Just Like Other Daughters

by Colleen Faulkner

  He makes a sound suggesting he won’t eat.

  “It’s got mushrooms in it. And Swiss cheese,” I explain, walking in my sheepskin slippers to the refrigerator. “No one here eats mushrooms and Swiss cheese but me.”

  “I love mushrooms.”

  “Exactly. And I can’t eat it all.” I pull the quiche out of the fridge.

  Mark goes to the right cabinet and grabs himself a coffee mug. “Refill?”

  I glance around for my cup as I pull the foil off the quiche dish. “Definitely. My cup.” I point.

  He pours coffee for both of us and even gets the milk out and adds some to my mug. “You’re on your own on the sweetener,” he tells me, taking one of the stools.

  I smile. He’s such a nice guy. I’m glad he’s here. Not glad I had another broken pipe, but it’s nice to see him. My life seems so hectic. As I anticipated, having Thomas here is stressful. I probably bring some of that on myself. But having Mark here, just having a cup of coffee together, makes me feel calmer. Better.

  “So how’s it going? Chloe and Thomas?”

  It’s on the tip of my tongue to give my usual reply, the one I use with colleagues, friends in the outer ring of my social circle, the friendly faces at LoGs. I meet his gaze. His damp hair is a little long around his ears, but it’s not sloppy-looking. It’s cute. And I like the way he looks at me when I’m talking. I like the way he listens.

  I slide the cut slices of quiche onto two plates and pop one in the microwave. Then I turn to face him, reaching for a yellow packet in a container on the counter. “Okay.”

  He waits.

  “About half the nights, Thomas asks to go home.” I feel my cheeks get warm. “After they’ve been in bed awhile.”

  He nods, getting what I’m saying. It was just a theory at first, me thinking Thomas wanted to stay long enough for sex, but didn’t want to sleep all night. But I’ve watched him set a pattern. It’s not my imagination.

  “This is a big adjustment. For everyone. Thomas’s got to be homesick. Have you tried letting them stay at his parents’?”

  I sigh, dumping the packet of white powder into my coffee. “Several times. Margaret even went out and bought a double bed for Thomas’s old room. Chloe isn’t going for it. She wants to sleep in her own bed. With her own sheets, her own pillows, her own bathroom. She wants to be here with me at night.”

  He sips his coffee. “But, being married? She happy with that decision?”

  “Perfectly content. Nothing in her life has really changed for her other than the bed partner—she goes to Minnie’s, we make tacos, she watches Disney movies. She just does it all with Thomas now.”

  “And how does she feel when he says he wants to go home?”

  I hold my mug between my hands, savoring the warmth. The microwave beeps but I ignore it. I meet Mark’s gaze. “She tells him to take his toothbrush.”

  “Things’ll get better. They’ll get easier.”

  I get his quiche out of the microwave. “Oh sure. Of course. We’re in an adjustment period. It’ll all work itself out.” I grab a fork from the drawer. “It always does.”

  21

  And sometimes it doesn’t.

  February brings a blizzard. Even though most students at Stone walk to class from dorms, the campus is closed and I have a weekend that stretches into five days. We lose water in the downstairs bathroom only, which has become Thomas’s bathroom. We can deal. I call Mark to get on his calendar, but I insist he take care of his emergencies first. I know I have neighbors without any water at all until Mark comes to the rescue.

  The city is slow to plow the roads because we’re hit by two storms two days apart. They haven’t cleared the snow from the first when the second hits. It’s not that much: fourteen to sixteen inches, but our town isn’t equipped for heavy snow. We have only two snowplows in the whole town and the county is too busy plowing the major roads to lend a hand.

  The snow keeps Thomas from being able to go see his mom and dad. It’s a bigger problem than him having to use Chloe’s bathroom . . . or mine, depending on my daughter’s mood. By day three, we’re all cranky. When Jin saw the forecast, she hightailed it to Abby’s and is snowed in there. So I’m stuck in the house, alone, with a grouchy newly married couple and a hundred boring papers to read and grade.

  I’m trying to read a student’s take on Jane Austen’s hidden sexual content when I hear Chloe getting loud in the living room.

  “Aladdin!”

  “C . . . Cars!” Thomas shouts back.

  “I said, Aladdin!”

  I remove my reading glasses and walk out of the dining room, into the living room. “Hey, what’s up?” I try to take on Margaret’s cheery tone. I pull my sweater together tighter up at my throat. It’s cold in the house even though the furnace is running as hard as it can.

  Chloe is standing in front of the TV with both remote controls in her hands. She knows how to use only one of them. “I want to watch Aladdin.” She thrusts out her lower lip. “He says no.”

  Thomas is wearing a hooded sweatshirt. He’s got the hood up. He’s also wearing wool slippers with pointy toes that his sister made and sent him for Christmas. Between the slippers and the conical hoodie, he looks like a giant elf.

  “Whose turn is it to choose?”

  “Mine,” Chloe declares.

  “M . . . mine, K . . . Koey. We . . . we watched s . . . stupid S . . . Sleeping Beauty. M . . . my turn.”

  I look at Chloe. She’s putting on a little weight. I can see it in her face. It’s my fault. Down syndrome people tend to get heavy if you’re not vigilant; it’s a combination of genetics and their general zeal for food. I’ve been letting Chloe and Thomas choose what to make for meals; they enjoy shopping and preparing them. It’s something we can all do together. But Chloe’s choices aren’t all that healthful. I make a mental note to start buying more fruits and vegetables and working them into meals.

  “Did you watch Sleeping Beauty?” I ask, knowing the answer. As soon as Thomas said it, I remember hearing it from the dining room. I know they’re watching too much TV, but it’s hard to come up with things for them to do independently. Especially in the winter. In a blizzard. And I can’t be the cruise activities director all the time. I just can’t.

  Chloe doesn’t respond. She just stares at the TV.

  “Maybe you guys should do something else for a while. You could draw. Or make tissue roses. Your craft supplies are still on the kitchen table.”

  Chloe thrusts out her lower lip. “I wanna watch Aladdin.”

  Thomas stares at the floor. “I . . . I w . . . wanna g . . . go home.”

  Chloe marches to the couch and plops down. “He says that every time he gets mad!” She points at her husband. “He’s a dummy head.”

  “Chloe, no name calling.” I walk over to Thomas. “You can’t go home today. The roads are too dangerous.”

  “He could walk,” Chloe injects. “If he gets his boots.”

  I cut my eyes at her.

  She looks down at the floor, knowing very well she shouldn’t say things like that.

  “Thomas, I’m sorry,” I say quietly. I rub his shoulder. “We can’t drive to your mom and dad’s. The roads are closed and it’s too far to walk. It’s not really safe to walk on the roads, anyway. Not in bad weather like this.”

  “He could go on Wednesday,” Chloe offers.

  I exhale. Thomas is just staring at his big wool slippers. His eyes are teary.

  “You miss your mom and dad?”

  He nods.

  “Would you like to call them?”

  He thinks for a minute. “Dad . . . Dad s . . . says don’t . . . call Mama. N . . . not all the days. He . . . he says I . . . I’m married. M . . . married m . . . men don’t c . . . call their m . . . mama all the . . . the days.”

  His words break my heart. Thomas is a man. But as the mother of a mentally handicapped child, I also know he will always be Margaret’s little boy.

  “It’s o
kay, Thomas.” I give him a hug and he grabs me and hugs me back. Hard. “You can talk to her if you want,” I tell him. “We can call together.”

  “You can call Mom Margaret,” Chloe throws in. “I can watch Aladdin.”

  “Chloe.” I pull myself out of Thomas’s arms. “You’re not being very nice. You love Thomas. You have to be nice to him. We’re nice to the people we love, right?”

  “He’s not nice to me.” She tosses the remotes on the couch beside her.

  Thomas stands in front of me, still looking dejected.

  “Chloe, come tell Thomas you’re sorry for being mean.” I motion from her to him. “Give him a hug and make him feel better.”

  She hesitates, then slowly gets to her feet. Chloe has matured in so many ways in the last two years. But she can still be a little brat. I guess we all can.

  “Sorry, Thomas,” she mutters and throws her arms around him. She rests her cheek on his chest. “You want me to tell you a knock-knock joke?”

  He shakes his head and lowers his cheek to her head.

  “I’m sorry you’re sad.” She hesitates. “You wanna go in my room and close the door and—”

  “I think maybe it would be fun to make tissue roses,” I interrupt. I want to laugh. Maybe cry. It never occurred to me that my daughter would be such a sex fiend. That two mentally handicapped people would be so sexual. What kind of dummy head am I? When Randall and I were first together, when we first started having sex, we certainly would have taken the opportunity on a snowy Wednesday afternoon.

  “You wanna make roses?” Chloe asks Thomas.

  He nods.

  I stand there, arms crossed over my chest, watching them. “Then maybe you can watch Cars later.”

  “You wanna make roses with us?” Chloe asks me.

  I glance in the direction of my piles of term papers waiting to be read, then back at my daughter. “Sure. But I want to make the pink ones.”

  Chloe’s twenty-eighth birthday comes and goes in March and by April, we begin to feel the warmth of the sun again, bringing with it the promise of summer. Thomas is still homesick and I’m at a loss as to what to do. Margaret and Danny have their own problems. Danny loses his job at the plant the first week of April and has to go on unemployment. The Eldens are struggling to make their mortgage. As planned, because I have taken on Thomas’s day-to-day expenses: food, clothing, spending money, and of course the increase in my electric and water bill, Margaret gives me a check each month, money he receives from Social Security. But that’s not enough to cover Thomas’s days at Minnie’s; daycare for mentally handicapped adults isn’t cheap. Especially not a private facility like Minnie’s. All this time, Margaret and Danny have been supplementing Thomas’s income with their own, so he could attend Minnie’s.

  Margaret and I have lunch at the same Mexican restaurant where we lunched a year ago. She proposes that Thomas and Chloe start coming to her house every day instead of Minnie’s. I don’t like the idea of taking Chloe out of Minnie’s. She’s done so well there. She loves Minnie’s. Of course, will she love it without Thomas?

  In the end, I make the decision that Chloe will continue to go to Minnie’s four days a week, two of which Thomas will accompany her. One day a week, she’ll go to Margaret’s with Thomas. Thomas will be with his mother three days a week, meaning Chloe and Thomas will be separated two days a week. I know Margaret isn’t pleased with my decision. She brings up the fact that I would save money by letting Chloe go to her house more often. Her big problem with the new arrangement is that Thomas and Chloe will be separated two days a week. The way they’ve been fighting, I think it would be good for them. What young husband and wife spend seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day together?

  Around the same time, Randall starts postponing, then cancelling his Chick-fil-A nights with Chloe. He never comes out and says so, but I think he’s uncomfortable with Thomas. I’m too busy to get that annoyed with him. Chloe and Thomas just stay with Margaret through dinner on Tuesdays. Honestly, I don’t think Chloe misses her dad; she certainly misses the chicken and fries.

  When it gets warmer, I encourage Chloe and Thomas to go outside and get some exercise. I’m worried about her weight gain and wonder if I should take her to our doctor. But I can see why she’s gaining weight. It’s the French fries, mozzarella sticks, and all that pasta she eats with my healthy, homemade marinara.

  So, we take walks around the block. Then I even let them walk around the block alone, as long as they check with me before they go and as soon as they get back. I get them a soccer ball and teach them the basics of the game . . . which I played a million years ago, and never well. They’re not interested in trying to kick the ball into the goal I bought at Target, but they like kicking the ball back and forth.

  One afternoon, in late April, Chloe begs me to come play soccer with them. Jin and Abby are in the backyard weeding an herb bed. It’s a fun afternoon. Thomas gets sulky (he hates physical activity even more than Chloe) and ends up plunking down on Jin’s back step, but Chloe and I kick the ball back and forth and laugh and fall in the grass. Jin goes into the house and comes back out with her good camera and takes pictures. Some are action shots; we mug for others. She prints them on her printer and brings them to me the next evening. I give most of them to Chloe, but there’s one of the two of us, arms around each other. We’re both laughing. Our hair is a mess and there are bits of grass clinging to our sweatpants. Chloe looks so happy. I put the picture on our refrigerator with a Stone University magnet and every day, when I get my milk for my coffee, I look at the picture and it makes me smile. I like it even better than the wedding pictures on the wall by the staircase. In the soccer pictures, Chloe’s smile is genuine, not posed. She looks so happy. She was so happy that day.

  My encouragement of Thomas and Chloe to get outside more leads to the puppy incident. Looking back, now, I think that was the beginning of the end. If I’d only known . . . no, I couldn’t have done anything differently. Sadly, for all of us, I wouldn’t have. A mother does what she thinks is best. I did what I thought was best for all of us.

  Margaret had brought Thomas and Chloe home from Minnie’s. It was a Wednesday. They stayed outside to look for toads, of all things. Margaret and I were talking in the front hall. She looked tired, and her voice didn’t have the cheerfulness I’ve grown used to.

  “So, still no luck on the job front?”

  Margaret shakes her head. “He interviewed twice last week. But there are so many people looking for jobs. Just not enough jobs to go around.”

  I knew that Danny did something in the tool-and-die industry, but honestly, I didn’t know what. “It’s only been a few months,” I say. “I’m sure something will come up.”

  “Lord willing,” she agrees, raising her hand heavenward. “But Danny’s having to go further afield.” She shakes her head.

  I want to ask her what that means, but Chloe bursts into the vestibule and presses her face to the window in our door. “Mom! Mom! Mom Margaret! Come quick!”

  I can tell by her voice that she’s excited, not scared. No one is hurt.

  I wave for her to come in.

  She shakes her head. “Come quick! Come see! We got a puppy!”

  I meet Margaret’s gaze and open the door. Chloe is already bounding across the vestibule and down the front steps. She leads us around to the backyard. There’s an empty lot behind us and to the right. I see Thomas sitting in the grass in the lot, a puppy in his lap.

  He spots us and waves. “M . . . Mama! I . . . I got m . . . me a p . . . puppy dog!”

  “Oh my. Oh my goodness,” Margaret exclaims.

  The three of us trek across the yard, through the higher grass in the empty lot. The brown puppy in Thomas’s lap is jumping up and down and licking his face and running around him and under his legs and over his lap.

  Chloe jumps up and down and claps her hands. “I got Thomas a puppy!”

  I look around in search of the answer to the most obviou
s question. One that would never occur to Chloe or Thomas to ask. I don’t see any neighbors in their yards. No cars moving. It’s only four thirty. Most people aren’t home from work yet. As I get closer to Thomas and the puppy, I see that it’s a little pit bull. Possibly a mix, but most definitely from the pit bull gene pool. I sigh. There was an article in the paper a few weeks ago about the number of people breeding pit bulls, people with no knowledge of breeding nor the financial means to care for the litters of dogs. The poor puppy is skinny and I see what looks like an abscess on its haunch. I get a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.

  “Do you know whose dog this is, Chloe?”

  “Thomas’s puppy.” She grins.

  “It’s so cute,” Margaret coos. “Such a cute puppy, Tommy.” She leans over and scratches it behind its ear.

  I glance around again. “It’s not Thomas’s puppy, hon. It belongs to someone. You can’t take someone else’s puppy.”

  “I w . . . want a p . . . puppy dog! This is my p . . . puppy d . . . dog,” Thomas insists.

  I look at Margaret, hoping for a little help here. She’s busy petting the dog. Chloe joins them.

  I stifle my impulse to tell Chloe not to touch the puppy. Not with an open sore like that. I have no doubt that those black dots on its back are fleas. “Where did you find him?”

  “We found a dog here,” Chloe says. “Thomas’s puppy dog.”

  I spot Mark’s white panel van coming down the street. I head for his driveway. He must see me, because he gets out and waits.

  “Hey,” he calls.

  “Hey. You’re home early.”

  “I just came back to get something. That new construction on Sycamore is running me ragged. Four baths.”

  “Big house.” I glance in the direction of the empty lot. Thomas is now on his feet. He’s running back and forth, getting the puppy to chase him. “Thomas found a puppy.”

  Mark groans.

  “You know whose it is? Looks like a little pit bull.”

  “Jack, next door, called animal control yesterday. He said he thought someone dumped it. I saw the animal control van this morning. I guess they couldn’t find it.”