When we finished the book, I made up a test for Blaze to take. It took me all of one morning to write a test with thirty-five multiple-choice questions. I labored over the questions, not wanting to make them too easy or too difficult. Who was Mercutio? I asked. When a character is speaking, alone on the stage, what is that called? What was Juliet’s family name? What metaphor did Romeo use to describe Juliet on the balcony?
It took Blaze ten minutes to run through the test by himself. He missed four questions. I decided to consider this a major success.
We finished Romeo and Juliet about a week ago. We’ve had to switch gears and I’m now in the process of trying to find another book that Blaze will like as much. He hasn’t come up with any suggestions so far and, in my drier moments, I’m inclined to lean toward Beckett or Camus.
The search for a new book is not the only dilemma I’ve been facing lately. I am starting to realize that Blaze will have to return to school before this year is over. Although my family has provided incredible support since Blaze left his school, their schedules are starting to conflict with the times they originally set aside to work with Blaze. My brother has just been offered a position as a long-term substitute teacher in another local middle school and is now busy all the time. Lavander is in the middle of closing on three different properties and is bouncing between cell phones and appointments. Maya has added several students to her roster and has started teaching a music program in an elementary school. Déja is auditioning for parts and working double shifts at her restaurant job. Even my father is flagging, plagued by a sprained back and general exhaustion. Blaze and I have been together, around the clock, without separation, for days. The hours I had set aside for my own work have now dwindled down to zero and I’m approaching panic mode over my ability to earn a living. In a very short while, this situation will move from being claustrophobic to destructive.
I have begun to understand too that I will never be able to educate Blaze at home without giving him the opportunity to mix with other children his own age. I can teach him every subject in the curriculum, but if he doesn’t get out there and get some sense of himself as an individual in society, he won’t know how to live in the world. The longer he stays with me, protected but isolated on our little island, the less chance he has to develop the skills he needs to function outside of his immediate family. For all my best intentions, I can’t teach him how to live in the world. I keep thinking that if I tried harder, had it more together myself, I’d be able to do this, but I don’t know how.
I talk to Dr. Jean on an almost daily basis now and I confide my fears to her.
“We will find a place for him,” she tells me. “There has to be a program in this district for him. And, really, we have to do this now because we’ve got to start thinking about high school.”
“High school?” I almost shriek. “I can’t think about high school now.”
“It’s less than two years away,” she says.
“I don’t think this kid can survive high school,” I tell her. “Not from what I’ve seen this year.”
“Try not to worry,” Dr. Jean says. “We will find something.”
I don’t share Dr. Jean’s optimism, but I cling to it nevertheless. I start preparing for another round of meetings at the two schools in the district that look like they might have a suitable program for Blaze.
For his part, Blaze is, amazingly, eager to return to school. He assures me that it was “that school” that was the problem and he is sure the next one will be better. Déja attended one of the two schools I am looking at and Blaze tells me that he wants to go there, that “you’ll see, Mom, it will be good at that school.”
Although I don’t want to pressure him, I feel I have to tell him that the next school he attends will probably be the last one if it doesn’t work out. If he can’t manage to get some basic classroom behaviors nailed, he will have to stay home with me forever.
“I’ve seen you work for me and Papa and everyone else,” I tell him. “You can do this if you put your mind to it, Blaze. And I will help you as much as I can.”
“I know, Mom,” he says. “I know you will.”
“We can’t go through what we went through at the beginning of this year again,” I tell him. “I can’t take it and neither can you. Do you understand me?”
“Yes,” he says. “Mom, can I tell you something?”
“What?”
“You’re the best mom I’ve ever had.”
Today we’re going to visit the Scripps Aquarium in La Jolla. Blaze has been looking forward to this outing for weeks. We’re going with Michelle, the mother of one of Maya’s violin students, and her two kids—Sabrina, six years old, and Terence, eight. Every Monday afternoon while Sabrina has her lesson in Maya’s room, Blaze and Terence play board games and toss things around Blaze’s room. They seem to have a good time. Blaze adores Terence. I’m not sure what Terence thinks of Blaze. He seems like a pretty serious kid but he enjoys making Blaze laugh.
Michelle, a woman of exceptional kindness and grace, has taken Blaze out before; once to see a movie over the Christmas vacation and once with Maya and her own kids to see a play. She’s the kind of mother I could never be. She works at her kids’ school, takes them to an astonishing variety of lessons (violin, piano, and baseball, to name just a few), plans elaborate educational outings, designs art projects, sends them to enrichment summer programs and on and on. I get tired just thinking about it. I’m a little envious of her and vaguely guilty that I’m not nearly selfless enough to expend the amount of energy she seems to have in abundance. Blaze is absolutely mad about Michelle and her entire family. I am convinced that he would find Michelle a perfectly acceptable mother were I not around, which I find highly amusing because, among her many virtues, Michelle is overwhelmingly normal.
Terence appears at the front door at the appointed time and we find out that Sabrina won’t be joining us for this adventure because she was badly behaved and is being punished for throwing a fit earlier in the day. Blaze is fascinated and wants to know all the details. What did she do? How long is she going to be punished? Who is with her? Is she alone at home? Michelle explains that her dad is there with her and he’s the one who decided she should be punished in the first place. Sabrina’s dad doesn’t tolerate bad behavior, Michelle tells Blaze. To me, she says, “Not like me. I always cave in the end.”
“Mothers,” I comment. “That’s our job, isn’t it? To cave?”
After a twenty-minute drive we approach the aquarium and Blaze says, “I can’t wait to see all the fish. And I’m not going to be scared. No, sir.”
“Why would you be scared?” I ask him. “They’re only fish.”
“Yes, but remember that time we came before and I was scared because it was dark?”
“Yes, but you were only about three or four then,” I say.
“Yeah, I’m a big boy now,” Blaze says. “A big boy.”
“Yeah, you’re like eleven or something, aren’t you?” Terence asks. He’s been busily sketching rocket ships in the backseat throughout the drive.
“I’m thirteen,” Blaze tells him.
“You’re thirteen?” Terence asks, disbelieving. “Thirteen? Are you sure?”
Michelle looks over at me, smiling, and I smile back. I’m wondering how this outing is going to turn out and I’m experiencing the first hint of trepidation.
In the entrance, there is a giant tank filled with sardines swirling around in a slippery mass of silver flashes. Blaze doesn’t want to look at the sardines, he’s already darted off into the main tunnel leading through the aquarium.
Terence reads every plaque and seems to have an encyclopedic knowledge of the marine creatures we pass in their lighted boxes. Michelle asks him to find certain fish in the tanks and identify them and he complies with ease. Blaze, on the other hand, skips from tank to tank seldom stopping long enough to take a good look at anything. I have to tell him to stay with us one, two, three times. Michelle tri
es to be helpful.
“Blaze, take a look at the halibut,” she says. “Look at the face on him.”
“Look at the California king crab,” I add. “Reminds me of you.”
Blaze wanders into the kelp forest and we follow. He’s starting to lick his hand and touch it to his forehead. All the other hideous tics he picked up over the course of this wretched year have disappeared since Blaze has been home, but this one remains for some reason. I can’t get him to stop. I watch him touch the railings where a million people have left a million viruses and then put that hand in his mouth. I can’t stand it.
Through gritted teeth I tell him to stop or he can forget ever going on another outing like this again.
“I can’t help it,” he says, “my hands are dry.”
“Then why didn’t you put lotion on them before we left the house?” I ask.
“I don’t know.”
I’m desperate for a minute. I can’t let him continue to lick his hand but I don’t have anything that passes for lotion in my purse. It occurs to me that Michelle probably does. She produces the perfect size bottle of hand lotion from her purse at my request and I slather up Blaze’s hands in front of the nurse shark tank. We’ve avoided a major freak-out, at least for the time being.
Although Terence shows no signs of tiring and methodically studies every tank, Blaze looks as if he is barely controlling an urge to flee and starts weaving dangerously through the clots of people lining the tunnel.
“Maybe we should go outside,” Michelle says.
There’s an outdoor piazza between the fish tanks and the museum section of the aquarium and we walk outside into the chilly March air and take in the view. The Pacific stretches out in cobalt glory below us, tiny diamonds dancing in the pale sunlight. Blaze skips around the cobblestones but Terence sticks close by, asking questions about how far away the city is and how can you tell, as he looks through the telescope at the pier.
“How’s your writing coming along?” Michelle asks me.
“It’s tough finding time for it right now,” I tell her, “with Blaze being home and everything. But he’s going to be starting at a new school after the spring break, so I guess, if it works out, I’ll have more time then.”
She looks over at Blaze as he makes his circles around the piazza. “Yes, that’s got to be difficult,” she says. She doesn’t elaborate on what she means but I hear what’s unspoken in her words. I have a moment of abject self-pity. Yes, it’s all difficult. It’s difficult raising this kid who will never be normal and who, at thirteen, is so much less mature than Terence, five years his junior. I’m thinking that, just for one day, I’d like to see what it’s like to have a life like Michelle’s, where things are what they ought to be—husband, two kids, family car, school—and days follow a predictable pattern. These are the things I will never have. Blaze was right, he is a big boy. Too big to run around like this without attracting notice. I’m disappointed in him and in myself and I’m very tired. I feel the edge of a major depression approaching and I want this outing to be over so that I can go home and stick my head in the sand where it belongs.
We visit a few more sights in the aquarium and then it’s time to go. Michelle wants to take us to lunch. “Where would be the best place?” she asks.
“Any place with french fries,” I tell her. “That’s probably all Blaze will eat.”
We settle on Friday’s, nearby, guaranteed to have french fries. The hostess asks us how many children’s menus we need and Michelle says, “Only one, right? Blaze doesn’t need a children’s menu, does he?”
I smile at her, feeling a surge of gratefulness for her consideration. She’s assuming that Blaze, at thirteen, would feel insulted being offered a children’s menu and crayons at his ripe old age and she’s trying to respect his feelings.
“No, it’s fine,” I tell the hostess, “we’ll take two children’s menus.”
At the table, Blaze is not content to sit quietly while Michelle and I talk. Terence seems deep in thought again so Blaze starts asking Michelle a series of questions.
“So, Michelle, do you listen to Fleetwood Mac?” he asks.
“I used to,” she says. “A long time ago.”
“They’re a good band,” Blaze says. “You know that song ‘Dreams’? It’s about how sad a person gets when there’s nobody around to help.”
“I never thought about it that way,” Michelle says. “I guess I never really listened to it very carefully.”
“Stevie Nicks sings that song,” Blaze goes on. “She’s singing to somebody she knows who won’t help her.”
“Hmm,” Michelle says and looks over at me, eyebrows raised. Blaze goes on some more about various other songs he’s heard and what they mean. He gets to Billie Holiday and starts telling Michelle about what a tragic life she had and that’s why all her songs sound so sad. Terence looks at Blaze as if he’s speaking Greek, but he’s listening and so is Michelle and we’re all involved and we’re all thinking about our own associations with what he is saying.
I let Blaze continue on his riff and I remember that this is what I love the most about him. Whenever I start feeling like it’s all hopeless, that we’ll never be normal, that our lives will be spent navigating social situations and trying to figure out what’s appropriate, Blaze will pull something like this out of his hat. He taps into my feelings and worries with a sort of sixth sense and responds by demonstrating his sensitivity, his ability to find a common level with whoever he’s with and hold his own. His conversations may seem tangential, but they make sense and they are thought-provoking and always, somewhere inside them, there is a deeper meaning. His conversation with Michelle is about more than pop-song lyrics. He is picking up on her mood, on my mood, and on the dynamic between all of us at this table.
Blaze leaves the topic of music and moves on to Michelle’s husband. Does he often hand out punishments to the kids? What does he do for a living? Michelle tells him that her husband is a lawyer. Blaze wants to know if her husband ever finds himself in any dangerous situations.
“Gee, I hope not,” Michelle says.
“What kind of law does he practice?” I ask Michelle.
“Personal injury,” she says.
Michelle drops us off at home after lunch and I try to regroup and figure out what we’re going to do for the rest of the day.
“That was great,” Blaze says. “I love the aquarium.”
“You didn’t seem to be loving it so much,” I say. “You were running all over the place for most of the time.”
“I’m sorry,” he says. “You know I don’t like to stand still in one place.”
“I sure do know that,” I tell him.
He waits a few beats before he asks me, “Mom, do you wish you had a husband?”
I stare at him for a few moments, lost, not knowing what to tell him or even how I can respond honestly when I don’t know the answer to his question.
“Well?” he asks. “Do you?”
“Hold on a second, I’m thinking,” I tell him. “That’s a difficult question, you know.” I ponder it for a minute while he waits and then I tell him, “I guess sometimes I do wish I had a husband. It would be nice, sometimes, to have a partner in life. But I don’t really think about it that often.”
“Maybe it wouldn’t be a good thing?” he asks.
“I don’t know.”
“Maybe you’d fight with him, if you had a husband. That wouldn’t be good.”
“No, it wouldn’t, but if one goes as far as to marry someone, one would hope that one wouldn’t be fighting all the time.”
“Maybe you could have one sometime,” he says.
“Maybe,” I tell him. “Maybe someday.”
Blaze gets up and goes off to another part of the house and that’s the end of this conversation for now. It’s been just enough to make me start thinking about most of the decisions I’ve made in my life. I sit, limp, for several minutes, pondering my future. What’s in it for me, I
wonder, and what’s in it for him? How do we end up? Alone and weird forever? The depression I felt moving in earlier seems to have come closer now. I can sense it, heavy and dank, just a few thoughts away.
Just then, Blaze bursts in through the front door and stands before me. He’s been in the garage, working out on the elliptical exercise machine I bought to keep myself from turning into jelly. He’s shirtless and shoeless, wearing only a pair of gray sweatpants.
Flushed and triumphant, he says, “Hey, Mom! Remember Lord Capulet?”
“What?”
“Lord Capulet, you know. Remember him?”
“Yeeees…?”
“Okay, just checking! I’m going back to work out some more now.”
Then my tall, skinny, olive-skinned, beautiful, smiling boy darts back out the door and I just start laughing. It’s a deep, helpless, tear-rolling laughter that goes on and on. I laugh until my heart and mind are clean and then I laugh some more. I am happily breathless by the time I finally stop.
Only Blaze can do this for me. Only Blaze can make me stop on a dime, turn away from self-pity and find the strength to keep pushing on. He has read me again, this child of mine. He has sensed my darkness and shown me the brightness within him. He has reminded me that I wouldn’t change anything, wouldn’t trade him, wouldn’t trade any of this for a “normal” life. I chose this life, he is telling me, and he chose me. We have come to this place together. Today, like so many times before, Blaze has turned me around and shown me the view from over here.
And this is a beautiful view.
EPILOGUE
Shortly after Blaze suggested that we restage his birth, I put the idea to my family. Every one of them seemed quite taken by it and we discussed various ways to implement it. My father was especially eager to replay the entire scenario. In a concerted effort at authenticity, we tried to round up the original players for the big event. This was difficult because, while everyone was present in varying degrees the night Blaze was born, my three sisters and my brother now had obligations, jobs, and responsibilities that made it impossible for them to be in my living room at the appointed time. I didn’t want to wait until we could all gather together because I wanted to act on Blaze’s idea as soon as possible and I didn’t want it to escalate into a huge psychological event.
Raising Blaze Page 28