Once in a Lifetime (7 page)

The specialists she had seen had suggested to her that eventually she would have to put Andrew in a special school, that it would be best for him, that it would be impossible for him to deal with normal children. And they also pointed out again and again that, despite Daphne's Herculean efforts with the child, there were stumbling blocks that she was unable to get over. Although she knew him better than anyone else did, even she had difficulties communicating with him, and the specialists warned her that in time she would come to resent him for her failures. She was not a professional, after all, they insisted, and he needed more sophisticated skills than she was able to give him. In addition, his constant isolation from other children made him suspicious and hostile on the rare occasions when he did see them. Hearing children didn't want to play with him because he was different, and their cruelty caused Daphne so much pain that she hadn't taken him to a playground since he was an infant. But still she resisted the idea of his being with other children like him, so she kept him to herself, the two of them prisoners in her tiny apartment, as the specialists continued to badger her about sending him away to a special school.

"An institution?" she had screamed at the specialist she knew best. "I won't do that to him. Ever!"

"What you're doing is a lot worse." The doctor's voice had been gentle. "It doesn't have to be forever, Daphne. But you have to face facts. You can't teach him at home what he needs to know. He needs totally different skills than you can give him."

"Then I'll learn them!" She had shouted at him because she couldn't shout at Andrew's deafness, or at life, or fate, or the gods who had been so unkind to her. "Dammit, I'll learn them and I'll stay with him night and day to help him!" But she had already done that, and it wasn't working. Andrew was living in total isolation.

"And when you die?" the pediatrician asked bluntly. "You don't have a right to do that to him. You'll make him totally dependent on you. Give him the right to his own life, for God's sake. A school will teach him independence, it will teach him how to function in the normal world when he's ready."

"And when will that be? When he's twenty-five? Thirty? When he's so totally used to being out of the world that he's institutionalized? I saw those people up there, I talked to them, through an interpreter. They don't even trust what they call 'hearing people.' They're all freaks, for chrissake. Some of them are forty years old and have never lived anywhere but an institution. I won't do that to him." He had sat, watching them talk, fascinated by the gestures and the expressions on their faces, but Andrew had heard none of the angry words between his mother and his doctor.

For three years she had fought her private war, to the slow but steady detriment of Andrew. It had become obvious long since that Andrew could not speak, and when he was three, her renewed efforts to introduce him to hearing children at the playground were a disaster. Everyone shunned him. It was as though they somehow knew that he was terribly, terribly different, and one day she watched him sitting in the sandbox alone, watching the other children with tears running down his face, and then looking at his mother as though to say "What's wrong with me?" She had run to him and held him, rocking him gently as they both cried, feeling isolated and afraid. Daphne felt that she had failed him. A month later, for Daphne, the war was over. With lead in her heart she began to visit the schools she so desperately hated, feeling as though at any moment Andrew would be torn from her. She couldn't face another loss in her life, and yet she knew that not to do it would destroy him. Freeing him was the ultimate gift she had to give him. And at last she found the only school where she could bear to leave him. It was in a small, comfortable town in New Hampshire, with birch trees surrounding it, and a pretty little pond, and a small river that ran along the grounds, where she watched the children fish. And what she liked best about it was that there were no "students" there older than twenty. They weren't called patients, or residents or inmates, as she had heard in other institutions. They were called children and students, like "real" people. And most were sent back to their families in their late teens, to attend colleges when they could, or take jobs, and return to the families who had stood behind them for so long and waited. As Daphne walked slowly around the grounds with the director, a stately woman with white hair, she felt the weight of her loss again, knowing that Andrew might live there for as long as fifteen years, or at least eight or ten. It was a commitment that tore her heart from her. This was her last child, her last love, the only human being alive who was related to her, and she was going to leave him. Her eyes filled with tears again at the thought, and she felt the same shaft of unbearable pain she had felt for months as she had come to terms with the decision, and as the tears poured down her face she felt the director's hand on her arm, and suddenly she was in the older woman's arms, being held close in a strong comforting grasp, sobbing out the pain of the past four years, since even before the birth of Andrew.

"You're doing a wonderful thing for your son, Mrs. Fields, and I know how hard it is." And then, after the sobs had finally subsided, "Are you currently employed?" The question had come as a shock. Did they doubt her ability to pay his tuition? She had hoarded whatever money she and Jeff had had, and she had been desperately frugal. She hadn't bought so much as a new dress for herself since the few she had bought after the fire, and she was planning to use all of Jeff's insurance money for the school, for as long as it would last. But now of course, with Andrew gone, she could go back to work. She had not worked again since Jeffs death. She had had to recover herself, and then she had found out she was pregnant. She couldn't have worked anyway then, she was too distraught after their deaths. And Collins had given her a generous severance when they accepted her resignation.

"No, I'm not employed, Mrs. Curtis, but my husband left me enough to ..."

"That's not what I meant." The director's smile was filled with compassion. "I was wondering if you would be free to stay up here for a while. Some of our parents do that. For the first months, until the children adjust. And Andrew being so young ..." There were five other children his age, which was part of what had convinced Daphne. "There's a charming little inn in town, run by an Austrian couple, and there are always a few houses to rent. You might give it some thought." She felt as though she'd had a reprieve. And her face lit up like a sunbeam.

"Could I see him every day?" Tears filled her eyes again.

"At first." Mrs. Curtis's voice was gentle. "Eventually it will be better for both of you if you begin to cut the visits down. And you know"--the smile was warm--"he's going to be awfully busy with his friends."

Daphne's voice was forlorn. "Do you think he'll forget me?"

They stopped where they stood and the older woman looked at her. "You're not losing Andrew, Mrs. Fields. You're giving him all that he needs for a successful life in the world again."

A month later she and Andrew made the trip, and she drove as slowly as she could through New England. These were the last hours of their old life and she wanted to drag them out as long as she could. She knew she wasn't ready to leave him. And somehow, the beauty of the countryside made it even harder. The leaves were turning, and the hills were a riot of deep reds and bright yellows, there were cottages and barns, horses in fields, and tiny churches. And suddenly she was reminded of the big beautiful world beyond their apartment that she wanted to share with him. There were cows and lots of sights lining the road he had never seen, and he pointed and made his odd little familiar sounds to ask her questions. But how could she explain to him a world filled with people, and airplanes, and exotic cities like London or San Francisco or Paris? She realized suddenly how deprived he had been and how little she had actually taught him, and the familiar feeling of failure washed over her again as they drove on through the scarlet hills of New England.

All of Andrew's favorite treasures and toys were in the car, his teddy bear and a stuffed elephant he loved, and the picture books they had leafed through together, but which no one could read to him. Daphne found herself thinking of it all as they drove, and suddenly what stood out to her now was all that she hadn't accomplished rather than all that she had, and she found herself wondering what Jeff would have done in her place with his son, if he'd had the chance. Perhaps he would have had more ingenuity, or greater patience, but he could have had no greater love than she had for this child. She loved him with every ounce of her soul, and If she could have given him her own ears with which to hear, she would have.

An hour before they reached the school they stopped for a hamburger at a roadside stand, and her bleak mood brightened a little. Andrew seemed excited by the trip, and he was watching everything around him with delight. She wished, as she watched him, that she could tell him about the school, but there was no way to do that. She couldn't tell him what it was like or what she felt, or why she was leaving him there or how much she loved him. For all of his life she had only been able to meet bis physical needs, or show him fire trucks racing silently by in the street. She had never been able to share her thoughts or feelings with him. She knew that he had to know that she loved him, she was with him every moment after all. But what would he think now when she left him at the school? How could she explain it to him? It only added to her private anguish to know that she couldn't. Mrs. Curtis, the director at the school, had rented a little cottage for her in the town, and Daphne planned to stay until Christmas, so that she could visit Andrew every day. But that would be very different from what they had shared in the past, their every waking moment spent side by side. Their lives would never be the same again, and Daphne knew it. The hardest thing she had ever done in her life was letting go of this child, whom she wanted to hold on to more than life itself, but knew she couldn't.

They arrived at the school shortly after dusk, and Andrew looked around in surprise, as though he didn't understand why they were there. He looked at Daphne with confusion and she nodded and smiled as he glanced worriedly at the other children. But these children were different from the ones he had met in Central Park in New York, and it was as though he instinctively sensed that they were like him. He watched them play, and the signs they made, and again and again they came over to him. It was the first warm welcome he had ever had from children his own age, and as one little girl came over and took his hand and then kissed his cheek, Daphne had to turn away so he wouldn't see the tears pouring down her face. Andrew just stared at the little girl in amazement. It was Mrs. Curtis who helped him join in at last, took his hand and led him around as Daphne watched, feeling as though she had done the right thing and a new world was opening to Andrew. Something extraordinary happened as she watched, he began to reach out to these children so much like him. He smiled and he laughed and for a moment he forgot Daphne. He began to watch the signs that they made with their hands, and laughing once he imitated one of them, and then making a funny little noise, he walked over to the little girl who had approached him before and kissed her. Daphne went over to him later and waved to show that she was going away, but he didn't cry, he didn't even look frightened or unhappy. He was having too good a time with his friends, and she held him for a last moment, with a brave smile on her face, and then she ran away before the tears came again. And he never saw the ravaged look on his mother's face as she drove out of the driveway. "Take care of my baby ..." she whispered to a God she had long since come to fear, and this time she prayed that He would hear her.

Within two weeks Andrew had totally adjusted to his new life at the school, and Daphne felt as though she had lived in the cozy New England town forever. The cabin Mrs. Curtis had helped her find was warm in the autumn wind, it had a perfect little country kitchen with a brick fireplace for baking bread, a tiny living room filled with a well-worn couch and deep easy chairs, there was a fireplace here too, and shining copper pots filled with plants, and in the bedroom a four-poster bed with a bright quilt. It was here that Daphne spent most of her time, reading books and writing in a journal. She had started keeping a journal when she was pregnant with Andrew, it was filled with notes about what her life was like, what she thought and felt, little essays about what life meant to her. She always thought that one day, when he was older, she would share her writings with Andrew. And in the meantime, it gave her a place to empty her soul, on long, lonely nights, like the ones in New Hampshire. The days there were bright and sunny, and she took long walks down wooded paths and beside streams, thinking of Andrew, and looking at the snowcapped mountains. This was a whole different world from New York. There were barns with horses, cows in the pastures, hills and meadows where she could walk without seeing a soul, and often did. She only wished she could share it with Andrew. For years now, he had been her only companion. And every few days she went to the school to see him. For her it was still an enormous adjustment. For four years her life had centered around him, and now suddenly he was gone, and there were times when the emptiness almost overwhelmed her. She found herself thinking more and more of Jeff, and of Aimee. She would have been eight years old by then, and at times when Daphne saw a little girl the same age, she turned away, her eyes filled with tears, her arms aching to hold her. But it wasn't as though she had lost Andrew the same way, she kept reminding herself. He was alive and happy and busy, and she was doing the right thing for him and she knew it. But time after time she would go to the school, and sit on a bench outside with Mrs. Curtis, watching him play and learning to sign now. She was also learning the hand signs in order to communicate with him better.

"I know how difficult this is for you, Mrs. Fields. It's easier for the children to adjust, than for then-parents. For the little ones it's a kind of release. Here they are finally free of a world that didn't accept them."