On Blue Falls Pond

by Susan Crandall

  She concentrated on her hands gripping the steering wheel—hands that could no more deny her heritage than her green eyes and thick, auburn hair. Sturdy, big-boned hands that somehow remained unsoftened by the cultured life she’d led. Hands that reminded her of Granny Tula’s. That thought gave her strength.

  After a few minutes, the cold sweat evaporated, the trembling in her limbs subsided, and her head cleared. She put the car in drive and rejoined the breakneck pace of traffic headed south.

  Eric Wilson left the fire station in the middle of his shift—something he would have taken any of his firefighters to task for. But he was chief, and as such frequently had business away from the firehouse. No one questioned when he got into his department-owned Explorer and drove away.

  But this was far from official business. This was personal—very personal. He and his ex-wife, Jill, shared amicable custody of their nearly three-year-old son, Scott. But Scott’s increasing problems were something that the two of them were currently butting heads over. In Eric’s estimation, Jill was in denial, plain and simple. And lately, it seemed she was doing as much as she could to prove Scott was just like any other boy. Part of that strategy was not hovering by the telephone worrying if today was going to be the day for trouble.

  Whenever he mentioned the idea that she should get a cell phone, she took the opportunity to remind him that she couldn’t afford one. Which was a load of bull. She worked as a medical secretary and made decent money—comparable to Eric’s fire department salary. It was more convenient for Jill to be unavailable—especially on Wednesdays, her day off.

  This was the third time since the summer session began five weeks ago that the preschool had called Eric at work because they couldn’t locate her. It had been a familiar message; Scott was having a “behavior problem,” causing such disruption that the teachers requested he be taken home. Jill had responded to a similar call on at least four occasions.

  The staff at the church-housed preschool were sympathetic and had made every effort to help assimilate him into classroom activities; but, they repeatedly explained, they had to consider the other twelve children in the class.

  As Eric pulled into the rear parking lot of the Methodist church, his stomach felt as pocked and broken as the ancient asphalt. Weeds of frustration sprouted through the numerous cracks, filling his middle with something poisonous to all of his hopes for his son. This summer preschool program was intended for children who were going to need extra time and attention to catch up; children who would benefit from not having an interruption in the development of their social skills by a long summer break. Even so, it seemed Scott was on a rapid backslide. Eric couldn’t help the feeling of terror that had begun to build deep in his heart, as if he were locked high in a tower watching his son drown in the moat outside his window—close enough to witness yet helpless to save him.

  For a long moment, he sat in the car, staring toward the forested mountains shrouded in their ever-present blue mist. In a way, Scott’s mind was concealed from him just like the detailed contour of those mountains. He wished with all of his soul that he could divine the right course to lead his son out of the mysterious fog. The local doctors had varying opinions; from developmental delay (a catchall phrase, he’d decided), to mild autism, to he’ll-grow-out-of-it, to it’s-too-early-to-tell.

  Eric was willing to do whatever it took to help his son—if only there was a definite answer as to what that was.

  He slammed the steering wheel with the heel of his hand. Then he took a deep breath and tried to exhale his frustration. He would need all of the calm he could muster to deal with what awaited inside.

  When he entered the hall that led to the basement classroom, he could hear Scott crying—screaming. A feeling of blind helplessness whooshed over him like a backdraft in a fire. He quickened his pace.

  With his hand on the doorknob, he paused, heartsick as he looked through the narrow glass window beside the door. His son stood stiffly in the corner, blue paint streaked through his blond hair and on his face. Mrs. Parks, one of the teachers, knelt beside him, talking softly. Eric saw her hands on her knees; Scott really didn’t like anyone other than his parents to touch him.

  Scott ignored his teacher, his little body rigid with frustration. It was a picture Eric had seen before. Still, it grabbed his gut and twisted with brutal ferocity every time.

  When he went into the room and knelt beside his son, there was no reaction of joy, no sense of salvation, no throwing himself into Eric’s arms with relief. Scott’s cries continued unabated.

  Was this behavior an offshoot of the divorce, as Jill insisted? It seemed implausible, as he and Jill hadn’t lived together since Scott was ten months old. Still, that nagging of conscience couldn’t be silenced.

  Mrs. Parks, a woman whose patience continually astounded Eric, said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t know what else to do but call you.” She pursed her lips thoughtfully and looked back at Scott. “I think he wanted the caps put back on the finger paints. Although I can’t say for sure.” In her hand she held a wet paper towel. She handed it to Eric and got up and walked away. “Maybe he’ll let you wipe his hands.”

  Eric took the towel. Scott had become increasingly obsessed with closing things—cabinets, windows, doors, containers—with an unnatural intensity. Anything that he wasn’t allowed to close sent him into an inconsolable tantrum, as if his entire world had been shaken off its foundation.

  Jill’s mother said the child was overindulged, spoiled because his divorced parents were vying for his love. Jill’s family did not divorce. At first Eric had bought into the theory. But he’d been careful, watched to make sure they weren’t acquiescing to Scott’s every demand.

  “Okay, buddy, can I wipe your hands?” Eric asked, holding out the towel.

  Scott’s cries didn’t escalate; Eric took that as permission. He got the worst of the blue off his son’s hands, then scooped him up in his arms and carried him, still stiff and crying, out of the classroom.

  Scott wiggled and squirmed, but Eric managed to get him strapped in his car seat. By the time he was finished, Eric had almost as much blue paint smeared on him as Scott did. Before he climbed into the driver’s seat, Eric tried to call Jill again. No answer.

  Eric then called the station. When the dispatcher picked up, he said, “Donna, I’m going to have to take the rest of the afternoon off; I had to pick Scott up at school, he’s . . . sick.”

  Eric hadn’t discussed his son’s possible condition with anyone. It was still too new, too baffling. How could he explain something that was currently such a mystery to his own mind?

  Donna made a tiny noise of understanding. “No problem,” she said, with overkill on lightheartedness. “Hope he feels better soon.”

  Eric realized he hadn’t been fooling anyone.

  By the time Jill called forty minutes later, Scott was sitting quietly on the floor of Eric’s living room, playing with his current favorite toy, a plastic pirate ship.

  “What happened?” she asked. “I went to pick him up, and they said you’d taken him home early.”

  “More of the same. A tantrum that wouldn’t stop.” Eric rubbed his eyes with his forefinger and thumb.

  “You would think a preschool teacher could handle a two-year-old tantrum without calling parents.”

  “Jill”—he took a deep breath—“you know it’s more than that. Dr. Martin—”

  “Stop! What if Dr. Martin is wrong? Dr. Templeton saw nothing out of the ordinary in Scott. Why do you insist upon thinking the worst?” Thankfully, she caught herself before she pushed them into their normal angry confrontation on the subject. Her voice became pleading. “Eric, I don’t want him to be labeled. If they treat him like he’s disabled, he’s going to be disabled. He’s just slow to mature. Lots of kids are. He’s just a baby! A friend of Angela’s said she knew a boy who didn’t talk until he was four and he’s making A’s and B’s in school and gets along with everyone. And Stephanie’s daughter has
tantrums all of the time. A few more weeks in school and—”

  “And what?” Sometimes Eric felt he was fighting the battle for his son on two fronts—against both an as-yet-unnamed developmental disorder and Scott’s mother’s refusal to face facts. “They’ll probably ask us not to bring him back. We need to find a better solution for him. It’s not just the fact that he’s not talking. He doesn’t interact with the other kids. Maybe he needs more structure, like Dr. Martin said.”

  “And Dr. Olfson said it’s too early to be sure. None of the experts can even agree! And you want him locked up in an institution!”

  “Stop overreacting. You know that’s not what I meant.” He closed his eyes and willed his anger to subside. “We need to find a better way to help him learn, help him cope.”

  She sighed heavily. “Let’s give this school a couple more months. Please. Then we’ll decide.”

  “I just feel that time is slipping away. The sooner we start, the better his chances.”

  “I do not want this whole town talking about Scott as if he’s retarded. He’s not.”

  “Of course he’s not! But he’s going to need more help.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. I won’t take the risk for nothing. I agreed to send him to school over the summer, isn’t that enough for now?”

  “All right.” It was all Eric could do to keep from arguing. It was going to take time to get Jill turned around. “We’ll leave things as they are for a few more weeks. But I think it’s time to start at least looking for options.”

  She let it drop, apparently satisfied with her temporary victory. “Since tomorrow is your day, why don’t you just keep Scottie tonight? I have a ton of things to get done. It’d really help me out. I’ll just pick him up out at Tula’s on Friday after work.”

  This was yet another tool in Jill’s arsenal of denial—spend less time with Scott so she didn’t have to see what was becoming progressively more obvious.

  “Sure. Do you want to say hi to him before I hang up?” Eric spoke to his son every day on the phone, regardless of the empty silence on the other end of the line.

  “Sure.”

  After holding the phone next to Scott’s ear for a moment while Jill held a one-sided conversation, Eric got back on the line. “I’ll tell Tula you’ll be there at five-thirty on Friday.”

  “Okay. You boys have fun.” She hung up.

  You boys have fun. As if he and Scott were going to a baseball game and sharing hot dogs and popcorn. Would Jill ever be convinced their son wasn’t like other children?

  Eric hung up the phone and stretched out on the floor next to Scott. He’d taken to only setting out one activity at a time for Scott and keeping the background noise to a minimum, as Dr. Martin had suggested. It did seem that Scott was less agitated.

  There was still blue paint in Scott’s hair. Eric decided to leave that until bath time—which would develop into a battle of its own; Scott didn’t like to be taken away from whatever he was doing. Changing activities seemed to trigger more than just normal two-year-old frustration.

  For now, Eric tried some of the repetitive exercises he’d read about, just to see if it seemed to make a connection. Dr. Martin said sometimes these children needed to find alternative ways of communication—it was just a matter of searching and working with repetition until you found the right one.

  As Eric worked with Scott, the light in the room turned orange with sunset. Scott’s pudgy toddler fingers spun the pirate boat in tireless circles. With a lump in his throat, Eric wondered if he would ever understand what was going on inside his son’s mind.

  Jill sat in her living room, listening to the insects drone outside the open window. Absently, she twirled a strand of hair around her index finger. The sun was low, and shadows were gathering darkness in the corners of the room, but she didn’t move to turn on a light. Instead she waited for the gloom to completely encompass her. It wasn’t often she held herself still long enough to allow her thoughts to overtake her. Her life was stressed beyond belief with working and taking care of a baby alone.

  Up until a few weeks ago, she hadn’t been alone—not totally. Although even her mother didn’t know it, Jason had been more or less a live-in since spring. He’d insisted on keeping his place—for appearances he’d said.

  She still couldn’t believe the jerk had dumped her. She’d left her husband for him—not that anyone knew that. She’d been careful while she was married, and equally careful after. That had been Eric’s price for a quick and uncontested divorce—that she not see Jason publicly until after the divorce was final. He’d said he was keeping quiet for Scott’s sake. And it probably was. Eric was a conscientious father.

  Even as clean as the divorce had been, Mother had been appalled. Landrys didn’t divorce—especially not what Mother called “good husband material” like Eric Wilson. Luckily, Mother didn’t know the full story about Jason, or Jill would never hear the end of it.

  She had hoped living together would bring Jason closer to commitment. But the entire thing had skidded in the wrong direction. The fewer complications for them to be together, the less interested he became.

  Well, she thought with a sigh, that was over. She wouldn’t think of Jason anymore.

  She shifted on the couch, drawing her feet up under her and grabbing a pillow to hold over her midsection. That’s right, she’d waste no more time and energy on Jason. Her baby was her whole world now. Why did Eric keep insisting there was something wrong with him? Lots of children developed more slowly—lots of very intelligent children. She would not let Scott be the kid who was stared at, the one other children made fun of. She simply wouldn’t allow it. She would do whatever it took to ensure his place in this world was not one of ridicule and hurt.

  She closed her eyes and briefly, ever so briefly, wished things were as they had been during those first months after Scott had been born—when she and Eric had marveled at his tiny perfection and she had felt safe.

  It was sunset as Glory wound her way into Cold Spring Hollow. She’d driven twenty-five miles out of her way to avoid passing through Dawson; approaching the road to the hollow from the north instead of the west. It was foolish, but she somehow felt she’d be better fortified to face the town after spending the night with Granny.

  In the shadows of the wooded hollow it was dark enough that her headlights came on. Glory slowed for a hairpin curve. After the road straightened back out, she saw three deer standing nearly close enough to reach out and touch. They held their bodies poised for flight, their dark eyes wide and their ears twitching. But they remained in place, studying her as closely as she studied them.

  She felt a peculiar kinship to them, with their wary eyes and nervous posture. She imagined she had a similar air about her at the moment.

  The narrow gravel road that led to Granny’s house cut off to the right. Glory made the turn and felt more settled already. Normally, Granny would be on her porch with a cup of tea about now, impervious to the swarming mosquitoes as she sat on her beloved swing.

  Before Glory’s grandfather died, he and Granny used to sit on the porch every evening, at least for a short while, even in the winter. Glory remembered spending the night, lying in her bed and listening to their quiet voices drift up to her bedroom window. There was something about listening to them, to Granny’s soft laugh and Pap’s gruff chuckle, that soaked contentment deep into Glory’s bones.

  Granny’s house came into sight. Glory’s heart skittered through a beat when she saw it sitting dark and silent under the canopy of trees. It looked deserted.

  Finally, in the deep shadow of the L-shaped front porch, Glory saw movement of the swing and drew a breath of relief.

  By the time she’d put the car in park and gotten out, Granny had moved to the top of the front steps, leaving the swing to jiggle a jerky dance after her departure.

  She stood there, her silhouette in the twilight tall and wiry, looking as strong as the ancient willow down by the old millpond.

>   Glory got out of the car quickly and ran up the steps. She paused on the tread before the top. The instant she opened her mouth to say hello, the tears that she’d thought were spent spilled forth.

  Granny opened her arms and pulled Glory’s head against her chest. “It’s all right, darlin’, you’re safe in the Holler now. You’re home.”

  As Glory cried in the comfort of her grandmother’s arms, she knew coming home was going to be even more painful than she’d imagined.

  Chapter Two

  WHEN GLORY WOKE early the next morning, she studied the lavender floral wallpaper in the bedroom. She’d awakened in this room countless times over the years, and nothing in it had changed as long as she could remember. Andrew—she tried to think of her husband without the shadow of sadness—had always called Granny’s decor “early Cracker Barrel.” But Glory liked the homeyness of it, the fact that Granny’s possessions had memories attached.

  The dresser still held a collection of tiny ceramic animal figurines from Granny’s childhood. The mirror on the wall above was streaked with gray where time had worn away the silvering on the back. There was a watermelon-size brown water spot on the ceiling paper in one corner. Pap had fixed the roof twelve years ago, but Granny said the paper had plenty of life left in it, that people should have their eyes closed when lying on the bed, anyhow.

  There wasn’t a clock in the room, and Glory had left her watch in the bathroom after her shower last night. It was early; the sun had yet to send its bright shafts of light over the hills and into the little cove that cradled Granny’s house. Birds twittered, coaxing the new day.

  The quiet noises of morning in the hollow wrapped her in warm contentment. She stretched and wished this moment of peace could extend beyond these sheltered walls, that it could endure the battering of reality beyond her bedroom door.