City Kid

by Mary MacCracken

  Chapter 17

  I could not believe I had gotten so far behind. Two papers and ten abstracts due for Professor Drobuy’s course in Current Methods of Teaching Mentally Challenged Adolescents. Two book reports for Practicum in Reading for the Mentally Challenged, plus two months’ lesson plans for teaching reading to a simulated mentally challenged child. Piles of notes to copy over for Orientation to Psychological Testing from the times I had come in late from baseball, plus a page each on the description of twenty different psychological tests. Describe what they test. What is the validity? The reliability? What is standardization? How much do they cost? Where can they be purchased? Who is considered qualified to use them? I spent hours in the library searching for information, taking notes, then writing reports, typing them up.

  At least there was no backlog in Background of Mathematics II. We had to hand in homework daily. Our silent, dark professor corrected, graded, gave it back to be redone the next day. Quizzes twice a week. I thought I understood it a little better this semester. Probability. “Two dice are thrown. Find the probability that the sum is nine and at least one of the two faces is even.” 4/6 × 1/6 = 1/9. Easy. Ian Michaels slouched beside me nodding approval. Each night I prayed that probability would etch itself into my brain so that I could retrieve it on the exam three weeks away.

  Where had the days gone? I, who had thought they had dragged endlessly, now raced to catch up. In and out of School 23 in an hour three times a week. No baseball for me now, either, but the kids kept on playing. Lisa reported that Luke was reading a line or two at his reading group. “Hang in, Luke,” I told him. “Exams will be over in a week and then college will be closed until June twenty-eighth, when we start summer school.”

  “Summer school? What are you going to go to summer school for?” Luke looked at me unbelievingly.

  “A good question,” I said. But I knew it was the only way I could finish in two years.

  Shirley and Hud had said their good-byes, written their anecdotal reports on Vernon and Milt, and left the state college behind. Hud already had a job teaching a neurologically impaired class at a junior high, and Shirley had accumulated most of the tuition she needed to begin graduate school.

  “How come they left?” Luke wanted to know.

  “They graduated,” I explained.

  “You gonna graduate?” Luke asked.

  “I hope so, Luke,” I said. “But not this year. That’s why I can still come in June and they can’t. I won’t graduate till next year. I don’t think that they are going to have the same kind of program next year, but I can still come down sometimes if you want. You’ll be in third grade by then.”

  Luke was working well in class and was high scorer on his baseball team. Mrs. Brauer came back to school twice, unexpectedly, without appointments (I suspected Mrs. Karras was somewhere behind those visits), but at least she came and I felt that she was beginning to trust me a little.

  I forced my head back to Statistics and Orientation to Psychological Testing. The Wechsler Primary Preschool Scale of Intelligence, the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale. WPPSI, WISC, WAIS. Mr. Wechsler would certainly feel at home in the world of acronyms in Washington, D.C.

  The last week of May was hot and muggy. Clothes clung, tempers frayed. I was lucky in exam scheduling – one a day, Monday through Thursday, and then the anecdotal report on the School 23 project. Monday: Practicum in Reading for the Mentally Challenged. Tuesday: Current Methods of Teaching Mentally Challenged Adolescents. Wednesday: Statistics and Orientation to Psychological Testing. Thursday: Background of Mathematics IL. Friday: Report on School 23 project.

  Done. Done. Done. I’d done it. I’d finished one year of college. Now three weeks off, then summer school and one more year and I’d be through.

  The phone rang in the middle of the night and I heard Cal’s voice answering as I swam up from sleep. “Yes. She’s right here.” He turned on the light and handed me the phone. “It’s your dad. Your mother has had a stroke.”

  The northbound parkway was almost empty in the early morning, and I was at the retirement community in less than two hours. My father was waiting by the glass doors as I came in. He looked the same, strong and clean, although he must have been up most of the night.

  “Are you okay?” I asked as I kissed him, loving the familiar smell of Aqua Velva.

  “Fine. You’re good to come. Have you had breakfast?”

  I nodded. I’d had a thermos of coffee in the car. “How’s Mother? Can I see her?”

  “Not till nine. And that’s an exception because you’re from out of town. Regular visiting hours at the nursing home are two to four in the afternoon.”

  “Nursing home?”

  “That’s what they call the little hospital we have here.”

  I nodded, but it was hard to think of my mother in a nursing home. She had always been the first one up in the morning, sitting at the table in the breakfast room, planning the meals with Maud, who lived with us, pouring my father’s coffee as he walked in. In the evenings before it was time to meet my father’s train, she would play the piano and sing softly. I loved coming home after school and so did my friends.

  Because of my mother, our house was always full of clean, good smells and soft, friendly sounds. In the summers at the river, she cooked breakfast herself. (Maud went back to the West Indies each summer.) She gave us large bowls of steaming oatmeal, topped with brown sugar and fresh cream. My grandmother stayed with us in the summer and I loved to watch them together – my mother and her mother. They were gentle and quiet with each other, sitting on the porch looking over the water, writing letters, sewing, talking, having tea in the afternoon. They touched each other often, straightening a sweater, picking up a ball of yarn that had fallen, tucking back a strand of hair. It was through watching them that I first understood the strong bond of love between women.

  The nursing home smelled like any other hospital. There were cheerful nurses on duty and wheelchairs in the hall. And then my mother’s room, her bed by the window.

  I knelt on the floor beside her bed and kissed her face. Still lovely. Chiseled bones. Fine skin. She raised her hand and gestured toward her mouth. Good. She can move. I looked up toward my father.

  “She can’t speak,” he said. “The stroke’s affected her speech.”

  I put my hand over hers. “It will come back. There’s no need to talk now, anyway. Just rest. I’ll be here awhile and I’ll tell you all the news a little later.”

  I stood up and looked at my father. “You must be very tired. Why don’t you go back to your apartment and rest while I’m here?”

  My father rubbed the back of his hand across his eyes. “All right this wasn’t the first time, but she never wanted me to say anything. And she always came back fast.” He kissed my mother. “You always were a plucky girl, sweetheart.” Her brown eyes searched his face. “I’ll be back this afternoon,” he promised before he turned to me. “You’ll come over for lunch?”

  “Yes.”

  “All right, then. I’ll meet you in the lobby at twelve-thirty.”

  I pulled a small chair up near the bed and sat beside my mother throughout the morning, except when the nurses came asking me politely, but firmly, to move to the hall.

  “She’s mine,” I protested inwardly. “My mother. Let me do that.” But outwardly, I obeyed and stood among the wheelchairs in the hall.

  At eleven-thirty they served lunch in the nursing home. A nurse rolled a cart into the room, cranked up the hospital bed, lifted a tray onto the bed table, tied a bib around my mother’s neck, and began to spoon a thin clear soup into her mouth.

  A bib! How she must hate it. She had headed our table so graciously, with a silver bell beside her glass and a damask napkin in her lap.

  “I’ll do that.” This time my own voice was firm. “You have so much to do.”

  As soon as the nurse was out the door, I untied the bib. “No need for that.�
� I smiled and thought I could see an answering smile somewhere near her eyes.

  She couldn’t swallow much, but I made the spoonfuls small, wishing I had one of the demitasse spoons that she had given me to feed my babies, showing me how the slender shape of the demitasse fit small mouths so much better than the usual fat baby spoon. She had taught me so much, cared for me so tenderly. I touched the napkin to her mouth after each small sip. It was my turn now.

  Then when the nurse had taken the cart away and I had washed her face and hands, then finally, she slept.

  In the parking lot with my father, I said once more, “Please think more about moving down with us. There is enough room; you could have your own bedroom and both Cal and I would like to have you there.”

  “Thank you, dear. We’re fine here. One reason we moved down from the country was in case anything like this happened. I can have all my meals in the dining room and see your mother every day.”

  I knew he meant it, knew he would hate being cooped up in a city apartment. Here he had his garden and his golf, and they both had many friends.

  He patted my arm. “We’ll be fine. The doctor wouldn’t let your mother be moved yet, anyway. Now don’t go worrying about us. You know she wouldn’t want that. She’s so proud of you, going back to college, all the work you’re doing with the children.”

  Tears stood in my eyes. I cried too easily these days. “How long? How long will she have to be there?” I wished I could tell him about the bib, but that wouldn’t be fair. He wasn’t allowed to visit until two o’clock, anyway.

  He shook his head. “Nobody knows. We’ll just have to take each day as it comes.”

  I nodded at the familiar words.

  “Okay.” I climbed into the car. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Not tomorrow. That’s too long a drive.”

  “I have three weeks off now. Let me come as often as I can.”

  Chapter 18

  I was down at School 23 the next morning before it opened, waiting for Luke. As soon as he arrived, I signaled to Lisa, and Luke and I headed for the music room.

  “How come you’re here so early?” Luke wanted to know.

  I shook my head. “Luke, I have bad news. My mother is very sick and I need to be with her as much as I can, so I can’t come down here these last weeks of school like I had planned. I’m sorry. I really am.”

  Luke picked at the edge of the table. “What’s the matter with her? What’s she got?”

  “She had a stroke –” I said, hesitating, not sure how to describe it. “She can’t talk now, she’s in a hospital. I’m going up to see her when I leave here.”

  Luke sat, head down, picking at the table. How could I leave him like that?

  I went over to the closet and got down his box. “Why don’t you keep this, Luke? Will you keep this for us over the summer?”

  Luke looked at me. “The whole thing? The chalk, crayons, notebook, pencils – everything?”

  I nodded. “Everything but one notebook. I need the one that we wrote our ‘lesson plans’ in.”

  “Even the stars?” he asked.

  “Sure. Of course. Especially the stars. You know how to do them now.”

  “Yup. Red for work. Gold for bein’ good. I did a whole page in my reading workbook yesterday.”

  “That’s terrific, Luke. Hey, what do you say we celebrate? One last doughnut for the year?”

  “Allll right.”

  My mother would understand. She would know that it was necessary to end it properly. I would miss lunch at the nursing home, but maybe I could stay through supper.

  It was wonderful outside. Later in the day, the heat would hang heavy in the city streets, but now the air was still cool, and in almost every yard someone was watering or weeding, trying to make something grow on the tiny patch of land in the coolness of the morning.

  “Yrrr. Yrrr. Yrrr.” The white dog threw himself at the fence as we walked by on the opposite side.

  “Yrrr. Yrrr,” Luke replied, baring his teeth and hunching his shoulders. I smiled at them both. Mrs. Karras had got out. It was possible.

  As we hit Main Street, I said, “You know what? It’s pretty hot for doughnuts. How about an ice cream cone instead?”

  Luke knew where to go – Dave’s corner store.

  “You got a holiday today, Luke?” Dave asked from behind the counter. Luke shook his head. “Uh-oh! Playing hooky then, huh? Well, I won’t tell.” Dave winked in my direction. “Looks like you got a nice friend.” He added another little scoop to each chocolate cone.

  We stood outside the corner store licking our cones.

  “Do we have to go right back?” Luke asked.

  I glanced at my watch. “Not right away. We could stay a half hour.”

  Luke was quiet, thinking. Then he said very quickly, “Wanna see my shortcut?”

  “Shortcut?”

  “Yeah. The quick way from school back to my house. Nobody knows but me and Wendell.”

  Back to the school. Down past the lipstick factory. “That’s where I got the cases,” Luke said. I nodded, remembering the last time I had been there after the fire without him. And now he was here. “Race you to the corner,” I said. Running. Running hard. I will not be sad this last day with you, Luke. It is wonderful to be here with you. That’s all I’ll think about right now.

  We ended at the corner together. “Now we gotta cut across the field,” Luke instructed me. A choppy field filled with rocks and beer cans, but Luke knew more. He leaned down to point out a small hole. “There’s where the mole lives,” he said. “No kidding. A live one.”

  I picked up a small stick and wiggled it around in the hole. “That won’t make him come out,” Luke said scornfully. “I done that lots of times. He’s too smart. You just gotta wait til he’s ready.”

  Maybe this was where Luke came after school – maybe he just sat waiting for the mole to come out.

  Luke scampered ahead, then back. This was his territory. He knew it cold and I was glad to be included. “We’re coming to it now. The river. You gotta walk across it.” Luke looked at my feet and I was glad I had my sneakers on – skirt and sandals were in the car.

  Sure enough, there was a stream, small and dirty brown, but moving steadily through the field.

  Luke walked along the side until he came to a large rock. “See,” he said. “This is where you cross. Wendell and me made the bridge, kind of.” I mellowed a little toward Wendell. He couldn’t be all bad if he came out here in the field and helped Luke build a bridge across his river. And sure enough, there were three large flat stones forming a path to the other side, water gushing around and sometimes over them.

  “You gotta go pretty fast,” Luke said, demonstrating. He was nimble as a mountain goat, hopping from one rock to the other, across and back in less than a minute.

  I shook my head at him. “I’m not sure I can go that fast. Are they slippery?”

  “Kind of. Specially that big ole middle one. But just step right in the middle of it. See.” Luke hopped across again – happy, happy as I’d ever seen him. Showing me how to do something. The teacher now himself. I stood a minute, savoring him, wanting to remember him this way.

  “Come on, Mary. Just hop across real fast. Don’t think about it.”

  “Okay. All right. Wish me luck.” I stood on the flat stone by the side, stepped over to the next stone with my right foot, then to the middle one. Water splashed onto my sneakers. Luke was yelling something unintelligible. I tried to concentrate. One more to go.

  The last stone rocked under my weight, teetered back and forth in the muddy water. Oh, no. I didn’t want to sit down in that water. I moved quickly, missed the far side, and stepped in water and mud, halfway to my knees.

  “Hey, Luke. Give me a hand.”

  Luke reached across the side and holding his hand, I scrambled out.

  “What happened?” I asked. “What did I do wrong?”

  “You didn’t step on the mid –” Luke
couldn’t finish the word. Giggles flooded up out of his throat. He tried again. “In the mid –” Again laughter took over and he sat down rocking back and forth.

  “Terrific,” I said with mock anger. “Here I am with both feet soaked and you’re laughing.” But all the time I was thinking, Luke’s actually laughing. I’d never heard him laugh before.

  Luke looked at me contritely. “I’m sorry. But you just looked so funny …” Laughter threatened to take over again, but Luke controlled it. “Did you get hurt?”

  “No. A little soggy, but fine. Where now?”

  “We’re almost there. See, you can see the project over there.”

  “Okay. Let’s go.”

  We were so near we might as well go the whole way, finish it. I squished across the field beside Luke, water oozing out of my sneakers with every step.

  When we came to the street, Luke said, “Wanta see my room? Nobody’s home.”

  We walked up to the project and Luke pulled a key out from under his shirt and slipped the string over his head.

  “Luke, wait. Let’s not go in. I’ll come back sometime when your mother is here.”

  “She wouldn’t care,” he said. ‘I’m not allowed to bring kids in, but she knows about you.”

  I couldn’t explain to Luke, but somehow it seemed like spying, and Mrs. Brauer’s trust of me was so tentative that I didn’t want to do anything that would weaken it.

  “Are you on the first floor? Which is your room? Maybe we could just look in the window.”

  “Here. This one. See. Gimme a boost up.” I lifted Luke so his head cleared the sill, thinking, you trust me, anyway. How naturally you let me hold you now.

  “Yup. This is it. This is where Alice, Frank, and me sleep. Mom and Uncle Chuck sleep on the pull-out in the living room. You look now. See that big ole snake skin on the wall? That’s mine. I found it on the mountain.”

  Luke was chattering in his excitement. I put him down and looked in. Three stained mattresses on the floor, three cotton blankets folded neatly at the end of each mattress. Uncle Chuck? Was he new? Don’t think about it now.