"No," Tim said, "he's just got something we haven't developed a test for. It'll come out some day, you'll see." He smiled at me.
I smiled at him gratefully; he was the only member of my family who really seemed to like me in spite of my handicap. "It won't work, Tim. I know you're trying to be kind, but—"
"He's not saying it just to be kind," my mother put in. "He means it. Not that I want to arouse false hopes, Kevin," she added with grim scrupulousness. "Tim's awfully young yet and I wouldn't trust his extracurricular prognostications too far."
Nonetheless, I couldn't help feeling a feeble renewal of old hopes. After all, young or not, Tim was a hell of a good prognosticator; he wouldn't have risen so rapidly to the position he held in the Weather Bureau if he hadn't been pretty near tops in foreboding.
Mother smiled sadly at my thoughts, but I didn't let that discourage me. As Danny had said, she knew but she didn't really understand. Nobody, for all of his or her psi power, really understood me.
Breakfast was finally over and the rest of my family dispersed to their various jobs. Father simply took his briefcase and disappeared—he was a traveling salesman and he had a morning appointment clear across the continent. The others, not having his particular gift, had to take the helibus to their different destinations. Mother, as I said, was a psychiatrist. Sylvia wrote advertising copy. Tim was a meteorologist. Dan was a junior executive in a furniture moving company and expected a promotion to senior rank as soon as he achieved a better mental grip on pianos.
Only I had no job, no profession, no place in life. Of course there were certain menial tasks a psi-negative could perform, but my parents would have none of them—partly for my sake, but mostly for the sake of their own community standing.
"We don't need what little money Kev could bring in," my father always said. "I can afford to support my family. He can stay home and take care of the house."