Showers in Season (19 page)

The parking lot of Breezewood Development Center was the last place on earth that Tory wanted to be. She sat in her car staring at the front door, trying to get the courage to go in alone. She had asked Brenda to go with her, but it was her first day to resume homeschooling, so she’d had to stay home. She hadn’t mentioned it to Barry, for she knew this was the last place he would ever want to go.

She got out of the car, straightened her dress, and looked cautiously at the building, feeling a lot like a little kid on her first day of kindergarten. The mystery of what lay beyond the doors was almost more than she could bear. She needed someone to hold her hand and cross the pavement beside her. That was Barry’s job. The bitter thought brought tears to her eyes. But Barry wasn’t here, so she was forced to walk in alone. She wondered how much more of this journey she would walk alone.

As she walked in, the sounds that came from the classrooms were much like those from any other school. She heard laughter
and chattering, teachers talking in calm, gentle voices, music playing. She found the office, and was surprised to see two adults with Down’s Syndrome working behind the counter.

“May I help you?” one of them asked her in a slurred voice.

“Yes.” She cleared her throat and tried to hide her shaking hands. “I was wondering if you let people observe the classes.”

Without answering, the clerk disappeared into an office, and after a moment, a woman came out of the back room. “Hi. Can I help you?”

Tory cleared her throat. “Yes…uh…I was wondering… Do you let people…parents…observe the classes?”

“Yes, of course. Do you have a special needs child?”

Tory patted her stomach, and the corners of her mouth trembled. “I’m carrying one. Down’s Syndrome. I just wanted to see.”

The woman seemed to understand completely, and her face filled with compassion. “You’re very welcome to come and observe any of the classrooms here.” She handed the stack of papers she held to the girl who had initially helped Tory. “Honey, would you punch holes in those pages for me so I can put them in my binder?”

“Yes, ma’am,” the girl said, and hurried away to do her task.

The woman came around the counter. “I’m Phyllis Martin. I’m the director here.”

“Tory Sullivan,” she said. As they shook hands, she knew the woman could feel her trembling. “I’m…a little nervous.”

“Parents often are, until they see that there’s nothing to be nervous about.”

As they walked out into the corridor, Tory glanced back at the girl punching holes in the pages. “You have paid staff who have Down’s Syndrome?”

“Sure,” she said. “We try to help the kids get jobs as they get old enough to graduate. Some of the best ones we keep for ourselves. We get real attached to these kids. When are you expecting?”

Tory hadn’t thought much about her due date. It seemed so far away. She had a lifetime of problems to solve before then. “Next May.”

“When did you find out?”

She shrugged. “About a month ago.”

The woman reached a classroom and paused, and Tory looked through the window. The children seemed about five years old, and were walking around in a circle with grins on their faces as the teacher played a game with them.

“They’re all different, you know,” the woman said. “Children with Down’s Syndrome have different degrees of difficulty. Most of them can walk at this age, but their muscle tone is very weak, so we take them early, even as infants, and do physical therapy to help them develop. As they get older, we help them with their speech. Some of them learn to speak very clearly.”

The woman opened the door. Tory stepped back. “Oh, no, I don’t want to go in. I don’t want to disturb anybody”

“Oh, it’s no problem at all,” Phyllis said. “Come on. You can come in and watch as long as you want, and then if you want to go to an older or younger class, you’re welcome to do that. You might especially be interested in our classes for mothers and infants.”

“Mothers?” Tory asked. “Mothers are involved?”

“Sure. We help them learn how to stimulate their children so that they can develop to their utmost potential. By the time they get to this class, most of the children are able to learn games and songs and follow some instructions. We’ve educated most of the parents right along with them.”

One of the teacher’s aides came to the door, and Phyllis quietly introduced Tory. Slowly, Tory followed the aide into the room. The teacher started a tape of children singing, and the kids held hands and walked around in a circle. They sang with sounds that bore little resemblance to the song, but the smiles on some of their faces made up for it. Tory took a seat at the back of the class and watched with awe as the woman gently worked with the children.

“Tell you what,” Phyllis whispered. “I’ll come back in about twenty minutes. We have a mom and baby class starting about then and you can come in and watch.”

Tory watched, astounded, fighting the urge to burst into tears at the sight of the class full of children with so many disabilities. But there was hope here, she realized. This was not an ugly, dismal place. It was uplifting and encouraging, and every child was made to feel special.

Three of the children were in wheelchairs. Half of them wore glasses. Some had braces on their legs. But they all smiled and giggled like any other children. And they could color and clap their hands and play ring-around-the-rosie.

Later, she felt much more hopeful as she followed Phyllis up the hall to the class of moms and babies. “This class is for babies as young as you want to bring them, on up to about three years old,” the woman said. “Then we start working with the children in groups without the parents.”

Tory’s face grew serious again as she stepped into the room. Awestruck, she looked around at all the mothers talking like old friends, holding their babies on their hips, or holding their hands and trying to walk with them across the floor. They had become a community of people with problems, a circle of friends bound by common struggles.

Phyllis introduced her, and several of the mothers expressed compassion for what Tory was going through. Three of them exchanged phone numbers with her.

But what struck her the most was not the camaraderie of the women who had made the same choice that she was making, but the beauty in the babies themselves. There was nothing ugly or hideous about them, as she had expected. She began to wonder what her own baby would look like, whether she would have Brittany’s hair color or Spencer’s, her eyes or Barry’s. Would she let Tory put bows and barrettes in her hair? Would she smile a lot? Would she need glasses?

When she finally left the school and headed to the mother’s day out program to pick up Spencer, she was feeling much better about her baby’s plight. She made her run by Brittany’s school to pick her up, then as the kids napped, she went through the box of maternity clothes that Barry had brought
down from the attic weeks ago, before they’d known their baby wasn’t perfect.

Her heart lifted at the sight of the clothes she had worn during her last two pregnancies. She decided to wash them all and iron them so that they would be ready to wear when it was time. For the first time since she’d learned about the Down’s Syndrome, she was able to think of this child without the fearful weight of dread crushing down on her.

Noon came in the nick of time, just when Brenda felt she was about to lose Mark altogether. She gathered all the kids into the kitchen and enlisted them in helping make lunch. She had chosen tacos, one of her family’s favorites, which Daniel declared were much better than the tacos they’d been eating at school. They added a chair to their dinner table for Mark. David came in and washed up, and shared the lunch hour with them.

The kids all had their chores for cleanup after the meal, and she gave Mark the task of wiping the table. Since it had already been cleared off, she doubted that would be too much of a drain for him. But when she saw him wandering from the room, she checked his work. Crumbled meat and spilt sauce still dotted the table.

“Mark, you didn’t finish your job,” she said. “It was just a little job. Please come back and do it.”

He shot her a look as if she had wounded him. “I thought this was supposed to be just like school. We don’t have to wipe our own tables at school.”

“It’s not a lot to ask,” she said, trying to keep her voice calm. “Come on, Mark. Everybody else is doing their job.”

Angry, he jerked up the wet rag and began scrubbing the table, knocking the crumbs onto the floor. “Is that why you want us here?” he muttered. “So you can get us to do your work for you?”

She tried to remember that he had helped raise money for Joseph’s heart, that he had come to the hospital with his mom and waited all night, as nervous and worried as the rest of them. She reminded herself that he could be a sweet kid when he wasn’t in one of his moods, that he was going through puberty just like her own son, and didn’t yet know where he fit into this world.

But she wasn’t going to let him get away with disrespect, any more than she allowed her own children. “Mark, if you don’t do what I say, you’re not going to get the privileges that everybody else gets.”

“My mom’s paying you,” he said. “You
have
to give me the same privileges.”

“She’s not paying me to baby you, Mark. She’s paying me to teach you, and part of what I’m trying to teach you is responsibility.”

“I’m not responsible for your kitchen table.”

She couldn’t believe she was embroiled in this argument in front of her children. All four of them turned and watched her with wide eyes and open mouths. Though her own kids were not perfect, none of them had ever defied her this blatantly.

“You know, Mark, you’re right. My kitchen table is not your responsibility. So I tell you what. Why don’t you go out to the workshop with Mr. David and get in the elective that you’ve been so concerned about?”

“Elective?” he asked. “What elective?”

“Carpentry,” she said. She shot David a look. He was gaping at her as if to say, “Why me?”

“David, you must have a job that Mark can do out there.”

He shot Mark a skeptical look. “I can think of something for him to do.”

“Am I being punished?” he demanded.

Over his head, David grinned and mouthed, “Am
I?
”

She tried not to grin. “Mark, the word
disciple
means ‘to teach,’ and that’s what I do here when I homeschool. I try to disciple my kids. I teach them. But there’s another word that comes from that. The word
discipline
, and discipline is not punishment. It’s an action also designed to teach. I’m trying to teach you something today.”

“What?” he asked defiantly.

“I’m trying to teach you that if you don’t live up to your responsibilities as I give them to you, just like all the other kids in this house have to do, then you won’t get the privileges that they get.”

“What privilege are they going to get, anyway?” he asked. “The privilege to read some boring chapter on history?”

“Right now they get to go outside and play for a little while, or they can stay in and play on the computer, or they can read. They don’t have to do schoolwork for a little while after lunch. You, on the other hand, will be out in the workshop listening to the buzz saw and sanding furniture.”

He rolled his eyes and leaned back hard against the wall. David wiped his hands. “Come on, kiddo,” he said. “Let’s go.”

“This is not fair,” Mark whined. “My mother is not paying for me to come here and work.”

“Well, if you want me to talk to your mother about this, Mark, I’ll be glad to do it right now.” She headed for the phone.

Mark stopped her. “No! I don’t want her to be bothered at work. She’s already in a bad enough mood when she comes home every day. I’ll just go.”

Mark took off out of the house and headed to the workshop as David shot her a grin that said, “I’ll get you back.”

Brenda stood at the door and let out a huge sigh. It was no wonder Cathy spent so much time yelling. In the space of a few hours, Brenda was close to resorting to it herself.

Later, when free time was over, Brenda invited Mark back into the house, confident that his attitude had changed since he’d spent the past hour sanding.

But she hadn’t won yet. As the other kids worked on the science assignments she gave them, Mark sat doodling on his paper. She told herself that she wasn’t going to hover over him, and she wasn’t going to let him draw her into another argument. He had to learn that there were consequences for failing to get his work done.

She sat at the computer and sent an SOS e-mail to Sylvia, telling her how this first day was turning out. But before she sent it, she erased it. She didn’t need to say negative things about a child who had been placed in her care. She wouldn’t want Cathy talking about Daniel behind her back. She was above this, she thought. She could handle a little aggravation, and concentrate on the positives. Joseph was slowly returning to health, her other kids were able to get their education at home, and she had money coming in without having to work at night. Mark was worth the trouble.

After a while, she got up and went around to check her children’s work. When she got to Mark, she saw that he had done absolutely nothing. She pulled out a chair and sat down at his table, getting face-to-face with him. “Mark, what have you been doing this whole time?” she asked.

He shrugged. “Nothing.”

“Well, I asked you to do this assignment.” Her voice was calm, unperturbed. She could do this, she told herself. She would not let her children see him get under her skin. “Can you tell me why you didn’t do it?”

“I didn’t understand it,” he said.

“What’s to understand? I very clearly told you to read that chapter and answer the questions at the end of it.”

“But it didn’t make any sense to me. Why can’t we go on a field trip or something? Mom told me that was why homeschooling was so cool, that instead of reading books we did things.”

“We do go on field trips. We go on them all the time,” she said, “but right now we’ve got to get a basis for what we’re learning, because field trips don’t do any good if you don’t know what you’re seeing.” Her voice was rising and she checked herself.

This boy was no different from Daniel, she thought. He was just a little misguided, a little less disciplined, but he had a long way to go before she would give up hope.

“Look, Mark, why don’t you and Daniel work together?” She winked at Daniel as he looked up at her. “Daniel, maybe you can help Mark understand exactly what he’s supposed to do. Show him how you take notes when you read.”

“Sure, Mama.” Daniel came to sit beside Mark, and the two boys grinned conspiratorially. She got a sinking feeling in her stomach again.

She sent them to a table in the corner of the room while she went around and checked Leah and Rachel and Joseph’s work. She was standing over Joseph explaining rock formations and the crust of the earth when she heard something crash. She swung around and saw Daniel and Mark horsing around, giggling and pretending to fight.

“Daniel!” she shouted. Daniel let Mark go and backed away. He looked up at her with a startled look on his face. “Yes, ma’am?”

“I will not tolerate this!” Her voice was getting loud. “Now if you can’t behave, then you can go back to school.”

“I’ll behave,” Daniel said quickly. “I’m sorry, Mama.”

Mark shot Daniel a look that said he was crazy. “Man, if I had the chance to go back to school, I’d do it in a second. In a heartbeat. Why do you want to be here?”

Brenda wanted to grab Mark and throttle him. “Mark, so help me, you’re testing my patience, and I’ve been told I have more than most people.” Her eyes stung, and she began to tremble. She didn’t think her children had ever seen her lose control, but Mark was pushing her to the edge of her ability to endure.

She counted to ten in her mind, tried to take a few deep breaths, closed her eyes. A few moments of explosive silence ticked by as her children waited to see what she would do. She opened her eyes and saw that Mark was the only one who wasn’t concerned with her reaction.

What was it she always tried to do in cases like this? Oh, yes, positive reinforcement. There hadn’t been many negatives in her repertoire…at least not until today.

“All right, kids,” she said. “I’ll tell you what. If you’ll get your science work done in the next half hour, then I’ll take us all on a field trip tomorrow. It’ll be sort of a back-to-homeschool party and we’ll go to the park at Lake Brianne. I know it doesn’t have much to do with what we’re studying right now, but somehow we’ll figure out a way to tie it in.” She forced a grin, and the kids began to smile.

Mark was the only one who seemed unimpressed.

“Mark, if you get your work done, you’ll get to go to the park with us.” She looked around at the other kids, knowing they would all have their work done. “But anyone who doesn’t have it done will have to stay behind.”

“Stay behind?” Mark asked. “And do
what?
”

“Help Mr. David in his workshop,” she said. “You won’t be alone and you’ll still be learning, but you won’t get the privilege everybody else gets unless you do your work.”

She drew in a deep breath and checked her watch. “I’m giving you thirty more minutes. Everybody get busy.” With that, she left the room and hurried out to David’s workshop.

David was busy with his power drill when she stepped inside his workshop. It was sweet refuge, and she shut the door hard behind her. David looked up and pulled off his goggles. “What is it?”

She slid onto a stool. “I don’t know how much more I can take.”

A slow grin traveled across David’s face. “My Brenda doesn’t know how much more she can take? Brenda, you’ve been through heart disease with Joseph. I think you can take a lot.”

“I don’t know if I can take Mark,” she said. “I’m about to pull my hair out. I think maybe I’ve made a terrible mistake. Maybe telemarketing wasn’t really so bad.”

His smile faded, as he realized she was serious. “Brenda, you don’t mean that.”

“I do mean it,” she said, “but I can’t get out of this now because I’ve committed. Cathy’s counting on me.”

“So what are you going to do? Break him. like a wild horse?”

She shook her head. “I don’t want to break him, I just want to redirect him a little. He’s such an angry kid. And he has a way of making the adults around him just as angry.”

“Well, maybe that has to do with growing up in a house without a father.”

“But he
has
a relationship with his father,” she said.

“Every other weekend?” David asked. “Come on. That’s not a relationship.”

“Well, whatever the reason, he can’t go on like this. Not if I’m going to teach him. And you’re probably going to hate me. But I need your help again, David. Remember, I’m doing this to help supplement our income.”

He grinned and looked up at the ceiling, as if he could find some patience there. “What do I have to do this time?”

“I’ve given him an ultimatum,” she said. “If he doesn’t get his work done in the next thirty minutes, he’s not going on the field trip with us tomorrow.”

“Field trip?” David asked. “You just started school!”

“I know, but it just hit me that maybe I could give him some positive incentive, maybe something to look forward to and work toward.”

“Do you think he’ll do it?”

She clutched the roots of her hair. “I hope so. But I don’t know, and if he doesn’t, I can’t let him catch me in a bluff. I’m going to have to leave him here with you.”

He moaned. “Brenda, I can’t get any work done when he’s here. He spends the whole time roaming around picking up machinery that could cut his hand off.”

“Well, maybe you could teach him what everything does so he won’t do that.”

“Or maybe he’ll get his work done,” he said, putting his goggles back on.

She sighed. “Maybe.”

He started drilling again, his face grim. “If I could just get more work done, I’d make more money and you wouldn’t have to do stuff like this,” he shouted over the noise of the drill.

She felt even worse. Reaching over, she tapped him, and he shut off the drill. “David, this is not a big deal. I can do it, okay? Don’t start feeling bad about yourself. We just have some financial obstacles right now, but it’s not our fault. We couldn’t have anticipated all these medical bills.”

“Yeah, but if I had a better job with insurance…”

“David, this is what we chose.” She grabbed his hand, pulled him close. He grinned like a little boy and took the goggles off again. “I like having you here,” she said. “I need your help. I like the flexibility. I like that you’re your own boss.”

“It’s a good thing I am.” He leaned over and kissed her, then pressing his forehead against hers, said, “Well, I guess we’re in this homeschooling thing together, aren’t we? Sure, you can leave him with me if you have to.”

She hugged him, so thankful that they could work as a team in this. It would do Mark good to be around a man who wielded a certain amount of authority.

Brenda braced herself as she went back in. She checked Joseph’s work and saw that he had done everything he was supposed to do and more, just as he always did. She kissed his forehead and told him she was proud of him.

She checked Leah’s and Rachel’s papers, saw that they, too, had gone beyond the call of duty. They loved to learn and knew that the more they learned this first run-through, the more they could do when their mother started working with them on projects and examples.