Reeca’s brother Stuart MacGregor comes to visit when A. Michael is three months old to perform the baptism. All the hordes of relatives are there to celebrate. When Father Stuart takes his nephew A. Michael Kendrick in his arms to perform the baptism, A. Michael promptly pees on himself, his beautiful white lace baptismal gown, and Father Stuart’s beautiful black velvet priest’s stole. Stuart still laughs over the ingratitude of A. Michael’s first ceremonial act.
Reecca stays home to care for A. Michael and Aaron. Aaron posts photographs of A. Michael all over his office and on his office door, in case someone is passing by and hasn’t seen the latest and greatest.
During A. Michael’s first spring, a mumps epidemic sweeps the campus, felling the unlucky college students who hadn’t suffered this disease at the appropriate time of their lives. And Aaron.
As childhood diseases so often do, mumps hits the grownup Aaron much more seriously than any child. He is ravaged by fever and, sure enough, the infection moves to his testicles. Aaron is rushed to the hospital, where he is isolated and packed from the waist down in ice. Aaron survives the mumps, but his fertility does not.
After two years of trying in vain to conceive another child, Aaron and Reecca agree to go to Michigan’s teaching hospital to undergo fertility tests in the then-new program. The results are conclusive and irreversible: Aaron is sterile.
(continued)
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