The Tiger's Child

by Torey Hayden

  Her eyes had grown huge with the unexpectedness of my action.

  “If you’re asking what’s going to happen in regards to our relationship, that’s up to you. I like having you around. I’ve enjoyed this summer. I hope once the summer school is over, we continue to see each other.”

  The car quickly grew warm in the summer sun, so I rolled down the window and leaned on it.

  “That’s it?” Sheila asked. “We might just get to see each other sometimes?”

  “There’s a hidden agenda here,” I answered. “You’re asking me more than I’m hearing.”

  She didn’t reply. In the heat, sweat beaded up along her temples and trickled down along the side of her face. Minutes passed. My mind began to wander, and as it so often did when I was with Sheila, it wandered back to the time we were together in the classroom.

  Suddenly, I was awash with longing. It had been so much simpler then, when I was the adult and she was the child, when I was convinced my world was right and her world was wrong and it was only a matter of getting her to change sides. Never once had I questioned then the basic value of what I was doing.

  “Do you fuck him?” she asked, her voice soft.

  Pulled from my thoughts so abruptly, I looked over in surprise. “Who?”

  “That guy who was at your apartment. Do you fuck him?” The question was not saucily put at all, as her references to such activities had been on Saturday night, but with genuine inquiry in her voice.

  “That’s a fairly personal question,” I replied.

  As if suddenly embarrassed, her head dropped and her cheeks colored. There was a deep intake of air. Then, unexpectedly, it crossed my mind that she was going to cry.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m not angry with you for asking it. It’s just that it’s one of those questions that I’m not prepared to answer.”

  She was going to cry. I could see her sucking her lower lip between her teeth to keep it from quivering. “You told me before,” she said. Her voice was shaky, but the tears didn’t fall. “When I was little. I asked you if you and Chad fucked and you said you did.”

  I wasn’t sure I quite remembered that particular phraseology, so I paused, recalling what she might have said.

  “You did,” she insisted, reading my silence. “It was that time after my dad’s brother Jerry had … had done what he’d done. You know. And I couldn’t figure out what was going on. I couldn’t understand why he’d done that to me, because I liked him so much. And you explained all that to me. ’Cause he’d told me it was how you and Chad loved and he was just teaching me, so you’d love me too. And I asked you. And you answered me without even pausing. I know, ’cause I remember you doing it.”

  “That was different, kiddo. I was explaining,” I said. “It wasn’t just conversation.”

  “Why do you call me that?” Sheila asked abruptly, looking over at me.

  “Call you what?”

  “Kiddo. When I was little, you called me lovey. And tiger. And sweetheart. What was I then that I’m not now?”

  What occurred to me when I was back at the clinic and mulling our conversation over was that Sheila had clearly remembered our talking about the matter when she was six. She made precise reference to that early conversation, using real names and details that indicated a very clear recollection of the event. This stood in stark contrast to her hazy memories earlier or, indeed, to her insistence that she had no recollection of Chad. Were the memories coming back? And if that was so, what had happened to make them fade in the first place? Or was it possible that she had remembered all along and had told me otherwise? If so, why?

  I was also becoming very conscious of a hidden agenda. Conversation after conversation with Sheila I sensed we were talking on two levels at once, that she was addressing another matter as well as the one at hand. I had the distinct feeling that she was aware of what this hidden agenda was and that it fueled a good deal of the sparky anger Sheila had demonstrated over the course of the summer.

  Then again, maybe it wasn’t so hidden. Sheila had spoken in no uncertain terms during our visit to Marysville about the pain and anger she’d felt when the school year had finished and I’d departed. Perhaps the fault had been mine in not bringing the subject up again. I had been so startled by the intensity of her feelings that night in the motel room and then distracted by the need to deal with the here-and-now of her running out, that I hadn’t handled the issue as deftly as I might have in a more controlled location, like the clinic or the classroom. And she was right: the car after summer school was not the appropriate place for such a discussion.

  I looked at my calendar. We were meeting with Alejo’s parents on the following afternoon, so I wouldn’t be able to see Sheila then. In fact, it was a very busy week, due to the ending of the summer program. Jeff and I had several evaluation meetings, in addition to our usual clinic commitments. Pulling the diary over, I penciled in Sheila’s name on Friday. She seemed so desperate to come over to my house, I thought, so maybe Friday evening we could do something special together.

  The next morning was one of chaos. It started with the minibus driver, who brought several of the children to the school, announcing to us that Violet had been sick on the ride over, and indeed, she had, everywhere and over everyone. This involved all four of us in cleaning up. Then, when I phoned Violet’s mother, she explained that she couldn’t come to get Violet, because her husband had the car. Miriam volunteered to take Violet home, but it was quite a distance, so that left us without Miriam for the first half of the morning.

  Tamara, who had become quite reliable about not hurting herself, seemed to find all the attention the minibus children were getting was simply too much. While we were all distracted, she managed to locate a large pair of scissors and cut a long gash on her inner arm, almost from wrist to elbow. It wasn’t deep, but it was bloody and by that point it was just Jeff, Sheila and I. The other children were becoming very unsettled with all this disruption, and frankly, we did not have control of things.

  Jeff, being the doctor, got the job of bandaging Tamara back together, while Sheila and I tried to quell fears and get everyone re-oriented. The summer school had not been running enough weeks to develop the very useful group camaraderie that I’d always cultivated in my classrooms. There was still no real center with this bunch, such that when disaster struck, things flew apart easily. I tried a few songs to keep up the cheer, but Joshua and Jessie, our two autistic children, both screamed and a couple of the others just kept wandering off.

  The only humorous moment came when, in the chaos, I noticed David, Alejo and Mikey were gone. Panicked, because I realized that in all the commotion, we had not searched David that morning for matches, as we usually did, I dashed out to hunt for them. It took me five or ten minutes to locate them. The three boys were outside. I was still inside, when I heard their voices through an open window, and I approached cautiously because I wanted to see what they were up to before giving my presence away. Sure enough, David had started a very small fire of grass and twigs in the lee of the school building.

  “See, there it is,” he said to Mikey. “I told you I could do it.”

  I was just about to make myself known when, much to my pleased surprise, I heard David say, “But now we got to put it out.”

  “How?” Alejo asked.

  David cast around a moment for something to use, then his small face brightened. “I know. Like this.” And he unbuttoned his jeans. “Okay, all together. On the count of three, everybody pee.”

  Afterward, Jeff and I had the meeting with Alejo’s parents, so I wasn’t able to take Sheila down to Fenton Boulevard. Instead, she left on foot for the bus stop near the school, while Jeff and I headed back to the clinic.

  Alejo was the only child in the group who was not a client of either Jeff or myself, so as a consequence, neither of us knew his parents, Mr. and Dr. Banks-Smith. Indeed, my only contact had been with his father, the first day of the program, when he had brought Al
ejo in. I had never met Alejo’s mother at all. Jeff had had a little more contact, as he had done the full workup on Alejo a couple weeks earlier, but for the most part we had relied on Alejo’s psychiatrist, Dr. Freeman, for our information on his family.

  Alejo’s mother was a doctor practicing family medicine, while his father was an insurance man. They were both tall, attractive and Nordic-looking, the kind of couple usually dreamed up by advertising executives. They greeted us warmly, shaking both Jeff’s and my hand, and then turned to exchange pleasantries with Dr. Freeman before sitting down. What struck me forcefully as I watched them was the knowledge that a dreadful mistake had been made. This was the wrong set of parents for Alejo.

  The second thought to strike me was that Mr. and Dr. Banks-Smith had not bonded with Alejo. As we passed out our various test results, papers and compilations of data, they each examined them in turn and asked articulate, intelligent questions, but they did so in the same thoughtful yet detached way that Jeff, Dr. Freeman and I did. They spoke to us not as parents, but as fellow professionals.

  “So, you say Alejo is functioning at a lower level than his age group,” Mr. Banks-Smith said to Jeff. “This translates into what, IQ-wise?”

  “If you look at it as a bell curve, with the average IQ—i.e., most of the population being here in the middle where it’s fattest—”

  “No, just his score, please. What is his IQ?” Mr. Banks-Smith asked.

  “I’m often reluctant to tie us down to specifics,” Jeff replied. “IQ is a relative measure, and tests don’t always reflect a true picture.”

  “Come on, just the numbers,” Mr. Banks-Smith replied.

  “Well, I gave him the WISC. He had a verbal score of sixty-five and a perceptual score of seventy-nine, which gives him a total IQ of seventy-four.”

  “That’s in the retarded range, isn’t it?” Mr. Banks-Smith said.

  “We generally regard seventy as the cutoff, but really, sir, we don’t like to put a lot of emphasis on single scores, particularly in a case like Alejo’s, where cultural issues may have influenced the results.”

  “And you,” Dr. Banks-Smith said, indicating me, “you said there are definite indications that he is brain-damaged?”

  “Possible, not definite. It’s very difficult to be definite about such matters,” I replied.

  “What caused it?” Alejo’s father asked. “Was it inflicted? A result of his deprivations?”

  “No way of saying. He shows indicators of aphasia, which involves an inability to use and understand words in the usual way. The majority of children I’ve seen with this disability have been born with it.”

  “So, he could have been damaged all along, is that what you’re saying?” he asked.

  I didn’t want to be saying that, but unfortunately, it was probably the truth.

  “Alejo’s problems can’t really be helped, can they?” Dr. Banks-Smith said.

  “They can be helped,” Jeff said quickly. “Alejo’s made very good progress in the summer program in terms of his interpersonal relationships. He is getting on quite well socially and has made friends with some of the other boys. We’ve seen a nice change in him, haven’t we, Torey?”

  I nodded.

  “I think if he continued at the clinic—” Dr. Freeman started, but Dr. Banks-Smith cut him off with a wave of her arm.

  “No, what I’m asking is: he basically can’t be helped. You can’t make him more intelligent. You can’t repair the brain damage.”

  “Well, no …” Dr. Freeman said.

  I felt myself pulling back, as if slipping down a long tunnel. We’d lost. Perhaps we had lost even before we’d started. I suspect Mr. and Dr. Banks-Smith had already decided to send Alejo back to South America and, indeed, had already begun the process before ever coming in for the conference. Whatever, at that precise moment, I knew there was no hope. Alejo was condemned.

  Chapter 22

  “I thought perhaps you would like to come over to my place tomorrow night,” I said to Sheila as we drove down to Fenton Boulevard the next day. “It’s Friday, so we don’t have to worry about work in the morning. Maybe I could do us something on the barbecue.”

  “Barbecue? Where do you have a barbecue in an attic apartment?”

  “I have a door out onto the garage roof. Wait until tomorrow. I’ll show you.”

  Sheila smiled sweetly. “Yeah, I’d really like that.”

  There was a small period of silence before Sheila looked over again. “How did that meeting go last night with Alejo’s parents?”

  I shrugged.

  “What are they like, his folks?”

  “All right. Nice, in a way. If I had met them at a party or something, I think I would have liked them,” I replied.

  She pulled a strand of hair down and examined it. “So, what’s going to happen to him? Are they going to try and send him back?”

  “I don’t know for sure. Dr. Freeman will cover it with them, because he’s Alejo’s therapist, but we didn’t go into it.”

  “Yeah, but you’re going to do something, aren’t you? You and Jeff? You’re going to try and stop them,” Sheila said, an urgency coming into her voice. “I mean, like, you won’t let them.”

  Pulling my lips back over my teeth, I sucked my breath in. “I don’t want to let them, but I’m afraid if they want to, there won’t be much I can do to stop them.”

  “But you won’t let them?”

  “Like I said …”

  Bending forward in her seat, Sheila put a hand on either side of her head, as if in pain. “Oh, it can’t happen. Oh, geez, he’s been brought here. He’s been given all these things. Everything’s so nice.”

  I could hear the tears in her voice. Unexpectedly, I felt my own tears. They welled up without warning, blurring the road ahead of me. The enormity of what was happening to Alejo, and, through him, all unfortunate victims, suddenly overwhelmed me. “It makes me want to cry too,” I said.

  Startled, Sheila looked over at me.

  I reached up and wiped the tears away. “I feel so helpless when something like this happens. I want to change things so badly and I just can’t.”

  Her forehead wrinkling, she gazed in amazement. Unlike me, she had remained dry-eyed.

  “Sometimes it helps,” I said of my tears and wiped the last of them away. “In these circumstances, it’s about all there’s left for me to do.” I smiled at her.

  “I want to cry sometimes, but I almost never do,” Sheila replied. “I feel it building up and then just when I think I’m going to, the feeling disappears.”

  I nodded.

  “Actually, I make it disappear,” she said. “Not that I necessarily mean to. It’s just I suddenly think, what is this? It isn’t real. What is any of it? A bunch of chemicals rushing around in our brain. A bunch of molecules. What kind? Carbon? Hydrogen? And what does that amount to? Nothing. It’s all really nothing.”

  “Do you believe that?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Really?”

  She shrugged. “It just comes to me, whether I want it to or not.”

  We celebrated our last Friday together with a special activity: finger painting using chocolate pudding instead of paints. Both Miriam and I had done this activity on previous occasions, so we were well prepared for the extraordinary mess it generated. Miriam arrived with an assortment of old shirts to protect clothing and we cleared back the tables and set out newspapers on the floor before putting down the large sheets of paper for painting. Then we mixed up huge bowls of instant pudding.

  Both Sheila and Jeff were highly amused with our proceedings. Jeff with his Freudian training saw all too much meaning in the gloppy brown mixture, but he was the first one to plunge his hand deep into the bowl and scoop pudding out onto Violet’s paper. Exuberantly, he provided all the children with generous splats.

  The kids, of course, loved it. More went in their mouths than on the paper, and within a short time, there was chocolate pudding from ear
to ear on most of them, but that was the glory of it. Of the various activities I had done through the years with my classes, this had become one of my favorites. All such terribly messy things are releasing, but there is a special freedom in those surrounding food. The squishy, cold feel of the pudding, the copious quantity, the permission to smear with the fingers, to slurp up from the paper with tongues produced an unhindered gaiety. Every child in the room was lively and open.

  Sheila was seduced too. Indeed, she had been unusually outgoing all morning, chatting spontaneously with several of the children, lifting Mikey way up in the air above her head. Alejo had initially been reluctant to touch the chocolate pudding, so Sheila sat down beside him on the floor and started off his painting for him, encouraging him to join her. Scooping a fingerful of the pudding up from the paper, she held it out for him to taste. He wouldn’t, so she ate it herself, smearing it playfully across her lips. Alejo laughed at this. He had a gorgeous laugh, very bright and boyish, and we all turned in surprise to hear it. Lifting up a finger loaded with pudding, he let it drip into his mouth, then burst into giggles.

  I was delighted with the success of the project. Everyone was laughing and talking and I felt a deep sense of fulfillment watching them.

  Sheila appeared at my right and said, “I’m going to take Alejo down to the rest room. He needs to go and he’s absolutely covered with pudding, so I’ll sluice him off.” Through a coating of chocolate, Alejo grinned up at me.

  “Yes, I think it’s time we all clean up,” I replied.

  Giving the children a five-minute warning before terminating the activity, I went over to Jeff and Miriam and suggested that once we had the worst of the mess off the children, they could take them outside for break time and I would volunteer to clean up the classroom. This met with approval and I was soon left alone with what appeared to be the aftermath of an explosion in a pudding factory.