by Laura Zigman
* * *
Before I know it he has texted work to tell them he won’t be in until early afternoon, and we’re in the car, driving to Morningside Montessori. When I suggest we call ahead to make sure Grace and Mr. Noah can see us, he shakes his head no. He doesn’t want them to know we’re coming. He wants this to be a surprise attack.
When we arrive, we park in the temporary zone, punch in the security code at the front door—#thechild*—then head straight for the main office. We see Grace through the glass, dropping a swollen tea bag into a countertop composting container shaped like a miniature curbside city trash can. Before she can stir in her agave, we are through that door, too, and at the sign-in counter.
Gary waves in an exaggerated Broadway pantomime of a customer trying to get attention in a crowded department store. If there were an old-fashioned metal bell on the counter, he would slap it for service. Grace turns and blanches at the sight of us. Her eyes dart around the office, trying to gauge how she can possibly escape, given that no one is there to save her, but before she can come up with anything to say, Gary is pointing to her office. “We need a word. Now, please.”
She stammers, starts to say that she has class, that we should have made an appointment, that her day is very very busy, but Gary isn’t interested. “Tell that to the lawyer I’ll call if you don’t stop harassing my son.” He points at his phone, but he is holding it upside down and backward. It might as well be a toy.
She hisses, then turns toward Mr. Noah’s office. She unlocks the door with a key she wears on a lanyard around her neck and lets us both in first, and we take seats across from the antique oak desk piled high with books and potted plants.
Last time we were here—two years ago—it was because Ms. Marjory had complained not about Teddy but about Gary, who had gotten agitated during our parent-teacher conference when he realized that Teddy’s handwriting was so illegible it wasn’t clear that he actually knew how to write. The excuses she gave—that many boys have a delayed ability to properly grasp a pencil, that she and the other teachers were focusing on other more important skills Teddy needed to develop instead of on his handwriting—all true—only made Gary more incensed. “Seriously? What could possibly be more important than handwriting?” he’d said. “Who cares about the art and customs of Peru if he can barely write his name!”
I don’t remember if that’s when Ms. Marjory stood and asked us to leave and then started to cry, or if she started to cry first and then asked us to leave, but either way, we were asked to leave our parent-teacher conference, a first for me, and something completely inconceivable. Gary initially refused to go, ignored me gently tugging at his sleeve to try to contain things before they got worse. Escalation is always a possibility. Even though the teacher was in tears, there had been no swearing, no name-calling, no threats of legal action from our side of the table. It was still relatively civilized. But then she had to go and call the main office from a little ancient-looking intercom system on the wall, and tell them that she was having a problem with two parents in the upper school science room. The custodian, Ms. JoJo, almost as tall as Gary, was dispatched, and when she arrived she somewhat apologetically asked us if we would come downstairs with her. We followed without incident and were deposited in Mr. Noah’s office, where we were told, in no uncertain terms, that Morningside Montessori was a place of peace, and that if we couldn’t conduct ourselves calmly and with respect for staff, we would have to find another place for Teddy.
I remember apologizing immediately and profusely, assuring Mr. Noah that it would never happen again, that we were just upset because we wanted the best for Teddy, and wanting the best for him included him being able to master certain basic life skills, like handwriting, as old-fashioned and uptight as that might seem. I was vaguely aware of Gary’s rising anger as I fell on the sword, but he said nothing until we got to the car, where he told me how appalled and hurt he was that I’d sold him out. Worse than that, he said, was that I’d sold Teddy out. “There I am fighting for him and you totally caved. How could you have such divided loyalty? Whose side are you on?!”
I don’t make that same mistake today. I’m 100 percent Team Teddy. I don’t say a word of disagreement when Gary calmly but clearly tells Grace that Teddy is not the Secret Pooper, and that any further implication that he is—the mere whiff of suspicion during the day at school—will bring the hammer down in the form of legal action. “And who wants that?”
“No one,” Grace says, as if reading a hostage script.
“So we’re clear,” Gary closes.
“Quite clear.”
“You’ll leave our son alone.”
I glare at her over the dog’s head, jutting out of the sling, reveling in defying her don’t-bring-the-dog-to-school rule. “He’s not the Pooper.”
Grace glares back. “If you say so.”
Gary bristles at her tone. “Unless you want Judy and me to call the other middle school parents, tell them what’s going on and see what they think.”
I nod. “Maybe a meeting at the school would be good. Coffee and doughnuts. Chairs in a circle. A Facebook group and a social media hashtag. To give us a way to air our concerns and share information.”
Gary nods now, too. “Maybe bring in a shrink to explain what’s going on. Invite the board.”
But that won’t be necessary. Grace now looks stricken. She’s heard us. She’ll leave Teddy alone.
* * *
After I drop Gary at work, I drive over to visit Glenn. How is it possible that almost a week has gone by since my last visit? With no recent doctor appointments and an email over the weekend that said she was set and didn’t need any groceries, we’d taken that tiny bit of breathing room and accidentally gotten totally consumed by our own lives again. She hasn’t even seen my braces, and she has no idea what’s been going on with Gary and with Teddy, so I’m actually excited to fill her in, though I’m always afraid it’s tone deaf for me to prattle on about the mundane details of my daily life when she’s living in a parallel universe of illness. Aren’t there more important things to talk about than orthodontia and private school politics?
But when I get to her house and let myself in with her key and head upstairs to her room, she looks so tired and thin that I’m too shocked to speak.
“I know,” she says, tiny from her bed against all the pillows. “I look terrible.”
“No you don’t.” I play with the car keys still in my hands.
“I love that you’re lying to me. Even though you promised you never would.”
“I’m not lying,” I lie again.
“You are—otherwise you’d look at me.”
I raise my eyes up. “Did I promise you that?”
“No. I was just trying to see if you were paying attention.”
My eyes fill with tears and I sit down on the edge of the bed. “I’m paying attention.”
She reaches for my hand and squeezes it. “I know you are.”
We sit quietly for a few minutes, neither of us wanting to talk about the most obvious topic—the fact that she is truly in decline now; that her condition will not improve, or reverse itself, or stop. Until it stops. Even though I’ve known since the beginning that this terrible part was looming, I’m still shocked. Realizing that we’ve arrived at this final stage comes as a total body blow.
“We have to talk about this. We have to make a plan.” I can barely get the words out because I don’t want to talk about this and I don’t want to make a fucking plan.
“I know, but not now.”
I’m about to push her and say, When? If not now, then when? But before I can get my lips to move she deftly changes the subject.
“What’s bothering you besides me?”
I close my eyes. I want to say something; instead, I start to sob—a controlled heaving. But the last thing Glenn needs is for me to fall apart, so I quickly pull myself together and tell her that somebody’s been pooping at the school. On the floor in front of the
middle school bathroom. I wipe my eyes and nose and take a deep breath. “They think it’s Teddy. And he’s getting so stressed about it that he’s starting to worry that he’s turning into Gary. Which he’s not, but still.”
“Fuckers,” Glenn manages to whisper.
I tell her about earlier, how we put the fear of God into Grace, how I think that took care of it. “But something’s not adding up,” I say, sitting up now. “How, with a classroom full of kids down the hall, does this Secret Pooper—that’s my nickname for him—manage to defecate onto the floor essentially on command—then leave as quickly and as quietly as he arrived? It seems impossible.” I look at her bedside table, all the pills lined up, all the half-finished glasses of water.
She rolls her eyes, readjusts the pillow behind her head. “You need to set up a remote camera. Catch them in the act.”
“Isn’t that illegal?”
She closes her eyes. “Who cares. It’s your kid.”
“So if the Pooper isn’t pooping in real time,” I say, thinking out loud, “it means they’re doing it elsewhere and staging the scene at school. I think I saw something like this on Dateline once, only it wasn’t poop but some other kind of DNA, and it wasn’t a pooper, it was a killer.”
“Maybe they’re transporting it. Doing it at home when they have time, and then bringing it to school.”
I stare at her. “In what?”
“In some kind of container. Plastic. Glass. Anything.”
I shiver at the premeditation of such an outlandish theory. Especially at the notion that someone—a kid—could be troubled or angry enough to do something this intentionally devious. The more I think about it, the less I believe it’s a student. “I think it’s a teacher.”
Glenn shrugs, then closes her eyes. I can see that she’s had enough for today. I cover her with the blanket, clear away the glasses, and return with fresh water so she can take her pills. I watch as she struggles to sit up, swallow each mouthful of water, and breathe when she’s finished.
“I wish I didn’t have to leave,” I say. “And the next few days are going to be crazy with Inhabitancy.”
“It’s okay. I’ve got someone coming at the end of the week.”
“A night nurse?” Which is one of the things I know we’ll have to talk about—increasing from the web of daily friend-helpers to professional overnight home health aides.
“No. Daisy.” Her niece. “She’ll stay for the duration.”
My stomach drops. “Already?”
She takes my hand. “It’s time.”
* * *
But it’s not time. I can’t stop thinking about that all the way home. It’s not time. Glenn is only sixty, just ten years older than me. She should be walking laps around the reservoir with Lucy and Charlotte and me while I convince her to try Tinder to give love another chance. She should be coming over for dinner, yelling at Gary to chill when she arrives almost an hour late even though she lives only ten minutes away. She should be here to see Teddy go to high school and college and fall in love. We should have years ahead of us, not weeks.
Dusk is already falling as I make my way along the narrow tree-lined streets between her house and ours the way I have so many times before; weaving in between parked cars and bikes and parents with strollers, all heading home after a long day; the maples already bare and naked, having dropped their leaves weeks ago in piles still waiting to be raked. But this doesn’t feel like all those other times because it’s not. It’s the beginning of another end. Before I know it, before I’m ready, Glenn will be gone, too, and to avoid the pain of memory, I’ll avoid this route, this way home, this reminder of this day and this moment leading up to this loss. The streets already seem unrecognizable. Soon they will feel as foreign to me as a moonscape. Grief obliterates the present, forcing you to relive the past and dread the future.
It takes me a few seconds to realize that I’ve passed my street by several sets of lights, and when I do, I remember that I need to stop and pick up something for dinner—something soft enough for me to eat with my braces, something that Teddy likes, too—so I just keep driving. When I get to Trader Joe’s I park in the lot, grab a hand basket on the way in, and avert my eyes to avoid my reflection in the automatic doors the way I always do.
I can’t remember when I stopped looking at myself, when my face and body, once narrow and all sharp angles and dark shadows in tight pants and short skirts, filled and rounded with age; when I became unrecognizable to myself and invisible in the world. For years I’ve secretly loved the anonymity, the invisibility, the freedom to move around without the annoyance of comments, of worrying about what I look like and what it means. Most of the time, no one even notices that I’m there. I’m just a shapeless blur, floating down a sidewalk or into a store, with a child beside me or a dog in front of me. A few months ago I left my hair salon wearing a clear plastic shower cap over my head because I didn’t want the bad weather to ruin my blow-out. The girl at the front desk laughed as I stepped out into the rain, shocked that I would walk all the way home like that. But I couldn’t have cared less. Because I knew it didn’t matter, that not a single person would look at me. And not a single one did.
Today is no different. I scan the supermarket aisles in search of avocados, nuts, and bananas. I stop and close my eyes when I get to the frozen Indian food, trying to remember what I’m wearing today, like a party trick. Is it pants? A skirt and Uggs? A sweater or a zip-up fleece? Except for the dog hanging from me, I have no clue what I have on, what I look like. A strange thrill runs through me—I’ve escaped myself for another day—until I open my eyes and force myself to look down: baby-pink flared cropped cords, a black long-sleeve scoop-neck thermal, flip-flops, even though it’s far too cold for them. I don’t even remember getting dressed today.
In line, I wait for the cashier in the store’s signature Hawaiian shirt to chat up the young woman ahead of me. Every time he picks up one of her items to scan he comments on it—he loves the Brie; the garlic naan is awesome; who could get enough of these new chocolate-covered frozen bananas. The comments continue as he bags up her groceries, smiling and joking and coming out from behind his little station to personally hand her both bags. Maximum customer service. “Nice to see you. Have a great day.”
It’s my turn now. Once she’s gone he returns to his register, reaches into my basket, which I’ve helpfully started to empty myself to save him time, though he doesn’t seem to notice. He doesn’t say a word. He’s all business. Except for a quick glance at the clock and at the line behind me, he doesn’t look up. Even the dog doesn’t get his attention. We’re completely invisible.
I could let it go. But today, for some reason, it bothers me that he doesn’t see me. It bothers me that I’m here but not here. I flash my braces at him and ask what he thinks of the boxes of frozen saag paneer and butter chicken that I’ve so carefully selected because they will be soft enough for my adult braces, while also the only frozen food my husband and son will agree to eat, but he ignores me. I’m just a weird mom-lady holding up his line. When he reaches for the bananas, I grab his hand midway. “You had opinions about all her items,” I say, pointing toward the parking lot, even though the young woman is already long gone. “Why don’t you have anything to say about mine? Cat got your tongue?”
He looks down at his hand, which I’m still grabbing, and then up at my face. I realize I’ve said the quiet part out loud, in the same angry, creepy, grieving animal growl that came out in Vermont at Sari’s—and that I’ve scared him. Before I can explain, or apologize, the dog starts barking. The cashier reaches for the bell above his head with his free hand. Before the ringing stops and the manager arrives to see what the problem is, I’ve dropped the basket and run back to my car while everyone in the store and everyone in the parking lot is looking at me. Finally I have their full attention.
Family-Style
We’re having dinner the night before the big night—the Spotlight performance—and I’ve ma
de a big pot of chili, all meat, no beans, to try to make up for unwittingly forcing the People Puppets to eat vegan the weekend when we went to Vermont. Sitting around the table, passing salad and chips and small bowls of sour cream and shredded cheese and guacamole, talking about school—the kids and the teachers—and the news—I marvel at the scene in front of me. It’s like we’re a big noisy weird family, the kind I always wished for but didn’t come from. Teddy is sitting next to Nick, talking and laughing. Even the dog, who is roaming free under the table and around all our legs, sniffing for scraps, seems unusually relaxed. Of course, I need to ruin it all.
“So tell us about the Spotlight!” I ask the People Puppets. We haven’t been together in weeks: I need details.
“What about it?” Nick says.
“Anything!” I say.
Phoebe laughs nervously and so does Nick. “It’s a surprise!” they both blurt at the exact same time.
“Really? Is this a new thing? Embargoing news about the performance program?”
“I’m not sure,” Nick says. “It’s our first year doing this, but Grace says it’s traditional to keep the parents in the dark until the big night. The collaborative work the kids do with the visiting artists is supposed to be kind of a sacred surprise.”
Grace. “A sacred surprise. That sure sounds ominous!”
“Does it?” Nick asks.
“It’s always this way, Mom,” Teddy says, nodding at Nick. “We prepare in secret for the big reveal when the parents come.”
Gary nods, too. “Didn’t they do this for Zirkus Schmirkus, our first Inhabitancy at Morningside, Judy? Teddy wouldn’t tell us if he would be swinging from a trapeze or getting shot out of a cannon. It was all hush-hush. As it turned out it was neither: just some somersaults and minor acrobatics on colored mats.”
“I was only eight!” Teddy says defensively, but he is smiling, beaming actually, in the center of the big table of food and people. He’s already helped himself to seconds and elbowing Nick to see if he wants more, too.