Risking It All

by Nina Darnton

  One night after dinner she prodded Jeff to broach the subject. They were sitting at the dinner table and, as usual, Jeff and Marcia were carrying the conversation, trying occasionally to bring in Danny, who answered, if he answered at all, in monosyllables. Marcia brought the conversation around to the upcoming baseball season, which would start in the spring.

  “Your mother told me how much you love baseball, Danny,” Marcia said. “Maybe you’d like to play on weekends with the town team in Woodstock. You’d miss the practice sessions during the week up there, but we could get you into some program in the city where you could practice a few times a week. What do you say?” Danny didn’t answer.

  “Danny, Marcia asked you a question,” Jeff said.

  “I don’t want to,” he mumbled.

  “I thought that was your favorite thing,” Marcia prodded.

  “Not anymore.”

  “What team do you like?” Jeff asked.

  Danny shrugged.

  “I asked you what team you liked,” Jeff snapped.

  “The Dodgers,” Danny muttered.

  “Yeah. I get that. But you’re a New Yorker now. Time to switch to the Yankees.”

  Danny looked up and for the first time his face looked animated. “I don’t like the Yankees. My ma said the Yankees don’t need fans. They win all the time. She said you gotta root for the guys who don’t always win, ’cause they need you more. I like the Mets.”

  “The Mets? Man, they are such losers.”

  “They made it to the World Series.”

  “Yeah, and they lost.”

  Danny’s face flushed. “Yeah, but they made it. They weren’t as good but they worked hard and they made it. The Yankees, they think they can do anything but they suck.”

  Marcia broke in. “Anyway, Danny, I’m talking about you. You need to get some exercise. You have to choose. If it’s not baseball, then soccer or basketball. I’d really like you to do a team sport.”

  Danny didn’t answer and, for the time being, she let the subject drop. But she told Berta that she would have to count on taking him to some activity as soon as they worked out which one.

  “What about the after-school clubs at school?” Marcia asked Danny another time. “Is there anything that sounds like fun?”

  Danny just shrugged.

  Jeff left most of the arrangements to Marcia but the day Marcia returned to work, he pulled Berta over after Marcia left and told her that he didn’t want her to leave Griffin alone with Danny. She was surprised. “You think the boy would hurt him? He seems to like him.”

  “I don’t know what to think, but I don’t want to take any chances.”

  She nodded.

  The transition went smoothly and within a week, Marcia was well installed back at work and Berta was managing the household. On the two days Marcia worked at home she would break at lunchtime and take Griffin for a walk in the park or play with him on the living room floor. Then she’d go back to her reading and break again when Danny came home. She’d try to engage him about his day, though with little success, and she’d sit with him to be sure he finished his homework. There were tense dinners with Jeff, but she tried to tell herself they were getting better, though there was little evidence of that. Still, all seemed to be going relatively smoothly, until the third week when she got home to find out that the school had called about a problem with Danny. She was asked to make an appointment to speak to the science teacher at her earliest convenience.

  She had just taken off her coat when Berta presented her with the message. Danny was in the kitchen drinking a Coke. He wasn’t allowed soft drinks and they didn’t keep them in the house, so he must have bought it himself with his allowance. Marcia walked over to him, took the can of Coke from his hand and poured it out in the sink. “What’s this about, Danny?” she asked.

  “I just wanted it. I paid for it with my allowance. I always drank it at home.” He was indignant.

  “Not the Coke. Why does the science teacher want to see me?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Try to imagine.” She was losing her patience, taking up her time with this nonsense when she hadn’t even seen Griffin yet.

  “Mommy’s here,” Berta sang out as she carried Griffin into the room. Marcia broke off her conversation with Danny to go to him, smiling and cooing as he held out his pudgy little arms to her and she took him greedily into her own.

  Danny took the opportunity to disappear into his room, but it didn’t work. Marcia handed Griffin back to Berta and followed him in.

  “It isn’t fair,” he said.

  She sat on his bed. “Okay. So tell me what happened. If it isn’t fair, I’ll take your part. But what happened?”

  His eyes filled with tears, but he stopped himself from crying. “I knocked over the science table. Everything broke.”

  You mean by accident?”

  “Kind of.”

  “So tell me exactly what happened.”

  “John Rochman brought in this kit where you make a volcano and we all did it. It was really cool. Everyone did something. But when it was my turn, he, like, moved the thing I was supposed to put in farther away so I couldn’t reach it. And when I tried, he moved it again when the teacher wasn’t looking. And then a few of the kids looked at each other and laughed and every time I tried to get it one of them moved it further away and they kept passing it around.”

  “That’s mean. So then what happened?”

  “When it got back to John, he did it again so I pushed him hard in the chest and grabbed it. He fell down and I fell forward and the whole thing fell off the table and broke.” He wiped his eyes, which were full, though not dripping. “It wasn’t my fault. It’s not fair but I’m the one who got in trouble.”

  “She reached for him and pulled him to her, wanting to protect him from all the things that seemed set on hurting him. But he wriggled away.

  “Danny, did you tell the teacher what happened?”

  “Nah. What’s the good? She won’t believe me.”

  “But I believe you, Danny. And I will tell her.”

  “No, then everyone will hate me.”

  “We’ll see. We’ll work it out. Just trust me, okay?”

  He nodded and wiped his nose with his shirt.

  “Not with that. Use a tissue.”

  He picked up a rubber ball and turned it round and round in his hands. “What about Jeff?”

  She rubbed her lip with her finger for a second, thinking. “We’ll have to tell him. But maybe after I talk to the teacher. It’s okay. It’s not your fault. You shouldn’t have pushed that boy, but they all provoked you. Jeff will understand. You have to learn to use your words instead of your hands when you want to solve a problem.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, you should have told him, told them all, to stop and if they didn’t you should have told the teacher.”

  He bounced the ball against the wall and caught it. Then did it again.

  “No balls inside,” she said.

  “If you do that you’re a snitch. Nothing is worse than that.”

  “Nothing is worse than hitting or punching someone.” She looked at her watch. Berta would be leaving soon. “We’ll talk more later,” she said as she walked to the door.

  “Marcia,” he called as she started to leave. She stopped and turned toward him.

  “I can’t go back there. I ran away after the volcano broke. I can’t see them again.”

  She sighed. She seemed to be doing that more and more lately. “You mean you ran out of the school?”

  “Yeah.”

  “It’s far away. How did you get home?”

  “The cop.”

  “What?”

  “The cop. The same one. He saw me and I told him what happened. He took me home.”

  “He did? How?”

  “In the cop car. I sat up front right next to him. It was pretty cool.”

  “Danny, you can’t just leave the school whenever
you want. They’re responsible for you. That’s against all their rules. I wonder why Berta didn’t tell me this right away.”

  “She doesn’t know. He dropped me downstairs. He told me to tell you what happened. But I can’t go back there.”

  “You have to go,” she said softly. “And you have to apologize. I’ll go with you. It will be okay. It will be hard at first, but then it will be fine. You’ll see.” She left the room and took Griffin from Berta, who already had her coat on, ready to leave.

  In his room, Danny sat heavily on his bed. “It won’t be fine,” he said. “It won’t ever be fine.” He picked up the ball and threw it once, hard, at the wall.

  15

  Fall turned to winter. There was time for the leaves in Central Park and in Woodstock to turn yellow and orange and red, time for them to fade to brown and crinkle and fall into heaps that Jeff raked and blew into neat piles and then grumbled when the neighborhood kids jumped into them, time for those same trees to bend and groan under the weight of the snow, time for the lawn in Woodstock to lie buried, looking like a frozen seascape marked only by the tiny hooves of passing deer, and time for the streets in New York City to turn to yellow slush pounded by the boots of thousands of people hurrying from one place to another. But there wasn’t time enough for Danny to adjust to living with them.

  Jeff claimed they had done everything they could. They had all seen a family therapist a few times until Jeff felt it was useless and expensive and refused to continue. Although Danny went alone once a week, he still didn’t seem to have any friends, his grades didn’t improve, and his silence and withdrawal at home only increased. Even in this special school, he was behind others in his grade, so the teachers suggested it would be easier for him to repeat fifth grade and made his return to the school contingent on his doing that. This humiliated him, Marcia realized, but she didn’t have a choice. She understood that he was bigger and stronger than the kids in his class but while he was behind them in math and reading, he was way advanced in independence and self-reliance. He also was accustomed to behaviors these private school children had never seen. Their problems were mostly confined to talking back to teachers or not doing homework. Danny’s were different. He knew how to fight and he didn’t hesitate to use his fists to settle disagreements or avenge hurt feelings. When she tried to explain to him that he couldn’t do that, he viewed her as well-meaning but naive. The world in which he had grown up taught him that was how people got respect.

  A few days after Christmas break, Marcia received a call from the principal. He asked that she and Jeff come in for a conference. She feared the worst and she wasn’t wrong. The principal admitted they couldn’t handle Danny. He didn’t seem to be learning, he didn’t turn in his homework, he was sullen and rude to the teachers, he failed tests, he fought during recess, he sat alone and isolated at lunch, he was destructive.

  “How is he destructive?” she asked.

  He pointed to the incident with the science table.

  “I explained that. I spoke to Mrs. Mullin and I thought she understood. It was an accident. He was being bullied. You ought to be calling in the parents of those children who provoked him.”

  “That was a complicated case. Perhaps others were also to blame in that instance but it isn’t the only example.”

  “You say he sits alone and isolated at lunch. He’s so young—just eleven years old. He came in to the class late without knowing anyone. Aren’t they too young to be choosing where they sit? Has anyone tried to help him integrate?”

  “We have tried, Mrs. Naiman, I assure you. We encourage the children to be inclusive and to be independent. I acknowledge that we failed with Danny. We knew there would be problems given the background he came from and his recent trauma,” the principal said, “but we hoped together we could overcome them. At this point, I’m afraid, we’re forced to recognize that our hopes were not realized. He is disruptive to the other children. Their parents complain that he is displaying the very behavior they sent their kids to a selective school to avoid.”

  “He’s a child who has suffered a terrible loss. Can’t you please give him another chance?”

  Jeff hadn’t said anything. Now he chimed in. “Marcia never gives up,” he said, apologetically. It sounded condescending, but she let it pass. Still, it bothered her that he couldn’t find it in him to defend Danny, to fight for him, even a little. It made her feel even more responsible for Danny because she saw that she was the only advocate he had.

  “He does do his homework. I know he does,” she said. “I often sit with him when he does it and I check it and make sure he puts it into his book bag. So if you don’t get it, he somehow isn’t feeling safe enough to hand it in.”

  “Maybe he wants to fail,” Jeff said. “Maybe this is exactly what he’s been hoping for.”

  Marcia was annoyed at his response in front of the principal, viewing it as a betrayal, not just of Danny but of her. “But surely as educators, as people who care for children, you can help us turn this around,” she said. “He’s probably insecure about his ability. But he’s smart. He did very well at his old school when his mother was alive. A lot of what you are seeing is the result of grief.”

  The principal shifted uncomfortably. “That actually supports my point. Perhaps he did well there because the standards were different. He would be happier in a school where the academic level and background of the other kids would vary more and he could find his own place.”

  Jeff agreed. Marcia didn’t. But it didn’t matter. It had already been decided and the upshot was that the school had given up on him. The principal agreed to keep him for the balance of the school year with the understanding that he would go to another school for sixth grade.

  “If he improves, if you see a difference by the end of the year, will you reconsider?” Marcia asked.

  “Yes, but frankly, I think it’s unlikely,” the principal answered.

  As they left the building Marcia and Jeff didn’t look at or speak to one another. When they got home, Marcia went into their bedroom and closed the door. She sat on their bed feeling sad and worried and wishing for Jeff, the old Jeff, she thought, the one before all this, who could share this disappointment and help fix it instead of acting as another obstruction. He opened the door and walked over to her, sitting down next to her and speaking softly, “Honey, I know how you feel. You’ve tried so hard to make this work. But we’re spending more than forty thousand dollars a year for him to go to a school he hates and where no one likes him. Maybe it’s time to try something else.”

  She sighed and put her hand in his, feeling guilty for her thoughts before he’d come in. “You’re right. We have no choice. I’ll do the research and see if there’s a charter school he could go to. I’ll talk to his therapist. Maybe he’ll have some advice. But you know, Jeff, this isn’t the whole picture. He’s having a rough time adjusting and he’s not responding to them in school, but there is more to him than that.”

  “He’s not responding to us that well either,” Jeff said.

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. That’s getting better.” She paused, wondering whether to say what was on her mind. Finally she said it with an apologetic smile, to soften it. “He’s scared of you.”

  “How is he going to learn how to act if I don’t teach him?” Jeff asked, irritated.

  That was the reaction she had expected, but she pushed on, knowing she was treading on dangerous ground. “I know, honey. I think it’s important that you teach him, but maybe not right now. I mean, he knew pretty well how to act before. Eve taught him. It’s not that he doesn’t know. It’s that he can’t act better. He’s too full of anger and hurt. His behavior is just crying out for help, for attention of the right kind. I think he just needs more encouragement, more understanding.”

  Jeff rolled his eyes. They’d been over this ground before and his opinion hadn’t changed. “Marcia, it’s great that you think love is the answer to everything, but it isn’t. Look at us. W
e’re tense and arguing and resentful half the time. Love isn’t even the answer for us.”

  “Love isn’t the answer for us?” She repeated. “Wait a minute. What does that mean? I know we’ve disagreed about Danny but it hasn’t changed my feelings for you. Has it changed yours for me? For Griff?”

  “No, of course not,” he said, getting up. He straightened his pants, smoothing out the wrinkles. “I didn’t mean that. I meant even though we love each other, it hasn’t stopped us from having arguments. It’s kind of gotten in the way and interfered with our relationship with Griff, don’t you think, Marcia? When was the last time we just enjoyed being at home together? It’s always so tense.”

  “I know. I’m sorry. I think it’s temporary. Please, honey, hang in there with me. I know we can make this work. Danny and Griffin love each other. Danny is never happier than when he’s with him. He runs in to see him first thing when he comes home from school and Griff’s face lights up when he sees him. I’ve started asking Danny to help out a little—to make him feel like he’s needed, like he’s part of the family.”

  Jeff had walked out of the bedroom, collecting items he needed as he walked—he was in a rush to get back to work—and Marcia was following him as she talked. Now he turned around sharply and stopped walking. “Don’t let him help too much, Marcia.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, don’t let Danny do things with Griffin when you’re not in the room. I’ve already spoken to Berta about it. He’s a troubled kid. I don’t know what he’d do.”

  She laughed incredulously. “I can’t believe you said that. I mean, do you honestly think Danny would ever in a million years hurt Griffin? He loves him. And Danny is not a bad kid.”

  “No. Every eleven-year-old kicks over the science table at school; every kid comes home, goes straight to his room, only comes out when he’s forced to and then sits at dinner without saying a word.”

  “I admit all that. But every kid hasn’t lost his mother in this awful way.”

  He softened, reaching out to her.

  “You want this so much you’re not seeing clearly. But Danny is an angry kid and angry kids do scary things.”