Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans. Did anyone know the truth of that line from “Beautiful Boy” better than he and Delores? Five years ago life had happened with such swift brutality that it had nearly claimed them along with their son. But here was the strange thing. Tonight he hadn’t thought of the room as James’s. Anton, with his shabby backpack and his fraying Michael Jordan T-shirt, had already made it his.
CHAPTER THREE
They were standing in their bedroom, careful to keep their voices low. “Are you crazy, David?” Delores hissed. “How can you take the risk? It’s not fair to Anton.”
David gritted his teeth. “We’ve been over this again and again. I told you, Connor’s gonna be one of fifty other guests. Anton won’t even know he’s there. You know how big this shindig is each year.”
“But what if?”
“You think the kid has a clue what’s going on? All he knows is that his mom is already in jail. I bet he doesn’t even know about the sentencing.”
Delores frowned in a distracted way. “Speaking of which. I don’t know how he’s going to manage at school, David. He’s going to lag behind something fierce. You know I’m working with him day and night, but his spelling and grammar are terrible. It’s like they taught him nothing at his previous school.”
David grimaced. “Yeah, well. That’s what the combo of a druggie mother and a crappy school system buys you. Our tax dollars at work. Hell, he might have done better going to school in Bangladesh.”
“And his general knowledge is outrageously bad. He told me yesterday that President Bush bombed Iraq to find and kill Hitler. That’s . . . that’s mind-boggling.”
David gave a short laugh. “See? History is obviously not his strong suit.” He put his arm around Delores’s waist and pulled her close. “And you’re worried about him realizing that Connor is prosecuting his mom? He’s a kid, honey. He’ll never make the connection.”
“But David . . .”
He stroked her cheek and gave her a light peck on the lips. “Dee. Stop worrying. Connor’s my oldest friend. Jan’s like a sister to you. What are we going to do? Never see them again because of Anton?”
“I suppose you’re right.” She picked off a piece of lint from his shirt. “I hope we haven’t bitten off more than we can chew, David. I honestly don’t know if I’m cut out for this foster parenting thing.”
“Dee. You’re just stressed out. It’s going to be fine.”
But Delores looked unconvinced. “I’m so concerned about school, David. I only have another month to catch him up, and I don’t know if I can. I mean, he’s very bright, but a new school’s going to be hard enough without—”
“I know,” he said quietly. “I’m worried, too. He’s probably also going to be the only black kid in his class. Think we should send him to private school instead? So he can get more individual attention?”
Delores rolled her eyes. “Like there’s a difference between public and private schools in this bourgee town. Hell, our test scores are actually higher and our student-teacher ratio is better than the private schools’. We must be one of five school districts in the whole damn country that can claim this.”
They looked at each other ruefully. “We have almost a month to bring him up to speed,” David said at last. “If kids can come here from Laos and Cambodia without a word of English and become National Merit scholars within a few years, surely Anton can learn to read and write proper English in his own country.” He ran his index finger across his wife’s lips. “Besides, he has the most brilliant and patient teacher in the state.”
She gave him that crooked smile. “I’ll try, honey. But I ain’t no miracle worker.” She moved away from him and began to rummage through her dresser. “I tell you what, though. He’s a natural at math. Just an innate ability, I suppose. That kid could give me math lessons.”
“Thank God for small mercies.”
In the three weeks they’d had Anton, none of David’s initial concerns had been realized. Sure, the kid had occasional meltdowns and bouts of homesickness, but that was to be expected. For the most part, Anton appeared to be adjusting well. He was polite and grateful when they bought him new clothes, ecstatic when David bought him a pair of Air Jordan sneakers. For a young boy, he was surprisingly neat in his personal habits, much neater than James had been at that age. He made his own bed in the morning and, since last week, had taken to clearing the table after dinner. Delores had wanted to protest the first time he did this, but David stopped her. “He feels comfortable enough to do this, honey,” he’d said. “It’s his way of belonging. Let him.”
But for all of these graces, David knew that the worst lay ahead of them. Delores was right—school loomed, an unknown meteor that could, at any moment, smash their newly constructed, peaceable lives to bits. For the last three weeks, they had shuttered themselves from the outside world, giving their family a chance to find a new equilibrium. Now that was about to end. He and Delores had always had a large social circle. Both of them had endured lonely childhoods, raised as only children in patrician, genteel families with workaholic fathers, and because of this, they had each sought out a different kind of life once they left home. David and Delores had married young, forced to by David’s father, Senator Harold Coleman, after Delores became pregnant in college. (David had often wondered if he and Delores would have married so young had she gotten pregnant just a few years later, after Roe v. Wade had legalized abortion.) As it was, they couldn’t be out partying or dancing the night away like their friends, so they entertained at home. And once Connor had married Janet six months later, then started his own family, the Colemans and the Stevenses had been inseparable, spending major holidays together, even vacationing together except when the Colemans were visiting the senator at his vacation house on the Cape.
David glanced out the window. It was still light outside. He slipped out of his bedroom and knocked on Anton’s door. He remembered how surprised the boy had been the first time he’d rapped on the door for permission to enter. Hadn’t his mom done the same? David had inquired. Anton had looked at him incredulously for a second. “No,” he’d mumbled. Then, as if he had somehow betrayed his mom by this admission, the boy had added a little defensively, “My mam let me have the bedroom. She slept on the couch.”
But now Anton responded with a matter-of-fact, “Come in,” and David poked his head in.
“Hey, fella. You want to shoot some hoops?”
The boy grinned. “Sure.”
The first time he and Anton had played together in the driveway, David had been self-conscious, wondering if the steady thud of the ball reminded Delores of the ferociously competitive games he and James used to play. But Delores had not reacted, and as the weeks went by, David relaxed. Anton was a steady, focused player, but he was not competitive, and David refrained from talking trash with him, the way he used to with James.
They played until it grew dark outside and their T-shirts were damp with sweat. When they finally looked up, they saw the two glasses of lemonade Delores had left on the steps leading to the back of the house. David and Anton sat side by side on the stone steps, sipping the drink.
“This is so gooood,” Anton said. David giggled. “What? Why you laughing?”
David shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“Who should I ask?” Anton said, putting his hand on his hip and sounding exactly like Delores.
“Hey. That’s Dee’s line. Come up with your own.”
A slight breeze rose from the grass and cooled their damp T-shirts. Summer, David thought. A hot evening with a cool breeze. Lemonade. A game of hoops with his son. Life didn’t get better than this.
He caught himself immediately. Anton was not his son. Anton was someone else’s son, a borrowed gift he would soon return. His own son, his blood, his legal heir, was dead.
Anton pulled at one of the hairs on David’s knee. “David,” he said, “I don’t want to go to the party tomorro
w.”
David was struck by the contradiction—the intimacy of Anton’s unconscious gesture, juxtaposed by the distancing act of calling David by his first name. Other foster children called their foster parents Mom and Dad, he and Delores had learned during their training. But not Anton. At least the boy didn’t call him Mr. Coleman. As for his wife, Anton and Delores had come up with a good compromise. The boy called her FM, for foster mom and for, as Anton had put it with a giggle, FM radio. The code name was ironic, playful—and did not betray James in any way. It worked for Delores.
David focused his attention on Anton. “Why not, buddy?” he said, keeping his tone light. “It’s a fun party. Lots of food, lots of games for kids.”
“But David.” Anton’s voice was urgent. “I won’t know anyone there.”
He turned slightly to look at the boy, but Anton was staring straight ahead. What did he see, David wondered, in this lush, manicured lawn with the azalea bushes, the flower beds, the pond with the exotic fish?
“I know. But here’s the thing. These people—many of them, anyway—are our friends. And you are now part of our family. So you have to get to know these people, right?”
“But David. I’ll be gone soon. Soon as the judge lets my mam go home.”
Before David could control his body, he stiffened. That’s how Anton saw himself, as a guest. It didn’t matter what he or Delores said or did or felt. He tasted the bile in his throat and felt a sudden bitter detachment from the boy sitting next to him. What difference did it make? Beyond a new wardrobe and some nice table manners, what could they provide Anton? Why was Delores breaking her back trying to improve his diction, his spelling and grammar? Let the boy wallow in his ignorance, let him believe that Hitler and George Bush were mortal enemies. Anton was right. Chances were his mother would be home in no time, long before he and Delores could combat the damage done by his lousy education, his absent father, his worthless mother. David, of all people, understood sentencing guidelines for child endangerment—hell, she could serve as little as four to six months. Even if Bob tacked on the drug possession charge, she would still be out in no time.
He shook his head. Anton was staring up at him, his mouth slightly open, a scared look in his eyes. Lord, he must look a sight. What had Anton read on his face? He had no business taking out his frustration on the boy.
“David,” Anton whispered, “I’m sorry. I’ll go to the party with you.”
He forced his face into a smile. “Only if you want to, Anton.” Then, “Though I think you’ll have a great time. And I’ll be by your side all afternoon. Okay?”
“Okay,” the boy said.
David forced himself to not hear the unease in the boy’s voice. But his heart was heavy as he rose to follow Anton into the house, where he could almost feel Delores’s disapproval at dragging the boy to a party where he would come face-to-face with his mother’s prosecutor.
CHAPTER FOUR
The first few days were fine. He had worried when his mother didn’t come home that first night, but then he remembered that a year ago she had stayed away all night, and when she returned home the next day, she had given him a dollar bill for being a brave little boy. And besides, it was kind of fun, staying up and watching TV all night long, munching on potato chips and the cheddar cheese left over from the visit to the food pantry at the beginning of the month. The power was still on then, so the apartment was cool and the fridge humming.
The trouble started on the fourth day, when the power went off and the heat began to rise. He had wanted to call the power company, like he’d heard his mother do, but she hadn’t paid the telephone bill in a couple of months, either, and so the phone was dead. Besides, what could he say? That he was alone at home? And get her into trouble? He still remembered when the cop had come to their apartment after he’d missed school for a week. Mam had been home that evening, and Anton had hated how she’d acted around him. It had made him feel small and angry in a new way, to see her act like this, like she was a little kitten begging for a saucer of milk. Watching the cop look around their small, shabby apartment, his lip curled with disgust, listening to him lecturing his mother as if she were a bad girl, had made Anton want to break something. It was funny, what the cop had made him feel—invisible and yet hyperaware of his flushed body in a whole new way.
So no, even if he could have, he wouldn’t have called the power company. Or anyone else. She would be home soon. He would stay in place, like “The Boy Who Stood on the Burning Deck,” which was his favorite poem in the whole world. When the apartment got too hot, he dunked his head under the cool water of the kitchen faucet. When he began to run out of food, he simply drank more water to fill his belly. He played on his Nintendo Game Boy until the batteries died. Every day he clung to the thought that this would be the day she would return home.
Until the afternoon of the seventh day, when he woke up from the couch in a sweat, shivering with the conviction that his mother was dead. He had no idea what had introduced this thought in his head, but he knew it was true. His mam was dead and he was trapped inside an apartment with two windows, both of which were sealed shut. No use trying the front door—when she went out, she always locked it from the outside to keep the punks who hung about the apartment complex from breaking in.
He looked around the living room in a panic. He had to find her. Find out what had happened to her. Already he was unsure of how many days had passed since she’d left him. Was it twelve? Or four? He was losing count.
Tears streamed down his cheeks as he tried to lift the painted-shut window, grunting. He thought of punching out the glass but then spotted the dining chair, and before he could think, he was lifting it and smashing it against the pane. He hadn’t anticipated how easily the glass would shatter or into how many pieces. It exploded like a bomb. But the main thing was the chair had made a hole large enough for him to heave himself out of. In his haste, he didn’t notice the big shard of glass lodged in the wooden frame, but once it cut open his thigh, he noticed it for sure. For a few moments, the pain was so severe that he thought he would pass out. He wanted to sit down on the lawn, but there was glass everywhere. So he began to walk. The trail of blood that followed him made him want to vomit, but then he remembered his dead mam, and he knew that if he could just make it to his friend Terry’s house a few buildings away, his dad would help him find her body.
Anton woke up with his heart pounding, and for a second he was back in that hot apartment, waking up on the couch with the cold realization that his mother was dead. Slowly, as he realized where he was, that terrible, icy feeling of dread eased away. He pushed the tiny button of the Timex watch that David had bought for him, and the digital screen glowed red in the dark. It was three in the morning.
Ever since they’d brought him here, he was waking up at this time. No matter how tired he was—whether he had helped his foster mom in the yard or shot hoops with David in the evening—he would awaken at this hour, his thoughts racing, his heart pounding. He had never known this middle-of-the-night fear until the Children’s Services folks had removed him. In his old life, he had not been afraid of the gang members prowling his neighborhood or of the bullies at school. Everybody had pretty much left him alone. Even the cops who patrolled the projects ignored him because he didn’t get into trouble. Mostly, he stayed home with his mam, the two of them eating a hot dog or a cheeseburger together when she got home from her job at the Tip Top, where she stocked shelves. After dinner, they watched TV or he did homework. Sometimes Mam had her friends over, and she’d ask him to go to his bedroom while they partied in the living room. He didn’t like those friends and he hated Victor, the guy who sold drugs to his mam, but he wasn’t scared of them. In fact, he liked the sound of their merriment because it broke up the everyday quiet and dullness of their life.
She was a good mom. That’s what he’d tried telling the social worker and the cops, but they had just patted his head and nodded in a way that he could tell meant they we
ren’t listening to him. He knew she’d done wrong to leave him locked up at home for so long, and that made him angry. He knew it was wrong for her to do the drugs, that she should Just Say No like the huge billboard across the street from the housing project said. She’d made a bad mistake, for sure, he understood that.
But what he didn’t get was why it was anyone’s business but his and his mam’s? Even Ernest, the social worker who he liked so much, acted like it was okay for them to take him out of his own home. And that it was okay for some old judge, who didn’t even know them, to put Mam in jail. It scared him terribly, to think of her in jail, along with thieves and kidnappers and gang members. She was so tiny. What if someone bullied her in jail or hurt her? It would be the fault of that old judge, who didn’t even know her.
Even without food and power, he had felt safer in his own apartment than he did in this big old house, where he got lost sometimes. And the people here—they were okay, they were nice, even, but he was a little afraid of them. The lady, FM, she was nice to him, made him corn on the cob every day after he’d told her he loved it. And even though he sucked at reading and still made spelling mistakes and all, she was patient with him, unlike Mrs. Rose at school, who rolled her eyes every time she returned a test to him. Yeah, he liked FM, especially after Maria, the cleaning lady, told him that FM’s son, James, had died in a car accident. His mam’s brother had died in a car wreck when she was little, and sometimes, when she talked about him, she still cried. That was who she’d named him after, her older brother. His uncle Anton. So he knew how sad FM must feel, and he let her teach him grammar and spelling even though they were boring, because she probably missed teaching her own boy.
Everybody's Son Page 3