The Things I Want Most (27 page)

The three of us tried to sort this out. There was a special relationship between mike and his sister—not overtly affectionate, but rather, based on shared secrets. In a very counterproductive
way the sister might only be trying to perpetuate a role she had assumed many years ago, and although it was very difficult to ferret out the details of what actually had occurred in their biological home, it seemed that mike as an infant got something to eat only when his sister stole it for him, and the same seemed to be the case for any other sort of care or attention he received.

How could adults deal with that relationship? his sister might be the only person in the universe mike really trusted, and we certainly didn't want to touch that. But we couldn't reason with her, either: apparently she was just too angry about her own predicament.

Did Mike sense that he had pushed things far enough, for now, or did he know something we didn't? apparently one or the other, because the next day he surprised us by coming home from school and getting his homework done all by himself. Then he ate a good dinner and went outside around dark to play with the dogs on the back lawn in a warm misty rain, tumbling, slipping, sliding, laughing for an hour or more. Later he worked out with henry in the basement. Henry had set up a new bench press with butterfly-type workout bars and was spending an hour or so every night in there. This evening mike was allowed to join in. Later mike came in and told me he could now do a pull-up and was trying to do more. Good. The kid needed some sort of fitness goal.

But where had the anger gone?

It hadn't returned by morning, either, because in a complete surprise, he woke me up with a cup of coffee at 6:15. A number of days had passed since we had worked out that morning plan, and i was certain he'd let it go.

I was grateful—pathetically grateful.

April was almost over when henry came back from a trip to connecticut to take mike up to shawangunk, where they cycled the woods roads together until dark on their mountain bikes. All in all they covered four or five miles, and it was mike's first introduction to the wild, high little world where the five older boys grew up. Pretty rough country, the woods' roads overgrown and brambly, the forest mostly second-growth hardwood—oak, maple, and ash, with scattered clusters of virgin hemlock castling up like the forbidding old trees of mirkwood. Lots of rock and high little bogs where the seeps work their way through the terraces. Far back in there are the foundations of farms abandoned a hundred years ago. It's spooky and dark in some places where the canopy is high and all very wild. But very pretty, too, if you enjoy deep woods. They saw deer.

When they didn't turn up by nine i called susanne's house, and sure enough, they had stopped there on the way back. Susanne was baking cookies, and david let mike play with his samurai swords. Another thing not to tell harbour. I asked susanne to get them on their way so mike didn't get to bed real late—he was tough enough in the morning. They showed up at home about nine-thirty, ate dinner, and mike went to bed exhausted, muddy, and sunburned, around ten. Henry said mike's physical stamina was still deplorable, but that he was showing improvement.

“What did you two talk about?” i asked henry.

He shrugged. “about the only thing he
would
talk about— how much he hates his school.”

I walked in the door, and sue was sitting at the barroom table having a glass of wine.

“Is that an adult beverage i spy there? before dinner and not on a weekend and all alone?”

“Yes,” she said, smiling. “this is a special occasion.”

“What?”

“Joanne called. She said their report had an effect, as did apparently all of your bitching. Mike is being moved to a transitional classroom, a full day of schoolwork, grade-level subjects, and it looks like a normal classroom.”

I sat down with a thump. “did she ever tell you who their report was being made to?”

“No, she didn't, and i didn't ask, either, but i guess they have lawyers as well as therapists and social workers.”

“So they were on our side, after all?”

“Well,” sue smiled, “on mike's side. Harbour is all about being on mike's side.”

“And next year?”

Sue turned her hands up. “he'll be moving into the school district dragging that file of his behind, so i guess we'll have to fight this thing all over again.”

“Yeah, i guess so,” i said doubtfully

“But rich …”

“What?”

“I want to say something. “there was a dead, brittle seriousness in her eyes. “If we didn't get this break and he started up again, he would have had to go somewhere else. I was at the end of my rope. I just couldn't take living in a war zone any longer and was looking for a way to tell you. I've given one hundred ten percent of what i have in me. I don't think i have anything left, and there's no payback with this kid. In many ways—in most ways, in his mind—i don't think i'm any closer to being his mom than i was last summer. He's still calling us rich and sue, he's still just thinking of this as another placement.”

“That will change, sue.”

“Maybe.”

A long silence, and then i looked up. “where is he now?”

Sue pointed out the window. “I told him, he started crying, and then ran off toward the beaver pond.”

I looked out toward the beaver pond area. “It's still flooded over back there.”

“Oh, rich, don't worry. The dogs are with him.”

A week or so of work, morning walks up the mountain, a quiet Mike, and endlessly relaxed dinners. So relaxed, in fact, that Sue took off for a few days to visit her mother. I was alone on that first sunny Wednesday in May when Joanne picked Mike up from school, stopped at McDonald's, and then brought him home at about five-thirty.

Mike made his usual gracious entrance, banging in through the upstairs doors, but when Joanne accepted a cup of tea I could sense something was wrong—something out of sorts.

She was fussing.

“He's upset with his new class,” she said finally. “It's steady work from 9:00
A.M.
to 2:15, with only lunch and one fifteen-minute recess.”

“So?”

“So.” She grimaced lightly and then continued with that circumspect speech of hers, the words measured, thought out, and soft, “Mike didn't fully understand what he was asking for when he said he wanted to go to a regular class. He's never had to sit that long in one place, and so now when he keeps asking to go out and play, the other kids pick up on that and make fun of
him. Then he responds with inappropriate language, the teacher intervenes, and there's a scene.”

“We haven't heard any of that. It's been very quiet here.”

Joanne shrugged. “Well, that's what I got by putting together the little bits and pieces of what he told me this afternoon.”

“Making fun of him?”

“Every day. Apparently it's been going on every day, Rich. Every day since he began.”

I stood up and paced. “That's horrible.”

Joanne stretched and then sipped at her tea, but she was watching me carefully. “Rich, just how emotionally vulnerable are you two?”

Puzzled by this tack in her conversation, I could only state the obvious. “Mike's been a child in this house for eight months.”

“Well, be careful,” she said, nodding. “I don't think you can avoid becoming close, but you must remember that he can, and when he does things, it's not meant to hurt you or Sue; it's just how he deals with issues that aren't going well.”

Still puzzled and now a little bit put off, I said back slowly, “Well, yes, you've said all of that before.”

Then, starting to understand what she was saying, I sat down. “Joanne, are you telling me that Mike's going to start fighting with Sue and me again?”

She shrugged one shoulder and made a hapless face. “We may have made a big mistake in getting him out of that special-needs program, because sooner or later he's going to act out here in response to what's happening to him there.”

I looked down. This was all too sad. I thought the school issue had settled something in his life, in our life.

Why didn't he talk to us? Why didn't he just keep his mouth shut in class? And how would Sue react if he did start acting out again?

Joanne was reading my mind. “What about Sue?”

I blew out my breath and tried to think the issue through out loud. “A month or so ago I came home and found Sue crying facedown into her pillows. She won't go back to that. She'll never go back to that.”

“Too much pain,” Joanne said.

“Yeah, way too much pain or rejection or disappointment. Push comes to shove, Sue wants to mother Mike and was ready to give up when she couldn't.”

“But she didn't give up” Joanne said quietly.

“No,” I said, “she didn't, we didn't, but without some sort of gesture from Mike, I'm afraid she will pack it in if he starts smashing things again.”

“What sort of gesture does she want?”

“Anything—a word, a hug, any sort of gesture. Some one little act that acknowledges her role in his life.”

Joanne made a bleak gesture with her hands. “But again, that's the way these kids are.”

I shook my head helplessly. “And that's the way Sue is.”

Then, like dark little shreds of cloud that run before a storm, ominous changes began to occur in Mike's behavior. The first was the day after my conversation with Joanne when, with Sue still away, I cooked hamburgers for Liam, Mike, and me. When I walked out of the kitchen to call Liam, Mike walked in and fed Liam's dinner to the cat.

Difficult call. Was he wanting to pick a fight with Liam? With me? He'll often portion out some of his own dinner for the animals, hiding it in a napkin if we let him and then delivering it upstairs. There's no control on his part when it comes to the animals and I just gently said, “Wrong thing to do, Mike. Liam will be hungry,” Then I tried to lead into the subject of school. “How's your new class going?”

“Okay.”

“The teacher?”

“I like Mrs. Vandenburg,” he said slowly.

“The other children in your class?”

He almost spit the words. “The kids are stupid.”

The next day Mike wet his bed and was just a tad more difficult getting up in the morning. Then, early that afternoon, Sue arrived home. I briefed her on what Joanne had said, and both of us watched him get off the school bus.

“He
looks
okay.”

But a half hour or so later, when we had a talk with him about his schedule that night—he had to get his homework done before dinner because of a Boy Scout meeting—his response was all out of proportion: “I'm not going to that fucking Boy Scout meeting.”

Shortly after that little scene, Mike was blasting the TV in the living room when Henry had an incoming phone call. When Sue asked him to turn the TV off, a really tremendous scene ensued—screaming, kicking, “This is a free country; I can do what I want.” When Sue tried to get him out of the room, there was more kicking and screaming and, “You fucking asshole, you fucking bitch.” Outside he picked up a piece of cedar shingle and jabbed himself twice in the face by his left eye, yelling, screaming, threatening to run out on the road and throw himself in front of a car.

Later, he tried to act like nothing had happened and did his homework on his own after dinner.

Yet no Boy Scouts.

And Sue was awfully quiet.

Two days later he wet his bed and was very difficult to get up and into the shower. He raised his voice. “I'm tired. Why are you always getting me up? “Then he added something new: “I don't want to go to school.”

I told Sue, “I have to get him up earlier. He uses up so much time, the bus comes before he's eaten anything.”

“Sure,” she said, then just walked away.

The next day he was very difficult in the afternoon. He kicked a hole in the living room wall when neither of us was around, and when Sue asked him why, he screamed at her, “I hate you, you fucking bitch. I
hate
you. I hate
all
of you.”

But the day after was Saturday, and Mike went with me for a long ride, performing errands in the pickup truck. Along the way we got his favorite doughnuts and then several hours later stopped again, this time at Burger King for lunch. He appeared tired and listless, exhausted after his week, although later on that afternoon he perked up and helped me clear brush.

Sue and I tried to have a serious talk with Mike.

“Mike,” Sue said, her hands flat on the table, “you can't behave like this. It's entirely unacceptable. I know you're having problems at school, but there's little I or Rich or Mrs. Vandenburg can do about the other kids liking you or not liking you. This is something that only you control. You have to act pleasant and friendly, and if they make fun of you, then you have to just let it go, shrug it off, and not let it make you sick.”