Somebody Else's Kids (27 page)

I had a million reasons why I did not stand up to an apathetic, insensitive old woman. I didn’t have much trouble rationalizing them to Billie or other people. Yet in the deep hours of the night I would find myself awake and unable to go back to sleep. At those times it was just the darkness, the truth and me. I was not very proud of it.

Because I could not face Edna, I tried to work things out with Dan.

“We’re the ones who fouled up here, Dan. I don’t want to see her stigmatized the rest of her life when what happened was our fault.”

Dan was at his desk. He put a hand behind his neck and began to rotate his head as one does when one has tense muscles.

“I keep asking myself what our true goals in education are. What are they? To teach reading and writing and math? Or is it to provide the tools to create the kind of human beings who will someday help us out of the wretched mess this world is in?”

Dan shook his head. “Don’t be romantic.”

“Is that romantic? Is wanting something more out of people than what we have romantic?”

We gazed at one another.

Again he shook his head. “Our job here is to teach, Torey. Reading, writing, math and whatever else is in the curriculum. That
is
the way to make more out of people. There are no shortcuts.”

I did not reply, not knowing how to.

“Listen, Tor, what Edna did with Lori certainly was not as kind as I would have liked. But that’s life. She wasn’t expecting anything that unusual from Lori. If Lori breaks under the pressure of first grade, she’ll never make it the rest of the way through the system without psychological help.”

“Then maybe we need to change the system.”

“For one child? I really do know how you feel on this. Believe me, I do. But this is a school. We’re here solely to teach. If a child can’t make it, I’m sorry, but that’s the way it is.”

“Dan, no system should be that important. When you start sacrificing people to keep the system going, then something is wrong.”

He nodded wearily. “Yeah. Who knows. Maybe something is.”

The decision of what to do with Lori when she did return was no easily resolved matter. We all knew we had to remove her from Edna’s class. But where to put her? The only full-time special education room was Betsy Kerry’s group of profoundly retarded children. Lori, whatever her problems, was no candidate for that class. There was the possibility of putting her into the other first-grade class in the building, the same class Libby was in. However, the teacher of that room was a young, first-year teacher who was having considerable difficulty managing the children she already had without adding someone with problems like Lori’s.

In the end I volunteered to take Lori in my room all day. Although she would remain on Edna’s roster as a first-grade student, she would be with me for everything except music, physical education, art and social studies. I would fit her in around my other resource students in the mornings, and afternoons would continue as they were. Hardly a foolproof solution, but we hoped it might relieve some of the pressure on Lori and allow for more intensive teaching.

Tuesday. Still no Lori. At lunchtime I went down to the office and called Mr. Sjokheim at work. He was apologetic but he could not bring himself to force her to come. A cold sensation tightened my stomach. The time had come for offensive action; we had been passive as long as we could afford to be. I said to him that we could not allow Lori to go on much longer or she would need outside help to get back. Mr. Sjokheim explained that he had made an appointment with a local psychologist for Lori, and she was to see him the following week. No, I said, that was not enough. Lori had to come back to school. Now. That was no news to Mr. Sjokheim. The psychologist had told him the same thing. Could I come over? I asked. He agreed. We settled on 7:30 that evening.

My time had come. As I drove through residential streets, shadowy in spring darkness, on my way to the Sjokheims, I did a great deal of thinking. Here was the place to commit myself. Now was the time. And if I promised her, then I knew I would not back down when I had to face the others.

Mr. Sjokheim welcomed me at the door and let me in. Libby was in the living room when I entered. She had just had her hair washed and was rubbing the dampness out with a towel. Without her glasses on, the resemblance between her and Lori was obvious. When she saw me, she stopped drying her hair and stared. I meant to say hello but an unexpected shyness overtook me and I only managed to smile. Libby did not smile back. As I came to think about it, I did not remember seeing her smile very often.

Mr. Sjokheim led me down the hall to where Lori was waiting in her bedroom. Butterflies flittered in my chest. The door was open. The shyness stayed with me and I did not want to go in. What was I going to say? A moment’s hesitation in the hallway. I could feel my heart. Around the corner Libby was leaning against the wall, watching us. With a smile of false confidence to Mr. Sjokheim, I entered.

Lori sat on her bed in yellow, footed, terry-cloth sleepers, with her long, dark hair loose and uncombed about her. She stared at me. No smile. Not even the slightest flicker of friendliness crossed her face. In the dim light of the bedside lamp, her eyes were black, black and deep as a night with no stars. A vast desert stretched between us.

“Hi,” I said.

No answer. I saw her taking deep breaths. She was sitting with one foot up on the bed, her hand resting on her knee.

“Lori, hello.”

“Hi, Torey.”

I relinquished the safety of the doorway and came over. “I miss you. Lor. I had to come see you. We all miss you.”

Again no answer. Only those dark, deep eyes on me. Cloaked around her and as tangible as she herself, was an aloofness of which I would never have thought her capable. She was giving me no benefit of familiarity.

“May I sit down with you?” I asked.

She nodded. I pushed back the rumpled bedclothes and sat next to her. She moved a little away so as not to touch me.

“Lor, we want you to come back.”

She turned her head to look me squarely in the face. A tiny shiver quaked along my skin. I knew I was seeing Libby’s eyes. And Libby’s hate. I could have wept.

“I’m never coming back.”

“I know you feel that way.”

“I feel that way ’cause it’s the truth, that’s why. I’m never coming back.”

“But I miss you, Lori. Boo misses you. And Tom. And Claudia. We need you, Lor. It isn’t a good class without you.”

“I don’t care.”

What have we done to you?
I honestly thought I was going to cry. It forced me to look away.

A soft, muffled thunking noise permeated the stillness around us and I turned. Outside the window beyond Lori’s bed were daffodils in a window box. Most were faded and dying but one remained fresh, the golden cup knocking insistently against the glass. When I turned back, Lori’s head was down; she traced around the pattern on the bed sheet.

“Lor?”

“Yeah,” she answered without looking up.

“Lori, we were wrong.”

Silence while I swallowed.

“We were wrong to treat you the way we did. And we were wrong to ever make you think reading was so important. It isn’t.”

“Sure it is,” she retorted at the sheet, her voice half aloud, half a whisper, and angry, as if I had been ridiculing her.

“No. It isn’t. And it’s our fault for ever making you think that it was. That was wrong.”

“Sure it’s important,” she said again and looked up at me. “She made the kids laugh at me. She made me throw up. In front of everybody. I am never going back to that place, no matter who says I have to go. I’ll run away if you try to make me. Even you.”

“Lor, listen to me. Please?”

“No! Just go away. I’m not going back. And I don’t want you here. Just go away and leave me alone.”

“Lori.”

“Can’t you hear me?” Tears came to her eyes. “What’s the matter with you? Go away. I don’t want to see you.” With that she turned away and flung herself face down on her pillow. Her dark hair splayed out to cover her.

I sat watching her and feeling helpless beyond words. Thunk, thunk, thunk went the daffodil against the window, the only noise in the room. I wanted to pick Lori up and hold her and brush away all the awful things; she was so small. I wanted to reassure myself that there still were problems solvable with a hug and that, being an adult, I could fix things, when in fact I knew it was not so. And so did she.

“Lor?” I touched her back.

“Get
out
of here!” she repeated.

My hand fell back into my lap. Turning my head, I saw Libby standing in the doorway. Clad only in her underpants, she held her pajamas to her chest. Her hair was still damp but combed now; she brushed her bangs back with one hand. We exchanged a long, wordless gaze, and I could not read her feelings. Then she turned and left.

Gently I reached over and rubbed Lori’s back. She jerked to get away from my touch at first, but when I persisted, she relaxed. Her face remained in the pillow.

“Lori?” I said after a while, “will you sit with me? Please?”

With much effort she rose up from her position and moved over next to me. Rugged dignity kept her my equal and I did not dare touch her too intimately. Instead, I rested my arm in back of her, my hand on the sheet.

“Lor, Lor, Lor, what have we done to you?”

She studied her fingers.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

She looked up at me.

“I
am
sorry.”

“What for?”

“For letting you think such unimportant things were so important. We were wrong about a lot of things, Lori. Sometimes when people live in a small world, small things start looking awfully important. Even when they’re not. We should never have made you feel that reading was more important to us than you are. That’s a very untrue thing.”

“But I can’t read.”

“I know you can’t. And I know it’s a handy thing to be able to do. Someday maybe you will be able to. Who knows. But even if you never did, it wouldn’t really matter. I wouldn’t care. We’d get around it somehow. You don’t need to know how to read to be happy.”

Her eyes were dark and bottomless.

I smiled. “Besides, you already can do something that’s so much better than reading.”

“What’s that?”

“You can look at people in a special way and know just how they’re feeling. Like you did with Tomaso and his teddy bear. You know how to understand those feelings, what makes people happy and sad. And you care. All the time I’ve known you, Lor, you’ve cared. And that’s much more important than reading is. No matter what happens, don’t ever forget that. In this world we so badly need people who care. There’s more than enough readers to get all the reading done. But we’re terribly short on carers.”

Lori continued to watch me without wavering. I could see myself in her eyes. Then she dropped her head and let out a deep breath. Pulling up a strand of hair between her fingers she rubbed the smoothness against her lips. “But I still want to read.”

I felt tired. And old. “You know, if there were some way to do it, I’d make it so you’d read. If I had a million dollars and could buy it for you, I would.”

She seemed nonplussed.

“Lor, I only want you to be happy. Believe me, if I knew of any way to get reading for you, I’d do it. We’re not holding back any secrets from you, just like you aren’t.” I stopped. I was running out of words. “You know, if somehow God could take away my ability to read and give it to you, I think I’d let Him. I think I’d be glad to let you have it.”

Lori looked up. Her forehead creased. “But …” She turned away, looked out the window at the daffodils, then down at her hands. “But if that happened, then you couldn’t be my teacher anymore. Not if you couldn’t read.” She looked at me again. “I wouldn’t want you to do that.”

I smiled. “It isn’t that important, is it?”

Although the smile never touched her lips, even in the dimness I could see it slip into her eyes. She reached over and gently patted my hand.

L
ori came back to school, though not without a certain amount of trauma. At lunchtime the next day I drove over with Billie to Lori’s house to get her and had to carry her crying and screaming to the car. On the four-block trip back to school, she vomited in my litter bag, and then I had to carry her crying and screaming into our room. But Lori got back to school.

Once she was there and the other children had gotten settled, I did a daring thing. Out of her cubby I took all the workbooks Edna had brought me to use for Lori’s future edification. I took out the beautifully colored reading book, the new Rebus cards and all the other miscellany I had collected to teach Lori reading. And I threw them in the trash basket. I took the books, each one of them, and tore out the pages individually and ripped them in half, letting the shreds flutter down into the garbage. Tomaso and Boo were fascinated. Claudia, our book lover, was horrified. Lori watched from a distance, her eyes wary.

“What are you doing?” Tomaso ventured.

“I’m getting rid of all this. Lori isn’t doing any more reading.”