The Newman Resident

by Charles Swift

  There were several rows of tables, with a number of people scattered among them reading or writing. Richard sat down at a table near the back, and Carol sat next to him.

  “What shall we order?” Carol asked. “I’ve heard they’ve got great sushi.”

  “What was the reason I gave Stuart for going to law school?”

  Carol paused. Richard studied her face, worried for the least little sign she would build up her walls and refuse to talk.

  “You told him you went to law school because you loved me,” Carol said.

  “That’s what I said. And it was true. You know that, don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “You wanted to marry a guy who’d get a real job.”

  “Someone had to wake you up from your dream.”

  This wasn’t the conversation he’d written in his head on the way over to her office. Richard looked around the room, watching the people sitting on the benches as they waited for the books they’d requested to be brought to the desk. They looked like intelligent, busy people, and here they were sitting and waiting. People seemed to waste half their lives waiting for things, but books were actually worth waiting for.

  “But, Carol,” he said, “I hate my real job.”

  “I know you don’t like it, but—”

  “No, Carol, no. I don’t don’t like it. I hate it. I hated law school. I hated my summer jobs. And I hate being a lawyer.” His voice was getting louder with each sentence. “I don’t like pumpernickel bread. I don’t like shirts that scratch my neck. But I hate being a lawyer, Carol. I hate being what I am.”

  “Okay, okay,” she said, trying to quiet him. “You made your point.” She glanced around the room. “Look, maybe you hate your job, but I didn’t force you to go to Columbia. It’s not my fault you—”

  “I’m not saying it’s your fault. I take full responsibility.”

  “Oh,” she said. “Well, good. Because it really isn’t my fault.”

  “It’s not about fault. But it is about doing something because of love.”

  “What are you getting at?”

  Richard picked up a book not too far away on their table. He held it in one hand and shook it, like a preacher making his point with the Bible.

  “You know how you’re always telling me I analyze things too much? That I need to get to the doing part of life?”

  She nodded.

  “It’s time for me to quit thinking about writing and to write.”

  “You are a writer,” she said. “You’re writing that novel.”

  “No, I’m a lawyer. One more lawyer, helping people with money keep it or get more. I want to be a writer. Full-time.”

  Carol sat back in her chair. “Why now? Why can’t you just keep writing part-time like you always have?”

  “I read a review about a book this morning and kept thinking this is my story—this is our son’s story. I need to write our story, Carol, and quit letting other people do it.”

  Carol took a deep breath and looked away.

  Richard put the book down on the table and sat back in his seat. This conversation was not a complete success, but he’d never get up the courage again to make it this far. He couldn’t let either of them leave that room until he’d said everything he’d needed to. His body wanted to lean across the table, to get closer to Carol as he said what he was about to say. But he stopped himself. He needed the space. The buffer.

  “Earlier today I spoke with Jennifer,” Richard said. Carol turned and stared at him and he kept looking straight into her eyes. “I got a leave of absence approved.”

  “What? You quit?” Her face filled with red.

  “A leave of absence, just for the summer. Nothing’s finalized. I told her I’d need to talk with you first.”

  “How generous.”

  She got up to leave, but Richard grabbed her arm.

  “We’ve gotten expert at walking away from conversations. From each other. Let’s finish this one, okay?”

  “We need your salary, Richard. How—”

  “I know, I know. But we can make it for the summer. The issue isn’t money, it’s my chance to live the life I want to live. I’ve given law years and years of my life. I’m just asking for one summer.”

  Carol looked down at her hands, then off to the side, taking her time. “It’s that important to you?” she asked.

  “The chance to write is as important to me as law is to you. One summer will give me the chance to get past the first couple of chapters and really get into the book.”

  She folded her arms and stared across the room. “What if you can’t get the book published? Will you want to start another one?”

  “Maybe. But I won’t take another summer off.”

  “What if—”

  “What if I do get the book published? What if it becomes a best seller, and I make millions?”

  “Then it would be a real job.” Carol smiled.

  “Just one summer. I promise.”

  Slowly, Carol reached over and picked up the book Richard had been holding. She looked at it for a second, then handed it to him. “Go for it, Richard.”

  “You’re serious?”

  “Don’t give me a chance to back out.”

  “I won’t, I won’t. Let’s do it.” Richard reached over and held her hands.

  “Don’t be so quick on the gratitude,” she said. “Show it to me with a best seller.”

  “I owe you one.”

  “And don’t think I’ll forget that,” she said as she stood up.

  Richard touched her arm. “Just a minute,” he said, “there’s one more thing. I’m not quite done.”

  “Well, I am. I’ve got a three hundred million dollar suit calling my name. Loudly. We can talk on the way back. And this time, I’m taking a cab.”

  She started walking away, and Richard’s only option was to follow her. Now, as they were walking back toward the library entrance, he worried he wouldn’t have the courage to finish what he had to say. Maybe he should stop there. The whole plan might be too much. Carol had just compromised more than he’d ever seen her do since they met. She gave him her blessing to actually not make any money for three months. Maybe it wouldn’t be fair to ask any more of her.

  But this was his last chance.

  They were now on the street, and Carol got a cab and climbed into it. He climbed in after her.

  “So, what’s the one more thing?” she asked. “And be careful—don’t push your luck.”

  Richard looked at her, then out the window. He wished they weren’t sitting so close together.

  “It’s related to my taking the summer off to write. But more important. I’ve been thinking about this for a long time as well. I know how you feel, but—

  “Richard, what is it?”

  “You’ve got to promise to keep an open mind about—”

  “I’m starting to lose my patience.”

  “It’s Christopher.”

  Silence.

  “What about him?” Her voice shook.

  Richard turned from the window and looked into Carol’s face. She didn’t look angry, like she had when he first mentioned taking the leave of absence for the summer. She looked afraid. Her bottom lip quivered, just a little. He took a deep breath.

  “He really should take that quarter sabbatical,” Richard said. Just the saying of it infused him with courage. “Now that I’m going to be home for the summer, there’s no reason he can’t be, too.”

  Carol looked away for a moment. The cab had stopped in traffic, waiting for a delivery truck that was backing up. She opened her door, nowhere near her building, and turned back to Richard.

  “This little field trip was never about your writing,” she said, her voice quivering. Her eyes were piercing, but her face looked pale, vulnerable. “It was about getting Christopher home.”

  “Everything I said about my writing was true,” Richard said, looking up the street. A bus stopped and several children in their school uniform
s got off. He looked back at his wife. “But, I have to be honest, Carol, I’ll do everything I can to get our son home where he belongs.”

  She walked away.

  CHAPTER TEN

  “Next,” Richard kept saying, hoping to find something worth watching.

  CNN: Interview with the man who had just been appointed to the new cabinet post, Secretary of Corporate Alliance.

  CBS: Report on the President’s speech about the great success of privatizing schools.

  ESPN: Cage fighting again.

  It was almost eleven and Carol still hadn’t called. She usually didn’t get home until nine, but she always called if she was going to be later. He landed on some local cable station: blustery people in turn-of-the-century clothes dancing with their pets.

  “Off.”

  He knew she was tough, that she could attack in the courtroom like no one else, that she was a trial lawyer twenty-four hours a day. When he’d devised his plan, he’d seen it as building a logical case for bringing Christopher home. He’d never thought she’d look so betrayed. He’d expected her to be bothered, perhaps even angry, but to see her so hurt—that was something he wasn’t prepared for.

  The locks on the front door buzzed as they opened. Richard jumped up and looked around the room, then sat back down and picked up whatever book was on the nearby table. He heard footsteps coming down the hall towards the living room.

  “Sorry I’m late,” Carol said, as she headed for their bedroom. “I’m exhausted.”

  This was it. The first step in her apology ritual. Or was it more of a game?

  “Okay,” he said. But this was too important to be left to a game. “Carol, I’m sorry about this afternoon. I shouldn’t have sprung on you everything I’ve ever thought. I should’ve given you a chance to breathe.”

  There was a long, tense pause. Richard wanted to fill the void, but waited instead for her response.

  “I shouldn’t have lost my temper,” she finally said, as she turned to face him.

  Lost her temper? She hadn’t lost her temper—she’d fallen apart.

  “You know,” he said, “we took summers off every year when we were kids.”

  “I didn’t go home,” she said. “I went to camp and had a great time, making friends, learning things.”

  “It’s just one summer, Carol. It won’t be that big of a disruption.”

  “You’re really that clueless?”

  She turned and walked into their bedroom, but he followed after her.

  “Clue me in, Carol. Let’s get to the bottom of this.”

  She turned to him, her face firm and resolute. “Look, of course, I’m worried about messing up our son’s future with this wild goose chase of yours. I don’t want to see him fall behind because of the sabbatical, or maybe even get released from Newman for becoming uncompetitive. But there’s more to what happened today than that.”

  “Uncompetitive? You don’t seem to see—”

  “Do you want me to tell you what’s going on or not?”

  “You’re right.” Richard fell back into a chair. “I’ll just listen.”

  Carol sat on the bed. “You know how messy my parents’ divorce was. I was just a kid, but I knew what was going on. I heard a lot of ugly things a kid shouldn’t ever have to hear.”

  He nodded.

  “One of the things Mom said over and over was this: ‘You can never trust a man. All men want is control over women.’ I don’t think that—not for a minute. But, sometimes, I really do feel that way. So when you did what you did today, I felt manipulated. I felt betrayed.”

  “I’m sorry. I never meant for you to feel that way.” He sat on the bed next to her and held her hand, glad when she didn’t pull away.

  “Do you have any idea how difficult it will be to write and have him home at the same time?” she asked.

  “No, but I want to find out.”

  “That’s not all you want to do.”

  “What do—”

  “Everything goes back to your brother, Richard. You know that.”

  “No, I don’t know that. In fact, I would—”

  “You two were so close, such good friends. And, then, you lost him. He was gone from your life. And ever since then you’ve been afraid of losing the people you love. You’re afraid of losing Christopher.”

  Richard knew she was right at some level. He took a deep breath.

  “Nobody wants to lose someone they love,” Richard finally said.

  “Of course not, but you analyze everything to death because making a decision means losing the other alternatives.”

  “Maybe, but not this time. I’ve made my decision. I’ve given you what you want for years. Why can’t you give me what I want for three months?”

  Carol closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Look, I made that little trip to the library for you. There’s a trip I want you to make with me. Then we’ll decide.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Richard, Carol, and Hunter stood in a dark room, looking through a one-way mirror at a Newman laboratory that was also fairly dark. Hunter had made it clear that no parents had ever been to this room before, that he could get in trouble if the superintendent found out, that if it hadn’t been for his friendship with Carol he never would have considered doing this. Carol kept nodding and thanking him; Richard tried his best to ignore him.

  Two scientists were in the room with them, and several others were on the other side of the mirror, connecting electrodes to eleven children calmly seated at their individual desks.

  “Neuroplasticity,” Hunter said. “That’s what this is all about. It’s how we live up to our motto: Developing minds for the future. We’ve known for years the brain changes when a person learns—that it forms and develops throughout life. When people practice an activity, their neural networks reshape themselves in response. The same goes for when they access memories. People aren’t born with a brain they’re stuck with for their whole lives. They can develop what they’re born with. They can become smarter.”

  “But there’s nothing really new about that,” Richard said. “Like you said, we’ve known this for years.”

  “True, but Dr. Newman has discovered how to observe and measure these neural changes. Any school can test how students do on exams, measuring how well they recall information or even, if we’re lucky, how they can synthesize it. But the Newman Home can literally measure the changes in the brain and see what can be done to stimulate more such changes.”

  No one had said anything about this when they’d enrolled Christopher, and Richard was bothered by all of it. He didn’t like the idea that scientists at the school were scanning the children’s minds and trying to manipulate the natural process of learning. What ever happened to learning being about exploration and personal growth? Wasn’t a good school supposed to be instilling a love for learning rather than an experiment for it?

  But this was just the sort of information that would bolster Carol’s enthusiasm for the school. What could be better than teachers actually being able to know if students are learning and how to help them learn more? In fact, the more he thought about it from her perspective, the more he began to wonder if he was the one mistaken. Was this something to be concerned about, or not?

  “Why aren’t the kids nervous about being hooked up?” Richard asked.

  “We do this type of research with all the residents,” Hunter said. “They’re used to it.”

  “That’s not very comforting.”

  “Richard, there’s absolutely no risk to them. They’re being prepared for the electroencephalography portion of the research. You know, EEG. What we’ve actually developed here is an ftEEG, for Functional Transference Electroencephalography. Nothing you’ll find anywhere else, but it’s still quite safe.”

  “I don’t remember approving this for our son.”

  “All Newman parents give their approval when they sign the enrollment papers. They agree to let their residents participate in research in improv
ing education.”

  “I remember that part of the contract,” Carol said.

  “I do, too,” Richard said, looking at his wife. “But I never dreamed it was anything like this.”

  “The only risk is the tiniest bit of skin irritation underneath the electrodes,” Hunter said. “Perfectly safe.”

  The eleven children were arranged in a semi-circle in the lab. The center desk was empty. There was nothing on their desks, nothing on the walls, nothing on the ceiling. The lab was dark enough that it was impossible to see any detail in the children’s faces.

  “It’s such a sterile environment,” Richard said.

  “This is one of the most advanced classrooms at the Newman Home,” Hunter said. “In the world, to be honest. You’ll see in a moment.”

  Several panels on the right rose up, revealing shelves of what looked like large bicycle helmets. The scientists eased the helmets onto the residents’ heads, making minor adjustments until they pushed a button on the side that appeared to tighten the apparatus around the head.

  “Looks like—” Richard said.

  “Still perfectly safe,” Hunter said. “These instruments are called afMRI machines, for Advanced Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging. You know what MRI machines do. Well, these allow us to observe the brain activity of each of the residents.”

  “How are they different from fMRI machines?” Carol asked.

  Hunter smiled. “I’m impressed you know about fMRI. Like fMRI machines, these can detect changes in blood flow in the brain. These machines are much smaller, though, and can detect much more subtle flow changes. They are also compatible with these special electrodes you see connected to the residents. The biggest advance—the one that’s most important—is that these babies aren’t restricted to detecting blood flow when combined with the ftEEG. Because of the research under Dr. Newman’s direction, we can literally watch what happens in their brains in very specific, useful ways as the residents learn. I’ll show you.”

  The scientists left the lab, and Hunter pushed a couple of buttons on the control panel. The lights in the lab dimmed down. Simultaneously, identical holographic images of the solar system emitted from each desk with holographic notebook keyboards beside them. The children began studying the images and making notes in their notebooks by moving their hands in the air, interacting with the keyboards.