Twilight Children

by Torey Hayden

  Silence intruded then. I looked away. Listened to the music. Tried to identify it. Massenet’s “Méditation” from Thaïs.

  “It’s confusing, isn’t it?” I said, “when we have many different feelings about the same thing. When we feel hate and love and fear and happiness and excitement all at once.”

  Cassandra nodded. Tears had formed in her eyes. She was no longer looking at me.

  “But you know what?”

  She shook her head.

  “It’s okay to feel like that. Everyone feels like that. Everyone has times when they hate someone and love them at the same time. When they’re scared of them but they want them there, too. When they have lots of different and even opposite feelings about the same things. It’s all right to be that way, because that’s how we’re made.”

  The tears rolled over her cheeks. She raised her left hand and caught the tears one by one with her index finger, wiping them on her shirt. “What I want to know,” she said very softly, “is why. Why, if my dad loved me, did he let those things happen to me?”

  Because the recounting of her experiences was so emotionally draining, I tried to break the sessions into parts to allow us some other activities besides the tale itself, not only because I wanted to give Cassandra a chance to recover before returning to the unit but also because I wanted to model ways she could master herself for regaining equilibrium after dealing with overwhelming feelings and events.

  So, this discussion of Bunny, which I saw as an exploration of her father’s relationship with her, of trying to understand him as a man who loved her as well as abused her, segued nicely into doing the poker chip exercise.

  We got out the feelings papers, and I asked Cassandra to put chips into the columns listing the various feelings. First I suggested she show all the different feelings that thinking about Bunny made her feel.

  “It makes me feel good to think about Bunny,” she said and looked across the sheets. “And you know what? We don’t have that one. Don’t have just simply ‘feeling good.’”

  “Would ‘happy’ be the right one?” I asked.

  “No, that’s too big a feeling. Just ‘good.’”

  “Warm?” I suggested.

  “Yeah, ‘warm.’ That’d do. A warm feeling. A nice feeling. We don’t have anything of those.” Cassandra jumped up and got the box of markers out. She drew a new line down the last paper to section off the column and then wrote “Good” at the top. “There. Now we have that one.”

  She paused. She looked along the table at the other sheets of paper, laying side by side. “Look at all those. Remember when I was drawing pictures and putting these names on the feelings? Like here is ‘dog puke feeling.’ And ‘baby feeling.’”

  I smiled and nodded.

  “I don’t know why I wanted to do that,” she said. “but I really did. It seems sort of silly now. And my drawings are crap. Look at them.” She giggled.

  I smiled again. “Things are changing, aren’t they?”

  Cassandra nodded.

  There was a small pause.

  “I’m getting better, aren’t I?” she said softly.

  “Yes, I think so.”

  Again there was a pause. Cassandra reached across the table for the poker chips and poured a small amount out. She carefully stacked one, two, three blue chips on the column under “Good.” She added two more.

  “Know what Dr. Menotti said to me?” she asked.

  “What’s that?”

  “If I can go ten days without being in lockdown once, I can go home.”

  “Hey, that’s good, isn’t it?”

  She nodded. “And guess what else?”

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “I’ve already gone seven days.”

  Chapter

  37

  Saturday morning I started the long drive to Melville Crossing. It was a windy, gray day, one of those where the sky is a dreary unbroken pane of color, dull as a gunship. It wasn’t raining and wasn’t predicted to rain, although I would have preferred rain, I think, just to give movement and, thus, perhaps a sense of life to the still winter-brown landscape.

  When I arrived at the McDonald’s in Melville Crossing, it was empty except for staff, and so brightly lit in contrast to the overcast day that it was jarring to come inside. And noisy, too. Some teeth-gnashingly cheery music was being played too loudly through the speakers, and the staff were doing something enthusiastically back in the cooking area, which sounded like it involved throwing pans.

  No Sloanes, however.

  I bought a Dr Pepper and took a seat in a large booth near the play area. I waited.

  I checked my watch. We had agreed to meet at lunchtime and because of the distance we were each covering, we’d agreed to meet at noon for lunch at 12:30 P.M. I arrived at 11:50. Noon came and went. 12:30 came and went.

  As families began to fill the place up over the lunch hour, I felt self-conscious sitting in one of the big booths all by myself. It was a good-sized establishment, aimed at attracting trade from the nearby highway, but not that large. A woman with a rowdy group of five children glared at me. I was especially self-conscious because I had nothing more than a drink in front of me. I would have gotten up to get a hamburger but knew if I moved, I’d lose the booth. So I sat tight and glared back.

  12:45. How long should I wait? I reminded myself that there were any number of legitimate reasons for a delay, given the distance. In the back of my mind, however, was the fear that they weren’t coming at all. Lucia had chickened out yet again.

  Where would we go from here? I wondered, as I watched the clock edge past one o’clock. Would Lucia phone again? Would we keep having to have these afternoon pep talks to the point we’d try this meeting again and hope it worked? How long, realistically, could I be expected to do this? Where did my responsibility in this situation leave off, allowing me to pass the baton to someone else who lived closer to Quentin? Who would it be? How? The only thing I could think, if Lucia refused to follow through, would be to involve Social Services, and this would mean filing some kind of formal child abuse report. If I did this, up came the specter of court action and the involvement of lawyers and social workers and so much more trauma than should be needed to get Drake the help he deserved.

  Frustrated and unhappy, I sat until the lunchtime crowds thinned. It was 1:20 by that point. I got up, went to the counter, and ordered a Quarter Pounder and some fries.

  And then there they were. Skip, Lucia, and Drake climbing out of a dark blue SUV in the parking lot as I was sitting down at the table again. It was 1:30.

  I saw Lucia turn and scan the crowd inside the restaurant until our eyes met. She raised a hand in a half wave.

  What had she been doing? I wondered. Taking all this time to work up the courage? Having trouble getting Skip on the road because she hadn’t actually told him why they were coming here? Or had she been hoping that by being so late, I wouldn’t be there, that she could legitimately say, “I came,” without having to confront the issues?

  Drake spotted me as soon as they came through the door. His parents went to the counter to order lunch, but he and Friend came running across the room to me.

  “Hi! And hi, Friend, too!” I said and I signed “Hello” as well.

  He grinned from ear to ear and clambered up into the seat opposite me.

  “Isn’t this exciting? Did you know you were coming to see me?” I asked.

  Drake nodded enthusiastically.

  “And I’m so glad to see you!” I said. “Did your parents tell you why you’ve come?”

  He shook his head.

  “Well, good news! You’re here because I understand now about how you can’t make words. We’re meeting so I can help your mom and dad learn about it. That way we’ll discover new ways to talk. Like with our hands.” I signed “I love you” to him.

  Drake’s cheery expression faded as I spoke. He searched my eyes.

  “We do understand now,” I said. “No more of thi
s awful ‘Drake must speak,’ because now we know why you can’t do it. We know it isn’t you being naughty. It’s not your fault. From now on, I’m going to try and help your mom and dad—and your granddad, too—understand that it isn’t ‘Drake must talk like we do’ but instead ‘Drake has his own special ways of talking.’” I smiled at him.

  Tentatively, he smiled back.

  Lucia and Skip arrived at the table. One look at Lucia stayed my urge to inquire about their delay in arriving at Melville Crossing. She was pale and haggard.

  “This is my husband, Walter,” she said, as he put the tray on the table.

  “Just Skip, please,” he said and extended his hand. I shook it.

  He wasn’t what I’d expected. Physically, Mason Sloane was a sturdily built man, and this had lent to his powerful presence in the room every time I’d met him. In contrast, Skip was tall and gangly thin, almost as if at thirty-five he were still trapped in adolescence. His hair was pale, his skin an unhealthy, almost grayish color. He was, nonetheless, strikingly good-looking because of bone structure so suave and chiseled it belonged in a James Bond movie. What let Skip down, however, were his eyes. He met mine only briefly then looked away, down, over to Drake, down again. Shifty eyes, as my grandmother would say.

  Skip and Lucia sat down. There was a long, acutely uncomfortable silence as everyone unwrapped their food. Lucia leaned over to help Drake open his Happy Meal. The toy was a little Lego something and Drake held it up joyfully. Both his parents smiled at him. Then Lucia used the handle of a plastic fork to cut Drake’s hamburger in half. She handed one piece to him.

  I sat quietly, waiting. Praying. Bracing myself.

  I think it was at that moment, more than any other time, that I became aware of the extent of Drake’s disability. Not because of anything he did but just because of the eerie transposition of a completely silent child against the raucous noise of a fast-food restaurant, of the clatter in the food preparation area, of the music, the chatter, other children whooping and shouting in the play area.

  Abruptly, Lucia rose. She was in the middle, between Drake and Skip, but she jumped up. Skip stood to let her out of the booth and then sat back down again.

  I turned to see where she was going.

  Skip said, “She needs to be sick.”

  I looked back.

  He shrugged without meeting my eyes. “She’s upset. It’s hard for her to keep her food down then.”

  We ate in uneasy silence.

  Skip reached over to his son. “You finished, buddy? Do you want to go play?”

  Drake accepted this invitation readily. He slid down onto the floor and wriggled out under the table, then ran off, leaving Skip and me alone.

  Silence.

  “I know,” Skip said in a very soft voice.

  More silence.

  “Lucy told me night before last. She’d said something about coming out here today and I couldn’t understand why. Couldn’t figure out what she was getting at … So, she told me.”

  I nodded.

  “I probably knew,” he continued. “I probably knew all the time …” Which I pretty much imagined.

  “Can you see that for Drake’s sake, we need to change things?” I asked.

  Skip nodded.

  “Have you seen the Mayo report?”

  “No. Not yet.”

  “I’ll send it to you, if you wish, because I’ve received the unadulterated version. It speaks in there of the need to reassess Drake in case there is more to this than they were able to ascertain. It’s very rare to have a child unable to make any speech at all, so it needs further investigation. There are degenerative conditions … other problems … and for Drake’s safety, he needs to be seen by a specialist again to address these possibilities.”

  Skip had his head down. He drew in a long breath, and I realized he had become tearful. Raising a hand, he wiped the corner of his right eye. I glanced in Drake’s direction, hoping he would continue to play.

  “I’m so sorry for this,” Skip said softly.

  “No, it’s all right. I understand how upsetting this must be.”

  “You have to understand about Lucy. She’s a good person. Really she is. And a good mother. She never meant Drake any harm.”

  “No, I’m sure she didn’t. Sometimes things happen that we don’t mean. They get out of control before we realize it, and then they just run away with us. I’m sure that’s the case here. I’m sure no one meant in any way to hurt Drake. But now it’s time to put things straight, because Drake doesn’t deserve this.”

  His head still down, Skip wiped his eyes again. Lucia remained sequestered in the McDonald’s toilets.

  “Do you think you’re going to be able to do that?” I asked. “Take Drake back to the doctors? Get him reassessed?”

  Very slowly, Skip nodded.

  “As well as getting him reassessed, we also need to set up plans to help him communicate. He’s a lovely boy, Skip. A really lovely, intelligent little boy. One of the nicest kids I’ve ever worked with. He deserves to be able to share more of his thoughts with the rest of us. Whether this is by learning sign language or by investigating surgery and a voice synthesizer or whatever, he needs to start now or it’ll be a real handicap for him.”

  Skip grimaced. Lifting his hand, he pressed it over his eyes.

  I paused to give him a moment to compose himself. My earlier difficult emotions over Lucia and her role in all this had largely passed, and, indeed, there was a part of me that actually liked this couple. They did so clearly love each other and Drake, too, in spite of how he’d been treated. I was well aware they wanted to do right. Nonetheless, I had to acknowledge that they were one of the most difficult sets of parents I had ever dealt with, because both of them were so timid, weak, and emotionally unstable. I had no doubt that Mason Sloane was a nasty bully of a man, but as is so often the case between bullies and their victims, the victim’s behavior plays as big a part in perpetuating the torment as does the bully’s.

  “We need to start tackling this matter right away,” I said again when the silence threatened to overpower us.

  Skip nodded.

  “Do you feel you can deal with this yourselves?” I asked. “Or would you like help in locating specialists? And in talking to the school? Because, while it’s a great distance and I’d need to turn all this over to someone local fairly soon, I’m more than happy to get you started with it.”

  He shook his head.

  “You’d rather do it yourselves?” I asked. There was something in that shake of the head I couldn’t read, which made me think perhaps it was a gesture of hopelessness and not a response to my comments. “Or you can’t manage it? Is that what you mean?”

  He shook his head again.

  A long pause then. I sighed, wishing I could shake him. I shifted in my seat. Sighed again.

  “We need to move,” Skip said at last. Finally he lifted his head and for a brief moment met my eyes. “We can’t stay in Quentin. Our life is over there.”

  “I understand how upset your father is going to be. I can imagine the scene. But this is his only grandson. While he’s been difficult to deal with, it’s also been clear that he loves Drake dearly. In spite of his rather … shall we say, ‘strong’ manner, he’s done it all for the boy. He’s going to be upset, but I’m sure he’ll come around. I’m sure he’ll accept Drake. Won’t he?”

  “I—I—I just can’t stay there. I don’t want to go back. Not tonight. Not ever. We’re this far. I just want to keep driving.”

  I looked at him.

  Skip had his arms crossed in front of him on the table, and he was hunched forward over them, his shoulders up around his ears. He stared at the plastic tabletop. “So that’s what Lucy and I did this morning. Put what stuff we needed in the car. I stopped at the bank and withdrew as much as I thought I could call my own and we’re just going. Just going to keep going from here.”

  Shocked, I stared at him. I had in no way anticipated this ext
reme reaction, and I now felt both alarm and guilt, because I’d pretty much brought it about. I didn’t know quite what to say.

  It was at that point Lucia returned to the table. Skip slid over, and she sat down beside him. She looked at me with great, wary eyes.

  “I’ve told her,” Skip said, his head down again.

  Lucia nodded.

  “I’ll confess, I’m a little … concerned,” I said. “Surprised. Because this seems a very big response. I’ve got to admit I’m a little worried when you tell me this.”

  “We’ll take care of Drake,” Skip said. “I promise you that.”

  “Yes, but … you’re just leaving? Don’t you have a house in Quentin? Belongings? A job? How can you just … leave?”

  Skip shrugged and for the first time he sat up properly in the booth. “Some things you work out with people. Some things never work out. We talked about it these last couple of days, Lucy and me. Didn’t we?” He turned to her. “And we know we’re not going to work this one out. So I’ve made the preparations. I’ve transferred the accounts to my name only. I’ve shut off the utilities. We’ve notified the school. So, yes, we’re leaving. We’ll come back at some other point and sell the house, pick up the rest of it. At some other point.”

  I still couldn’t believe this, and my incredulity must have shown because Skip then said, “You may think this is taking the weak way out, that we’re running away, like kids. But not so. Not really. If my dad’s taught me anything, it’s that when you see a bad deal, you cut your losses and get out of there.”

  I nodded. Reaching out, I snagged an unused napkin lying beside the remains of Drake’s Happy Meal. “Here,” I said, and I wrote my name and address on the napkin. “When you get settled, send me a card, would you? Let me know how things have turned out.”

  Taking the napkin, Skip folded it and put it in his shirt pocket. “Okay,” he said, and for the first time I saw him smile.

  Chapter

  38

  When I arrived in the dayroom for Cassandra’s session, she wasn’t there. I looked around, bewildered, and then went to the nurses’ station to inquire. Nancy tipped her head toward the corridor. “She’s already down in the therapy room.”