Just Like Other Daughters (9 page)

“Darling, wipe your mouth,” his mother instructs, motioning.

He starts to use the back of his hand, but Chloe pushes a napkin into his hand. “Use a napkin,” she instructs. “Always wipe your mouth with a napkin.”

“F . . . fank you, d . . . darling . . . darling,” he says, swiping the napkin across his lips.

His use of the same endearment his mother just used doesn’t go unnoticed by me. He’s obviously just mimicking.

When Thomas gets up, I see little bits of napkin sticking to his five o’clock shadow. Chloe reaches up to pick the pieces off his face. I find the intimate moment disturbing.

Chloe really likes this boy
, I think to myself as I run hot water over the plates. The idea that she doesn’t like him
just as a friend
hovers in my mind and I don’t know what to do with it.

“We should go, Thomas,” Margaret says.

I dry my hands on a dish towel and walk them to the front door. “We’re so glad you could come, Thomas.”

“Glad you could come,” Chloe says, hopping up and down on the balls of her feet. She throws her arms around Thomas, and Margaret takes a step back.

“Oh my! Oh my goodness,” Margaret says, sounding flustered.

“Chloe’s a hugger,” I explain, reaching for Thomas’s parka on the coatrack. “Chloe,” I say. I’m going to tell her to take a step back. Maybe Thomas doesn’t like to be hugged. (Of course I already know that’s not true; I’ve already seen several lingering hugs.) But before I get the words out, Chloe plants a big, wet kiss on Thomas’s mouth.

Now I’m the one who’s flustered. I hold Thomas’s coat against my chest. The moment turns even more uncomfortable when Thomas kisses her back. Mouth open. I actually feel my face get hot.

“Thomas, darling.” Margaret grabs his hand, her voice sweet and singsongy. “Remember, we talked about mouth kissing?”

I must have been holding my breath because I exhale in relief. Margaret’s going to handle this. I don’t have to.

“Private moments, Thomas. Right? Kissing is for private moments.” She tugs, and my daughter and this mentally retarded man break suction.

Retarded.
There’s that word again. This time I’m too upset by the mini make-out session in my front hall to be disturbed by my mental word choice again.

At that moment, Jin appears in the doorway that opens into the vestibule. “Sorry! Didn’t know you had company. Just wanted to let you know that my kitchen faucet is spewing water again. I’m Jin. I rent the duplex next door from Alicia.” She comes in. She’s barefoot in Victoria’s Secret sweatpants and a tight pink wifebeater. No bra.

Margaret, in her homemade skirt, shrinks back, her hand still on her son’s. I can tell by the look on her face that she doesn’t approve of Jin’s choice of ensemble. And she must have gaydar because I can also tell by the look on her face that she likes lesbians in wifebeaters even less than the tank tops themselves. Maybe she’s frightened of Asians.

“This is Margaret,” I introduce with a nervous laugh. “Chloe’s friend Thomas’s mother.”

“This is Thomas, Aunt Jin,” Chloe introduces. Her cheeks are pink. “He’s a good kisser,” she says. “On the mouth.” She pats her lips.

Jin looks at me and arches her eyebrows. I can just imagine all the things she wants to say. “Nice to meet you both,” she calls with a wave. “Talk to you later, Ally.”

Jin disappears next door as I hand Thomas his coat.

“Come back tomorrow,” Chloe is saying, bouncing on her feet again. “Wednesday.”

Margaret is helping her son into his coat. “Thank you again for having Thomas.”

I hold the door open to usher them out. Chloe follows them.

“Honey, it’s cold out,” I warn. “Come back inside.”

Chloe waves furiously at Thomas as they exit through the outer door of the vestibule Jin and I share.

“Bye!” Chloe calls.

“B . . . bye, K . . . Koey,” Thomas answers.

Chloe closes the door behind them and bounces back into the house and heads for the kitchen. I just stand there. Jin must be on the other side of her door, waiting for them to go, because the minute their car door slams, she steps out into the vestibule.

“Chloe’s Thomas is cute.”

I cut my eyes at her. “He’s intellectually disabled.”

She offers a quick smile as she cuts from her door to mine. “I got news. So is your daughter. Is that spaghetti I smell? Did you save some for me? All I had for dinner was a cold bean burrito. I think it was like a week old.”

I follow her, closing the door behind me. I talk in a stage whisper. “Jin, they kissed when they said good-bye.
On the lips
.”

Jin is headed for the kitchen. “So Chloe told me,” she calls over her shoulder. “My turn to call the hunky plumber, or yours?”

T
homas kissed me with his big lips on my lips. It tickled and it felt funny. Warm and squishy. He tasted like my mom’s ziti, but it wasn’t yucky. It tickled my belly, which was weird because he didn’t touch my belly, just my lips.

I stand on my tiptoes and look at my face in the bathroom mirror. I do it a lot. Sometimes I make faces, but not tonight.

When I look at my face I look the same, but I feel different. Like when Thomas came to Minnie’s the first time.

I liked it when Thomas kissed me. It felt good. Not like when Mom kisses me good. Different good. Like in my private parts good.

I swish my mouth with water, then I spit. Then I drink more water, but I don’t swallow it. I spit more. I look at my teeth. Clean. I wash my toothbrush: wash, wash, wash. Then I turn off the water and shake, shake my toothbrush. I put it in the Dumbo toothbrush holder. It goes in the hole by Dumbo’s trunk. Never by his tail.

I make straight my towel on my towel rack and then I get a wipe out of the tub of wipes under the sink and I clean my sink. I always clean my sink before I go to bed. I don’t like spit in my sink. If your spit has toothpaste in it, it makes your sink all white and dirty. I throw the dirty wipe in my princess trash can and I shut off my bathroom light. I always shut the light off. Electricity costs money. That’s what my mom says. I don’t know how much. Maybe like as much as a million-jillion dollars.

I get in my bed and I get the book I’m going to read. I don’t really read, but I remember most of the words because Mom can read. She’s a teacher at college. Different college than Miss Minnie’s. Mom has to read so she can read papers people give her. I mostly look at the pictures in books.

I wiggle under the covers and lay on my pillow. I read some pages of my book, but it’s not a good book tonight. Sometimes it’s a good book. It’s the one about the bird that gets lost from its mother. It asks a bulldozer, “Are you my mother?” That’s funny and it makes me laugh. Birds don’t have bulldozer moms. They have bird moms.

But the book doesn’t make me laugh tonight. I try to think about the bird that can’t find his mother, but I can’t because I’m thinking about Thomas.

When we were watching
Aladdin
, I had to keep telling him who Prince Ali and Princess Jasmine were. And the bad guy, Jafar. Jafar’s scary but not as scary as Scar. Scar’s in
Lion King
. Thomas never did watch
Lion King
, either. Him and his mom watch Veggie Tales. They’re stupid head but I didn’t tell him because that would make him sad. When he comes to watch
Lion King
at my house, I will tell him who Simba is.

Tonight Thomas kept asking me what a genie is. When I told him it was a guy in a lamp, he said I was very smart.

No one ever told me I was very smart before.

I close the book because I’m not reading it.

I keep thinking about Thomas saying I’m smart. I’m not smart. I’m a dummy head because I can’t read
Are You My Mother?
for real. Thomas can read. He’s smarter than me.

At the bowling alley, he said we had to have one dollar and twenty-five cents to get a soda. He had money in his pocket. We didn’t know how much one dollar and twenty-five cents was, but Thomas is smart because he could read that sign.

He gave the girl two hundred dollars and she gave us money pennies back and gave us a Coke. We shared.

Thomas keeps saying I’m his girlfriend and he’s my boyfriend. He said he bought me a Coke so now I’m really his girlfriend. I don’t think if he bought me a Coke I’m his girlfriend. I’m his girlfriend because he kissed me like Hercules kisses Meg. Meg is Hercules’s girlfriend. And Ariel kisses Eric. In
Little Mermaid
.

I close my eyes and I think about Thomas’s mouth when it touched my mouth.

I think Mom is mad that me and Thomas kissed. I’m sorry I made her mad. I don’t want to make her mad.

But I want to kiss Thomas again on his lips. Maybe on Wednesday.

 

That night, the minute Chloe goes up to bed, and Jin goes back to her place, I sit down with my laptop. I’m disturbed by Chloe’s physical display of affection toward Thomas. She’s always been a hugger. Down syndrome people tend to be physically affectionate, but I’ve never seen her behave this way. Where did she learn to kiss like that?

We always kiss on the cheek. She and I. I don’t think Randall kisses her anymore, but when she was younger, he kissed her cheek, always her cheek. How can she know about kissing on the lips and what it means?

I do a Google search on intimacy between mentally challenged adults. It’s not as easy to find information as I thought it would be. I find very little using the word
intimacy
, but when I dare type in
sex
, I get more hits than I care to look at.

I wonder if Margaret has gone home and Googled the same topic. Is this the first time she’s encountered this with Thomas? Or has he kissed other girls before . . . maybe in Ohio? Maybe they do that sort of thing in Dayton. Around here, it’s just not done. It’s not even talked about in the parent support group I attend.

I read.

Apparently, until recently, very few studies have been done on intimacy and the mentally disabled. Because people like Chloe were once institutionalized and housed by gender, there was very little interaction between males and females; there was no research on the subject. Until recently, society hadn’t really considered sexuality among the mentally challenged.

I read an article about sexual abuse of the mentally disabled. There’s an article about Down syndrome women being particularly at risk because of their tendencies toward physical affection.

It makes me angry. I don’t read the whole article. If I’m overprotective, this is why. It’s right here, in black and white.

I read about an eight-week sex education class for mentally handicapped young adults being taught at a center in California.

I’ve taught Chloe about bad touching and good touching, but not sex, per se. I’ve explained to her how Jin holding her hand is good touching, but a man touching her butt at the grocery store is bad touching. I’ve tried to make her understand that anything that makes her feel uncomfortable is bad touching and that she needs to tell me about it.

But I don’t think she understands. I’m sure she doesn’t.

I read for more than an hour. I read about society’s recent shift in beliefs, how mentally challenged adults are being encouraged, by their parents and caregivers, to have relationships. Supported in sexual relationships. I find several references to an HBO documentary about two Down syndrome adults who marry and live with the woman’s parents. I write down the title to check later to see if I can see it On Demand.

My reading leaves me more upset than I was before I sat down. I don’t know what to do. My first impulse is to put an end to the relationship before anything bad happens.

Do I tell Chloe she can’t see Thomas anymore? Do I not let him come here, or let her go anywhere with him? Could I just make sure they’re never alone? Should I take her out of Minnie’s or change her schedule with Minnie?

But Chloe likes Thomas. He’s her first real friend. She likes everyone at Minnie’s, but no one has ever called her to do things outside of Miss Minnie’s. I suspect that, like Chloe, they don’t have a life beyond Miss Minnie’s, except for their families. Thomas is a friend Chloe can meet on equal ground, unlike Huan, whom she calls her friend but who isn’t really. Not any more than the bagger at the grocery store or the clerk at the post office is her friend. And Chloe’s obviously thrilled to have Thomas for a friend. How can I take that away from her? How can I not want my daughter to be happy? If she were normal, I’d be encouraging her to seek a healthy relationship.

If she were
average
is what I mean. We don’t say
normal
in mentally challenged caregiver circles. It’s not politically correct. This
is
normal for Chloe, and men and women like her. Political correctness has not, however, prevented me from thinking it.

I stare at the computer screen, thinking how different my life might be if Randall and I hadn’t discontinued that first pregnancy. I never use the word
abort
. Just like I never use the word
regret
when I think of it. Regrets never do anyone any good. We can learn only from our mistakes.

But you can’t help where your mind goes sometimes.

If I’d carried our first child to term, he or she would have graduated college. I think about it all the time, my thoughts sometimes bordering on obsession. I go over the same questions again and again in my mind. Would she have gone to Princeton as Randall had dreamed? Would she be married and working in the academia field?

It’s easy to let my mind wander over the possibilities. Without the stress of a disabled child, maybe Randall and I would still be together.

But if I’d had that first baby, would we have ever had a second? Would we have ever had Chloe? I always come to this question, eventually.

And I always know, in my heart, the answer. Knowing Randall, had I delivered our first child, Chloe would have never been born. Randall would never have agreed to a second child. We’re academics, after all. We don’t
do
children. We teach them.

I can’t imagine giving Chloe up for Randall. Chloe is, by far, the best thing that has ever happened to me. Ever will happen.

And this is how I repaid her for coming into my life, for
making
my life? I screwed up her chromosomes?

I close my eyes. This is silly. Why do I do this to myself? This is
not
my fault. Chloe’s Down’s is
not
my fault. I know that logically. Scientifically.

So why does it still
feel
like it’s my fault? After all these years, why do I still feel this way? Because I did it. I gave birth to a
damaged
child.

If we lived in some societies, we would both be ostracized. My husband would have divorced me, and my in-laws would consider Chloe and me pariahs. Really . . . not so different from Main Street America. Oh, everyone is polite about it, but I see their looks, and sometimes I can almost hear them thinking,
I wonder what she did to have a child like that.
Most pity me, but I don’t want their pity. What I want is acceptance . . . acceptance for both of us. Acceptance I know we’ll never get.

My fingers hover over the keyboard. I feel lost. Like I can’t find my way home. I can’t read any more articles about people like Chloe being in love or having sex.

I barely realize what I’m typing, until the words come up. I bring up the Friends’ Meeting House in a town twenty minutes from here. I don’t know what makes me think of it, or look it up.

I haven’t been to a Quaker Meeting in twenty-six years.

I stopped going after Randall and I were married. After we were married, we were so busy. And my mom was dead. I didn’t have to go for her sake anymore.

But I remember going a couple of times before Chloe was born, when my stomach was huge. To this very same Meeting House in Oak’s Bend.

The truth is, I really stopped going
after
Chloe was born. When she was born with Down syndrome. I abandoned my faith because I felt it had abandoned me. I felt that God had abandoned me and Chloe. Or maybe He never existed at all?

How is that for academic thinking?

I’m surprised that my eyes have filled with tears. I’m not a crier. Never was, but any tears I had inside me have been cried out. I cried for Chloe, for myself, yes, even for Randall in the days after she was born. It seemed as if I did nothing
but
cry in those first weeks and months after we brought Chloe home from the hospital.

The thing was, despite the sentence, Trisomy 21, Chloe was a beautiful baby. The way she looked up at me with those big blue eyes of hers, eyes that would stay blue. The way she cooed and batted her little fists. She loved me from the moment she came into the world, a nonjudgmental love that I had never experienced before.

And she was such a good baby. Despite the nurse’s warnings that Down’s babies have trouble suckling, Chloe took to my breast right away. She slept when she was supposed to sleep and she rarely cried. Chloe was always happy, always wanting to please me. Her physical development was slow, but eventually she did all the things babies were supposed to do.

She made
me
happy.

I stare at the picture of the quaint nineteenth-century Meeting House on the computer screen, with its cedar shakes and big, plain windows. Inside, I know there are old benches facing each other. No crosses on the walls, no adornments.

There are some Friends’ Meeting Houses where there’s a service with a sermon and singing. This Friends’ Meeting practices the tradition of silent worship; attendees sit in contemplative quiet in the hopes of experiencing the presence of God.

I think about sitting on one of the benches, and I remember the sense of peace I had felt there once upon a time.

The phone rings, startling me. The house phone. I glance at my cell phone as I reach for the other phone on the coffee table. It’s nine fifty-five. Who could be calling this late?

I look at the caller-ID. “Mark?” I say into the phone.

“Sorry I’m just getting back to you.”

For a moment, I draw a blank. I don’t remember calling the plumber. Not since last week. I haven’t gotten last week’s bill yet.

“Jin’s kitchen faucet,” he reminds me.

“Right,” I say quickly. “Sorry, things have been crazy here tonight.” I rub my temple. “Jin called you.”

“I didn’t get an answer at her place. I was going to come by tomorrow morning, if that’s okay.”

“Tomorrow . . . that’s fine. Great.”