Times and Seasons (12 page)

Spencer
played fast and hard with a friend who had come home from church with him, and Tory wondered if she should coax them from the front yard into the back. It seemed somehow disrespectful to have her son playing out in the open, where Cathy would see and be reminded of her own child, locked in a jail.

The thought of forbidding her children to play in public seemed a little overreactive, but she had no clue how to make things easier for her grieving neighbor.

And just across the street, both of Brenda’s vehicles sat crumpled and possibly disabled. Tory wondered if the strain this put on the family finances might send Brenda back into the workforce. Again, she wished there was something she could do.

Sylvia would have known exactly what to do. She would have shown up at Cathy’s doorstep at the perfect time, would have known when to hug and when to speak and when to be quiet. She would have known whether to cook a meal or call on the phone or send a note.

And she wouldn’t have spent a moment wondering if she was doing all the wrong things. She would have known that it wasn’t about her.

Tory was still learning, but she would have given almost anything to have Sylvia still here to teach her.

And the first thing Sylvia would tell her was that she didn’t need to borrow trouble from the neighbors up the street, because she had enough of her own.

The physical therapist was on her way over for a rare Sunday visit, since she was going to be out of town the next day and couldn’t come to work with Hannah. Every visit carried potential for progress, and Tory took it seriously, each time praying and hoping that Hannah would have a victory on that day.

Tory moved from her rocking chair to the floor of her porch, and bent down until she was face-to-face with her daughter. “Today’s the day you’re gonna sit up for her, isn’t it, Hannah? We’re going to surprise Melissa and show her what a big girl you are. That you’re very high functioning.”

Hannah smiled and shoved her fist into her mouth. Tory ran her thumb along the baby’s chin.

“What if Mommy let you go, and you had to sit up by yourself? What if I did that?” She asked the questions in a soft, teasing voice, and Hannah’s eyes locked onto hers.

Tory opened her fingers and started to let her go, but Hannah fell back and let out a wail. Tory caught her and scooped her up. “It’s okay,” she whispered, angry at her own disappointment.

“What’samatter with her?” Spencer yelled from the street. He abandoned his little bike with a clatter and stepped through the impatiens to get to the porch.

“Spencer, use the steps, not the garden,” Tory said. “She was trying to sit up but she fell over. It scared her. No big deal.”

But it was a big deal to Tory. She told herself that it didn’t matter, that she’d had no reason to think Hannah would be able to hold herself up this time.

Spencer’s friend, Andy Holloway, dropped his bike with a crash on the sidewalk and clomped up the steps.

“How come she’s so scared?” he asked. “My brother’s walking and climbing now.”

She looked down at the boy whose mother had been pregnant at the same time as Tory. His brother had been born two months after Hannah.

“Babies develop at different rates,” she said, as if that would mean anything to a six-year-old.

“Ain’t Hannah crawling yet?”

“Crawling?” Spencer shouted. “Duh. She’s not even sitting up yet. Her back’s not strong.”

Andy just stared at Hannah as if he didn’t understand, and Tory wanted to take her inside so she wouldn’t have to answer any more questions. But the child meant no harm.

“Miss Tory, how come Hannah doesn’t do nothing?”

She tried to smile. “Andy, Hannah does plenty. She’s just having a little trouble sitting up.”

“But my brother did that a long time ago, and he’s younger than her.”

“Not that much younger.” She was getting defensive now, and she reminded herself that he was a child.

“I know how to make her crawl,” he offered. “You put her down on her hands and knees and rock her back and forth. Want me to show you?”

She swallowed back the retorts that came to her mind, retorts that she might have given to an older person who wouldn’t leave her alone. “No, Andy, I don’t. Hannah’s got some problems with muscle tone, and her backbone isn’t as strong as your brother’s. She’ll sit up and crawl and walk when she’s ready. We just have to be patient.”

Andy considered her pensively again. “What if she doesn’t?”

Tory wanted to scream that she would, that she
had
to, that they still had every hope that Hannah would be one of the Down’s Syndrome children who was high functioning. The physical therapist had predicted that, as soon as she sat, other things would quickly follow.

She realized that her idea about sending the kids to the backyard was a good idea, and not for Cathy’s emotional state, but
her own. “Spencer, why don’t you take Andy and play in the sprinkler?”

Spencer let out a whoop and took off running around the house, wiping out the marigolds and periwinkles on his way. Andy forgot his concerns about Hannah and followed.

Tory went back to the rocking chair and leaned back with Hannah on her lap. Her heart ached for the baby…and for herself. “Please help her sit up today,” she whispered to God. “Please give us that.”

She saw the little yellow Volkswagen Beetle pulling into the cul de sac. The physical therapist, Melissa, putted up to the front of their house and, dodging Spencer’s bike, parked and cut the engine off.

Melissa, in her early twenties, had perky eyes and an expressive face that Hannah responded well to. Tory tried to point Hannah’s gaze to the car to see how long it took the child to recognize her visitor.

The young woman got out of the car and bounced up the yard. “Hi, Hannah!” she said in a voice dripping with baby delight.

Tory answered for the baby and made her wave. It didn’t yet appear that Hannah had recognized her.

“Thanks for letting me come on Sunday,” Melissa said.

“That’s okay,” Tory told her. “Hannah’s ready to work. I think she just might sit up today.” She turned her pleading eyes up to Melissa. “She just has to, doesn’t she? Soon?”

Melissa took Hannah from Tory’s arms and headed into the house. “We’ll see what we can do, won’t we, Hannah? But we don’t want to get our expectations too high.”

Tory followed them in and closed the front door behind them. Brittany was sitting at the kitchen table, drawing a cartoon picture of a puppy she had copied from a magazine. “See my puppy, Mommy?”

Tory muttered that it was nice, then went into the den where Melissa was setting up. “If you don’t expect anything, you won’t get anything,” Tory said. “I’ve always found that to be true.”

Melissa handed Hannah back and opened the mat they kept in the den for her work. She spread it out on the floor. “Well, with Down’s Syndrome, all the rules change.” She said it as though it was a little thing that wouldn’t affect Hannah’s entire future. Tory laid Hannah on the mat. The baby kicked her legs up at her. “Look how aware she is today,” Melissa said. “She knows me. Look at those smiling eyes.”

Hope fluttered back to life in Tory’s heart. “Really? I’m around her all the time, so sometimes I think it’s my imagination. Some of the babies at the school aren’t aware of anything yet. They just stare at their mothers without any real response. But Hannah seems pretty aware to me. Wouldn’t that indicate that she was high functioning?”

“High functioning is a relative term,” Melissa said. “Let’s just take one step at a time. How have her exercises been going this week?”

Tory’s heart sank again, on the downhill spiral of that roller coaster she rode. No one would tell her that Hannah was high functioning, primarily because they didn’t know. But Tory
needed
to know.

“They were fine,” she said.

She glanced out the back window and saw Spencer and Andy dancing in the water of the sprinkler, while Barry read the paper on the swing. She thought of Andy’s hurtful words about his own normal baby brother, who was developing the way babies were supposed to. She longed to see Hannah do some of those things…to pull up and climb and walk and run from her mother.

She longed to hear her talk. She longed to know that everything was going to be all right with the child.

But there were simply no guarantees in life.

Not about anything, it seemed.

Rain
set in with as much force as the depression in Cathy’s heart. She curled up on her bed, listening to it pound against the roof and the bare foundation behind her house, where they were supposed to build the addition—blending houses as they blended families.

But the house addition wasn’t a source of joy or excitement anymore.

The doorbell rang. It was probably Steve. She had promised to call him after her visit with her son. But Mark’s attitude had knocked the wind out of her.

She got up as the bell rang again, and went in sock feet to the door. She felt small, weak, as she opened it to let Steve in.

“Cathy, are you okay?” he asked.

“I couldn’t call you,” she said. “I was upset.” She looked around the house and realized how cluttered it was. Dishes filled the sink, and shoes littered the den. She didn’t know they had that many shoes.

“Did your visit with Mark upset you?”

She nodded, grabbed a wadded paper towel off the counter, and tossed it into the trash can. “It was awful. He told me he hated me. Doesn’t want to see me again.”

Steve’s face changed. “He said that? That he hated you?”

“He meant it, too,” Cathy said. She curled up on one end of the couch, her arms around her knees. “He does hate me. In his mind, I’ve let him down. I’ve betrayed him by making him plead guilty, and now he’s stuck there and I’m not doing a thing to get him out. But I’ve tried, Steve, and there’s nothing I can do.”

Steve sat down next to her and closed his hand over one sock foot. “He shouldn’t have talked to you that way.”

“Well, he did.” She looked curiously at him, noting the crinkles next to his eyes where laugh lines had carved character into his face. But those eyes looked angry now.

“I’ve felt sorry for him, and I’ve prayed for him,” he said. “I’ve lost sleep worrying about him. But I’ve got to tell you, I don’t like it when anybody treats you like that. He had no right.”

“He had every right,” she said, hugging her knees tighter. “I’m his mother. I’m supposed to be abused.”

“Actually, you’re not. And Mark needs to learn that his own frustration and discomfort aren’t grounds for disrespect. I can’t even imagine saying those things to my mother.”

“But you were raised by Mrs. Cleaver,” she said. “Why would you say it?”

“So you’re saying that you deserved it because you’re not Barbara Billingsley?”

“Well, let’s face it—”

“Cathy, you are a devoted mother, and if you don’t think so, it’s because you’ve been buying into Mark’s attitude. How dare he treat you that way after what he did!”

“He’s more concerned with what I did…or didn’t do.”

“Well, don’t let him throw stones at you.”

Sighing hard, she got up and went back to the kitchen. “This isn’t about me, Steve. It’s about him. I’m not real concerned with my feelings.”

Steve followed her. “That’s
because
you’re a good mother. But look at you. You’re a wreck. He has no right to put you through this.”

“I’d like to see what kind of shape you’d be in if Tracy was taken away from you and locked up for a year. You wouldn’t be trying to make a point about disrespect. You’d be wringing your heart out.”

“I’d be in terrible shape,” he agreed. “I’d be just like you. But I guarantee you she wouldn’t talk to me like that.”

It was the same old argument they’d had many times over the past year. He always thought her children were disrespectful. He tried to defend her, only to make her feel more torn apart. Nothing new.

“You know, I really can’t deal with this right now,” she said, “and since you and I have called off the wedding, there’s no use in you trying to change my kids now. This is not the time. I’m trying to deal with a crisis in my family, and I don’t need your criticism about my parenting skills. I’ve had enough of it. I’ve given
myself
enough of it all night.”

“I’m not criticizing you,” he said. “I’m criticizing Mark. I think you need to nip this in the bud early, let him know that your visits are a privilege, and if he can’t treat them like that, you won’t come.”

“No, I will
not
do that,” she said. “I’m going to be there for him if it kills me. The state is teaching him about disrespect and rebellion. He’s locked up in jail for a year. What do you want from me?”

He stood quietly for a moment, then got up and came around the counter and took her hands in his. “What do I want from you?” he repeated. “How about a smile? I want to see joy back in your face again. I want to hear that laughter that lights up my heart.”

She didn’t want him to be soft and sweet. She wanted to lash out. She needed to be angry. But his fingers came up to caress her face. “I love you, Cathy, and for the rest of my life I’m going to defend you from any unnecessary pain.”

“I don’t need defending from my son. He’s upset, okay? Give him a break.”

“I’m not trying to bully you, Cathy. I’m not trying to force you to do anything you don’t want to do with your children. But I take it real personally when you’re mistreated.”

“And I love them and take it real personally when you try to stifle my maternal instincts. I have to be free to love them the way I need to. The balance is off here. You’re not Mark’s father. You didn’t change his diaper when he was little, or hear him say his first word. You don’t have that image that I have in my mind…of him chewing on a biscuit when he took his first step. One hand clutching that piece of biscuit like it was holding him up, crumbs all over his face, curly hair flopping all over his head…” She choked off the words and swallowed. “You can’t love him as if you were there. You never will. So how can you tell me how to treat him? How can you know what he needs?”

He backed away, slid his hands into his pockets. “You make it sound so impossible.”

“It is impossible. I mean, isn’t it?”

“No. I think with God’s help we can be a family. Nothing is impossible with God.”

“You say that so confidently, until the first time I criticize Tracy and tell you to do something that contradicts your parenting instincts. And then you’ll be torn between keeping peace with me and loving her the way you need to.”

“I’m not trying to get in your way, Cathy. I just want to be your protector.”

“I don’t want protection,” she said. “I just want to have the freedom to bless my children. Like you want the freedom to bless yours.”

“Okay,” he said. “I’m sorry I said anything.”

“I’m sorry you did, too.”

That guarded look returned to his eyes, and he went to the door, opened it, and gazed through the screen door into the rain.

“I’ve got to get on back to Tracy,” he said quietly. “I left her playing at Shelly’s house. I just wanted to see if you were okay.
I’ll call when I get her to bed. And I was thinking about going to visit Mark myself Wednesday.”

“Steve, please don’t give him more to be upset about. If there’s ever any hope for us, I want you to build a relationship with him, not make a bigger rift.”

He looked helpless as he stood at the door. “I want to help you, Cathy. I just don’t know how. I want to be there for you and comfort you, and I also want to be there for your kids, all three of them. And that means going to visit Mark and doing what I can while he’s in there. He’s not a lost cause, Cathy. You can’t give up on him.”

“
Me
give up on him?” she asked. “What makes you think
I’ve
given up on him?”

“I think if you start letting him get away with everything, you’re giving up on him. Acting as if it’s too late to change anything about him. You’ve got a captive audience there, Cathy. Use it.”

As she heard his car pulling out, she plopped on the couch and stared at the door. She hoped that, when he went to see Mark, nothing erupted. She didn’t know how much more Mark could take. And frankly, she didn’t know how much more she could take, either.

The old axiom that this, too, would pass seemed unlikely. She was locked here in this nightmare that was destined to go on, and there wasn’t a thing she could do to stop or change it.