CHAPTER 60 – THE PSYCH EVALUATION

Neither Elizabeth nor Jack was allowed in the room with Dr. Fletcher and their son. Instead, they sat in a ten-foot by ten-foot room that had two chairs, a table, and a large screen. A framed poster of a black ink blot hung on one of the walls.

A young intern had come and taken photographs and a four-second long hologram of Jack and Elizabeth each and then quickly left the room again. Leaving the couple to wonder what was happening with their son.

"What do you think they're doing with him?"

"They said it was a psych test."

Elizabeth rolled her eyes in exasperation. "I got that much. I mean how do you think they're testing him?"

"How should I know? I can't even figure out what that stupid picture on the wall is."

"There's no need to get snippy with me."

"Hey, you got snippy with me first."

"I'm sorry," Elizabeth told him. "I'm just nervous."

"Me too. Let's just remain calm. I'm sure he's fine. I'm sure this Dr. Fletcher is nice. She must know what she's doing. She won't do anything to traumatize him."

The couple paced the room in silence.

Jack mulled over things that still needed to be done before their move, while Elizabeth imagined herself as a duck. Not just any duck, but a brown mallard duck with a splash of blue on each wing and thin orange legs.

Earlier in the Spring, Elizabeth had been walking near the park and pushing Aaron in a stroller when she had come across a duck incessantly quacking on the edge of a grate-covered storm drain. The bird seemed desperate but Elizabeth had no idea why it was so troubled. Getting as close as she could without getting snapped at by the nervous fowl, a curious Elizabeth had peeked down through the metal bars and seen the objects of the mother's attention. Six tiny bundles of yellow fur frantically peeping from where they had fallen five feet below street level. That's how Elizabeth now felt – like a helpless mother. Unable to do anything to get to her child.

"He's never away from me," Elizabeth whined.

"He is when you're at school teaching."

"That's different. The day-care is in the room right next door to my classroom. I could go see him whenever I wanted. Which I did. And I had a monitor on my desk. He wasn't kept from me."

"I know it's hard, but don't worry. The whole testing will probably take two minutes and Dr. Fletcher will realize he's only six months old and this whole appointment was a mistake."

"It's already been ten minutes," Elizabeth noted anxiously.

Jack gave her a small smile. "It's going to be fine. You need to relax."

"I can't," Elizabeth pouted and wrung her hands together nervously. "He's so tiny. And he needs me."

"Yes, he normally needs you but he doesn't need you right now. He's okay. I love you and we are good parents. You are a teacher; you're trained to educate and help and nurture young people. You're wonderful with Acorn. Stop worrying. He'll pass any silly test. They'll probably just play peek-a-boo with him.

"I thought you said Dr. Fletcher would realize it was a mistake and he didn't need a test."

Jack chuckled at his overwrought wife. "You're right. I did. But if they give him a test because they have to follow stupid rules, he'll pass it. Stop worrying."

"He does like peek-a-boo," Elizabeth agreed as she tried to calm her nerves.

The large screen affixed to one of the room's walls seemed to come to life as an image suddenly appeared. It was the scene of office with an examining table, some chairs, and three occupants: Aaron, a woman in a white lab coat, and a younger woman with curly brown hair in a duplicate white lab coat.

"Oh God, what are they doing?!" Jack demanded anxiously as he focused on his son in the center of the other room.

The baby had been positioned – and left alone -on a flat metal surface which was four feet high. The older woman, presumably Dr. Fletcher, was leaning against a counter several steps away from the baby – too far to catch him if he crawled dangerously too close to the edge. The woman was curiously watching Aaron as if to see if he'd crawl off the table and plunge to the hard floor below.

"He's going to fall off!" Jack whipped his head sideways and looked at Elizabeth before rushing to the door. "The idiots are going to let him fall off the table!"

"The door's not opening!" he exclaimed when it didn't slide to the side despite him hitting the green one-inch in diameter button which was on the wall next to the door. "They've locked us in here!"

Jack looked to the screen again. His precious son Aaron was now mere centimeters from the edge. "He's going to fall if I don't get in there to stop him," Jack said with urgency in his voice.

Elizabeth stared at the screen image. Her heart racing until she understood what she was looking at. "No, no. It's okay. It's a visual cliff. Look closely."

"What are you talking about?"

"Look," she pointed her finger on the screen. "Look closely. There's a flat piece of glass between Acorn and the doctor. He can see straight through it and that the ground is below. It's to see if he has depth perception and knows fear."

"I know fear. Is that enough?"

"The doctor's going to frown when he looks at her," Elizabeth continued as she watched the screen closely.

"Why?"

"It's an emotional signal so he doesn't cross the glass. If he has depth perception and fear, he won't cross. And he should pick up on her emotional signal."

"How do you know all this?"

"I'm a teacher. We study children. I took a class in this stuff in college."

Sure enough, just as Elizabeth had predicted, Dr. Fletcher began frowning while at the same time holding a large teddy bear to her side. The presence of the teddy bear tempted the boy while the doctor's frown let the boy know not to make a move for it.

"She's enticing him with the stuffed animal. That's entrapment!" Jack protested.

"It's not entrapment," Elizabeth scoffed.

"Yes, it is. It's entrapment," Jack vehemently said in his son's defense. "Nothing can be used against him. If he crosses the glass, it's not his fault. She can't use it against him that he crawled off the table."

"This is not a law enforcement case, and he's not a prospective criminal. There's no trial here, Jack. Just a virtual cliff test."

"Don't cross the glass, Aaron. Don't cross the glass," Elizabeth quietly instructed her son while she and Jack both continued to stare at the screen.

She sighed in relief when her son refused to move from the solid table. "Good boy."

"What's that mean again?" Jack questioned worriedly.

"That he sees that the floor is far below. His eyes can sense the depth and are sending a signal to his brain to be afraid. So far, he's doing everything right."

The couple watched as Dr. Fletcher reached into her lab-coat pocket, pulled out a small plastic item, and held it out towards Aaron.

"She's brought out a pacifier," Jack growled. "That shouldn't be allowed. Is that allowed?"

"I don't know. I guess."

"Who comes up with these stupid tests?"

"It's okay. He's a smart baby. He won't go for it," Elizabeth said with just a bit of uncertainty. "He thinks there's a drop off from the table. See how he hesitates."

Aaron stared longingly at the pacifier and swayed his body forward. He reached out with one hand but didn't move the other hand or his knees off of the solid looking table.

"Did he pass?" Jack asked without taking his eyes off his son.

"So far. Look. He tested it with one hand. He knows there's something there but he still's not sure. He's afraid of falling. Now she's going to smile to see if he's trusting enough to crawl on something he can't see. Watch. Her frown will turn into a big grin."

Elizabeth and Jack watched as the woman smiled at their son, called out Aaron's name in a sweet sing-song voice, and dangled the bear and the pacifier in the air. Her face showed joy as she encouraged the small boy to put aside any trepidation and crawl across an almost invisible piece of glass suspended four feet in the air.

"He's not going," Jack needlessly told Elizabeth. "He wants to but he's not."

"He doesn't know her. He doesn't trust her yet. Even though she's smiling and urging him on, he doesn't trust her over the idea of falling."

The doctor turned her back to the boy, flipped open a computer screen and clicked a button.

Almost instantaneously, a hologram of smiling Elizabeth appeared.

"Come here," Elizabeth's pleasant voice echoed from the gossamer image. "Come here, sweetie."

"That's why they had us make the holograms!" an irate Jack exclaimed. "We didn't know why they had us doing that! They're tricking him! They're tricking him to jump off a cliff!"

"Calm down. They're not really tricking him. They're seeing if he trusts me. He should be hesitant but trust me enough to cross over the glass. Because he knows I would never let anything hurt him."

"But he can't tell it's safe. He's never crawled on something transparent before."

"It doesn't matter." Elizabeth kept her eyes on her son. "He trusts me."

Aaron sat propped up by a cushion while he happily sucked on a pacifier and fingered the teddy bear's ear which caused it to play a jingling tune. He didn't know why his mother had disappeared but he was quite pleased that she had encouraged him to go get the objects.

The young curly-haired woman – presumably an assistant – stood next to him to ensure that he didn't topple over while the doctor continued testing him.

"That's probably my photo," Elizabeth observed when Aaron began smiling and reaching for a piece of paper which the doctor held a few inches from the boy's face.

"Or mine."

Elizabeth scoffed. "Why would it be yours? Look how much he's reaching for it. It must be me. I'm his mother."

"And I'm his father," Jack reminded her as he watched his son happily grasp for the photo which the doctor kept slightly out of reach.

"But he spends most of his time with me," she replied smugly.

"But I sing to him and cuddle with him every night," Jack challenged back proudly.

"I do too!"

"Nah, you're usually too wiped in the evenings."

Elizabeth huffed disagreeably. "I'm sure it's my picture. I'm his mother. He's naturally going to love me more. You shouldn't be insulted. It's natural."

"I'm not insulted. Because we have a bond. It's natural. A father-son bond," Jack replied. "I cut his umbilical cord. I was the first one to touch him. You shouldn't be insulted if it's my photo he wants."

"I feed him", she shot back with an air of superiority. "Last time I checked, you didn't have breasts full of milk."

"I snuck him some apple sauce the other day. Last time I checked, you weren't made of mushed up apples."

A horrified Elizabeth gasped. "You didn't?!" Her hand went to one of her breasts as if to protect it from becoming an obsolete food source.

Jack shrugged without any guilt. "I did. We were male bonding."

In the next twenty minutes, Aaron had been shown blocks, crawled through a maze, been subjected to loud noises, had an ugly puppet jump out at him, had the lights turned off plunging him into total darkness for two seconds, and watched a video of a puppy getting scolded -to which the boy started to cry.

At the first sign of tears, the doctor and assistant had seemed pleased by the reaction which was obviously the appropriate response, and then quickly changed to a happier video.

Throughout the ordeal, Elizabeth and Jack remained tense and wondered if their son would be on the next transporter's manifest to Coal Valley.

"How's the kid?" the thirty-something man in the white coat asked as Dr. Fletcher entered the small office carrying Aaron in her arms. The door slid closed behind them.

"Adorable," the kind-hearted doctor replied.

"Any signs of a developmental delay?"

"None. He's fine. Stranger anxiety hasn't started yet but I expect it will in a few weeks. He's babbling, grasping for things, very curious about his surroundings. He's a smart happy kid. How are the parents?"

"Basket-cases."

Dr. Fletcher stood next to her co-worker in front of the two-way mirror and watched Jack and Elizabeth sitting at the table. Jack had his hands in his head and Elizabeth was staring at a computer screen and trying not to cry as her son watched the puppy being scolded. Unbeknownst to her and Jack, the image was on a three-minute delay.

"What have they been doing? Why are they so quiet?"

"They're nervous wrecks. And pretty much all talked out."

Dr. Fletcher positioned the baby against the window and he started babbling excitedly at seeing his parents. He happily smacked his fat little hands against the thick sound-proof glass.

"Do they know they're being tested?"

"Not a clue. I almost feel sorry for them."

"That bad?" Dr. Fletcher chuckled.

"It's obviously their first child. She thinks he's going to get squished in space if he's allowed to go even though they got a special de-pressure outfit. The husband thinks he's not going to be allowed to go. He's already volunteered to quit the North American Defense Force if they can't go as a family. Meanwhile, the wife keeps calling the baby Acorn – not sure what that's about."

"Did they pass?"

"Yeah. Good parents. They obviously love the kid. I think they're both going to be a bit indulgent with him, but firm if needs be. She's upset because she forgot to give the kid his blanket."

"Why's he need his blanket?"

"To sleep at night."

"It's not night."

"Yeah, she's a worrier, stuck in a room without her kid, so she's thinking of all possibilities. Normal parent stuff."

"And him?"

"He's tells her not to worry and then in the next second, suggests they break out of the room –"

"Break out of the room?"

The man nodded to the upper left corner of the ceiling." Through the air vents. Break out and steal their kid back."

"What else about them?"

"They're both altruistic. He's got that whole law enforcement thing going on. Wants to save everyone – protect the weak. Practically leapt across the room when you were doing the virtual cliff testing. She's a school teacher so she's the same- wants to teach and save everyone that needs a better education."

"How'd they score on the B1?"

"Both head-strong. Man, she's got some determination. She told him that if the baby can't go into space, and Jack – he's the husband – wants to go, that she'll march down to the Chief of Operations and demand to file an appeal so they can all go. She said she already sold the min-transporter to some salesman this morning and her sister is moving into their house and she quit her job, so they're going."

"What'd the husband say?"

"He asked how much they got for the mini-transporter and then said they'd just have to buy another one – but it will have to be used - because if Aaron doesn't pass, he's turning down the assignment and will most likely lose his job but he doesn't care."

"Then she got all teary-eyed and said she wasn't going to let him give up on a job he loved and that he felt a calling to do, and they were all going together. "

"He said he couldn't make her give up fancy restaurants or French boutiques, but she said she didn't need a lot of clothes. Just him and the baby. And then he said something about if they go to Coal Valley, they'll be far from civilization, but she smiled and said that means no noise, no crowds, and bright stars."

"They said all that?! It wasn't that long an examination!"

"From what I've observed, they're a pretty passionate couple. Very emotional."

"So they're still in love after two years of marriage?"

"Definitely. He said something about her being perfect. And that he loves her hubris."

"Hubris?"

"Yeah, that's what he said."

"Which one has the stronger personality?"

"He's stubborn and strong but then he told her that she and the kid are his whole world. She's just as stubborn and strong but then she started babbling some Latin phrase that wherever the husband goes, they all go. I'd say it's a tie."

"Compatible?"

"Perfect for each other."

"If they passed, why do you still have them in there?"

The man shrugged his shoulders. "I'm not sure how or why, but they're just fascinating to watch. I'm actually finding myself entertained."

Up next: chapter 61

Dear Readers: I like to make my stories fun, but if you'd like to read more drama, let me know and I can change it up a bit.

To the reader (Ash) who asked for more information on the baby in "Jack's not going Anywhere", I'll be putting it in in one of the next two chapters. Thanks for the suggestion.