Finding a Voice

by Kim Hood

  ‘Well, that’s finished! On to other things.’

  ‘Why?’ I asked tersely. I couldn’t believe I had bothered being worried about her.

  ‘Oh, Jo. You are so naïve.’ She gave me that same smile. ‘No one cares about books anymore.’

  ‘So, no one was interested in the workshops?’ I snapped this too. I was not in the mood for this after the session with Dr Sharon. All of the hours spent patiently helping Mom come up with ideas, praising her, urging her on, lay in ruins on the floor.

  ‘I suppose not,’ she said, casually flicking a torn piece of paper off her arm. ‘I didn’t actually get past a secretary or a desk clerk.’

  ‘Because?’

  ‘How should I know?’ she shrugged. ‘There was talk about forms and making appointments. You know I can’t bear bureaucracy.’

  ‘And so you just threw it all away, like you always do,’ I stated. I went to walk away, to head toward my cabin. But instead of feeling the usual panic and confusion gripping my stomach, I felt red, hot anger. Clenching my fists, I spun around to face her again.

  ‘Did it ever occur to you that people were rejecting you and not the workshop idea?’ I wanted her to feel as hurt and humiliated as I had felt over and over again through the years living with her. I had always forgiven her; always put her first above anything in my life. I had thrown away any possibility of ever having a friend, so that she would be okay. For what?

  ‘You are weird and selfish! You never care about anyone other than yourself! Why would anyone want to listen to you?!’ I was screaming.

  Mom was holding her head now, and rocking back and forth. She looked at me with imploring eyes. For once in my life, I didn’t care. I didn’t care if she ended up in the hospital tonight, even if it was my fault.

  ‘Stop it, Mom! Or don’t. You know, I don’t care. Do what you want, you always do!’

  I stormed out. I was getting good at this walking out thing.

  There wasn’t any need to count now to get myself to my cabin. My anger focused me, and I wanted to get as far away from Mom as possible. I had tried so hard this time to make sure she was okay. But she wasn’t willing to try herself.

  Maybe Dr Sharon was right. My life was as dismal as Chris’s was. But the difference was I could do something about it. I could do something about it for both me and Chris.

  I didn’t know how I would do it, but I would not let Chris stay in a house where no one cared about him. And I wasn’t sure I wanted to stay in my own house any more. Mom didn’t seem to care about anyone but herself. Somehow – I didn’t know how yet – I was going to find a way to get Chris out of that awful house, even if it meant staying somewhere with him myself.

  I stayed at the cabin until it was deep dark and I had to use the flashlight I kept there ‘just in case’, to make my way back down the river bank and the path to home. When I got back it was late, and all of the lights were off. The rage that had driven me out of the house had abated, but I still didn’t want to see Mom, so I was glad that she seemed to be asleep.

  I put my hand on the handle of her bedroom door, almost turning it to check that she was safe. It was hard to stop being Mom’s carer. A glimmer of doubt about my plan threatened to grip me, but then the anger I had felt earlier bubbled up, and I dropped the door handle and went to bed myself instead.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  I didn’t sleep well. I woke up in the middle of the night with stomach pains and the apprehension of having no real plan of where Chris and I could go. It seemed like hours that I was awake, not opening my eyes, but thinking and thinking about where an almost fourteen-year-old girl could take a friend who is totally physically dependent on others and needs a way to be able to talk.

  I must have drifted off to sleep at times though, because I had strangely real dreams of being in an alien ship with Chris. The aliens were trying to talk to us, to reassure us that everything was okay even though we were leaving earth. But we couldn’t understand anything the aliens said. In the dream, Chris could talk and he kept yelling at them to speak his language. I was telling Chris to be quiet because I wanted to concentrate on understanding the aliens, but I was getting confused with all of his yelling.

  When I finally opened my eyes to the light of morning, I had only a few minutes to hurriedly throw on some clothes and get out of the door to catch the school bus. If it wasn’t that I didn’t want to see Mom at all, I would have been tempted to go back to sleep.

  Chris and I had art second period. I went to the art cupboard to get his supplies. We had moved on from the cheap children’s paper to work on proper stretched canvas. I had not asked; I had simply opened cupboards until I found what I wanted, what other kids were using. I had flipped through the art books on one of the shelves, finding and tabbing all of the famous abstract paintings I could find, and had helped Chris to look at them. Some of them, he had spent ages looking at, his eyes moving over each detail.

  Between the art appreciation exposure and some better materials, the results were surprising. Chris was experimenting with texture and colour and lines. He was developing a distinct style and he now would work on one canvas for several classes before indicating that he was done with it. Even the teacher had stopped completely ignoring us. He had taken to spending some time each class watching how Chris painted, as if he were trying to catch him out substituting someone else’s work for his. During one class the week before he had actually suggested, to Chris, as if I were not there, that he might want to look at Miro’s work to get some inspiration.

  I tried my best to find our usual rhythm, feeling where Chris needed my help to guide his arm where he wanted it to go. To facilitate his painting, I had to stop thinking of anything but his painting arm. Usually it was so freeing to do that, but today that blank mind space was impossible to achieve. My mind kept skipping to where on the planet I could take Chris.

  He looked up at me with a frown.

  ‘I’m sorry, Chris,’ I sighed. ‘I’m just trying to think of how to help you.’

  I didn’t want to say more, now that the art teacher had taken more of an interest in Chris and might overhear. And what more could I say, when I didn’t have a clue how I was going to help him, besides getting him out of a home that seemed to be breaking his heart? Just seeing him with such a downbeat expression made me want to wheel him out right then, forget about a plan. We could just start walking and not stop.

  I didn’t exactly miraculously come across a perfect solution to Chris’s dilemma. Instead, I wrestled a glimpse of an idea out of the only education I had – the piles of brochures and catalogues and magazines that I had gleaned from Mr Jenkins’s office over the weeks.

  I had been staying in my room the last two days, avoiding Mom, who had become very quiet again. I had already gone to the cabin that afternoon, hoping that some brilliant idea would come to me, and I would know exactly how to help Chris. I had thought about just running away with him. But that was just ridiculous. He already had the disadvantage of not being able to walk or talk, but in his giant blue chair he was completely conspicuous as well. It wasn’t like I could easily disappear with him.

  So I was thinking and flipping through magazines and catalogues that I had brought home from Mr Jenkins’s office. I wasn’t even sure what I was looking for.

  My whole dresser was covered in glossy papers now. I usually only had a moment between classes to collect any new papers that were strewn on Mr Jenkins’s desk, so I tended to just grab everything. They ended up here at the end of each day.

  Most of the brochures were completely irrelevant, advertising something like playground equipment, or preschool furniture. The catalogues often had a section on communication devices or adaptive technology – which meant things to help people say something when talking was difficult for them, and stuff to help people do things and use things when parts of their body didn’t work. I was learning the lingo – both from the magazines and from just being in the SE wing. There was a whole language attac
hed to kids with disabilities.

  Within these sections, I tended to find the same things advertised. I knew what Chris needed, and it wasn’t that complicated actually. He just needed a system that would let him type and move a cursor with his eyes. And it existed! Then he just needed one of those programs that spoke typed words out. Oh – and in an ideal world, a word processing program with text prediction because of his terrible spelling and so it wouldn’t take Chris so long to talk. All of this added up to lots of money though. More than I had. More than it sounded like it was possible to get from school.

  But now I was looking for something different, so I was looking through the disability and education magazines – in desperation. Chris had bigger problems than just communication.

  In the last few days, he just wasn’t smiling like he usually did. He spent a lot of time frowning at me, and he wanted me to talk to him, instead of reading or communicating anything to me.

  I had to find a place to take him to. And I didn’t have a clue what options there might be out there.

  It was an advert that caught my attention. Near the back of one of the magazines was a half page ad for a conference that only caught my eye because of the title, ‘The Role of Communication Technology in Special Education: Reaching the Non-Verbal Child’. Then I noticed the date – this weekend. And then I noticed the venue – The Harrison Hotel, Hampton. That was only two hours away, and I realised excitedly that we could take the train! I could get Chris onto a train.

  Reading the fine print, the conference was probably for teachers and people like that. I was sure it wasn’t for kids looking for a new home. It wasn’t a solution, but it was a direction. There was a blurb near the bottom saying booths still available for representatives of special schools across the region, so maybe there was a possibility of finding Chris something better? Surely at a conference about communication there would be someone, anyone, interested in helping Chris! I just needed to get him there, and I only had two days to figure out the details of how.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  I woke up the next morning with a feeling of unease. I hadn’t slept well again. Every thought, when I had woken in the night, had been to do with details of taking Chris away. But awake, in the real world, I was losing my nerve.

  I would have thought I had inherited more of Mom’s spirit of following her heart, doing what she thought was right for the moment, with no thought as to the practicalities. But mostly, much as I usually didn’t like to admit it, a whole lot of the way I tackled each day was like Grandma, each decision weighed and analysed, always planning for the difficulties that probably would come up.

  I got dressed slowly, at the same time reading the advert for the conference yet again. Was it completely crazy to think about taking Chris to it?

  I still had the magazine in my hand when the door to my room burst open. I jumped, not expecting Mom to be awake at this hour of the morning.

  ‘I thought that today would be the perfect day for you to stay home from school!’

  I just looked at her in disbelief.

  ‘Well don’t look so excited!’ she teased. ‘When was the last time you had a proper day off? We could do something fun, something you would like to do.’

  ‘I’d like to go to school,’ I sighed.

  ‘I don’t know why you are suddenly so keen on going to school,’ Mom sniffed, going on casually, ‘We used to have that in common you and I – misfits in the old secondary school department. I looked forward to sharing school horror stories when you reached about twenty – old enough to realise the ridiculousness of the conformist agenda of it all.’

  ‘How long have you known how unhappy I was at school?’ This was news to me. I never told her anything about school.

  ‘Well of course you would be forlorn, my awkward wildebeest in the midst of lions! It will make you far more interesting as an adult though.’

  It had always been easy for me to not talk about school. Mom had hardly ever referred to my school life at all. She had certainly never asked about how happy I was. I had always assumed that she was too wrapped up in her own problems to even notice much about her daughter’s life. From the time I was five I had instinctively tried to shield her from knowing how hard it was to face each school day. It had never occurred to me that she knew how miserable I was, and was actually glad about that.

  ‘What’s this?’ she asked, picking up one of the brochures strewn on my dresser.

  ‘Do you really care?’ I asked, snatching it out of her hands.

  ‘Well, I suppose not, Jo.’ She dropped the brochure on the floor. ‘To be honest, you have been a bit boring lately. If it’s because of this sort of thing, I suppose I don’t really care.’

  The words hit me in the stomach like a medicine ball shot out of a cannon. I had spent my whole life tuned into the slightest whim Mom might have. I had tried to sense any crack in her happiness before she even knew it herself, so that I might make sure that she didn’t have to spend one minute unhappy if I could help it.

  Now the one time that I cared about something, something important, she dismissed it without even wanting to know about it. Dealing with her difficulties coping with life was one thing, coping with complete rejection of who I was finding out I was, was quite another thing.

  For once, I could not keep my composure with her. Blink as I might, I could not stop the tears that threatened to collapse me. She just looked at me, smiling a slow smile and raising her eyebrows.

  ‘Oh, Jo, you must learn to control your emotions!’

  I couldn’t concentrate in science class with Mr Jenkins. Mom’s words kept going through my head, and each time I said them to myself I became more determined to help Chris. ‘You must learn to control your emotions.’ Fear? Just control it. Worry about how Mom might be? Just control that.

  It was the usual routine of me working on an assignment, while Mr Jenkins popped his head in now and again on his way to and from making sure all the SE kids were getting on okay.

  ‘Done yet?’ he asked for the third time.

  ‘Not yet,’ I said.

  I had barely started the assignment. The book was open, and I kept starting to look for the answer to question two and then I would drift into thinking about the logistics of getting Chris from the school to the train station the next day. I was trying to remember if there was a lift on every bus that went past the school, or only on some of them. I would have to check out the bus schedule.

  And just when thoughts of the craziness of the whole idea started to creep in, I would again feel the weight of my conversation with Mom that morning. I had wanted so badly for her to be okay this time. I had worked so hard for it. And for what? She didn’t want to be normal, and worse, she wanted me to be unhappy.

  And Chris was unhappy. My plan might be crazy, but at least it would be trying to help someone who actually might want help.

  A few minutes later Mr Jenkins returned, but this time Dr Sharon was right behind him. My heart jumped. It was Thursday, not our usual Monday meeting day. My first thought was that there was something wrong with Mom. Habit. I wondered if I would ever not have to worry about her. But then I remembered that it would be Francie that would be at the door if there was a problem with her.

  ‘I have a few moments before I have to head off to another school,’ Dr Sharon said, ‘Is it okay if I talk to you now?’

  ‘Okay,’ I agreed, though I didn’t feel like it was at all okay. I was kind of embarrassed by having stormed out of the room on Monday. Just seeing her now brought the confusion and anger back to the surface, adding to the hurt from my conversation with Mom that morning.

  Dr Sharon assumed her usual position, relaxed but distant, across the table from me.

  ‘I didn’t want to leave it a week before seeing you, since we didn’t finish our time together the other day.’

  ‘I’m sorry I left,’ I attempted to make our relationship tidy again, but it was getting harder and harder to put my feelings into the lock
ed box I usually kept them in.

  ‘Why sorry? You were upset.’

  We just sat there a minute then. Dr Sharon always seemed completely at ease with silences. I, on the other hand, could never stand them, except with Chris. Chris was different of course because there had never been anything but silence from him in our friendship, but also because I never felt that he might be quietly judging me.

  ‘It’s not easy to just sit back and let someone be unhappy you know,’ I defended, ‘especially when it has probably been their whole life they’ve been unhappy.’

  ‘I can see it’s upsetting you.’

  ‘Not anymore,’ I divulged. ‘Maybe nobody else cares, but I do. I won’t just sit back.’

  ‘You’re very strong that way, Jo. Look at the difference you have made in Chris’s life. He is lucky to have such an understanding friend,’ I was surprised to hear her say, ‘and yet … you have had to sit back and wait an awful lot in your own life haven’t you?’

  I wanted to let the tears come, I really did. I wanted to agree with Dr Sharon, to admit that I had waited my whole life for something to be better: for a break from always taking care of Mom, and yet never doing it well enough; for a friend that I could have come to my home; for a week without worry.

  I couldn’t risk crying now though. If I opened that box of feelings, I wouldn’t have the strength to go through with my plan. Maybe I had failed in keeping things okay for Mom, but I wasn’t going to fail Chris now – even if I didn’t have a clue how I could pull it off.

  ‘It’s okay to ask for help,’ she offered.

  I was relieved when the bell rang and I could head off to second period, narrowly escaping crying on Dr Sharon’s shoulder, which I thought surely would have ruined her expensive suit jacket.

  When the lunch bell rang I was slow to head off to help Chris with lunch. For the first time since I had met him my heart just wasn’t in it. Ironic. I’d never been more concerned for anyone as much as I was concerned for Chris right now. Yet I didn’t really want to see him.