you probably think we should all go into therapy, but Al’s dead set against it. He says we at least ought to give ourselves a chance first. He says he’ll talk to me, he’ll talk to the boys, but he doesn’t want to have to start talking to some stranger – at least not now. I understand that. But I have to know that we won’t lose Joey again.”
“I know,” I said, struggling for words. I did believe family therapy would help, but not if it were forced. “How do you feel about it?” I asked.
“I’ve been thinking all night,” Gail replied. “I didn’t sleep much. I guess none of us did, except Joey. He slept the clock around, and this morning he seemed the best I’d seen him in months. Ate two bowls of oatmeal – told his dad all about Grandpa, when I would have thought he wouldn’t mention a word. I let him stay home from school today, and Al took the day off, too. When I left, Joey was watching TV and Al was reading the paper, peaceful as could be.
“I think we can do it. Al and I go back a long way, and we’ve seen a lot of troubles along with the good times. Besides, Al’s a determined one. Once he puts his mind to something, he sticks to it.”
I thought about Joey as she talked. He had made such progress the year before. He had turned his high level of energy toward active learning. He had stopped playing the fool, although he still liked to joke and kid around. He loved people; he was intelligent and well-coordinated; he had a good ear for music and an unusual flair for the dramatic. His strengths were all still there. They just couldn’t get through in the confusion of school and the tension at home.
“Will it be any different at your house now? Because with Ms. Answera in the classroom, I don’t think there is going to be any big change at school. And you know Joey. He thrives when things are structured and safe and organized – and he falls apart when there’s change and confusion or he’s scared.”
Gail nodded. “And so do I. I’m not very organized myself. I know that, but what I’m saying is we’re going to try. You told me once that everyone could grow – not just children. Remember?”
“I remember,” I said.
“And you still believe it’s true?” she asked.
“Yes,” I nodded. “It’s still true.”
“Well, for starters,” Gail said, “I’m giving up my job. I have that computer Al got me a year ago, and we almost made it that time.
“I guess what I’m telling you is, I’m ready to be the best wife and mother I can.”
I smiled at her and stood up. “It sounds to me as though you and Al have thought it through and that your minds are pretty well made up. You know I believe parents know their children better than anyone else. Anyway, if it feels right to you and Al, I’d talk to the boys and go ahead and give it a try.”
Who says wishes don’t come true? Ms. Answera went home to Florida for Christmas vacation and never returned. And even more wonderful for Joey, Mr. Templar was able to persuade Mrs. Madden to come back and teach Joey’s third-grade class for the remainder of the year.
“Portugal has been around for quite some time,” Mrs. Madden said when I went over to school to talk to her. “It’s likely it’ll still be there six months from now.”
Once again I had to stick my hands in my pockets to keep from hugging her. Joey would be all right now – at least for this year, with Mrs. Madden back in charge at school and Joey’s mom and dad a team again at home.
I continued seeing Joey twice a week through third and fourth grades and worked closely with his teachers. He accumulated a solid foundation of knowledge on which he could build and a growing confidence in his ability to learn. He was also the star of every class play. His tremendous natural energy projected out from the stage, and within minutes he held the audience in the palm of his hand.
We cut our sessions to once a week halfway through fifth grade and ended completely in sixth.
I was there for Joey’s graduation in an aisle seat. He shone like a burnished penny – dressed in a new blue suit, his red hair washed and neatly combed. He managed to sit still through the graduation exercises and receive his diploma without incident, but he caught my eye on the way out. The lopsided grin lit his face, and he did a perfect miniature imitation pratfall as he passed my seat.
As I said earlier, there was always something about Joey …
Nobody was in the waiting room the night that I met Eric. In fact, the lights weren’t even on.
It had been a long day, and once the last child had left and I had cleaned up and put away books and toys, I was eager to be off. It was a good forty-five-minute drive from my office to our apartment, and the commuting traffic was heavy on the highways.
I shrugged on my jacket, turned out the lights, pulled shut my heavy office door, and almost stepped on Eric.
I rocked back away from him in surprise. “Hey, now! What’s this? Are you okay?” As my eyes grew more accustomed to the dim light, I could make out a small boy sitting on the waiting-room floor just outside my door, examining the contents of a woman’s purse.
The janitor had evidently already turned down the lights in the waiting room, so the only illumination was from the overhead light in the hall. I groped my way toward one of the reading lamps, and the little boy gave a whimper as light flooded over us.
A woman’s voice came from one edge of the room. “Mrs. MacCracken? Is that you?”
She pushed herself up from the sofa with effort, at the same time pulling her worn black coat more closely around her. She must have once been a handsome woman, but now as she came closer I could see that her face was gaunt and deeply lined and there were dark circles beneath her eyes.
She spoke to me, but she was looking at the boy. She walked past me toward where he huddled against the wall, hands across his eyes. She pulled him toward her, gently cradling his head against her thigh, crooning, “Shhh, Errol. Shhh. It’s all right now.”
She turned to me and said, “He doesn’t like the light.”
They made a strange picture here in the lamplight – the black-cloaked figure bending over the tiny boy, her knobby fingers entangled in his limp brown hair, his face buried in her coat.
I glanced at my watch. Almost eight o’clock. More than a half-hour drive back home. I cleared my throat. “I’m sorry,” I said. “It’s very –”
“Please,” the woman interrupted. “Don’t go.” She moved closer to me, her dark eyes searching my face, the boy clinging to her leg. She looked too old to be the mother of such a young child, but her next sentence implied she was.
“Mrs. Tortoni told me to come. You helped her Frank. She said you’d help us, too.”
I felt a small rush of pleasure. When I’d begun my private practice as a learning disability consultant, Frank was one of my first students. Frank was dirt-poor, streetwise, smart as a whip. His father was a mechanic at the garage I used. Frank had been easy to help, mainly because there was nothing really wrong with him. No signs of any learning disability, no serious emotional problems. He’d just fallen through the cracks of the huge, inefficient school system in the economically bankrupt city where he lived. Someone had equated poor with dumb and placed him in the lowest track of skills classes. Each year he was passed on to the next grade in the same slow, dull track. But given a chance and a little outside help, Frank was off and running, eager to show what he could do, his parents cheering him on.
“I get it,” he’d shout. “That stupid factoring! Ain’t nothin’ but doin’ times and matchin’ ’em up. Whyn’t they just say so?”
I coached Frank before the state competency tests and called the school to see how he’d done.
The