The Son of a Certain Woman by Wayne Johnston

it to me. “You can keep it,” he said. “There are no labs in junior school, but you’ll take chemistry when you get to grade ten. Probably from me.” I thought of it, being taught chemistry at school by Pops who boarded with us. “Do you like the molecule?” he asked. “Yes, thanks.” But I wasn’t sure what to do with it. “You can make different shapes with it,” he said. “Different molecules. The sticks are the bonds that hold the atoms together. A bundle of atoms makes up a molecule. Atoms and molecules are too small for us to see. But they are what we are made of, nothing else.”
    “Medina said that invisible atoms are going for sixty cents a bundle at the grocery store.”
    “Ignorance. Blissful ignorance. And this from a woman who works in a hospital surrounded by science. Her knowledge of science, her notion of how things work, is on a par with that of some raw-meat-eating savage from the paleolithic age. We are millions of molecules, Percy. That’s all we are. One person”—he pointed at me—“gets a big mind. Another, like Medina, gets a small mind. You deserve no credit. She deserves no blame. We are what matter made us, and that cannot be planned or changed. Atoms don’t bind because they love each other or even because they hate each other. Or even because of animal attraction. They bind because of inanimate attraction. Like magnets. Medina, being single and having no chance of ever being otherwise, is a non-binding entity. Subatomic. Sub everything. You know—”
    The lab door opened and in walked Director McHugh. I had never seen him before, but I had no doubt that it was him. Had he been wearing a wide-brimmed black hat, he could easily have been mistaken, in spite of his frock, for a priest. He had the deliberate, authoritative air of one, of a man who could say Mass, administer the sacraments, forgive sins or withhold forgiveness,marry people, perform last rites. But a Christian Brother, even
the
Christian Brother, could do none of these. He could only teach and preside over other Brothers, other teachers. Yet he had the air of someone accustomed to having his arrival received with silence, someone whose entrance interrupted conversation and commanded the attention of all who were in the room. He wore a pin identifying him as Director G.M. McHugh. His hair was longer than that of any of the other Brothers, thick and white. It made him look younger than his eyes and his complexion told me he must be.
    I laid the model molecule on the desk.
    “Director McHugh!” Pops gasped, extending his arms to me and hastily lifting me down from the dais, removing my safety goggles then his own, and standing me square in front of McHugh, whom I expected to crouch down to my height or put his hands on my shoulders as other grown-ups did.
    “I didn’t see you in your office,” Pops said, “or I would have stopped by. I was just showing Percy where I work.” He was so nervous he all but swallowed the last half of the sentence.
    “No harm done,” McHugh said, leaving me to wonder if, when we arrived, he
had
been in his office, in the dark, looking out at us, knowing we could not see him.
    “He’ll be a pupil here one day.” He spoke in a sonorous, modulated voice.
    “Yes, that’s right,” Pops said. “I thought we could spare one of our model molecules, so I gave him one. It’s right there on the desk—as a souvenir—”
    “A memento,” McHugh said, “to remind him of the day when he’ll return.”
    “Exactly,” Pops said. “Percy, this is Director McHugh.”
    “Hello, Brother,” I said, uncertain if I should have said “director.” I looked up at him. He said nothing. Slowly, very slowly chewing gum with his front teeth, his pursed lips moving slightly as if hewas contemplating some difficult decision, he faintly, appraisingly, smiled. Gum, I would learn in time, was his only “vice.”
    “So this is the little Joyce boy who won’t be starting school until he’s