What Came First by Carol Snow

five.”
    “You shouldn’t let that stop you. Honestly, I wish I’d gotten Ian started sooner. He just started piano, and his teacher said he’s got an incredible natural ability. She says if he just practiced more often he could be amazing.”
    “Uh-huh.” In the yard below, our tiny pool—four feet deep, twenty feet long—reflects the bright spring sky. By July, the water will reach one hundred swampy degrees.
    She pauses for an instant. “You said ‘we.’ So you have a . . . partner?” The way she says it, you’d think it was entirely optional for the mother of five-year-old twins to have a husband.
    “Yes, I’m married,” I say just as I realize that she was trying to figure out whether my partner was a man or a woman. Now, that’s funny. I live in Scottsdale, Arizona, one of the most conservative cities in America. Of course my partner is a man. The only question is whether he is closer to forty or sixty.
    Before things get awkward on the partner front, she goes back to talking about music. “Ian always loved music, even as a tiny baby.”
    “Mm,” I say. When the twins were toddlers, I played classical music CDs in a desperate attempt to calm them down. The music seemed to agitate them even more. They especially hated Beethoven.
    “I played flute all the way through high school,” she continues. “So maybe he’s getting some of it from me. But I was never that great. So I keep thinking some of it must be coming from our donor.”
    Our donor. Wow. She just throws it out there, as if she were saying our hairdresser or our dentist .
    I walk away from the window, back to the door. I lock it. Again: absurd. Nobody’s even home. But it makes me feel better.
    “About our—that,” I say. “What I was kind of wondering—wondering a lot, actually—is about personality traits that may have been passed along. That’s actually why I contacted you. Does your son have any behavior issues?”
    “Like . . . what?”
    “Hitting?”
    “No.”
    “Kicking?”
    “No”
    “Okay . . . How about biting?”
    “ Biting? No. Definitely no.”
    She didn’t need to say it like that.
    “What about other forms of acting out? Uncontrolled crying, say? Or extended screaming?”
    “Uh-uh.”
    “Verbal assaults? Tantrums?”
    She is quiet for a long time. And then she throws me the boniest of bones.
    “There was one time when Ian was three, three-and-a-half years old. We were at Target, and he wanted me to buy him some candy, and I said no. He threw such a fit that we had to leave the store. I was so afraid that he might be entering some horrible new phase, but he came down with a terrible cold that night, so I think he just wasn’t feeling well.”
    “Oh.” It’s all I can manage.
    “Are your kids more . . . high-spirited?”
    High-spirited? I force a laugh. “You could say that.”
    “I actually worry about Ian sometimes,” she says. “He’s active and energetic, but there’s just no aggression there. So I’m concerned that someday another kid, some bully, might pick on him and he won’t be able to defend himself.”
    “Is there anything . . .” I can’t say wrong with him . “Does Ian have any special challenges?”
    It takes her a moment to realize what I’m suggesting.
    “You mean, like a disability?”
    “Yes.”
    “No.”
    “Oh.” That sounded wrong, like I’m disappointed. I’m not. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.
    She says, “Do your children have any . . . challenges?”
    “Oh, no—they’re fine. Just very physical. And emotional. And I guess you could say aggressive. I’d say aggressive. Yes, very.”
    “Kids go through stages,” she says. “I’m sure it will pass.”
    “Yes, of course.” Like maybe after they kill each other.
    “Ian’s had his stages too. And he’s far from perfect, but I’ve always felt he’s perfect for me. My only regret is that I only have him. That’s actually the reason—part of it, anyway—why I wanted to get in