Danny's Mom (3 page)

“Isn't he the cutest, Mrs. Maller? His name's Cori, short for Licorice, which I think is the world's grossest candy, don't you? But it's a great name for a dog, don't you think?” I'd smiled, having learned not to answer once Liz got going. Her train of thought derailed easily. If I interrupted, she'd labor to get back on track— repeating the story, adding details, building speed.

I didn't feel ready for Liz Grant that day I returned to Meadow Brook. But there she was. I took a deep breath and recited my line: “It's good to see you, Liz.” She followed me into my office. “But this isn't the best time, sweetie. I have so much to catch up on. How about right after school?”

“Please, Mrs. Maller.” Liz curled into one of the brown chairs that faced my desk and braided her ponytail as she talked. “I've missed you so much, and this is my only free time, well, not free, actually, but I don't really need gym, right? I mean, I work out every day at home, and Ms. Richardson said it was okay for me to miss today so I didn't even change into gym clothes, and if I go back now it'll be such a waste. So please, don't make me go.” Liz paused for only a split second. “And I have select chorus after school so I can't see you
then, and I just want to talk 'cause I'm so used to seeing you and it's different when you're not here. But wow! You look great. You've lost weight.”

I stopped thumbing the mail on my desk, looked at Liz, and realized I hadn't forgotten how to smile.

Sue, the counselors' secretary, waved as she came in from her break, then shrugged as if to say
Sorry I wasn't here to run interference
when she saw Liz in my office. The strange thing was, though, once I realized I couldn't escape, I didn't mind the chatter. Maybe I needed this respite from grief, this role in which I pretended to be the same as before.

A steady flow of students followed Liz. And although I'd thought the kids would rub my grief raw, in a strange sort of way they lessened the pain.

But in the moments when no one waited to see me, I felt as if I were sleepwalking in a once-familiar place. I looked at the two posters that brightened the beige walls of my office. W
HEN THE GOING GETS TOUGH, THE TOUGH GET GOING
masked a crack behind my desk. The other poster hung to the left of the door: W
HAT
'
S POPULAR IS NOT ALWAYS RIGHT
; W
HAT
'
S RIGHT IS NOT ALWAYS POPULAR
. And in smaller letters across the bottom: M
AKE A DIFFERENCE
! D
O THE RIGHT THING
.

That poster, which I used with students in the peer leadership program, always reminded me of how I'd met Callie. She had introduced herself ten-and-a-half years earlier, on my first day in Meadow Brook. “Great poster,” she'd said. “If you want, I can laminate it for you. Just bring it by the art room.” Later, she admitted the introduction had been secondary. What Callie had really wanted was for me to get two seniors out of her studio art class.

Now, on my first day back, I studied my office—a dull, ugly space I used to think was funky and sweet. Hodgepodge furnishings crammed the small room: a gray desk rimmed in dented chrome; a tan, vinyl armchair with a cross of black tape in the corner; two fabric chairs, the color of Hershey bars; and a matching low bookcase
for supplies, PSAT and SAT materials, and family pictures in plain Lucite frames. Danny and my father at Shea Stadium—Danny in a Mets sweatshirt too large for his twelve-year-old body. Joe and me the following year in the parking lot of the Clam Shack in Maine, where we'd stopped on the way to visit Danny at camp. Danny just last year. I wiped dust from the close-up of his face: backward baseball cap, smiling eyes, corny grin.

A whirlpool of longing churned inside me. I stared at my mail: faculty meetings, conferences, a note from a science teacher asking me to down-level a student in honors biology. Things that used to seem important. How could I work in this place teeming with teenagers who laughed and shouted, took tests, played sports?

Between visitors, I touched base with the other counselors. Steve, who had come to the district a few years before I had, enjoyed his reputation as guidance chairperson and winning soccer coach. Debra Greene was the newest addition to the counseling center—and a kid herself. After her interview the year before, when Bob had said she was “adorable,” I knew I'd be working with her.

Steve met with Debra and me during fourth period, when student traffic lulled. I tried to seem interested in who was failing what class, who already heard from which college, and who had in-school suspension. I thanked Steve and Debra for filling in for me, for “pitch-hitting” I must have said, because Steve chuckled when he corrected me. “You mean
pinch
-hitting, Beth. Thought the guys taught you better.”

The guys.
Those words cracked me open. I held back tears—or tried to, at least—as Bob entered the counseling center. He ushered in Dr. Sullivan, the superintendent of schools.

“Beth,” Dr. Sullivan said, “I'm so sorry about your loss.” I dabbed my eyes as I stood to greet him. “The Board asked that I extend their condolences.” I struggled to say something but couldn't find my voice.

Fifth period, Callie wanted to drag me to the faculty room. But I couldn't bring myself to go.

“She's not ready,” Sue said from behind her desk, looking at Callie as if I weren't there. “Just eat in Beth's office today.”

Sue would have been a good journalist: accurate, terse, just the facts. If she walked into a restaurant in her tailored suit and matching pumps, you'd guess she was a reporter.

When I was pregnant with Danny, Joe and I often played “guess the profession” at the Bay View Diner. Had I seen Sue back then, I never would have guessed she was a school secretary. “Journalist,” I would have said. “Newspaper. TV, maybe.” Joe always smiled, despite some of my ridiculous conjectures–or perhaps because of them.

I was teaching second grade then, and school used me up. After work, I'd barely conquer the stairs of our new house. And Joe was so busy he didn't even have time to figure out what was wrong with the stove, which didn't always light. Yet despite our handyman's special, my father was proud of our move to Bay View.

“This house will be perfect for you,” Dad said when we drove him by before we went to contract. “After all, Joe's a handy man. You two'll fix it up real nice. Why, I bet a year from now, no one'll recognize the place. And the best thing is, it's less than half an hour from my house.”

“So you'll come for dinner often. Right, Dad?”

“Sure, honey. Once that baby's born, wild horses wouldn't keep me away.”

Joe stared at the road. I had asked him not to tell my father about my emergency visit to Dr. Feinman's office the day before, after I started spotting at school. The doctor's hands were cold on the inside of my knees when he pushed them apart. “If you're determined to keep working,” Dr. Feinman had said, “you go straight home after
work and get off your feet. I'm sure I don't have to remind you that you've already had two miscarriages, Beth. We're not going for a third, are we?”

Now glimpses of “guess the profession,” driving Dad by the house, and Dr. Feinman flitted through my mind as Sue told Callie we should eat in my office. Yes, Sue would have been a good journalist, all right. Just the facts: I wasn't ready—not for lunch with the teachers and not for troubled students. But I couldn't see that then.

Chapter Three

T
hat first day back at Meadow Brook High School, Callie and I signed out thirty minutes after the last bell. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the sharp March light after a day under yellow fluorescents, but the crisp outdoor air was a quickly-welcomed change from stuffy school heat. After two steps, my heel found a rut in the parking lot, battered by February's storms. I stumbled, and Callie placed a hand on my back to guide me to her white Volvo.

We cracked open the car windows as the baseball team boarded the bus for a pre-season game. Zach Stanish, the captain, called to us: “Hi, Mrs. Harris! Hey, Mrs. Maller!” I waved toward the sound, a voice like my son's.
Hey, Mom!
Danny would call as he'd bolt to his room after school, hitting every other step as if the stairway had too many risers. I had tried all day to keep the memory strings fastened. Now Zach's tug untied them.

“We don't have to talk,” Callie said, popping a caramel into her mouth and offering me one, “but I'm here if you want to.” I nodded and looked away, aware that if I spoke, my words would yank the scab off my still-fresh wound.

Truth be told, I felt guilty I'd been able to focus on anything in Meadow Brook other than the pictures in my office. I didn't want to let Danny go, not even for a moment. But I already knew—despite
the cord that stretched from his photos to my heart and gut—that each day he would have to take up ever-so-slightly less space in my mind. Otherwise, I wouldn't be able to do my job. And then what else would I do?

Callie and I didn't speak as we headed west on the boulevard. I was grateful we could share silence without awkwardness. With anyone but Callie, I would try to fill space with sound—especially with Joe, now that our silences felt heavy.

Callie broke the stillness when a black Pathfinder swerved in front of us at the entrance to the parkway.

“Goddamn SUVs! They think they own the whole freakin' world.”

“Callie Harris in road rage? I don't believe it. And your husband drives a Jeep. Remember?”

“Yeah, but Tom's not an animal like that moron.”

The Pathfinder pulled to the left and roared ahead. We merged with highway traffic, then Callie glanced at me.

“There's something I have to tell you.” She sounded intense, as if her outburst had been a prelude to what she was about to say. “And I know you're not gonna like it.”

“What?”

Callie took her right hand off the wheel, placed it on my left. “It's about Ann. Ann Richardson.” She hesitated for a second. “I have to tell you because everyone at school'll be talking about it tomorrow.”

“Just tell me, Cal!”

She pulled her hand back as if I'd slapped it. I hadn't meant to sound so harsh, but Ann Richardson was one of the good guys, a gym teacher who never complained about students, even the hard core kids with attitude.

Callie cleared her throat. “Well, some of my seventh period girls have gym during sixth, and they were talking about a sign someone put on the door to the phys ed office.”

“And?”

“And…” Callie looked in the rearview mirror, clicked her directional. “And it was really bad.”

I turned to face her. “Come on, Cal. What'd it say?”

“D
YKES SHOULD DIE
! That's what it said. D
YKES SHOULD DIE
! R
EAD THE
B
IBLE
, Ms. R
ICHARDSON
.”

A shiver worked up my spine as I watched white sunlight glint off passing cars.

“Why are the kids picking up on that now?”

“Who knows? I'm just sorry this happened—today of all days. I know you like Ann. I do too. And I know how you feel about this kind of thing.”

Dammit! Why was everybody saying they knew how I felt? All day teachers had fed me a lasagna of condolence, mushy layers of sorrow and pity: “I know how you must feel… I can just imagine what you're going through… This must be so hard for you…”

“So I couldn't
not
tell you about that sign,” Callie went on. “It'll be the talk of Meadow Brook in the morning.”

“I certainly hope not.”

“Me too. But I don't think the kids will drop this so fast. There's some good news, though.” Callie giggled. “Wanna hear it?”

“Sure.”

“Whoever wrote that sign spelled
dykes
correctly. At least that's something, isn't it?”

My keys clanked the table by the front door. Moose didn't hear me come in, didn't even awake when I climbed the creaky stairs. He had plastered himself against the closed door to Danny's room as though trapping a spirit, guarding it from slipping out through the crack between the saddle and door bottom. I lay my head on his side and breathed in the damp dirt smell of old dog. Moose batted a front paw as he slept—maybe swatting squirrels in a dream or pouncing on a tennis ball that Danny tossed. Joe had been right: Moose and
Danny had been best pals. I flashed back to the night of the accident: Moose twirling by Danny's door, turning in circles as if signaling an earthquake.

The tears I had saved all afternoon spilled onto his fur. Moose shifted and stretched his thick neck. I stroked his head and fingered the small familiar bump, perfectly centered between his ears, to ease him from sleep, and, perhaps, to ease myself too. I needed a constant—one thing that hadn't changed. The knot on Moose's head was all I could find.

Moose found a new spot in the yard as I put on a pot of coffee and tapped the red blinking button on the answering machine. My father's afternoon greeting boomed in the kitchen. The second call was from Joe, who rambled uncharacteristically. The architect had snagged his progress on a house in the Cove (something about enlarging the kitchen and adding a pass-through), so Joe had let the crew go early. All but Mike, the project manager. Joe took him to see a building site out east. They'd stopped for a beer. Joe was phoning from the pub, calling to tell me Mike had invited him for dinner. Mike's wife always cooked spaghetti and meatballs on Mondays. No problem bringing a guest. And Joe had said yes. “You're probably wiped out from work and won't want to fuss with dinner anyhow,” he told the machine, then jabbed me with his last words: “I won't be home.”

“Fuck you, Joe!” I said, this time aloud to the kitchen walls.

I poured my coffee and called Dad, who, I knew, would be waiting by the phone, eager to hear how I'd gotten through the day. I summarized in one sentence: “The strange thing was, Dad, the kids were easier than the adults.”

“How so?”

“Well…” I opened the door for Moose and welcomed the clack of his nails on the kitchen tiles. “I felt as if the teachers were uncomfortable with me, like they had to make me feel better and they didn't know how.”