Showers in Season (20 page)

Then she made it over to Daniel, who still sat beside Mark. Daniel was just finishing the last problem. She knew he would have been finished fifteen minutes ago if Mark hadn’t slowed him. She glanced down at Mark’s paper. He had written one sentence but had failed to do any of the rest of the work. She wondered how he had passed the time while she was gone. Her heart rate sped up, and her palms began to sweat. She swallowed and
commanded herself to stay calm. “Mark, why didn’t you do what I told you?”

“Well, I read it. I’ve got it up here,” he said, tapping his head. “I didn’t need to write any of it down.”

She narrowed her eyes. “So you’re telling me that you did the assignment in your head, but that I don’t need to see it on paper?”

“Yeah, something like that.”

She gave an exaggerated sigh. “Well, it’s going to be a fun trip to the park tomorrow,” she said, turning back to the other children. “I was thinking maybe we could stop by Kentucky Fried Chicken and pick up a bucket of chicken and have a picnic.” Leah and Rachel and Joseph all began to cheer. Daniel was more reticent, though, as he looked up at his mother, as though wondering what she was up to. “Joseph, we’ll take a wheelchair in case you get tired, but you don’t have to use it unless you want to.”

“Okay,” he said.

“We’ll ride the train that goes around the lake, and maybe we can do some fishing.” Joseph hadn’t been away from home in a while, except to go to church. His round face beamed with excitement.

She turned back to Mark. “Mark, I’m sure Mr. David will be able to keep you busy all day.”

His expression crashed. “What?”

“You’ll be helping him tomorrow,” she said. “You should learn a lot from him.”

His mouth dropped open. “You’re leaving me here?”

“Well, sure,” she said. “I told you how it was going to be and you didn’t do your work so…”

“I’m telling my mom,” he spouted. “She’s paying you good money.”

“She’s paying me to teach you,” Brenda said, “and I’m trying to.” She looked at her watch and realized the school day was over. Cathy had told her to send Mark home when it got to be three o’clock. “Mark, you’re welcome to go home now. I’m not going to give you any homework today, but I would like for you to finish that science assignment tonight.”

“If I do, do I get to go to the park?” he asked.

“No,” she said. “I warned you about that and you made your choice, but if you do your science assignment tonight and turn it in tomorrow morning, when we start back on our studies Wednesday, you’ll be able to help on the project we’re going to do. And if you have any trouble doing it tonight,” she said, “I could certainly explain everything to your mother.”

“No,” he said, “she’ll go ballistic.”

“She might,” Brenda said. “I’d really like for her to have a good feeling about the way today went.”

He stood up and got his books together, and shot her a look that said he couldn’t believe he was being treated this way. Then without saying good-bye to any of them, he headed out the door and across the street.

For the first time in weeks, Tory couldn’t wait for Barry to get home so she could tell him about the school and what she had seen, and plead with him to go back there with her. If he could see these babies, understand the hope for them, the potential, the joy they could bring to their families’ lives, she knew it would change his heart.

She cooked a big meal and tried to make their home comfortable with scented candles and a fire in the fireplace, hut when suppertime came, Barry was still not home.

“Where’s Daddy?” Brittany asked. “Is he working late again?”

“He’s not coming,” Spencer said. “Let’s eat without him.”

Tory realized that Spencer was probably right. Disappointed, she started to set the table.

“He’s always in a bad mood,” Spencer said. “He comes home and he doesn’t want to talk or play. What’s he so mad about, anyway?”

Tory searched her brain for an explanation her children could understand. “He’s got a lot of stress at work, honey.”

“Well, he should get glad in the same pants he got mad in,” Spencer said.

Tory’s mouth fell open. “Spencer, where did you hear that?”

“School,” he said, reaching around her for a roll. “Teacher says it.”

They should teach four-year-olds calculus, she thought. They retained everything.

“You don’t have school,” Brittany chided. “That’s Mommy’s Morning Out.”

“Is too school,” Spencer threw back. “Huh, Mommy?”

“We can call it that. But Spencer, please don’t say that glad-mad-pants thing again. It’s not very respectful. Besides, Daddy’s not mad at you.”

“Is he mad at you?” Brittany asked.

“Maybe a little,” Tory admitted. “I’ve been kind of grouchy lately.”

“Just because of all that puking,” Spencer said.

“Well, when Daddy gets home tonight, how about if we all try to be really good? I won’t be grouchy, and you two won’t beg him to read you books. We’ll just let him relax, okay?”

Brittany gave her a long, pensive look. “You promise you won’t throw up?”

“I can promise to try. I’m feeling okay right now.”

“You’re prob’ly well,” Spencer said. “Thank goodness.” He took a big drink of milk, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “You could call Daddy at work and tell him we’re waitin’ for him to eat.”

“So could you,” Tory said, not quite ready to take that big a step. “How about I dial the number and you talk to him?”

“Okay,” Spencer said. She dialed and handed Spencer the phone.

“Daddy, this is Spencer,” he said, as if Barry wouldn’t recognize his own child. “We’re waiting for you. Mommy made a good supper.” He paused. Tory wished she had put him on the
speaker phone so she could hear. “Why not? Well, when will you? Well, why do you have to stay there?” His tone deteriorated into a whine. “You’re never here. I know, but…Will you come after? Will you bring us ice cream? All right,” he said. “Okay, bye.”

He hung up and flashed a victory sign to his sister. “Yes! He’s bringing ice cream.”

Tory tried not to look too anxious. “When?”

“Later. He said to eat. He has work to do.”

Tory tried not to betray her fierce disappointment as she finished setting the table. She was quiet as the children chattered about what kind of ice cream he might bring. As they argued about the merits of chocolate over strawberry, she mentally rehearsed the speech she would make when Barry got home. There wasn’t time for anger. She had to make him understand about the school, about the hope they could have for their child, about the mothers she had met.

It was eight o’clock before Barry got home, carrying a bag of Blizzards for all of them.

As the children took theirs out to the picnic table to avoid a mess, she and Barry sat down on the patio. She could see the stress and fatigue in his body, and in the lines on his face. He had nothing to say to her, and expected nothing in return. She watched him lean forward and set his elbows on his knees as he gazed out at the children.

“Barry, Saturday, at the grocery store, I met someone,” she said.

He looked over at her. She knew it surprised him that she had initiated a conversation, when she’d spent weeks avoiding him. “Oh, yeah? Who?”

“A woman who had a child with Down’s Syndrome.”

He turned his head away then, as if he didn’t want to engage in this conversation.

“Her child was a teenager, and he was really sweet. He was feeling all the produce.”

He set his jaw and said nothing.

“She gave me the name of her son’s school and…I went by there today.”

He didn’t look at her, and she knew he didn’t want to hear.

“It just showed me how much potential these kids have. They’re not invalids; they’re not helpless. They even had a couple of them working in the office. Paid employees.”

He started shaking his head before she had even finished her sentence. “You can’t tell me anything about the education of retarded children, Tory. I have Nathan, remember?”

“I know,” she said, “but Nathan’s autistic. Our baby will have different needs and different potential.”

“That school is something that tries to make the best of a bad situation,” he said. “There are better ways to do it.”

She knew he was talking about abortion again, and all her promises to herself not to get angry fled. “Not better ways, Barry. Your ways are not better.”

He was growing cold, callused, she thought. “You know, you’re not only abandoning the baby,” she told Barry, “but you’re abandoning Brittany and Spencer, too. They asked me tonight why you’re always so mad when you get home.”

“Mad?” he asked. “I’m not mad.”

“They think you are. Abandon me if you have to, Barry, but don’t abandon them.”

He shook his head as if he couldn’t believe she’d uttered those words. “You’ve got a lot of nerve. You take an important decision like our family completely out of my hands, and you have the gall to tell me that I need to treat my children better? I come home to this house and I have no control over anything that goes on here. You’re in there, heaving in the bathroom while the kids are bouncing off the walls, and I’m sleeping down in the basement because the chill in our room is just too much.”

“Barry, I’m trying to tell you that we don’t have to abort this baby. There’s hope. She can have a life that’s fairly normal.”

“Best case,” he said, looking back at her, “but worst case is that she’s an invalid, that she can’t do anything, that she can’t
talk, that she’ll never be able to walk, or that she’ll be sick all the time and hate her life and die young.”

Her eyes filled with tears at the picture he had of their child. She shook her head hard. “Oh, no, that’s not the worst case, Barry,” she said.

He got up, set his hands on his hips. “What is, then?”

“The worst case,” she said, “is that her father would want to abort her before she ever has a chance to try.”

Barry went in and slammed the door behind him. The children both looked up from the picnic table, but neither of them asked what was wrong. Their parents were fighting again. It was getting to be a habit.

Tory got them to bed early that night, then retreated to the bedroom and cried herself to sleep.

Since the field trip to the park took place on Tuesday, Brenda invited Tory and Spencer. She hoped it would cheer Tory up and distract her from her troubles. She couldn’t help chuckling as they pulled the van out of the driveway and waved back at Mark, who stood next to David with a stricken look on his face. It was clear that he couldn’t believe they were leaving him.

“Are you sure you’re not going to turn around and go back to get him?” Tory asked Brenda.

“Not on your life,” Brenda said. “Mark will be fine. He just needs a little tweaking before we can really get things off the ground.”

Tory gazed out the window. “You know, I haven’t been around Cathy’s kids all that much, but all three of them strike me as smart alecks. I don’t know why you’d ever commit to teaching Mark.”

“I knew I could help him,” Brenda said. “Like I said, he’s going to be fine. David plans to work his little fingers to the
bone today, and then tomorrow when I tell him to get his work done, maybe he’ll take me more seriously.” She looked over at the big shirt Tory wore over her khakis, and she could see that her stomach was rounding out slightly. “So how are you feeling?” she asked softly, keeping her voice down so the kids—chattering in the back—wouldn’t hear.

“Feeling good today,” Tory said. “No nausea.”

“Isn’t that something new?” Brenda asked.

Tory smiled. “Yeah, it’s new, all right. I’m fifteen weeks now. Maybe I’m getting past it.”

“So what about Barry? Has anything changed?”

Tory shook her head. “Still sleeping in the basement.” The rims of her eyes reddened and she laid her head back on the seat. Brenda knew they couldn’t go into this in any more detail with the children in the back of the van. Besides, she wanted this to be a day of fun, not conversations that dragged them all down.

It wasn’t until a few hours later, when the children were involved in throwing bread crust to the ducks over the little bridge at the duck pond, that Brenda and Tory were able to sit down in the shade and pick up their conversation.

“So what are you going to do about Barry?” Brenda asked Tory.

She shook her head. “I don’t know.” She watched a mother pushing her baby past the kids in a stroller, and Spencer leaned over and made a face at the child. The baby giggled.

“Mommy, look!” he said.

Tory grinned. “He loves babies.”

“Almost all children do.”

“I’ve been thinking about telling him and Brittany.”

Brenda gave her a glance. “Well, you’re not going to be able to hide it a lot longer, but do you think it’s a good idea to do that when Barry is still so confused?”

“He’s not confused, Brenda. He knows exactly what he wants,”

“But Tory…I know Barry too well. He’s not the kind of man who could easily abort a child. There’s got to be something going through this mind, something he’s got to work through.”

“Well, there is, of course,” Tory said. “His autistic brother, Nathan. Barry thinks he’s never contributed anything in his life. He thinks he’s miserable. But I don’t think he is. I think he just sits there as content as anybody on earth. And his mother loves him.”

“But you can at least understand where Barry is coming from.”

“Well, I can understand it,” she said. “I just don’t agree with it.”

Brenda shifted on the bench and propped her elbow on the back of it. “Tory, I’ve been praying really hard for you, and so has Sylvia. She reminds me in every e-mail to remember to pray for you.”

“I appreciate that.”

Brenda wondered if Tory had been getting enough sleep. “I think your marriage is going to be all right, and I think Barry is going to get used to the idea of the baby and come around. Just give him some time.”

“I don’t want to give him time,” she said wearily. “I want to take all control of this from his hands because he’s not thinking clearly. If I were to tell Spencer and Brittany and they got all excited about my pregnancy, then he’d have to stop talking about abortion; he wouldn’t have any choice.”

“That’s one way to change his mind,” Brenda said, “but are you sure it’s the right way? It could just alienate Barry more at a time when you really need him.”

“I’m not worried about being alienated by him,” Tory said. “I’m worried about saving my child’s life.”

“Well, it’s not like he’s stalking you, ready to take the baby. He’s not breathing down your neck and demanding that you do it, is he?”

Tory crossed her arms and stared after the children. “Oh, no, he’s just giving me the silent treatment, sleeping in the basement, coming home late at night.”

“Still, I don’t think you should tell the kids. I think you need to give him another couple of weeks, maybe a month. Then when you absolutely can’t hide it anymore, go ahead and tell them, but only after you’ve warned him.”

Tory didn’t want to hear any of that.

“Promise me you’ll pray about it,” Brenda said.

Tory nodded, but Brenda knew the commitment was shallow. “I’ve
been
praying about it. And I keep thinking that with all this prayer, God could still heal my baby.”

“Sure, he could,” Brenda said.

“I mean, just because the lab test showed a chromosome problem doesn’t mean that it’s going to stay that way. God has raised people from the dead. He’s made the blind to see. He can fix a stupid little chromosome.”

“He certainly can,” Brenda said, “and you know me. I sure believe in miracles.”

But it was clear that Tory wasn’t so sure. Her eyes filled with tears and she looked away. Brenda squeezed her hand. “You’re going to be all right, Tory. You’re going to love this baby and you’re going to take care of her, and your family is going to be fine.”

“There you go again,” Tory said. “That incredible optimism.”

“Well, what’s there to be pessimistic about?” she asked. “God is totally in control, and he’s not going to let anything happen to you that he didn’t plan.”

“Are you sure?” Tory asked, meeting her eyes. “Are you sure that Satan is not involved in these things sometimes, giving us children who are deformed or retarded or have heart disease?”

“Satan is not more powerful than God. Nothing happens without God’s permission. Everything is for a reason.”

“Barry mentioned that God isn’t supposed to give us more than we can endure, but if God knows me at all, he knows this is not the kind of thing that I can handle.” She breathed a bitter laugh. “I have to have everything perfect, neat, and organized. I’ve spent years taking care of my looks because perfection is such a big thing with me, and now he gives me an imperfect child. Some irony, huh?”

“Maybe,” Brenda said. “Maybe not. Maybe this is how God is going to show you that perfection isn’t the important thing.”

“Couldn’t he just send me a letter, or a video? Or even do something to me, instead of my child?”

“This is how it’s supposed to happen. And you know what? Barry is part of God’s plan, too. Somehow he’s going to use Barry in this. I have a lot of faith in your husband.”

“Why?” Tory asked.

“Because I know him to be a believer,” she said. “It hasn’t been that long since Barry came to the hospital to talk to David about his faith. He tried to lead David to Christ, but David just wasn’t interested. That took a lot of guts, and whenever I see Barry now, I get these warm thoughts, because I know he cared enough about my husband to tell him the truth.”

“Yeah, we’ve come a long way since that,” Tory said. “Who would have thought he would go from sharing his faith with David to demanding an abortion of his own child?”

“Who would have ever predicted any of what’s happened lately?” Brenda asked. “Who would have thought you’d be pregnant? Who would have thought I’d be homeschooling Mark? Who would have thought Sylvia would find a little girl and keep her?”

Tory stared out into the breeze with vacant, pensive eyes. “Do you ever feel like life is just one series of crises after another?”

“No,” Brenda said without hesitation. “Actually, I feel like it’s one series of blessings after another. It’s like Sylvia said. God sends the showers
and
the sunshine.”

“So that’s what you think this is? A shower?”

Brenda smiled. “A shower of blessings, maybe,” she said. “You just never know. I bet the parents of all those children in that Down’s Syndrome school think their children are blessings. Soon, you’ll be one of them,” she said.

Tory was pensive as the kids came back down from the bridge, ready to move on to their next activity.