by Dan Koontz
“Hmm. What you’re proposing is a bit of a gamble,” Prescott said flatly, trying to conceal his delight that someone else was suggesting a course he fully supported. “Kids don’t immediately gain maturity by virtue of skipping a grade. Now of course, RTJ is slightly taller than average for his grade, and believe it or not, that’s an independent predictor for success in skipping grades – we have data on that.
“What’s harder to predict is how he’d do emotionally. Initially, it’s hard on all kids who skip ahead. Then, down the road, some kids have trouble building relationships with their peers, who are all a year or two older, especially around adolescence, but I don’t have any numbers to give you on that.”
“If we can save 120,000 bucks, I say we do it,” J.R. said casually, as nine heads turned in his direction. “Look, more than the $120,000, it’s the extra years of productivity, while we still have a high percentage of ownership. We have a very fixed time period during which we can extract a profit. If he gets out of college at 18 or 19 instead of 22, that could be a huge difference in lifetime earnings. Yeah, maybe it’ll be a little hard for him to adjust at first, but he’s a tough kid. I say we push for 3rd or even 4th grade this year – unless you have good evidence to say that these kids don’t do as well financially in adulthood.”
All eyes turned back to Prescott. “No,” he said pensively. “The data show that the vast majority of these kids do very well financially. The only gamble is that a small percentage – around nine percent – crumble emotionally and end up utter failures. And the majority of those kids who do fail are boys. We could always consider skipping a grade after we see how this year plays out.”
“He’ll be fine!” J.R. blurted out, unaccustomed to the standard decorum of a board meeting. “His dad skipped first grade.” Aside from Prescott, no one else in the room was aware that J.R. knew Ryan personally.
“Dr. Ralston had a close relationship with RTJ’s birth family,” Prescott quickly interjected, not entirely pleased that the information was now public. “And he maintains a close relationship with the boy, which is one reason we extended him the invitation to participate on the board.
“I really don’t think there’s a clear ‘right’ answer on this one,” Prescott said in a feigned conciliatory tone. “We’ll put it to a vote. All in favor of pursuing a higher grade placement?”
After 7 ayes, the matter was settled.
~~~
By the time Thomas finally built up the nerve to broach the subject, Sara was already convinced. Neither Thomas nor Sara had wanted the other to think that they were giving up on conceiving a child, so they had never discussed adoption. But almost instantaneously, after building for three years, a pressure valve seemed to have been released. Suddenly, neither felt inadequate any longer or wondered if that’s how they were perceived by their spouse. Intimacy once again was about making love instead of the emotionally-distant act of “trying to get pregnant.” No more charting temperatures; no more doctors; no more “expert” advice from friends; no more procedures. But they still didn’t have a child.
From the day of their engagement, they had been subjected to friends’ and family’s gushing about how adorable and smart and athletic their children would be, which had only served to create a picture in their minds of what their child’s potential would be. So, in addition to desperately wanting a child to love, they‘d cultivated a strong desire to guide this extraordinary child they’d both been imagining toward realizing his or her potential.
Consequently, they wound up registering with the most restrictive adoption agency they could find, which meant that while they would be required to provide more information about themselves, they would also have access to more information about the prospective child.
Reams of paper documenting every year of their lives pre- and post-marriage were notarized and mailed and faxed back and forth. Rigorous background checks, including fingerprinting, reviews of tax returns, and detailed interviews with contacts from different points in their lives, took them six weeks to complete.
At the end of it all, they were presented with a local boy, who had already significantly separated himself from his peers academically, with biological parents who had both earned doctoral degrees. He had been reading books since age 3, they learned. In kindergarten, he’d been referred to a neuropsychologist and had maxed out the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, the most commonly administered IQ test for kids, after which he was labeled by his public school as “gifted.” Sara, a gifted teacher herself, chuckled when she’d read that. “That’s like labeling Wilt Chamberlain tall,” she’d told Thomas. Then of course there was the Initial Aptitude Test he’d aced in September of first grade. The only concern they had left was whether or not this savant could function in a social setting.
A review of his teacher’s report had revealed that toward the end of first grade he had withdrawn socially, but prior to his parents’ deaths, the only negative comments he’d ever received were that he was at times too social and could be a distraction to the other kids – the hallmark of an unchallenged gifted student.
All of Ryan’s information was delivered to the Ewings piecemeal over a three-week period with his name withheld until the end of his third month in the orphanage. One new tidbit of information would arrive one day without another word for two or three days, followed by three emails in one day. The "Ryan emails" became an obsession. Sara and Thomas both found themselves checking their messages first thing in the morning, all throughout the day, during meals, and even in the middle of the night if they had to get up for one reason or another. The fit seemed perfect, and by the end of the three weeks, they were committed – ready to do whatever it took to bring this incredible boy home with them.
The final hurdle would be an interview with James Prescott, who would personally fly to Cleveland to meet them. Sara had heard of him; Thomas knew the name well. In the financial world, half seemed to think he was a genius, and the other half a sociopath. Oddly, nearly everyone who had actually met him was in the former camp. He was recognized globally as a master fund-raiser and negotiator.
Having earmarked Sara and Thomas’s application shortly after it had been submitted, Prescott had been pulling the strings behind the scenes all along, carefully orchestrating the logistics of the adoption. The couple was perfect, and they were obviously already sold. All he had to have them do now was sign the papers.
The negotiations, however, were far more intense than Prescott had envisioned, forcing him to book a last minute hotel room in Cleveland in order to meet for a second day. The actuarial tables and financial incentives did not impress the Ewings who wanted significantly more parental control. Prescott, on the other hand, wasn’t willing to consider giving away any more decision-making capacity than was outlined in the original agreement.
In the end, only one person was unwilling to back away from the negotiating table, and that was Sara. Once both men realized this, the conclusion was foregone.
In the spirit of compromise, and mindful of the need for a positive long-term relationship, Prescott conceded a few minor points that had to do with vacation time and giving Sara and Thomas durable power of attorney for healthcare.
Within a week, Ryan came home.
~~~
“We’ve got a few other minor issues to deal with here,” Prescott said casually. “His parents sent a permission slip for swimming – as legal guardian I signed off on that. And one for soccer, which starts in the fall. I declined to sign off on that...”
“What’s wrong with soccer?” one of the executives interrupted. “All my kids played it.”
“Repetitive head trauma,” J.R. chimed in.
“No!” another member of the board scoffed, rolling his eyes. “Seven-year-olds don’t get head trauma playing soccer!” Then he turned to Prescott, “Are you just saying no because you can?”
A lengthy pause followed the pointed question.
“Do you have a favorite wine?” Presc
ott asked contemplatively to no one in particular yet grabbing the attention of the entire board. He had pushed his chair back from the table and appeared to be staring off at some distant building in the skyline. “Mine’s pinot noir, specifically Burgundy. It’s a fickle grape – very hard to grow. Winemakers call it the headache grape – nothing to do with hangovers; it’s just very difficult to grow.”
He stood and began a slow waltz around the table, gradually looping back around toward the head, telling his story as he walked. “To make the perfect pinot noir you first need a great vine from great stock – and the clones from Burgundy are the best. But the best wine grapes don’t grow in ideal conditions. Far from it. They need some stress – struggles to overcome! The soils in Burgundy are ugly gravelly clay and limestone with no trace of the dark, fertile topsoil you’d see in a nursery. The weather can be harsh with freezing cold winters, frequent spring hail storms, and hot summers.
“But ahh, those grapes that do survive to harvest, they have character. Truly amazing,” he whispered, closing his eyes as if he were sipping the wine then and there. “Well, they’re full of potential anyway. But they aren’t ready. They need age. Perhaps no wine benefits more from age than Burgundy. Finally ten, twenty, even fifty years down the road, the end result can be mind-blowing.
“Gentlemen, we have a great vine from great stock, but if we put him in a nursery with fertilized topsoil, we’re sure to get very good grape juice. With some carefully managed adversity and patience, we’ll eventually have a world-class Burgundy.
“So to your question, am I saying no just because I can? You could say that.
“But the adoptive parents are the heart raising RTJ. We have to do what they can’t. We have to be the mind. Now, are we all agreed that soccer is out?”
Nine ayes.
~~~
It was time. Ryan had to talk to J.R.
Not only was J.R. Ryan’s only connection to his former life, he’d also really been nothing but good to Ryan. He was the only visitor Ryan had had for 3 months at the orphanage, and he seemed to have played some role in setting him up with Sara and Thomas, who Ryan had rather reluctantly come to realize were pretty great people.
He picked up the phone and hesitantly tapped “J.R.,” still his only contact aside from “Home,” “Sara,” and “Thomas.”
“Hello?” J.R. answered on the first ring.
“Mr. J.R.?” Ryan said nervously “it’s me, Ryan.”
“Hey buddy!” J.R. yelled, completely taken by surprise. “How are you? It’s been a long time.”
“Good,” Ryan said. “Sara and Thomas are nice. You were right about them.”
An awkward pause followed the reference to J.R.’s unexplained prescience in their last conversation. Ryan wasn’t ready to divulge that he now knew about AVEX and that J.R. was on his board of directors. And J.R., from his perspective, didn’t want Ryan to think of him as an insider – or anything other than a trusted family friend.
“Have you ever met them?” Ryan asked.
“No, I haven’t gotten a chance to,” J.R. said. “But the headmistress at the orphanage told me all about them. So what have you been up to?”
“Not much,” Ryan answered out of habit. “Well, actually that’s not really true any more. I’ve been doing a lot. My nanny’s teaching me Spanish, I’m taking swimming lessons, and I’m learning fourth grade math!”
“Awesome!” J.R. said enthusiastically.
“Yeah, things are a lot better,” Ryan said, relieved he still had J.R. to talk to. It was comforting – whatever his role was with Avillage.
“You looking forward to school this year?” J.R. asked.
“Yeah. I guess. But I’m not going to know anyone.”
“So what grade are you going to be in this year?”
“Second! You knew that!” Ryan exclaimed, unaware that his meeting with the school counselor that had been rescheduled from that afternoon to the following day was to finalize his grade placement.
“That’s what I thought,” J.R. answered defensively. “I just hadn’t heard yet.”
Hadn’t heard yet? Ryan thought to himself. That’s a weird thing to say. Another awkward pause followed.
“Well buddy, it was great to talk to you. I’ve missed you. I’m gonna let you go. Let’s not make it so long till our next talk,” J.R. said, trying to wrap things up.
“OK,” Ryan said softly, now more certain than ever that his relationship with J.R. could never be what it had been. J.R. was hiding too much from him. Was he trying to protect him? Looking out for him behind the scenes? Hoping to profit from him? Ryan almost wanted to call him on it right then and there and live with the consequences – either an honest friendship or nothing – but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He had another idea.
“And Mr. J.R.?” Ryan said.
“Yeah, buddy?”
“Thanks. For everything,” Ryan said with a sincerity and a finality in his voice that suggested this might be his last chance to say it. Whatever J.R.’s motives were, things were going better than he’d imagined they could have a few months ago; he wanted to thank him for that.
He then held the phone down slightly and yelled out, “What?... OK. Be right down.” He brought the phone back up to his ear and said, “I gotta go. Got soccer practice.”
“Soccer?!” J.R. blurted out, unnaturally alarmed.
“Talk to you soon,” Ryan said and hastily hung up the phone.
Sara and Thomas had been unable to give a coherent reason why he had been forbidden from playing soccer in the fall. And the idea to play in the first place had been all theirs. They were absolutely resolute with their decision, yet they seemed almost more disappointed than he was that he couldn’t play. Something hadn’t seemed right.
When the phone rang a few hours later, Ryan was indulging in the thirty minutes of TV he was allowed on weekdays. The caller ID popped up on the screen, “Private Caller: New York, NY.”
This is it, he thought.
Adjusting the TV volume just slightly down so as not to draw attention, but to increase his chances of overhearing something, he crept out of the living room and tiptoed toward the cracked door of Thomas and Sara’s room.
Inside he could hear a voice that was clearly Sara’s, but the words were too soft to make out. As the conversation continued though, her tone changed, and her voice grew louder.
“What?” he heard her snap indignantly. “No!... What are you talking about?... He should be playing. He’s going to a new school where he isn’t going to know a soul, but you wouldn’t sign the permission slip, God knows why!”
He could have heard most of that from the couch.
It wasn’t the one he wanted, but, slinking back to the living room, he had his answer. At least Sara and Thomas were firmly on his side, but it seemed they were the only ones. And they didn’t appear to have much more power than he did.
CHAPTER 5
“Happy birthday to you,” Sara sang blissfully off-key as she backed into Ryan’s bedroom, balancing a breakfast tray in front of her loaded with a three-inch stack of pancakes planted with 5 flickering candles, a gravy boat of warm maple syrup and a tall glass of orange juice. Thomas followed closely behind, camera at the ready, and managed to rapid-fire several unflattering pictures of a bleary-eyed Ryan just waking from a sound sleep.
Ryan celebrated two birthdays each year. One, his traditional birthday, was in March to mark the day of his birth. The other was in June to commemorate the day he’d come home from the orphanage to live with the Ewings. For lack of established celebratory vocabulary to mark the occasion, they had settled on calling this one simply his “other birthday.”
“Thanks, Mom,” Ryan said groggily to Sara, eyeing the breakfast tray. “And thanks a lot, Dad,” He sneered at Thomas. “That’s gonna be a keeper.”
“No problem, bud,” Thomas smirked. “I tried to get your good side.”
Ryan blew out the candles, as his sleepy eyes were blinded by a
nother flash from Thomas’s camera
“Now hurry up and get dressed,” Thomas said, trying not to laugh at the pictures he was scrolling through on his digital camera. “Our tee time’s in 45 minutes.”
Sara peered over Thomas’s shoulder. “You have got to put that one on the digital frame!” she snickered, as they turned to leave Ryan’s room.
Ryan sat up in his bed and ate his breakfast as he watched the pictures scroll on his bedside frame.
Joyful pictures of his early years with his birth parents gave way to somber pictures of a melancholy 7-year-old who seemed to have aged far more than the three months that had passed between his two homes. But gradually, as the photos continued to roll on, his smile returned.
His eighth birthday had been a family affair with Sara and Thomas and both sets of grandparents in attendance. That was followed by his first “other birthday” blowout that saw his entire extended family in attendance. Ryan’s beaming face fronted a sea of first and second degree relatives, arranged by height and age behind him, curling all the way up the grand staircase of the Ewing’s foyer.
As an eight-year-old, he was pictured smiling sheepishly in a Speedo with his swim team, taking his first golf lessons (with the board’s blessing,) and soaking up the sun with his parents on vacation in Mexico. At nine, he posed behind an oversized $35,000.00 check from the E.W. Scripps Company made out to Ryan Tyler Ewing, the youngest winner in National Spelling Bee history. He had been told the money would be going into a college fund, but he figured most of it was probably heading to the Avillage board. It hadn’t really bothered him; he had way more than most kids, and that wouldn’t be life-changing money for him anyway. What had bothered him deeply though was that he’d been forbidden from defending his title the following year, without explanation.
At age ten, a series of pictures marked his two months in Singapore as an exchange student at a Chinese-language immersion program at one of Hunting Valley Academy’s sister schools, followed by shots taken all over China on vacation with his family. He’d pleaded with his parents not to send him overseas by himself, and he’d overheard bits and pieces of their arguing with the board on his behalf, citing his understandable predisposition to separation anxiety. But the Avillage board had refused to budge. And it turned out he’d actually enjoyed himself once he’d gotten over there.