Just Like Other Daughters (5 page)

I assume I’ll have to leave a message. I’m surprised when the phone clicks and I hear an actual, live human voice.

“Hello?”

“Mark. It’s Alicia Richards.” He lives on the street behind us. I can see his back door from mine. Handy, considering how often I need a plumber in this house.

“Hey, how are you?” he asks pleasantly. He has a nice phone voice.

“Um. Okay. Good.” I see Chloe tromping into the kitchen, carrying the grocery bag. She sets it on the table rather than the counter and begins to unload it. She carries one item at a time from the table to the refrigerator or a cabinet. At this rate, it will take her half an hour to unload one grocery bag. I turn my back to her so I don’t have to watch. “I’m well,” I say, “but there’s a pipe in my foyer ceiling that apparently isn’t.”

He chuckles at my bad joke. “Gushing or dripping?” he asks.

I don’t know why, but I laugh. Maybe because the first time I called him in the fall for a leak (our previous plumber retired), he had to tell me to go shut off the valve under the kitchen sink so the water wouldn’t continue to pour into the cabinet and onto the floor. “Just dripping,” I say.

“I’m on a call right now, but I can be there in about an hour. Will that be okay?”

Somehow, his cheerfulness makes me feel better. “Sure. An hour it is.”

“See you soon, Alicia.”

“See you soon.” I hang up and look at the phone. That was easy. I always expect there to be problems, no matter what I’m trying to do. When there isn’t, I guess I’m pleasantly surprised. When I return the phone to its charger, I’m still smiling.

“So, Chloe.” I clap my hands together. “How about tacos?”

She’s struggling to get a half-gallon milk carton on the shelf in the refrigerator door. “How ’bout bowling?” she answers, surprising me with her cleverness.

“How about we see?”

A
n hour and a half passes. Chloe and I make ground beef tacos. She goes upstairs to put on her pajamas and then we begin to clean up from dinner. Mark-the-Plumber still hasn’t shown up. I pick up a wet towel from the foyer floor and add a dry one. The steady
drip, drip, drip
is giving me a headache. My own personal Chinese water torture.

When the phone rings, we’re doing dishes. I’m rinsing; Chloe’s loading the dishwasher. Chloe is an excellent dishwasher loader. Better than most. It took her a while to learn how to arrange the dishes, but once she knew how to do it, she did it exactly the same way every time. And exactly right. Her father never learned to load the dishwasher in our six years of marriage. I suspect he’s still doing an equally poor job on marriage /dishwasher number four.

The phone continues to ring as I dry off my hands on a Cinderella dish towel. Chloe’s purchase, not mine. I hope Mark isn’t calling to tell me he won’t be able to make it tonight. If he can’t make it until tomorrow, I’ll have to shut off the water pump. Chloe hates it when I shut the pump off. (It’s an old house; they leak. It’s part of the charm, I tell myself all the time.) No matter how many times I tell her there’s no water, she tries to get water. She tries to flush the toilet.

The phone is still ringing.

“It’s for me,” Chloe says, placing a white plate just so in the lower wire rack.

“It’s not for you.” I frown as I pick the phone up off the counter. She always says the phone is for her, but it never is. Her father doesn’t call her.
My
father doesn’t call her. She has no friends, except for those at Minnie’s, but they’re not the kind of friends who call. “Unless you want to talk to the plumber,” I tell her.

“It’s for me,” she repeats. “Not a plumber. Not.”

“Hello?” I say into the phone.

“C . . . can . . .”

It’s a heavy, male voice. Loud. I recognize who it is, even though I’ve only heard him speak a couple of words.

I hear a woman in the background.

He starts again. “C . . . can I p . . . please talk to K . . . Ko-ey?” He’s speaking at a deafening volume.

“It’s Thomas,” Chloe says. She jumps up and down and claps her hands. “I told you. It’s for me.”

“Thomas?” I say, holding the phone a little bit away from my head so he doesn’t damage my eardrum. I can’t hide my surprise. “Is this Thomas?”

“This is T . . . Thomas,” he says. Then his voice is muffled as he speaks again, obviously to someone else in the room with him.

There’s a pause and then I hear a female voice. “Hello, this is Margaret Elden, Thomas’s mother.”

“Oh, hi. This is Alicia, Chloe’s mother.”

“Thomas is trying to get ahold of Chloe. Is she there?” the woman asks. She sounds older than me. Quite a bit older. “He’s nervous.” She chuckles. She sounds nervous, too. “Calling a girl. It’s his first time.”

“Um . . . Yeah. Sure. Just a moment, please.” I cover the receiver with my hand. “It’s for you, Chloe. It’s Thomas.”

She shakes her head. “I told you,” she says loudly, with excitement. “Thomas. I told him to call me.”

“You know our phone number?” I ask, suddenly seeing my daughter in a new light. She’s never been good with numbers. She can count, but the actual digits and their meaning evade her.

“On my bag. Inside.” She puts her hand out for the phone. “In case I get lost. In case I can’t find my mother. Call this number. My number.”

I’m still staring at my daughter. Some of her hair has fallen out of the elastic at the nape of her neck and brushes her cheek. Something about the kitchen lights, maybe, but she looks different to me. “You wrote down our phone number for Thomas?” I ask incredulously.

“Hello?” I hear Thomas say. He’s back on the phone again. Still loud. “K . . . Ko-ey?”

Chloe giggles and claps a hand over her mouth. “Thomas called,” she says in a stage whisper.

“Just a minute,” I tell him. I hold the phone out to my daughter. “Chloe? You wrote down your phone number for Thomas? You copied the number off your bag?”

She wipes her hand on the same pink and white towel I used, only she’s more meticulous. She’s drying each finger. “I showed Thomas.” She nods emphatically. “Thomas, he wrote it. With his blue pen. He likes blue pens.”

“Here.” I offer the phone.

She tentatively holds it to her ear. “This is Chloe. May I ask who’s calling?” she says, as I’ve taught her to answer the phone.

“It’s okay, hon. It’s Thomas. He’s calling for you. You can just talk to him.” I close the dishwasher door that’s between us.

“Thomas?” she says into the phone.

“K . . . Koey!” He’s so loud that I can hear him four feet away.

Her face lights up. “Thomas!” she says. “You called me. On the phone. You called me.”

I can’t help smiling because she’s smiling. She’s been saying she wants a friend. Maybe this will be nice, having Thomas for a new friend.

I cross my arms over my chest, watching my daughter as she grins from ear to ear.

“You called me,” she repeats. She’s apparently as surprised as I am. “Thomas.”

“I ate . . . ate d . . . dinner,” I hear him say after a long pause.

“I ate dinner,” she says. “Tacos.” She hesitates, trying to think what to say next. “I made tacos. Did you eat tacos?”

His mother must have told him to speak more quietly because I can still hear the rumble of his voice, but not what he says.

Chloe turns her back to me. I fold the dish towel.

Then Chloe walks out of the kitchen, scuffing her bunny slippers as she goes. I watch her go, resisting the urge to follow her and listen in on her conversation. She certainly has the right to a little privacy on the phone.

Five minutes pass as I finish cleaning up the kitchen and start the dishwasher. I hear Chloe giggling. She sounds the way I imagine a teenage girl must sound on the phone with a boy. It’s the kind of experience I’ve missed out on, my daughter being different from other people’s daughters. She’s never had a boyfriend, never gone to a homecoming dance. Certainly never had the thrill of a first kiss.

Chloe’s in the living room. Another five minutes pass. I flip through the day’s mail: electric bill, Visa bill, and a bunch of junk.

I can’t imagine what Chloe and Thomas are talking about. She can certainly ask and answer questions, but she’s not much of a conversationalist. It’s just not the way her mind works.

“Chloe!” I call. “The plumber might be trying to call. If the phone beeps, it means another call is coming in.”

She doesn’t answer me.

“Could you tell me if the phone beeps, Chloe?”

She comes back into the kitchen and lowers the phone stiffly to her side. “I want to go bowling.” She blinks, her lips pursed. She’s looking very serious. “Wednesday.”

“Next Wednesday?” I ask. “Today’s Wednesday. Do you mean next Wednesday?”

She raises the phone. “Wednesday?” she asks Thomas. She lowers the phone after a second. “Saturday,” she says. “Ten o’clock.”

I can tell Thomas is talking in her ear. “In the morning,” he shouts.

“In the morning,” Chloe repeats.

I hesitate. “You want to go bowling? I thought you hated bowling.”

“I want to go bowling. With Thomas. Wednesday.”

Chloe talks about doing all sorts of things that aren’t really feasible. Last week, she watched
The Rescuers Down Under
on DVD and insisted she was going to Australia. On Wednesday.

“Who else is going bowling?” I ask, amazed that I’m doing this for the first time in my life.

Chloe goes places with me, Jin, her father, and Miss Minnie, but with no one else. She doesn’t have that kind of relationship with anyone else and she’s not capable of going without one of us to a place like a bowling alley. She’s just not high-functioning enough for that kind of independence.

“It’s not going to be just Thomas, right?” I ask.

“Are you going, Thomas?” Chloe asks into the phone. She listens, then looks at me. “Thomas is going.”

“But who’s going
with
Thomas? Thomas isn’t going alone with you, right?” I toss the junk mail into the recycling bin near the back door. I met Thomas. He obviously isn’t able to drive. He has to be going with
someone
. “Is he going with his mother?”

Chloe speaks to Thomas again, then tells me, “Thomas’s mother doesn’t like bowling.”

“Can I speak to Thomas’s mother?” I ask. I don’t mind if Chloe goes bowling, if she wants to, but she has to have supervision. Even finding a public restroom can be hard for Chloe.

Chloe hands me the phone.

“Hello, again,” the mother says.

“Margaret, hi,” I say. This feels so weird. “Chloe tells me Thomas has invited her to go bowling.”

“I’m going bowling,” Chloe announces. She shuffles out of the kitchen.

“Yes,” Thomas’s mother says. “Saturday at ten. Thomas belongs to a group at St. Mark’s United Methodist Church, downtown. He goes there every Saturday. There’s usually an activity at the church and then they go somewhere: out to lunch, rollerskating, you name it,” she says cheerfully. “This Saturday is bowling Saturday!”

“So . . . do parents attend?” I ask.

“Oh no! This is a time for the young adults to get together and have fun. I go to a women’s Bible study at the church. You’re welcome to join me. They’re all really nice at St. Mark’s.”

“What I’m asking,” I say, ignoring the Bible study invitation, “is . . . what kind of supervision is there? Who drives? Who will be bowling with them? Chloe doesn’t go out alone.” I hesitate, wondering if Margaret has met Chloe. “She has Down syndrome. My Chloe.”

“No need to worry. It’s well-chaperoned,” Margaret says. The Down syndrome doesn’t seem to faze her. “Just good, clean fun.”

Chloe walks back into the kitchen. She’s wearing her coat over her pajamas and carrying her canvas library bag. The one with her phone number written inside in permanent marker. I walk over to her and shake my head. “Not tonight, Chloe. You’re not going bowling tonight. It’s almost bedtime. The bowling alley is closed.”

“I’m going bowling,” Chloe insists. “Me and Thomas.”

“Sorry,” I say into the phone. “Chloe’s so excited about going that she’s put her coat on.” I turn away from my daughter, who I can tell, by the look on her face, is ready to throw a temper tantrum. “You were saying . . . the chaperones.”

“Nice people from church! Volunteers. And the associate pastor.”

I know I can’t allow the fact that it’s a church group sponsoring the outing to affect my decision as to whether or not to let Chloe go. This has to be about Chloe, not about my own personal prejudices. But I’m not sure how to ask if this group is specifically for mentally challenged adults—what experience they’ve had with special-needs people like Chloe.

I turn back to look at Chloe. She’s trying to zip her coat. She really wants to go. How can I say no? Still, how can I say yes? I don’t know these people who would be taking her. My job, since her birth, has been to protect her. Because she can’t protect herself.

“Chloe’s not used to this sort of thing. Going out without me,” I explain. “Do you think it would be okay if I go with her? With them?”

“I don’t see why not,” Margaret says, not sounding keen on the idea.

“Great. So ten o’clock on Saturday at St. Mark’s?”

“In the community hall!” She’s so damned cheery. “That’s where they meet.”

“Great. Thanks. We’ll see you . . . Thomas, then.”

“Thomas will see Chloe tomorrow, won’t he?” Margaret says.

The doorbell rings. It’s got to be Mark-the-Plumber. “That he will.” I nod and force a smile. I want to like Margaret, I do. But there’s something in her tone of voice—she’s way too positive. Or maybe it’s the way her son hugged my daughter today. “Thanks, Margaret.”

“You have a blessed evening!” Margaret tells me.

I hang up as I head for the door.

“I want to talk to Thomas.” Chloe follows me, still in her coat, still carrying her canvas bag. It says “Go For It @ Your Public Library!” She got it free two years ago when we went to a book fair at the library. Chloe loves books. Picture books. She has a whole shelf of them in her bedroom. Her canvas bag has become a security blanket of sorts. She carries it everywhere.

The doorbell rings again.

“I want to talk to Thomas! Thomas called me!” Chloe’s voice is taking on an edge.

“Hang on a minute, Chloe,” I tell her, keeping my voice calm. I learned long ago that losing my temper with my daughter gets me nowhere. The less control I exhibit, the less control she exhibits. I hope she’s not going to have a meltdown in front of the plumber. When Chloe loses it, sometimes spit and fists are involved.

Mark is standing in the vestibule. He’s wearing jeans, an L.L.Bean jacket, and a ball cap. He’s carrying a toolbox. When he sees me through the door, he waves. Mark isn’t much taller than I am. He’s not really my type. I’ve always been a white-collar kind of girl, but he’s nice-looking. And he’s been super nice to me since he moved into our neighborhood in September.

“Hi,” I say, unlocking and opening the door.

Jin comes up the steps behind him; she has a Wednesday evening class. She’s got her cell phone to her ear. She’s wearing a bright pink down jacket and a knit cap with earflaps. Although we’re the same age, she looks so young and hip. I look like my grandmother when I go to class. I wonder if I should buy one of those hats with the earflaps.

Jin eyes Mark as she puts her key in the doorknob next door. “Another leak?”

I step out of the way to let him in. “Thanks for coming, Mark. This late in the day. Feel free to charge me extra.”

“It’s no problem to come.” He drags one foot and then the other over the mat at the door, wiping his boots before stepping into the foyer. “Of course I’m not going to charge you extra.”