by Liane Shaw
Now I’m having a nice day.
Chapter 13
In the middle of the night…
There is a moment in the deepest part of the night when the sky is so impossibly black that it seems to disappear from sight. Street lamps and stars compete with one another to light the way for travelers who dare to venture out into a world that only exists for an instant before time flies in to spirit it away.
It’s a time of night, or perhaps more accurately morning, that I discovered when my girls were babies and eager to eat at 2:00 a.m. When I was pregnant I dreaded the infamous two o’clock feedings. A rampant insomniac for most of my life, I did not relish the idea of being awakened night after night by a squalling baby who would expect me to feed her and would then fall asleep while I stayed awake trying to remember the latest trick for falling asleep.
When it actually happened, I discovered a moment in time that I never really knew existed. So late that I felt no one else could possibly be awake. The world seemed to belong to me and my little girl, soft and dark and safe. My mind felt clear and relaxed; sleep came easily for the first time in my adult life.
I’m the only person I know who was disappointed the first time my newborn slept through the night.
Two o’clock has lost some of its magic now that worrying about life wakes me up instead of a hungry baby. The darkness isn’t quite as soft and definitely not as safe as it fills up with worries that keep me awake.
I’m sure Callahan is sleeping soundly, peacefully planning the very ways in which we’re going to spend all the exciting money that’s going to come our way, courtesy of our new “class.”
A class. A self-contained, special-education class, if we’re going to be honest. At a time when the powers that be in the world of education have decided that such things are of the past. Of course, it’s not the first time that decision has been made, and it won’t be the last. The endlessly cyclical world of education tries on new philosophies the way most of us try on new shoes—squeezing our toes into sizes and shapes that don’t necessarily fit, but which we wear anyway, because they look good.
Mainstreaming. Integration. Desegregation. It’s called different things. It means that all children have the right to be educated in a “regular” classroom with their peers. And as a philosophy, I’m totally on board. If one of my girls had a “special need,” I wouldn’t want her shoved into a dark corner somewhere so that she’s hidden away from the rest of the school.
But it isn’t that simple. At least not to me. I’ve worked with children with all kinds of so-called special needs. Most of them can survive in a classroom setting so long as they have a teacher who has the proper resources, training, and student-teacher ratio—a fairly rare combination these days. But there are some kids who just don’t seem to be able to survive in a regular classroom setting, at least not in our current system. They seem to need to be somewhere smaller, more intimate, where the world is more tuned in to their needs. Maybe just for a while. Maybe for a long time. It depends on the individual.
And that is really what education should be, shouldn’t it? Individual. But if we’re going to be brutally honest, we have to admit that it really isn’t. For any child. Take a regular class, like my daughter’s third-grade class. She was born in December. Her best friend was born in January. That means the two girls are almost a full year apart. A year is a lifetime to a seven-year-old. The amount of development that goes on between seven and eight is huge. But the system is set up so that those two girls are taught and assessed as if they were at the identical level of intellectual and emotional development. It’s like making them wear the same size clothes just because they’re born in the same year. Everyone’s a size three, even if they’re not.
Maybe the old one-room schoolhouses had it right after all. Put everyone together in one place, have the older kids help the younger ones, and teach everyone at the level that fits them best.
Of course, I’m good at complaining, especially inside my own head in the middle of the night, but I don’t have any brilliant solutions. Not yet anyway. I don’t know if we should have self-contained classrooms for some students or just smaller regular classes with more staff for all students so that there’s more time to find out what everyone needs. I do know that adopting sweeping philosophies that push all children into a single ideological pile ends up leaving some of our most vulnerable children in the dust, while teachers end up feeling frustrated when they can’t give their students what they need.
The phone starts ringing and knocks me off my internal soapbox with a resounding thump. Who could be calling me in the middle of the night? This can’t be good.
I run down the hall, heart pounding in rhythm with my feet, praying that it’s just some over-enthusiastic telemarketer from overseas who doesn’t know about the time difference.
“Hello?” My voice is breathless from a combination of being out of shape and full of panic. At least I know it isn’t about my girls. They’re here, safe with me.
“This is Dermott Williams. Mike’s father.”
Mike’s father? That’s pretty close to the last person on earth I would have expected to be on the other end of the line. Unfortunately, I don’t have to wonder how he got my number. The curse of living in a small town means that there are only two people with my last name in the phone book. This is not the first phone call from a parent. It is the first one at this hour though.
“Mr. Williams? Is everything okay?” Stupid question. A parent is calling me at 2:00 a.m. Everything is most definitely not okay.
“No. Mike won’t calm down. He’s out of control, and we don’t know what to do!” Now I recognize sounds in the background. The guttural screaming that means that Mike has completely lost it. Lost himself.
“Mr. Williams, you need to call the police and maybe an ambulance as well.”
“I don’t want to do that. He’s…just a boy. I thought maybe you had a…trick or something that you use at school…something I could try.” His voice is heartbreaking as he pleads with me to use some kind of magic wand that will transform his raging monster of a son back into a child.
“No, there’s nothing I can do for you. You have to call for help. He needs to see a doctor. A psychiatrist.”
“He’s not crazy! He just gets angry sometimes!” The noise in the background is escalating. I can hear a woman’s voice pleading for peace.
“I didn’t say he’s crazy. I just mean to say that you need professional help—beyond the school or even the clinic. And you need it now.”
“I don’t know—”
“Please, Mr. Williams. He needs to get to a medical facility. For all of your sakes.” My voice is shaking.
“Okay. I’ll try to get him there.” And he hangs up before I can say anything else. My hands are shaking now and my stomach feels sick. I don’t know if I did the right thing. I don’t know what I should have done. Or not done. I don’t want to be responsible for this. I don’t want to even know about it. It’s two o’clock in the morning.
I get up and walk down the hall to my daughters’ rooms. I need a reality check. My reality.
My girls are sleeping soundly, as usual. I stand at the door of each of their rooms in turn, watching them, wondering about their dreams. They look peaceful and innocent. I want to believe that they’re dreaming about peaceful and innocent things.
Does Mike’s mother sneak to the door of his room when he’s sleeping? Does she look at his nine-year-old face and wonder where the terrifying angry young man comes from? Does she wonder about his dreams? Does she fear them?
She must feel so…helpless and horrified by her own son. How can you bear to watch every little piece of your child melt away like that until he’s nothing but a puddle of rage splashing everyone in his path?
I wonder about my other students. Are they sleeping soundly? Do any of them have a
mother who stands at the door watching them sleep?
Not Donny. At least, not anymore. Do foster moms watch their foster kids sleep?
I haven’t met Cory’s mom yet, but from a few brief conversations on the phone, I don’t imagine she takes the time to stand and watch him sleeping. I try to imagine Cory sleeping. He’s such a perpetual-motion machine that I can’t see him staying still, even at two o’clock in the morning.
Kevin lives with both parents and a younger brother who is, as his mother told me proudly, “basically normal.” Kevin’s mom definitely loves him in her own somewhat obsessive-compulsive way. Obviously a family trait. It’s quite possible that she watches him at 2:00 a.m., perhaps hoping he’ll talk in his sleep and tell her things that he can’t when he’s awake.
I wonder if Baby sleeps with him. I wonder if she talks in her sleep.
I don’t want to think about Chris’s family and what goes on at his house at 2:00 a.m. I’m going to have enough nightmares filled with Mike and his parents to make the rest of the night rough enough.
Actually, I don’t want to think about any of them for the rest of the night. It’s just too sad. It makes my heart hurt.
It’s almost 3:00 a.m. I need to go to sleep. Right now.
I need to not think about going to sleep, because thinking about it keeps me awake.
I need that magic wand that Mike’s father seems to think I have so that I can use it to make myself fall asleep before it’s time to get up. Tomorrow—I mean today—is going to be another tough one. If I show up missing any of my faculties, everyone will know. Even the whale.
Of course, if I did have a magic wand, I wouldn’t have to go to school at all. I could just wave it over everyone, sprinkling happy fairy dust in their hair, making all of their troubles go away and putting myself out of a job.
Abracadabra, your life no longer sucks.
I really need to sleep.
Chapter 14
Splash pants and ladders
After a sleepless night, I arrive at school early so that I can fill Mrs. Callahan in on the phone call. She seems quite surprised and concerned about it and assures me that she’ll look into the situation. She then advises me to put it out of my mind and just get on with my day.
Easy for her to say.
Forty minutes later, I’m standing with Sean waiting for the cabs to arrive, filling him in on the events of my night. As we stand there, me talking and Sean shaking his head in amazement, the first car pulls up and deposits none other than Mike on the sidewalk. I stare at him in something pretty close to shock. He looks at me with something pretty close to disgust, which is his usual expression. Actually, everything about him looks…usual.
Sean glances at me, eyebrows raised as if to say “are you sure you got that phone call?” I’m wondering the same thing. Did I dream it? I figured he’d be in the children’s ward at the psych hospital this morning. Not here! How can he just be here? How can his parents have sent him to school without a single word to me about what happened after 2:00 a.m.?
The rest of the guys arrive, and Sean and I take them down to start our day. Cory is wound up as usual, and Donny had a bad night at the foster home, and Chris is acting a little jumpy, and Baby is taking flying lessons—basically a normal day, but busy enough that I don’t have time to follow up on Mike right away. I have to rely on Mrs. Callahan for that, and I don’t imagine I’ll hear from her any time soon.
Mike looks pretty calm. That’s not always a good thing with him. He epitomizes the phrase “calm before the storm.” I really need to know what’s going on.
“Ms. S? There’s a call for you.” The voice interrupts a math lesson that no one is really listening to.
“Oh, good. Is it Mr. Williams?”
“No, it’s your daughter’s teacher.”
All thoughts of Mike evaporate as my heart literally leaps in my chest at the instant electric shock of mom-panic that zaps through me. Both my daughters’ teachers know what I do here. Neither of them would call unless it’s an emergency. I look at Sean.
“I’m okay for a minute. Go!”
I know I shouldn’t leave him alone, but panic trumps reason, and I head down to the phone in Mr. Z’s office, where I can still be close enough to hear my class if anyone erupts. Not that I can hear anything but the pounding of my heart at the moment.
“Sharon—I’m out of my room for a moment,” I call into the class across the hall, as if somehow telling the junior kindergarten teacher will cover me for leaving my class.
I grab the phone and press the blinking light with a shaking finger, ordering myself to calm down. I don’t even know which daughter it is.
“Hello?”
“Oh, hi! It’s Janet. Sorry to bother you.”
“It’s okay. Is everything all right?” My little one just started junior kindergarten two weeks ago. I wasn’t planning on putting her into school this year, figuring one more change would be too much for her. But on her fourth birthday, she announced to my parents at her birthday supper that she was starting school the next day. I had been telling her for a while that school was for four-year-old girls not three-year-old girls, and she took me literally in the way that only a child can. No amount of persuading could sway her from her absolute conviction that she was supposed to be going to school.
So like the firm and authoritative parent that I always am, I gave in to a four-year-old on an issue as big as where she’s going to spend her days. Well, her alternate days anyway. Monday, Wednesday, and alternate Fridays at school, and the rest of the time at daycare. Sounds disruptive to me, but so far she’s been doing great. Until now that is.
“Oh, yes. She’s all right. It’s just that she won’t put her splash pants on.”
“What?” Once she said the words “all right,” I let my attention drift a little, turning one ear toward my classroom. I don’t think I heard her right.
“She’s refusing to put her splash pants on. It’s very damp and cool out today.”
“You called me because she won’t put her splash pants on?” I wonder if I sound as stunned as I feel.
“Well, I wasn’t sure what you wanted me to do.” She sounds like she thinks this is a reasonable call. My teeny tiny four-year-old won’t put her splash pants on. That’s her teacher’s biggest challenge so far today?
That’s not fair. I work across the hall from a JK room. I hear things. It’s not easy. But seriously. Splash pants?
First biting. Now splash pants. My little behavior girl.
“She probably doesn’t want her skirt to get wrinkled. Just tell her she can’t go out without them. I doubt she’ll want to stay in. Or better yet, send her out without them, and let her get her new leotards dirty. That’ll be a life lesson for her.”
“If that’s what you want…” She sounds hesitant and somewhat disapproving. She’ll probably go down to the staff room at lunchtime and tell all the other teachers what a bad parent I am.
“Yes. I have to go now.” I barely get the words out when I hear a shout from the vicinity of my room and see a familiar body go flying past. I look down the hall to see Sean standing outside the classroom.
“Switch!” He calls, starting down toward me. I head his way.
“Mike said something to him. Not sure what. I’ll follow him.”
“He’s heading out of the school. I’ll have to call Mrs. C.” I yell the last bit at him as he disappears out the door at the end of the hall.
I press the intercom button and ask for Mrs. Callahan. “It’s Chris, Mrs. C. He’s headed out the back door. I need Ms. Jackson to cover my class so I can help Sean retrieve him before he’s off the property.”
“I’ll head outside and see what I can do until you get there,” she says.
Great, Callahan to the rescue! I wasn’t really asking her to do that
. Sean and I are better on our own. Chris is still an unknown quantity to us, and we’re really just trying to figure out what his triggers are, so we can avoid them. At the same time, he’s trying to figure us out and is doing a much better job of it.
“Chris took off. Where’d he go? Why does he do that all the time? Runs away instead of smashing Mike’s face in.”
“Cory, that’s enough. Just…do your work.” Cory is squirming in his seat with the excitement of it all. The only thing better than being in the middle of a problem himself is watching someone else in trouble.
“Like to see you try smashing my face in,” Mike mutters to his desk, just loudly enough for Cory to hear him.
“Mike. Never mind. We don’t have time for this right now.” My voice is weary instead of tough. He looks at me, considering whether to push it or not.
“Whatever.”
I don’t bother breathing a sigh of relief because it’s probably not over. Donny hasn’t weighed in yet.
“Hi. Mrs. Callahan said you need to go.” Ms. Jackson has arrived. She’s really a super hero. Comes down here whenever she’s asked without any complaint or seeming concern. Bet she can leap tall buildings too.
“I do. Chris is having some trouble. I hope we won’t be long. I expect you all to behave.”
Chances are they will behave, but I probably should have put an adverb in there somewhere.
By the time I finally get outside, I can just barely see Sean and Mrs. Callahan standing on the far side of the yard. As I make my way across the pavement and onto the grass, I realize that they’re standing in the backyard of one of the houses unfortunate enough to back onto our schoolyard. I hope the people who live here work during the day, otherwise the noise at recess would be deafening.
If they are here, I imagine they’re wondering why there are two adults standing in their backyard looking up into a very tall tree.