"I did the data sets, Gina. I just didn't do the correlating. But it's there. There and there; over there..."
"But what does that even mean?"
Nick looked her in the eye. "It means I already messed him up."
"You didn't mess anything up. He's not even born yet. We just... don't get any pets."
"No, you get pets! You make him take care of them, name them, get invested in them, and watch out for the first time they kill one!"
"Nick, calm down! Are you saying you want to change your mind? Because we have tried too many times-"I know..."
"-but we still got time, if you really want-"
"I know! I don't want to get rid of it-"
"Him, Nick!"
"Him! Him! Okay? I want what you want, okay?"
Gina embraced him, trembling with heaving sobs. She could only force whispers through those tears. She pleaded, "Don't do this to me. I don't want to be alone in this..."
"You're not alone. It's you and me, you and me..."
"I need you..."
"You got me, Gina. Body and soul."
Gina kept crying into Nick's shoulder. "What's he going to be?"
"He's gonna be work."
inspired by Discover Magazine article, "Autism Genome Sequenced"
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