The Practical Navigator (24 page)

She wonders how much this man knows of their circumstances, of her title of absentee wife and mother. Lately she's been telling people, the old acquaintances she invariably runs into, that she's been off on deployment. “Oh, yeah, overseas. Serving God and country.” You can see in their faces that the joke doesn't fly. They know the truth. Absent and abandoned are two different words, two different worlds.

“You seem a little uncomfortable.”

It's Walter Seskin speaking again.

“No. Not at all.” Uncomfortable doesn't begin to describe what she's suddenly feeling. The mud pit in her stomach is sending toxic fumes into her esophagus.

Across the field, the children are gathered in a mass around the pack animals. Michael is carefully running David's hand down a llama's flank.

“I hope they don't bite,” Anita says.

“As a matter of fact, they do. They also spit. But it's life on life's terms. You learn from it. And that's worth it, don't you think?”

“I'm sure it is.”

*   *   *

Looking back across the field, Michael sees Anita and Walter Seskin standing together and he wonders what they're talking about. Perhaps Anita will ask questions, perhaps Walter Seskin will fill her in, bring her up to speed. Make her realize, as he's beginning to, that the autism is a challenge not a death sentence. Perhaps. But probably not. She comes from a family where anything atypical and less than standard is considered a character flaw. It's no wonder she's never been able to talk honestly about herself.

“Hi,” he heard her say. “Anita
Hodge.
”

Whoa, Nelly.

Yet again, he asks himself if he's making it all too easy for her. The answer is the same. No, not if it makes his son happy.

“We could invite her if we wanted to.” It was both a question and a statement.

“We could.”

“She will want to see me play.” Again, question and statement.

“She might. Shall we call?”

“You.”

“Uh-uh. You. I'll dial, you talk.”

“Yes, I will.”

And so he called and Jamie talked on the phone. A first. She came for him. She cheered for him. And look at him now. Getting ready to ride llamas with a friend. Let it go, thinks Michael. Forget the rules. Enjoy the moment.

He is.

*   *   *

“You know,” says Walter Seskin, “when you first have kids, you think it's going to be like a trip to Italy.”

“Italy?” Anita has no idea what he's talking about it, but it sounds like it's going to be either advice or a lecture and she's not in the mood for either one.

“You know, sunshine, good food. The kids are going to grow up happy and when the time comes, they'll move on to a life all their own.”

“I'm not sure I'm following,” says Anita, not sure she wants to.

“My point being that for a lot of us here”—Walter Seskin gestures in a way that takes in the families and the entire field—“the tickets got screwed up and we ended up in Iceland.”

“Iceland.”

Seskin smiles. “Actually in the literature it's Holland. But I've been to Holland and Holland is a pretty sweet place. Iceland, on the other hand, with its volcanoes and steam fields and black sand, is not what anyone expects.”

“Unless you're from Iceland.”

Walter Seskin laughs. “Good, that's good. You're right. But not many of us are.”

Across the field, the children have formed a line, and those in the front, Jamie and David among them, are being helped by the splendid, shining-bright college kids onto oblivious llama backs.

“The point is,” says Walter Seskin, “give it a chance and I think you'll find Iceland has its moments.” Again, the expansive gesture. Is he talking about the families, the field, or the llamas?

“Good advice.”

“Stop by the lab sometime, see what we're doing.”

Experiments. You can run tests on me.

“I will. Thank you.”

“And read the T-shirts.”

“The shirts?”

“Special Needs Family Day. Emphasis on family. We're all in it together.”

“I'll remember that.”

As Walter Seskin turns and walks across the soccer pitch toward the llamas and waiting children, Anita finds herself forcing yet another smile. Like Walter Seskin's gesture, it takes in everything. The people, the pitch. It feels fake and fearful and Anita is sure if she holds it too much longer, her face will break.

Iceland. I'm living in Iceland.

 

The effects of waves on a ship vary considerably with the type of ship, its course and speed, and the condition of the sea. The set and drift of ocean currents are of great concern to the navigator. More than any other single factor, waves are likely to cause a navigator to change course to avoid damage to a ship.

 

40

It's book buddies and Jamie hates it. He hates Ben Shapiro who seems to think he's being helpful when he corrects Jamie's pronunciation when they read out loud to each other. Jamie, who reads slowly and spells phonetically, thinks his pronunciation is just fine. As his friend Luis, who is no one's book buddy, has confirmed to him more than once, it's the words that are wrong.

“
Inglés
, Jaimito. Nothing looks like it sounds.”

But Ben Shapiro won't listen. Ben Shapiro thinks he's so smart. Ben Shapiro is a farthead.

“Jamie, are you all right?”

It's Mrs. McKenzie, who's nice and who looks out for him but makes him do book buddies. He must be doing something wrong for her to ask if he's all right. And then he sees it. The other kids are putting away their papers and scissors and getting their books from their cubbies and he isn't. He's not moving. He's sitting by himself. Which is how he'd like to spend book buddies.

“I'm all right.”

Mrs. McKenzie smiles at him. Mrs. McKenzie is nice and looks out for him, but still, she makes him do book buddies.

“Let's put away our things.”

“Okay.”

“Mrs. McKenzie—Mrs. McKenzie!”

Mrs. McKenzie turns away because Sara Rollins who has red hair and freckles which Jamie likes is calling for her. Jamie wishes Sara Rollins were his book buddy. Sara Rollins wouldn't tell him how to pronounce hard words. And even if she did, Jamie wouldn't mind.

The classroom door is open.

Ben Shapiro, whom Jamie avoids without thinking, is nowhere to be seen.

The classroom door is open.

It hits Jamie that Ben Shapiro, who gets sick a lot for no reason, hasn't been here all day. Which means he's absent. Which means Jamie will have to read with some other book buddy who won't be Sara Rollins who never makes fun of him.

The door is open.

Mrs. McKenzie isn't looking. Everyone is busy getting their books from their cubbies except for Jamie who is sitting. He rises from his desk and slips out the door.

It's quiet in the hallway and Jamie doesn't know where to go so he goes down the hall and around the corner to the boys' room because he's been holding it all day. He doesn't like going to the boys' room with the other boys when they go on a bathroom break. One time Kyle Bush told him it would be cool to flush a T-shirt from lost and found down the toilet and Jamie flushed. Only the T-shirt got stuck and the toilet overflowed and the boys laughed. Jamie tried to laugh too but he couldn't because it was the kind of thing that gets you into trouble and it did.

“What were you thinking, little man?” said Dad.

“Next time flush
Kyle Bush
down the toilet,” said Nana.

What was even worse was that Mrs. McKenzie called a class meeting where she talked about the A-word. Meaning they talked about
him.
On the outside he tried not to pay attention but on the inside he did. Mrs. McKenzie said it wasn't nice to make fun of people. Would you make fun of a blind person? Would you make fun of someone who couldn't hear? Jamie isn't blind or deaf and he hates it when people talk about him. The only thing worse is when they talk
to
him and then he has to answer. Sort of like book buddies.

He enters the boys' room, hurries into a stall and closes the door. He has to go so bad. He drops his pants to the floor and he sits. He likes the boys' room when no one else is here. The tiles are cool. It's quiet. No one is talking all at once like they do in class and at lunch and at recess. His mind can look at pictures. He doesn't have to remember what he's supposed to be doing. Or what faces are saying. It's all so tiring and confusing all the time to try to understand what faces are saying and what words mean, but in an hour he can go home.

Jamie flushes. He reaches for toilet paper. There is none. Jamie's right hand begins to shake slightly as he tries to figure out what to do.

*   *   *

She has to admit it. Sometimes Karen McKenzie's favorite time of day is when the last bell rings and she can go outside on the playground and wave children good-bye.

“Bye, Mrs. McKenzie, bye!”

“Good-bye! See you tomorrow.”

She loves her job, loves teaching, but sometimes the energy and patience it takes to keep twenty-three second-graders organized and on task can be overwhelming. And they keep getting old so young. Cell phones. Miley Cyrus. The Walking Dead. It is Karen McKenzie's opinion that the vast majority of parents should be arrested for reckless driving and sent not to traffic school but to a parenting academy where they would be forced to learn lessons in protecting their children.

“Good-bye, Mrs. McKenzie!”

“See you tomorrow, Sara!”

Sara Rollins. One of the good ones. As is her mother, Liz, a working single parent. Just like—

Karen McKenzie looks around, puzzled. The playground is still busy but is beginning to empty. Some boys are shooting baskets. Aftercare is beginning at the outdoor tables. Children who will be picked up later. Karen McKenzie calls toward another teacher. “Helen, have you seen Jamie Hodge?”

The young woman, Helen Fowler, kindergarten, turns from where she's putting out after-school snacks.

“No, did he get picked up?”

“I don't think so.”

“It's usually his father or his grandmother.”

“I know. They meet him at the gate.” Karen McKenzie turns and walks toward the playground entrance.

*   *   *

There are three boys and that's too many boys to say anything. They're yelling and laughing and flushing and running the water and making noise. If they know he's been sitting there with no paper and a stinky bottom they'll make fun of him. They'll tell people. He's probably already in trouble for having left the classroom. Mrs. McKenzie will
not
be smiling. Not only that, Mom is picking him up today and he was supposed to tell Mrs. McKenzie but he forgot. But maybe Mom will be smiling. Maybe she will think it's funny. An adventure even. Maybe he and Mom will make up a story about it and it will be a good story, not a bad story, and it will be fine.

Maybe.

*   *   *

In front of the school, the sixth-grade monitors are escorting children across the crosswalk. Cars, there for pickup, line both sides of the busy street. Karen McKenzie looks up and down the sidewalk, worried now. She knows from both study and experience that children on the spectrum tend to be runners. They're drawn to water, fascinated by road signs. They're hit by cars, they drown. She knows of a high school special-ed teacher who used to hide a particular student's shoes with the hopes of slowing him down.

How could she have taken her eye off him.

She's about to turn back into the school yard when a woman hurrying up the walk sees her and breathlessly approaches.

“Excuse me? Are you Mrs. McKenzie?”

The woman's hair is twenty shades of blond. The eyes are deep green. Karen McKenzie knows without having to ask that this is Jamie's mother.

“Yes.”

The woman exhales in apparent relief. “Oh, God—great. I'm Anita Beacham. Jamie Hodge's mom? I'm picking him up today. Only I had a problem finding parking so I'm late.”

A problem parking. To Karen McKenzie, a problem parking has always seemed a little too much like the dog ate my homework. Parents are supposed to know it's busy and arrive accordingly. Yet, the woman does seem flustered. Karen McKenzie can forgive beginners.

“I really hoped to get here early. Jamie told me all about you and I wanted to introduce myself. He's not worried, is he?”

“I'm not sure,” says Karen McKenzie. “We can't seem to find him.”

*   *   *

In the boy's lavatory, Henry Dominguez enters and hurries to a washbasin because if he wants an after-school snack, and he
does,
Miss Fowler says his hands must be clean. Henry turns on a faucet, hits the pushy nozzle thing that delivers soap, and begins to wash.

“Paper,” a voice says.

Henry turns, his hands full of suds. “What?”

“I need paper,” says the voice.

“I don't have any,” says Henry Dominguez, and in anticipation of animal crackers, he departs the lavatory, drying his hands on the seat of his pants as he goes out the door.

In the closed stall, Jamie sits, his pants around his shoes. He has found one of his toy figures in the front pocket. He waves it in front of his face. He is nothing if not patient. Dad says this is a good thing.

*   *   *

Michael knows he should be working. He should be canvassing local architects, he should be talking to local real estate agents to see if any of their clients are discussing remodels or teardowns. Enrique Paz has gone back to Mexico and he should be looking for a new tile subcontractor. At the very least he should get off his
own
ass and go over and help Leo and the crew. Lose himself in hard, physical work and feel like he's accomplished something worthwhile. But he's just sitting at his desk. Sitting in his office. Staring into space. It's as if his brain weighs a ton.