The Newman Resident

by Charles Swift

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Hunter told me all about it.”

  “Not now.”

  Richard rinsed his face, holding his face in his cupped hands. “Were you two behind the kidnap attempt?”

  “How dare you!”

  “Just asking.”

  “I would never do that to my own son.”

  “Well, you just did it, didn’t you?”

  “This is different. This is getting him back home.”

  “I don’t know what to believe anymore,” Richard said, grabbing the towel.

  Carol closed her eyes and covered her mouth. “I’m staying at Susan’s until I find my own place.”

  “You don’t have to leave. I’ll find a place.”

  “No,” Carol said. “I don’t want to be in this apartment anymore. I don’t belong.”

  “I know how you feel. Ever since Christopher went to that place as a little baby, we’ve all just been residents.”

  Richard dried his hands and face, then went back into their bedroom, unbuttoning his shirt.

  “Did you get to see Christopher?” Carol asked.

  Richard pulled a clean shirt and jeans out of the closet.

  “Maybe I’d better take a shower first,” he said. Then he turned to Carol and asked, “I probably ought to shower, shouldn’t I?”

  “I can’t believe this.” She walked over to her bag and started nervously rearranging things.

  “I can’t focus, Carol, I’m going to concentrate on just one thing, so I can make it through the next few minutes.”

  “And that one thing you’re going to concentrate on is a shower?”

  “You got it. A quick one.”

  “How can you worry about a shower when our whole world is falling apart?”

  “No, things are finally falling together,” he said from the doorway to the bathroom. “I’m getting my son back, I just don’t know how.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

  After his shower, Richard left the bathroom with his jeans on, buttoning his shirt. He leaned against the wall, looking at his wife sitting on the bed.

  “You know, counselor,” he said, “there’s just one thing I can’t figure out.”

  Carol didn’t turn to look at him.

  “If I were to come home to you and announce I had decided to pay another woman to be my wife,” he said, “that I was going to live with her and be with her, and just visit you occasionally—you wouldn’t stand for it. You’d take me to court, and society would proclaim me an inconsiderate, despicable husband. So why can we get away with doing that to children? Why can we have a child, and then pay other people to be the parents?”

  “It’s not the same thing.”

  “How is it different?”

  Carol closed her suitcase and zipped it shut. “Susan’s expecting me,” she said, and she left the bedroom, carrying the bag and briefcase.

  Richard followed her into the living room, tucking in his shirt. “It’s because children can’t fight back, isn’t it? They’re too little. They can’t stop us by hitting us, or get a divorce from us. All they can do is wait—wait until they’re angry adults who fight back any way they can.”

  “I don’t think enrolling our son in the finest school in the world will make him grow up and throw Molotov cocktails in the street.”

  “If we adopt a pet, we actually plan on taking care of it. At least if we had a dog, I could see it whenever I wanted to.”

  “You never answered me before. Did you see Christopher?”

  “They wouldn’t let me. He’s their property.”

  “That’s not it,” Carol said. “They just see you as…well, as unstable.”

  “Find out for yourself. Call the school and set up an appointment to see your son.”

  “I can’t do that.”

  “Because you know they won’t let you.”

  “Of course, they’ll let me. I signed the papers. They wouldn’t let you because they knew you’d cause trouble.”

  “Then call. What could it hurt?”

  “Christopher’s where he belongs. He’s safe there. He’s learning what he needs to know there. I’m not calling the school, Richard. I don’t have time for your game.”

  She reached down to pick up her bag, but his hand grabbed hers as she touched the handle. His face was only inches from hers. “I don’t know what this is, but it is not a game.” They both stood back up, slowly. “This is the last thing I’m asking of you before you leave. Call the school. If I’m wrong, and they say yes, then you’ve lost nothing.”

  Carol folded her arms, thinking. She took a deep breath.

  “Carol,” he said. “I know you think I’m being dramatic, but I know a father who tried to get his son out of Newman and the boy ended up dead by the river. A woman wanted to get her daughter out, and the little girl died of a nervous breakdown in the hospital. And they tried to kidnap our own son.”

  “Come on, Richard—”

  “Call. It’s the last thing I’ll ever ask you to do.”

  She pulled her cell phone out. “The Newman Home.”

  “Yes,” Carol said as she sat on the arm of the couch. “I’d like to speak with the superintendent.”

  Carol rubbed her neck.

  “I understand he’s busy. At least take a message to have him call me. Carol Carson. He knows me.”

  Richard shook his head. “They’ll just put you off and we’ll never know.”

  Carol rolled her eyes up and shook her head. “No, no, I really need to speak with him right away. It’s urgent.”

  Carol sighed.

  “Just let him know who it is; he’ll talk with me.” She covered the mouthpiece with her hand. “I’m on hold.”

  Richard nodded.

  “Yes,” Carol said into the phone. “Who is this?”

  “Oh, hello, Ms. Garrett. I was trying to get in touch with the superintendent but—”

  Carol listened for a moment.

  “I don’t care if he’s meeting with someone very important, I need to speak with him.”

  Carol stood up in her best cross-examination stance.

  “All right, all right. Maybe you can help me. My son returned to Newman last night. I wanted to stop by this morning on my way to work and see how he’s doing.”

  Carol started to pace.

  “What do you mean it’s impossible? It’ll just take a few minutes, and I—”

  Carol started pointing her finger as if Ms. Garret could see her.

  “Don’t talk to me like that! I simply want to—” Carol dropped the phone from her ear and stared at Richard. “That little nitwit hung up on me! They’ve never acted this way before.”

  “Something’s going on,” Richard said. “I’m not sure what it is. Did they mention the name of the person the superintendent is with?”

  “No, just someone important.”

  “Hunter mentioned something about Dr. Newman last night,” Richard said. “Pretty important stuff, I guess.”

  “You saw Hunter last night?”

  “We had a chat.”

  “Maybe he can help,” Carol said as she pressed the button programmed for Hunter’s number. “Yes, Hunter, this is Carol. There’s nothing really wrong. I just wanted to stop by Newman this morning and see Christopher. Just to make sure he made it safely last night.”

  Carol looked over at Richard.

  “Yes, I know you were there when they brought him in,” she said, “but I’d like to visit with him for a minute.”

  She started pacing again.

  “What do you mean, maybe later?” Her eyes squinted as she focused in on her questioning of the witness. “Yes, I heard what you said, but did you hear what I said?”

  Carol leaned forward like she was trying to hear something.

  “Baby? Who’s calling you baby? Who’s that woman, Hunter?”

  She shook her head.

  “Look, Hunter, I want to see him now. I’m his mother.” She stared at her cell phone.
“Twice this morning. I’ve been hung up on twice.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He said I was starting to sound like you, then hung up on me.” She went back to pacing the living room.

  Richard still sat on the coffee table. He rubbed his forehead.

  “I don’t get it, how can you be so calm about all this?” she asked.

  “I’m thinking.” Richard had hoped something would wake up his wife to how much power Newman exerted over people. Up until now, Carol saw this issue of power as his problem—something he’d created in his mind. So long as she believed she was in charge, that she could see their son whenever she wanted to, she didn’t mind the school refusing his request to see him. After all, she figured his requests were unreasonable. But she was discovering who was really in charge, and she didn’t like it.

  “I don’t like being told no,” she said. “Who do they think they are? I’m his mother!”

  “But he’s their resident. As far as they’re concerned, they own him.”

  “Well, they don’t!” Carol shouted.

  He went to the bedroom for his cell phone and then headed for the front door.

  “Where are you going?” she asked.

  “I’ll figure it out on the way to the school. I hoped they’d listen to you.”

  “They’d better start listening to me. I’m going with you.”

  Richard kept walking, surprised, but pleased. He hadn’t planned on her coming with him, but it couldn’t hurt. Maybe if they saw a prominent lawyer next to him they’d think twice about not letting him see Christopher.

  “Did you just manipulate me?” Carol asked.

  “Just a little.”

  “I’m not sure I like that feeling either.”

  Richard stopped and turned to her. “I knew I could never win against you. But if you fight them with me, I stand a chance.”

  When they got to the front door his phone beeped with a message.

  “It’s the Newman school,” Richard said, putting the phone on speaker. “Called when it was charging.”

  “Daddy?”

  Richard stood still. It was Christopher’s voice, and he was upset.

  “I’m sorry, Daddy. They told me you sent me back here because you were mad at me. They said they’d take me to the basement, but that’s a bad place, so I got away. They kept saying they were going to make me a lion. I found this phone and remembered your number. I’ll do whatever you tell me to do. I won’t make you mad at me. Can’t you come and get me? Please come and—”

  The voice stopped. There was a loud noise, then the phone went dead.

  Richard felt burning inside his entire body. He wanted to grab something and tear it apart. He opened the front door and Carol followed closely behind as he walked toward the stairs. He began walking faster, then faster, until he was running. Carol ran to keep up. He jumped down the stairs, two and three at a time.

  “What are you going to do?” Carol said.

  “I don’t know, but I’m not going to sit around and think about it.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

  In the cab, Richard and Carol decided they wouldn’t mention the message from Christopher. Knowledge was their only leverage, and they didn’t have much of it. If they said too much, Christopher might be in more danger.

  When they arrived at the Newman School, someone had just stepped through the front door. Richard caught the door before it closed.

  “We’re here to see our son,” Richard said between breaths. The host behind the desk stood up as Richard and Carol ran into the Newman lobby.

  The host tried several times to have the two sit down, but they refused, insisting on seeing Christopher. After the host made a phone call, he told them it would be impossible for them to see their son at the moment, but Ms. Garrett would come out to the lobby to speak with them.

  “We’re not going to take him out,” Carol said. “We just want to see him. I leave my car at a parking garage, for crying out loud, and I’m allowed to see that whenever I want!”

  “We do not view our residents the same as automobiles, Ms. Carson,” the host said.

  Richard grabbed her arm and walked with her to the other side of the room.

  “This isn’t going to work,” Carol whispered. “Maybe we ought to call the police or someone.”

  “The police? They’ll probably arrest us, not the people here. They weren’t helpful last night at all.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The police picked me up last night. The police commissioner himself came down and let me know I was on thin ice. Apparently, some people were getting upset.”

  “Then the courts,” she said, still whispering. “I know some powerful people, too. Let me make a few phone calls.”

  “Before or after he’s been in the basement?”

  The door behind them opened and Ms. Garrett came into the lobby, followed by a host in a safari uniform who looked more like a bouncer than an educator.

  “I apologize for the inconvenience of your coming all this way,” Ms. Garrett said, smiling too much, “but as I explained over the telephone, it’s simply not allowable to visit the residents today.”

  “Look,” Carol said, “you know me. I’m the one who made the arrangements with Dr. Jenkins to have our son returned last night. I’m on your side. I just want to see our son.”

  “That would be disruptive.”

  “Can’t we just peek through a one-way mirror someplace?”

  “Ms. Carson, you returned Christopher to us so he could be properly cared for. Protected. Trained. Please, let us do our job. We know what is best for him.”

  Carol’s eyes squinted again, the way they did when she was ready for a fight.

  “Then let us speak to the superintendent,” Richard said.

  “He’s a busy man, Mr. Carson. I can set up an appointment for three or four weeks from now, if you’d like.”

  “Let’s go, Richard,” Carol said. “We’re not getting anywhere.”

  “But—”

  “This must be what Dr. Newman was calling me about,” Carol said. “I’ll call him back when we get to my office. I need to have those files in front of me when I talk to him.”

  Richard tried to hide his surprise. It was the perfect comment, and he watched out of the corner of his eye as the smile on Ms. Garrett’s face seemed to slide off.

  “I guess you’re right,” he said, and they headed for the front door.

  “Dr. Newman is out of the country,” Ms. Garrett said.

  “You need to be better informed,” Carol said, not looking back.

  Richard pushed on the front door to open it.

  “Just one moment,” Ms. Garrett said, pulling out her cell phone. She spoke into it for a moment, nodding her head. “I’m sure the superintendent has a few minutes this morning. Perhaps we can arrange something.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

  She led them down a long hall, followed by the safari bouncer. Richard had been down the hall two or three times before, but it felt strange this time. Eerie. There was something different about the air, the walls. Something was off, even more than usual.

  The door to the superintendent’s office was open, and they walked past his secretary into his office without stopping. He stood up from behind his desk.

  “Ms. Carson,” the superintendent said, “Dr. Jenkins told me you and he had a crystal clear agreement.”

  “I never agreed to being shut out from my own son.”

  “Ms. Carson said that Dr. Newman returned from his trip,” Ms. Garrett said. “That he called her.”

  “Look,” Richard started, “all we want—”

  “Dr. Newman called you?” the superintendent asked. “I didn’t know you knew each other.”

  “We’re just here to see—”

  “Certainly, if you personally knew Dr. Newman, I would be aware of that.”

  “He’ll be interested to know how unaware you are, Superintendent,” Carol said.

&
nbsp; Ms. Garrett took a quick, deep breath.

  “All we want to do is see Christopher,” Richard said. “Why is that so difficult? He’s here, isn’t he?”

  The superintendent turned to his computer and typed in a command. He turned the monitor so that Richard and Carol could see it, then typed in “Carson” and pressed enter. A schedule of classes came up on the screen. Richard looked closely.

  “We know where your son is at all times. Right now, he’s in his physics class. Soon, he’ll return to his living quarters,” he pointed to a block of time on the screen, “for fifteen minutes of personal time. Then, another class.” He pointed to “Room 316.”

  “Are you certain he’s in his physics class?” Carol asked.

  “Of course. Where else would he be?”

  “Then let us just look through the door,” Richard said.

  “There’s no window, so you’d have to open the door to see him. Then, of course, instruction would stop, your resident would see you, and the entire class would be disrupted.”

  “Would that be so bad?” Carol asked.

  “Ms. Carson, we can’t play favorites here. If we allow you to disrupt class, we’d have to allow each and every parent to do the same. How would the residents find time to learn?”

  “We’re not going to wait until the end of the quarter to see our son,” Richard said.

  “We’ll send you a special video this month.”

  “That’s not good enough.”

  The superintendent sighed and turned the monitor back facing him. “We don’t normally do this, but I’ll have my assistant take you to our administrative offices. There, you can complete the necessary paperwork to visit your resident.”

  Carol turned to her husband and smiled, surprised. “Well, good. That’s what we wanted.”

  “So,” Richard said, “when can we see him?”

  “First you need to fill out the papers.”

  “I understand that, but when can we see him?”

  “They’ll explain all of the details to you in the administrative offices, Mr. Carson.”