Left Neglected (16 page)

The biggest change around here turns out not to be the orange tape on the walls or my mother sleeping in the sunroom. Charlie has ADHD. Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. Bob broke the news to me in bed on my first night home, said that the doctor was sure and that Charlie’s symptoms are classic but not severe, and I cried quietly in his arms while he assured me until I fell asleep that Charlie would be okay.

Charlie’s taking Concerta, which is like Ritalin but releases medication steadily over time for twelve hours. He takes one each morning with breakfast. We call them vitamins instead of medicine so he doesn’t think of himself as sick or disabled or broken. So far, he hasn’t complained of any headaches or loss of appetite, and Ms. Gavin says she’s noticing a positive difference in his behavior at school.

We’ve also started making lots of “Lifestyle” adjustments that are supposed to help him succeed. We’ve modified his diet—no more sugar cereal, no more gummy sharks and Popsicles loaded with Red No. 40 and Blue No. 2, no more soda, no more fast food. He’s less than thrilled about this particular change, and I don’t blame him. Even I miss the gummy sharks. He has a morning and evening To Do list neatly printed out in a grid on a poster board taped to his bedroom wall, so he can clearly see and check off what he needs to accomplish before school and before bed each day. And Charlie’s Rules are written on a piece of paper magnetized to the refrigerator.

No hitting.

No yelling.

No interrupting.

Listen and do what you are told.

Do your homework without complaining.

With Ms. Gavin’s guidance, Bob and I also designed an incentive program—Marble Minutes. Charlie starts each day with six marbles in a coffee mug. Each marble is worth ten minutes of TV plus or minus video games. If Charlie follows all of the rules without infraction all day, by five o’clock, he can have one hour of television. But for each crime he commits, he loses a marble.

Today, he’s having a typical day. It’s 4:00, and he’s already lost half his marbles. He ripped Lucy’s iPod out of her hands and smacked her on the head with it when she tried to grab it back. My mother had to ask him three times to pick his coat up off of the floor and hang it on a hook in the mudroom. And I was talking on the phone with my outpatient occupational therapist when he peppered me with a machine-gun volley of
Mom, Mom, Mom, Mom, Mom, Mom.
I should’ve taken away one marble for each
Mom,
but he’s desperate to play Super Mario, and I already know better than to run out of marbles before we tackle homework.

We’re sitting at the kitchen table, his homework in front of him, my outpatient homework in front of me, both of us wishing that we could be doing something else. I know he’s praying that he doesn’t lose the rest of his marbles. I hope I don’t lose mine along with him. Bob is at work, and my mother and Linus are at Lucy’s dance lesson. The TV is off, the house is quiet, and the table is cleared.

“Okay, Charlie, let’s get this done. Who should go first?”

“You,” he says.

I size up the cafeteria tray centered in front of me. A vertical line of orange tape divides the tray in half. The tray is empty.

“Okay, go,” I say.

Charlie’s job is to drop up to five red rubber balls, each about the size of a clementine, onto the left side of my tray. My first job is to identify how many balls are there.

“Did it,” he says.

I begin my homework by tracing the bottom edge of the tray with my right hand, moving left until I feel the right angle of the bottom left corner. An uneasiness invades me whenever I cross my own midline with my right hand and leave it somewhere in the unknown Land of the Left. The feeling reminds me of a trust exercise that I once participated in at a Berkley employee workshop. Standing, eyes closed, I was asked to fall backward and trust that my colleagues would catch me. I remember that split second before allowing myself to fall, not being able to see or control how and where I’d land, not wanting to crack my head on the hard floor over a silly exercise, when common sense and primitive instinct chimed in,
Do not do this.
But somewhere inside, I was able to hit the override button. And of course, my colleagues caught me. I go through a similar experience when my right hand crosses the orange line. Instinctive fear, inner courage, blind faith.

Now I scan to the right of my right hand, which feels natural and easy, and which happens to be across what is the left side of the tray.

“Four,” I say.

“Yes! Good job, Mom!” says Charlie. “Gimme five!”

Finding the balls is the easiest part of my homework and doesn’t deserve a celebration, but I don’t want to discourage his encouragement. I smile and give him a quick slap of the hand.

“High-five me with your
left
hand,” says Charlie.

He loves working me. I have to find my left hand for the next part of this exercise anyway, so I humor him and begin the search. I find it dangling down by my side and manage to lift it up, but I can’t say for sure exactly where it is now. Charlie is waiting, his high-five hand held up as my target. But he’s using his right hand, which is on my left, which makes it less than easy to keep track of. Charlie might just be the toughest occupational therapist I’ve had yet. Without a shred of confidence that I’ll succeed, I swing my arm from the shoulder. I miss his hand and smack him square in the chest.

“Mom!” he says, laughing.

“Sorry, honey.”

He bends my arm at the elbow like I’m one of his action figures, spreads my fingers open, winds up, and slaps my hand with his, connecting with a loud and satisfying clap.

“Thanks. Okay, next step,” I say, eager to finish.

Now I have to pick up one of the red balls with my left hand and squeeze it. The palm of my left hand is still tingling from Charlie’s high five, which is a nice stroke of good luck because that keeps my hand from disappearing, and I’m able to move it onto the tray with relative ease. I feel around and grab the nearest ball. Then I give it a feeble squeeze.

“Yay, Mom! Now put it back.”

Here’s where I get stuck. I can’t release the ball. I’ll carry that ball to bed with me, not even conscious of the extra passenger I’m toting, and wake up the next morning with it still nestled in my obstinate hand unless someone comes along and mercifully peels it out of my grip.

“I can’t. I can’t let go.”

I try shaking it loose, but my grasp is too tight. I try to relax my hand. Nothing happens. My brain has always preferred holding on to letting go.

“Charlie, will you help me?”

He pries the ball out of my rigid hand, drops it onto the tray, and pushes the tray to the other side of the table. It’s his turn now.

“I wish I had your homework. Your homework’s easy,” says Charlie.

“Not to me, it isn’t,” I say.

He aligns my red page marker on the left edge of his homework sheet so I can follow along, and we both start reading. But within seconds, the most noticeable thing he’s doing isn’t reading or writing. He’s moving. He’s wiggling all over the seat of his chair, rocking back and forth, up on his knees, back onto his bottom, swinging his legs. Before my accident, I always entered Charlie’s homework process several hours in, after he’d already been beaten by it. By then, his body was a listless lump and resembled nothing of this chaotic, undulating bundle of energy I’m witnessing now.

“You’re going to fall out of your chair. Sit still.”

“Sorry.”

His inner perpetual motion machine is quieted for a minute, but then something twitches, and all gears are up and running again in full force.

“Charlie, you’re moving.”

“Sorry,” he says again and looks up at me, his gorgeous eyes wondering if he’s about to lose another marble.

But I can see that he isn’t consciously acting out or disobeying. I’m not going to punish him for fidgeting. But it’s clear that he can’t devote his mental energy to the words on the page when so much of it is ricocheting through his body.

“How about we get rid of your chair? Can you do your homework standing up?” I ask.

He pushes the chair back and stands, and I notice the difference immediately. He’s tapping one of his feet on the floor, as if he’s keeping time with a stopwatch, but the rest of his squirming is gone. And he’s answering the questions.

“Done!” he says, tossing his pencil down. “Can I go play Mario now?”

“Hold on, hold on,” I say, still reading the third question.

Jane scored 2 goals in the first game and 4 goals in the second game. How many goals did she score in all?
I check his answers.

“Charlie, the first three answers are all wrong. Go back.”

He groans and stomps his feet.

“See, I’m stupid.”

“You’re not stupid. Don’t say that. Do you think I’m stupid?”

“No.”

“Right. Neither of us is stupid. Our brains work in a different way than most people’s do, and we have to figure out how to make ours work. But we’re not stupid, okay?”

“Okay,” he says, not really believing me at all.

“Okay. Now why did you go so fast?”

“I dunno.”

“You have plenty of time to play Mario. You don’t have to rush. Let’s slow down and do one problem at a time together. Read the first problem again.”

I read it again, too.
Billy has 2 pennies in his left pocket and 5 pennies in his right pocket. How many pennies does Billy have in all?
I look over at Charlie, expecting him to be looking back at me, poised and ready for my next instruction, but instead he’s still reading. And his eyes appear to be focused three-quarters of the way down the page.

“Charlie, is it hard to concentrate on one question at a time when there are so many on the page?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, I have an idea. Go get the scissors.”

I draw a horizontal line under each question with Charlie’s pencil. He returns to the table with scissors, the very thing I asked him for, which is a significant victory all on its own.

“Cut each question out along the lines I drew.”

He does.

“Now pile them like a deck of cards and hand them to me.”

I hand him question number seven first. He taps his foot and reads.

“Eight?” he asks.

“You got it!”

His face lights up. I’d give him a high five to congratulate him, but I don’t want to distract him or lose momentum. I turn over another card. He reads it and counts in a whisper as he presses his fingers one at a time on the table.

“Six?”

“Yes!”

With no other words tempting his attention, he sees only the one question, and it doesn’t get jumbled up with any other information. I hand him all ten “question cards,” and he gets all ten right. We’re done in about fifteen minutes. A 22 Pilgrim Lane record.

“That’s it, Charlie, no more cards. You did them all.”

“I’m done?”

“Yup. Awesome job.”

Jubilant pride skips along every inch of his face. It strikes me that he looks like me.

“Can I go play Mario?”

“You can. But you know what? That was so awesome, I think you earned three marbles back.”

“I did?!”

“Yup. You can play for a whole hour if you want.”

“Woohoo! Thanks, Mom!”

He barrels out of the kitchen and then barrels back in.

“Hey, Mom? Can you tell Ms. Gavin about the question cards and standing up? I want to do all my work that way.”

“Sure, honey.”

“Thanks!”

He’s gone again as fast as he reappeared, and I hear his feet speed down the basement stairs like a drumroll.

I look down at Ms. Gavin’s homework assignment, shredded into strips, and hope she’ll understand. We could always tape them back together if she cares. Our brains are wired differently, and we have to figure out how to make them work.

I hear the familiar bleeping sounds of Super Mario and picture the unfamiliar look of self-satisfaction on Charlie’s face. I stay seated at the kitchen table, waiting for my mother and the other two kids to come home, also feeling satisfied. Like a Super Mom.

It’s the night of our anniversary, and Bob and I are going out to Pisces, our favorite restaurant in Welmont. I’m so excited. There will be no food served on plastic trays or out of Styrofoam containers; there will be no macaroni and cheese or chicken nuggets on the menu; there will be no children crying or whining or parents begging them to eat their macaroni and cheese and chicken nuggets; and there will be salt and a wine list on every table. It’s been a long time since I’ve enjoyed a civilized meal in civilized company. My mouth is watering already.

“Everyone’s out tonight,” says Bob as we inch along Main Street, desperate to find a parking space, stalking pedestrians who look like they might be leaving, annoying every driver behind us.

We pass by a handicapped parking space, which is empty and so very tempting. But we don’t have a handicapped parking permit, and I don’t want one. For the same reason that we call Charlie’s Concerta pills vitamins, I don’t want to own license plates or a sticker or any sort of paper sign stamped with that picture of a stick figure in a wheelchair. I am not a stick figure in a wheelchair. Bob supports this philosophy and applauds my healthy self-image, but right now, I’m wishing we had that space. Bob slows down to a crawl as we approach Pisces and then stops, double-parked, right in front.

“Why don’t I let you off here, and I’ll keep circling?” asks Bob.

“Sure, I’ll just hop out and run in,” I say, not budging.

“Oh yeah,” says Bob, realizing that I don’t hop and run anywhere anymore. “They really should have a valet.”

We eventually find a spot in front of The Cheese Shop, four blocks away. Four long blocks.

“What time is it?” I ask.

“Six forty-five.”

Our reservation is at seven. Fifteen minutes to walk four blocks. It’s going to be close. I look down at my feet. I wanted to wear heels, but both Bob and my mother insisted that I wear my Merrell mules. They look ridiculous with my dress, but thank God I didn’t get my way. I’d never make it four blocks in three-inch heels.

Bob opens my door, unfastens my seat belt (we’d definitely lose our table if I had to unbuckle myself), hoists me up by my armpits, lifts me out of the car, and plants me onto the sidewalk, where my granny cane is standing at attention, waiting for me. I grab onto my cane, and Bob grabs onto my left arm.

“Ready, m’lady?” he asks.

“Let’s go.”

And we’re off, a couple of turtles racing to dinner. I’ve never before been a slow walker. I don’t amble or stroll. I throw it into fifth gear, and I go. And I’m not unusual in this respect around here. I think most Bostonians walk quickly and with purpose. We’ve got things to do, important things, and lots of them, and we’re running late. We don’t have time to dillydally, chitchat, or smell the roses. This may sound self-important, rude, or even unenlightened, but it’s not. We’re most likely being practical and responsible and just trying to keep pace with everything that is demanded of us. And besides, from November to May, those roses aren’t in bloom anyway. It’s freezing cold outside, and we’re walking as fast as we can to get back inside where the heat is.

Like tonight. Tonight the temperature has dropped into the low twenties, and the wind whipping down Main Street is soul stiffening. It doesn’t help matters that I buttoned only the top two buttons of my wool coat before I gave up, rationalizing that
we’ll barely be outside for a second.
If I didn’t have Neglect, I’d be game for running. But I do have Neglect, and so we plod along. Cane, step, drag, breathe.

The sidewalks are brick and unpredictably uneven, and they slope down and then up again with every cross street, making this terrain far more challenging than the yellow-lined hallways of Baldwin or our rugless living room floor. With every step and drag, I thank God for my cane and Bob. Without either one of them, I know I’d be sprawled out on the cold, hard ground, humiliated and late for dinner.

More so than usual because it’s the week before Christmas, the sidewalks look like high-speed consumer conveyor belts. Oncoming shoppers whizz by us at an enviable clip, while the foot traffic behind us clogs, impatient at our heels, until a slight break in the oncoming lane allows them to weave past us. It’s the typical demographic—women with newly manicured nails and newly done hair, boutique clothing store bags slung over one elbow, garish yet expensive purse slung over the other, and teenagers, always in packs of three or more, always carrying iPods and iPhones and sipping mocha Frappuccinos, everyone spending lots of money.

In the few moments here and there that I dare to steal a look up at the approaching crowd, I notice that no one looks directly at me. Everyone walking by us either has tunnel vision narrowly focused straight ahead at some pinpoint in the distance or is looking down at the ground. Embarrassed insecurity swells in my stomach and then scrambles to hide itself. Let’s face it. I may not have a picture of a stick figure in a wheelchair tattooed onto my forehead, but I’m handicapped. These people aren’t looking at me because I’m too awkward to look at. I almost tell Bob that I want to go home, but then I remind myself that most people walking in downtown Welmont (myself included) don’t typically make eye contact with anyone, especially if those people are fighting through a crowded sidewalk on a cold night, which everyone clearly is. It’s not personal. The embarrassed insecurity in my stomach apologizes and excuses itself, leaving only an intense chill and a building hunger. Pisces is one tantalizing block away.

B
OB REMOVES MY COAT, GETS
me safely situated in my chair, and takes a seat opposite me. We both exhale and smile, grateful to be in one piece, finally warm, and about to eat. I take off my pink fleece hat, hang it on the handle of my granny cane, and tousle my hair with my fingers as if I were scratching a dog’s belly. Although by no means long, my hair is now just long enough that it looks like it has an intentional style, rather than looking like it’s growing back after being shaved because I needed emergency neurosurgery. Catching my reflection in the mirrors at home looking like Annie Lennox still jolts me with the split-second flash,
Who the heck is that?
But there’s a little less gawking and dissociation each time. Like with all the changes that have been thrust upon me in the last month, I’m getting used to it, redefining normal. I do love that my hair looks great without needing to blow it dry, straighten it, spray it, or fuss with it in any way. I simply shower, towel dry, dog belly scratch, and I’m done. I should’ve shaved my head ages ago.

As is typical for a Saturday night, Pisces is full, seemingly recession-proof. From where I sit, I can see a young couple on a date, a table of serious-postured men and women in suits, and a large table of boisterous women—ladies’ night out. And then there’s me and Bob.

“Happy anniversary, babe,” says Bob, handing me a small white box.

“Oh, honey, I didn’t get you anything.”

“You came home. That’s all I wanted.”

That’s sweet. But I also didn’t get him anything yet for Christmas, and since I’ve now just given him “coming home,” I’d better get cracking. I study the white box for a second before lifting the lid, grateful that he either had the compassionate foresight or not enough time and left it unwrapped for me. Inside is a sterling silver bracelet with three dime-sized discs attached. Three charms engraved: Charlie, Lucy, Linus.

“Thank you, honey. I love it. Will you put it on for me?”

Bob leans across our small table and holds up my left wrist.

“No, I want it on my right wrist where I can see it.”

“But it’s for your left. The jingle of the charms will be good for helping you find your left hand.”

“Oh. Okay.”

So it’s not just a thoughtful anniversary gift, a sentimental piece of jewelry. It’s a therapeutic tool for my Neglect. A cigar is never just a cigar. He fits the clasp and smiles. I waggle my right shoulder, which in turn automatically moves my left shoulder, and sure enough, I hear my wrist jingle. I’m a sheep with a bell around its neck.

“You know, if you’re trying to help me recognize my left hand, diamonds are more noticeable than silver,” I say, offering a not-so-subtle hint for future rehabilitative trinkets.

“Yeah, but they don’t make noise. And we can add more charms on the different links.”

I’ve seen these clinking clunkers crammed with ornaments on the wrists of other women—hearts, dogs, horseshoes, angels, butterflies, representations of each child. I’m not a collector. I don’t own Hummels, Lladrós, Bobbleheads, Elvis memorabilia, coins, stamps, none of it. I look at the pleased smile on Bob’s face and see that I’ll now be collecting silver bracelet charms. I wonder if Annie Lennox wears one of these things.

“Thank you.”

Bob’s iPhone buzzes against the surface of the table, and he picks it up.

“Work,” he says, reading a text message, his expression journeying through increasing stages of concern.

“No. Oh, no. Oh, jeez,” he says.

He pecks out a response with his index finger, pressing much harder than is necessary, his face clenched into an intense grimace. He stops typing, but now he’s tapping and scrolling, probably reading email, his face still holding on to whatever bad news came in on that text message. Now he’s typing again.

His hair, which is normally stick straight and military short, is well overdue for a cut, cowlicked at his forehead and wavy along his ears and by the nape of his neck. He’s also grown a beard, which I’m never a fan of because it hides his handsome face and scratches up the kids’ delicate skin when he kisses them. He looks tired, but not tired from lack of sleep, although I’m sure he’s not getting enough. He looks weary. Poor Bob.

I’m done studying Bob’s face, but he’s not done with whatever he’s gotten sucked into, so I decide to people watch. The young couple next to us is sharing a bottle of champagne. I wonder what they’re celebrating. The young woman laughs a flirtatious and contagious cackle. The young man leans over the table and kisses her. She touches his face and then explodes into laughter again.

I smile, infected by their romantic energy. I return to Bob, wanting to share the young couple with him, and recognize the hypnotic, impenetrable intensity of his focus. He’s really gone now. His body may be sitting across from me, but this Bob’s a pod, a hologram, an avatar of the real Bob. My smile fades. I wait and wait. The intrusion of work into our personal lives isn’t an unusual phenomenon, and it’s never bothered me in the past. Heck, a month ago, we’d both be sitting here with our heads down, bewitched by our phones, two avatars having dinner. But I don’t have anything to text or any emails to read or anyone to call, and I’m feeling increasingly lonely, self-conscious, and bored. The young couple next to us lets out another raucous burst of laughter, and I almost shush them.

Our waitress appears, snapping Bob out of his trance, saving me from myself. She introduces herself and the specials and asks if we’d like anything to drink.

“I’ll have the house Shiraz,” I say.

“Really?” Bob asks.

I shrug and smile, wondering if he’s going to try to coerce me into a ginger ale. I’m not not allowed to drink alcohol, but I’m sure Martha wouldn’t approve. I know I still have to manage four blocks back to the car after dinner, and I probably shouldn’t drink and granny cane, but it’s just one glass. I want to have a normal dinner with my husband, and normally I would order a glass of wine. Actually, we’d normally split a whole bottle, and I’m only going to have one glass, so I’m not completely throwing caution out with the dishwater, or whatever the saying is. I want to celebrate, and it’ll relax me. I deserve to relax for a minute. Everything I do now is about looking left, scanning left, finding left. I want to hold a glass of delicious red wine in my right hand and toast to my anniversary with my lovely, if slightly hairy and rude, husband. I want to eat, drink, and be merry like the young couple next to us.

“I’ll have the same,” says Bob. “We can probably get our order in now, too.”

We know the menu by heart, which is especially handy tonight because that means I don’t have to struggle to read the left page or the left side of the right page or ask Bob to read it for me. We order our usuals.

“You back?” I ask, nodding at his phone.

“Yeah, sorry. Looks like there’s going to be another layoff. Man, I hope my head’s not on the chopping block.”

“Would that really be the worst thing?” I ask. “You’d get severance, right?”

“Not necessarily.”

“But everyone else has been getting three to four months.”

“Yeah, but that well is going dry, if it isn’t already.”

“But say you did get four months, that wouldn’t be so bad.”

“It wouldn’t be so good, Sarah. I’ve invested too much of myself to have it all be for nothing. I’ve got to hang on. The economy’s going to turn around at some point. It has to. I’ve got to hang on and see this through.”

It seems that while I’ve been praying for Bob to lose his job, he’s been praying to keep it. I don’t know if God is much of a mathematician, but my guess is we’ve been canceling each other out, like when I vote Democrat and Bob votes Republican. I do understand and admire his drive to succeed and never give up. I’ve got that same natural will to win, but while I’ve got it in my blood where levels fluctuate from time to time, Bob’s is rooted in the marrow of his bones.

“What did we do for our anniversary last year?” I ask, hoping to move our conversation away from Bob’s job.

“I don’t remember,” he says. “Did we come here?”

“I can’t remember. We might’ve.”

We got married in Cortland, Vermont, nine years ago. We picked the week before Christmas because it’s such a festive and magical time of year there. Lights, bonfires, Christmas carols, and good cheer all seemed to be celebrating our union in addition to the coming holiday. And we spent our honeymoon skiing on freshly packed, wide-open trails for an entire week, knowing that everyone else and their kids would be coming after Christmas.

The downside to having married this time of year is that our anniversary now tends to get lost in all the hoopla that surrounds preparing for Christmas with young children. It’s also year-end performance evaluations time for me, which means I’m even more slammed and preoccupied than usual. So our anniversaries have been less than monumental events.