by Cara Wall
“What people?” Marcus asked incredulously.
“Everyone,” James said, pulling a piece of paper from the stationery shelf. “Everyone we know.” He started to draft a letter in his huge, impatient scrawl.
“What are we telling them?” Marcus asked.
“That we need money. That the state says if we fix up the space and pay the teachers, we can open.”
Marcus pulled down a piece of paper for himself.
They wrote their appeals, photocopied them, stuffed the envelopes, and put stamps on them. Then they waited.
TWENTY-THREE
While they waited, Marcus and Annelise fell in love. It happened one Wednesday afternoon, in the Barretts’ garden. Lily was there, and Nan, and the ministers were expected shortly. It was not a birthday or any other special occasion. It was simply a glorious day, and they had all decided it would be wasted if they went home alone. So Charles had called Lily and said, “Do we have any wine?”
“Miraculously, yes,” she said, “and steaks, too.”
And so a barbecue was decided upon, with Marcus sent for tomatoes, lettuce, olives, and cornichons for the salad. Nan and Lola brought a loaf of Italian bread from the bakery next to the park, the one with the blue awning.
It had been a good day. Annelise had spent two hours with Will, and when they emerged, Will was calm and looked at his mother when she said hello.
Lily stopped. “Did he look at me?” she asked Annelise.
Annelise, beaming, smiled. “Yes. And he looked at me three times.”
If Lily hadn’t known it would undo every bit of progress they had made, she would have hugged him.
Later, she greeted Marcus at the door, the Beach Boys on the radio behind her. Will had already gone to bed, but Bip was dancing in the living room.
Annelise was in the garden, setting the table. She was wearing a peasant blouse and a flowered skirt. She had sat a little too long in the sun, so her nose and shoulders were sunburned. When Marcus looked at her, all he saw was white and pink: the absolute opposite of the woman he thought he would love. But there it was.
Bip came out and pulled at Annelise’s skirt, kept her from noticing that Marcus could hardly breathe. Marcus managed to keep himself upright until she took Bip’s hand and said, “Let’s go get the silver.”
Then he said, to no one in particular, “I think I’d better sit down.”
“Marcus!” Nan cried. “You look awful. Are you sick?” He shook his head. Lily got him a glass of wine, half of which he drank in one gulp. He had just set his glass down when Annelise came back outside.
“Hello,” she said, extending her hand. “I’m Annelise.”
“I’m Marcus.” Annelise’s eyes were very blue and her face was very open.
“You’re very handsome,” she said. The blood came back to him in a rush, and he was suddenly overheated. He said nothing. He was trying very hard just to stay alive. He felt like a salmon flapping its way upstream.
James and Charles arrived and kissed their wives. James took Lola in his arms and started dancing with her. Charles turned Bip upside down, unleashing peals of laughter.
Annelise watched them. Marcus recognized that he should say something. “I hear Will is making progress,” he said.
“Enough that his mother can have a party.” Annelise smiled.
They sat at different ends of the table through dinner. Marcus tried to pull himself together. He tried looking at Annelise, thinking that if he saw enough of her he would not feel so desperate to see more. Then he tried not looking at her, thinking that if he could break the spell her face had over him, he could forget her. But looking at her made her seem more beautiful, and not looking at her just made him more aware of her voice and the sheen of her hair. At the end of the evening, he took a deep breath, held it for a moment, and offered to walk her home.
“But I live here,” Annelise said, “downstairs.”
“Then can I walk you somewhere else so I can walk you home?”
They walked through the Village, past the old Italian coffee shops, past the street musicians, past the chess stores’ windows stacked with hand-carved pieces. They talked about their families, their friends, their favorite music, their schools, the war. They talked about Will and boys like Will.
“Well, that’s that,” Annelise said when he dropped her off at home.
It was obvious to everyone what was going on.
“I’m in love with a white woman,” Marcus said to the ministers the next day. “I’m going to be disowned.”
“Does it matter?” Charles asked.
Marcus thought for a moment. “No.”
Annelise asked Lily, “Do you think it will really be so much trouble? Do you think we will really find it very hard?”
Lily said, “Yes. Yes, I do.”
“But that’s awful,” Annelise said. “And I don’t care.”
Lily took her hand. “That’s exactly how I feel, Annelise, about Will. It’s just awful, and I don’t care.”
“Is it worth it?” Annelise asked.
“I don’t know,” Lily said. “But what else are you going to do?”
James asked Annelise to come to his office. She arrived in a white crocheted shirt and jeans with multicolored patches on the knees.
“I’m starting a school,” he said, pulling out a chair for her. “For kids like Will.” He sat behind his desk, opened a green file folder, and passed it to her. “This is what I think we’ll need.”
Annelise opened the folder on her lap, bent her head to read. Her hair fell down around her face, and she followed the words with a finger.
“This isn’t enough,” she said, looking up and pulling her hair back with one hand. Her cheeks were flushed. “You’ll need one teacher per child, I think—at least for the really young kids. Maybe one teacher for two when they’re older. And you’ll need enough toys so they don’t have to share, and you’ll need more equipment.”
For one moment, James faltered. One teacher for each child; he had not asked for enough money. One teacher for each child; they did not have enough space.
Annelise looked at him, her eyes as blue as a lake. “You’re overwhelmed,” she said.
“Indeed, I am.”
“That’s all right,” Annelise told him. “It’s only because you’re trying to do it so fast, and all on your own.”
“I need more money,” he said simply. “I don’t know who else to ask.”
She nodded. “I do,” she said. “You can apply for grants, if you’re willing to have scientists in the classroom. And of course, some of the parents who will want their children to come can pay their own way.”
She said it so plainly that James was too embarrassed to admit he had forgotten that not everyone who needed help needed it to be free.
Annelise was looking at him steadily, so he looked back at her. “You have to realize that it takes time,” she said. “Everything with these children takes time. Everything that happens in the whole world takes time, even if it seems to happen in an instant.”
He was silent for a moment. Then he said, “If I can make this happen, I want you to be the principal.”
Annelise stared at him. He had a feeling it was as unusual for her to be struck silent as it was for him. “You’ll have to get certified,” he told her. “In Special Ed.”
Annelise clutched the folder to her chest. “I’ll do whatever I have to do.”
“You have to keep it a surprise,” James said. “At least from Charles. I don’t want to tell him until I absolutely know it’s going to go through.”
Annelise walked around the block six times before she went back to the brownstone, trying to stifle her good mood. When she went in, Lily was at the kitchen table folding laundry. She narrowed her eyes at Annelise.
“Why are you so bubbly?” Lily asked, picking up a pair of jeans and snapping them to force out the wrinkles.
“I think you should have another baby,” Annelise said.
“Are you crazy?” Lily answered. She pushed the stacks of laundry to the side of the table and pulled another chaotic mound toward her.
“Maybe,” Annelise said, taking up a spot at the table across from Lily, picking socks from the pile and folding them together. “But I’ve been thinking. The thing that so upsets you about Will is that you think he’s the last. You think it will be Bip and Will, and that your lives will be divided: one normal, one different, that you will have to turn yourself around and around to speak to both of them. What if you had another? What if you had a triangle instead of a straight line? A pentagon instead of a square?”
“What if the new one’s just like Will?”
“Then he wouldn’t be so different. He wouldn’t be alone. Then we’d know twice as much about him.”
Lily thought of two transistor radios, and not enough hands to hold and tune them at the same time.
“Just think about it,” Annelise said. “What if you had a girl?”
What if they had a girl, Lily thought, and then stopped herself. It would be like trying to make up for Will. It would be like trying to prove they could do better. She would not consider it. A baby would be agony for Will, the cries would hurt his ears, the smells would offend his nose. And she would never trust him to hold the baby, never want to leave the two of them alone.
“What’s the matter with you?” Lily asked.
Annelise took a deep breath and smiled.
“Don’t tell Charles, but James wants to start a school.”
“What?”
“James wants to start a school for kids like Will. In the church, except it will be a public school, eventually.”
“Who’s going to pay for it?”
“You,” Annelise said. “You’re going to spend every last cent you have on it because it’s a school. The school to which you are going to send Will.”
Will might go to school. He might go to school and he might have friends. Well, maybe not friends. But he would have peers. And Lily would have people who understood her. She felt herself start to cry. She felt the tears pool wet against her eyelashes. She looked at Annelise.
“What about you?” she asked, feeling the tears start to roll down her cheeks like marbles.
“Oh! Yes!” Annelise clapped her hands. “I forgot. You won’t have to pay for me anymore, because I’m going to teach there,” she said. “I’m going to run it.”
“You’re going to leave?”
“No!” Annelise said, rushing around the table to stand beside her. “I’m still going to live here, in your basement. If you’ll let me, I mean. You’ll let me, right?”
Lily nodded.
It had been hard for James not to ruin the surprise. Sometimes he felt he should; it might jar Charles out of his limbo. Though Charles had returned to office hours and some services, he had not preached since the day he had spoken about Will. James missed him. They no longer puzzled over sermons together or sighed about disgruntled parishioners or discussed their lives in any meaningful way. This made James hollow with sadness, which he wanted to counter with good news. But it was easier for him to build while Charles was distracted. It hadn’t been a lot of work—they hadn’t had to knock down walls or replace windows, but there had been cleaners and painters and deliverymen in the church for weeks. It had been easy to encourage Charles to spend more time at home.
Then, finally, it was done. James waited outside for Charles to arrive.
“I have something to show you,” James said. Charles looked at him warily.
“All right,” he said.
James led the way to the elevator. They rode in it without speaking, looking straight ahead at the quilted metal door. James hoped Charles would not feel grateful, would not turn to him with abject thankfulness in his eyes. And he hoped Charles would not be offended, would not feel like James was interfering in his personal life.
“I hope this is okay,” James said when the elevator door opened. They stepped out onto the fourth-floor landing. The old tiles had been covered with blue speckled linoleum. The new doors had windows in them and round metal handles.
“What’s this?” Charles asked, walking forward, then turning to James.
“It’s a school,” James said. Taking a set of keys out of his pocket, he went to the farthest door from them and unlocked it. He pushed the door open, leaned against it, gestured Charles inside. “This is the physical therapy room,” he said.
It was the sunniest room on the floor. Even as dusk fell outside, the space felt open; from every window Charles could see the sky. The floor he stood on was covered in blue felt carpet. To his left was a pile of blue padded gym mats, folded to the ceiling. In the corner was a bucket of red balls. To his right was what he could only call a contraption: an indoor hammock, it looked like, a metal stand suspending a full-body-sized sling. There were pictures on all the walls, simple figure drawings of children doing things. One picture read: pull down a mat. Two: unfold it. Three: sit down.
“These look like the pictures Annelise draws for Will,” Charles said, turning to James once again.
“Annelise drew them,” James said, still leaning against the door. “For this school.” Charles looked at him, puzzled.
“It’s a school for Will, Charles. It’s a school for autistic children. We have a boy from Brooklyn enrolled, and a boy from Marcus’s church. Will would make three, if you want him to come.”
Charles did not answer, just looked around the room, his arms by his sides.
“It will be a public school,” James said. “It will be open to anyone who wants to attend. Open to any parent who is trying to raise their child at home, who doesn’t want to send him away.” James’s throat tightened as he said this. He understood, now, what it would mean to send a child away.
“How did you get it done?” Charles asked without looking at him, his voice heavy and high.
“The congregation,” James told him. “Marcus and I sent a letter, and I think everyone replied. I think everyone sent money. I think we finally found the cause behind which they can all unite.”
Charles still did not look at him. James understood. He understood that, in this moment, the gesture felt like charity. He understood that Charles felt he was receiving special favors, that people had taken pity on him, had seen his life and felt sorry for it. He understood that, in light of all that had happened, it might be too much for Charles to bear.
But he also knew that Charles would come around.
James and Nan asked Charles to officiate Lola’s christening. They were not sure he would agree. He was not yet fully himself. The gift of the school had overwhelmed him. He had tried to write a sermon about it; he felt his congregation deserved a full expression of his gratitude. He knew an offering of such devotion should be enough to inspire him back into the pulpit, but he could not climb the stairs. He was not yet sure if it was because he felt like a fraud or a failure or both. He thanked them in the prayers, with affection and respect, but his voice was not as strong as it could have been and did not fill the church with certainty. He was afraid he would sound the same way at the christening. He knew Nan and James wanted him to say a few words, and he had no idea what those might be. For most baptisms, he relied on the Book of Common Worship, which had quite enough pomp and circumstance for most parents. But this was not a common baptism. Nan and James had decided not to hold it in front of the entire congregation, because they wanted Will to be able to attend. Charles wanted to bless their child in the usual, wholehearted way. So, despite his hesitation, he agreed.
Nan’s father harrumphed, but her mother said, “You’re already her grandfather. That’s enough responsibility for one day.”
Charles was nervous that Will would protest, that on the day he would not get dressed, not leave his room, but Annelise practiced with Will in the church for a month, so he could get used to the space. He would have his own pew, where he could rock back and forth through the ceremony, if he needed to, and for his sake there would be no m
usic.
The day came. Outside, it was bright and sunny. Charles, Lily, Bip, and Will walked to the church together. This, in itself, was a miracle. He had been afraid he would have to scoop Will up, carry him under his arm, listen to him cry the whole way. Instead, Will walked straight up the block, stepping over the cracks, calm as Charles had ever seen him.
He left Lily and the boys at the church door and went into his dressing room to robe. He had told James not to check on him, to just enjoy the morning with his family and arrive like any other member of the congregation—a little bit late and in an ordinary suit and tie.
When Charles walked into the sanctuary, the little group was already circled around the baptismal font. It was the most ornate decoration in the church, carved from one piece of Carrara marble, cherubs and lambs on every side. It was positioned in front of the first pew on the right, in which Will sat pressed in the corner, knees to his chest, staring at his shoe. Bip was in the pew behind, running a toy car across its wooden ledge as quietly as he had been told to. The adults stood behind James and Nan, all in festive dresses and ties. Lola wore a knitted gown.
Charles was used to this moment at the beginning of each service, when the church was electric. He was used to waiting, to prolonging the moment until the church settled, the air descended, and everyone became completely still. But it had been a long time since he had stood alone at the altar.
At one point in his life, Charles would have considered this a moment of possibility, the beginning of a child’s life inviting others to renew themselves as well. But he was not sure, now, that he believed in infinite possibility. It was not possible his son would become normal, or that his wife would be the same woman she once was, or that this tiny child in front of him would definitely come to believe in God. He had once tried to inspire people to believe. Now he knew that people believed or did not believe. It was not he who did the convincing.
“Dearly beloved,” he began. They were the words that started weddings, not baptisms, but the people in the church were his beloved, so dear that as he spoke his heart and throat grew tight. He loved every person in this church more than he would have ever thought possible, loved them not with the automatic love of childhood or the easy love of coincidence, but with the tautly stitched love of people who have faced uncertainty together, who have stuck it out, the strong love of people who looked to their side while suffering and saw the other there. Together, they would send all of these young people out into a world they knew was full of injury and hard to bear. Somehow, they would wave and wish them well and have faith that they would avoid the worst of the darkness, live mostly in the light.