Educating Simon

by Robin Reardon

  I almost felt bad for Toby, but he had never really existed, anyway.

  So in May off she goes to the national bee. And Abby and I will go with her.

  I have to say, I loved the blizzard (back on the first weekend in February). I did feel sorry for people who lost power for days or whose seaside homes were swept away. We lost power overnight on that Friday, but it was back before sundown on Saturday. Even so, we huddled in the living room in front of the fireplace. Ned, bless his heart, had made sure we had some firewood on hand, and he’d left us with lots of food we could eat without cooking it: boiled eggs, cheese, bread, crackers, lots of options. Plus gallons of water.

  The wind howled and howled and sometimes blew smoke back down the chimney. Arria was very unsettled, and I think Persie would have been worse than she was, except that she was focusing so hard on taking care of Arria. They make a great team.

  The city, after the storm, was a winter wonderland. There was a traffic ban through the entire weekend, and Mum and I braved the snowy streets on foot a few times, just for the sake of it, not getting very far and getting quite wet in the process. It was something I might never experience again, though of course Mum is likely to see real snow every winter now.

  Boston, Tuesday, 30 April

  I sat down to write about the bombings three, maybe four times? Just couldn’t quite form thoughts around it. I didn’t exactly know anyone who was there, but Maddy’s mother is a doctor, and she was in the tents that day, ready to tend to runners who needed medical attention. I wouldn’t have known this, not being especially interested in the marathon, if it hadn’t been for what happened that day.

  There was no school on Monday, 15 April. Something called Patriot’s Day in Massachusetts is when the marathon takes place. Schools and lots of businesses close, especially if they’re anywhere near the route the runners take. The finish line is on Boylston Street, a few blocks to the southwest of us, right about at the library. And that’s where the first bomb went off.

  I was on the roof, a pot of tea and biscuits beside me, working on the presentation I’ll have to give for my City course. Suddenly my eardrums felt pressure from something low and explosive, my teacup rattled on its saucer, and my heart stood still. I sat there, frozen, trying to reason out whether there was anything in the house that could cause a noise like that, when the second one—almost as loud—bounced off of buildings and windows all around me, a dull, thudding sound that felt completely wrong.

  Maxine stood in Persie’s open door as I flew past, but I couldn’t have told her what had happened so I kept going. By the time I got to the ground floor, Ned and Mum were at the open front door, and I wasn’t sure whether that was better or worse than, say, the stove blowing up. If it had been in the house and no one was hurt, then it would have been limited. But if it was outside, it must have been massive.

  Brian came running into the house from his office, alone; no appointments today, because no one would have wanted to come anywhere near this area on marathon day even without explosions. He stepped out onto the front steps, but there was nothing to see, so he told us all to stay in the house and then raced back into his office, me on his heels; I knew he was going on the Internet to see what was happening. He opened a news site, found a live feed, and we watched as chaos spread across the screen. Sirens blared, some of the sound coming from Brian’s computer and some from outside. Ned came in, and Brian looked up at him.

  “Persie?” Brian asked.

  “Emma’s gone to her.”

  Manuel called the landline to check on Ned; he said the police were asking people not to use mobile phones, because bombs could be rigged to explode that way. I reached for mine and turned it off.

  It was several minutes before we knew enough for Brian to head upstairs with at least a little news, no doubt wanting to avoid making Persie any more anxious than could be helped. Because even after it seemed unlikely that anything else was going to explode nearby, we still didn’t know very much. That it was some kind of terrorist attack seemed obvious; but would there be more to it? Or would two explosions be the end?

  Maxine and Mum took turns staying upstairs with Persie, while the rest of us—Ned popping in and out of the kitchen to tend to things—hung out in the den, watching things unfold on television. Someone from St. Boniface called the landline to check on me and let me know school was cancelled for Tuesday. Then I tried to think of anyone else from school who lived close by and was appalled to realise that I had no idea. For all I had intended to get to know my classmates better, I knew where only a very few of them lived.

  Dinner was a tense affair, with everyone trying to act normally and avoid upsetting Persie, who knew only that something on Boylston Street had exploded. We wanted her to believe it was all over, and maybe it was. At least, the explosions were over. But the air was thick with the fog of not knowing.

  I brought my laptop down to the music room after dinner. Somehow I didn’t want to be alone. There was a panicked e-mail from Kay, who hadn’t been able to reach my mobile, and the landline here is ex-directory, so she couldn’t look it up. Around nine I got an e-mail from Maddy telling me about her mother’s role. Dr. Westfield hadn’t been one of those who rushed towards the explosion sites to pull people away and tie emergency tourniquets and carry bloody, screaming children to relative safety. Dr. Westfield had stayed in the tent where she’d been expecting to treat dehydration and cramped muscles, and instead found herself piecing people back together as best she could, performing battlefield triage in the hopes of saving as many lives and limbs as possible. Maddy said her mother was now at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and would be there for some indeterminate amount of time, and that huge numbers of people had been injured, some horribly. The bombs had exploded from somewhere near the ground and had sent shards and nasty metallic bits into people’s legs. There had been lots of amputations already, with more almost certain to come.

  I couldn’t wrap my mind around this. Who would do this, and why? The event wasn’t something I had been interested in—and very glad I was of that, at this point—but it was a festivity, a celebration of astounding physical prowess and of determination and of commitment. It was supposed to be a happy event.

  And maybe that’s what it was about. Someone who was miserable, for whatever reason, maybe not even knowing that was at the heart of their motivation, couldn’t abide the joy, the feeling of connectedness that created happiness and assuaged defeat.

  While I would never have committed violence on anyone other than myself, I had some idea what that place of misery was like. But I can’t, and probably never will be able to, get to a place in my head where any amount of misery would drive me to do something like this. And that makes me feel very lucky. Very lucky, indeed.

  By late Tuesday, the authorities had figured out enough of what had happened that St. Boniface decided to open on Wednesday, only to close once more on Friday as the surviving perpetrator was reported to be on the run to nobody-knew-where, though he had been spotted in a place called Watertown. On Friday the authorities issued some order called “shelter in place” for Boston and a few suburbs while a massive manhunt took place. Brian cancelled an appointment with a new client, we didn’t leave the house, and Ned didn’t come to us. Mum cooked dinner, and a very good one at that. No one had wine; not sure why, but even I didn’t want any.

  By bedtime we’d heard the news about the capture of the final terrorist, a boy, really. The image of the boat where he had hidden, behind a house, shot full of holes, haunted my dreams. Imagine having it be your boat . . . That’s just not something one can prepare for, you know? Having troops of law enforcement shooting up one’s back garden.

  For reasons that weren’t clear right away, Persie had begun to follow the story in detail by Tuesday morning. It didn’t seem to upset her; it was more like she was trying to puzzle something out.

  By the weekend, the news stories began to focus more and more on the memorial items people had been leaving
near the finish line. Quite a variety of things: running shoes, of course; teddy bears, which I don’t understand; messages, some personal and some from groups such as a third-grade school class someplace.

  For the second week in a row, Persie wasn’t allowed to go on any outings, and I thought perhaps that could explain why she began to fixate on this pile of stuff. By the end of the second week, though, it was clear that she wanted an outing very badly, and it had to be to the memorial site. Over Thursday dinner she announced to Brian that she was going there on Friday.

  “Why do you want to see that?” he asked.

  “I just do. I need to.”

  Trying to keep his voice even and calm, Brian told her, “Persie, there are so many reasons why that won’t work. Not the least of which is that there will be lots of people crowded around a relatively small space, all pressing together and trying to see the items and read the messages. It would make you react very badly.”

  “It won’t. I will stay in control. I’m going tomorrow, not on the weekend. There will be fewer people.”

  He tried again, but she merely replied, quietly but firmly, that she would go tomorrow. He began to grow irritated, but she didn’t, and she stuck to her guns. I don’t know whether he noticed, as I did, that this was not a request. She did not fall back on her tactic of asking if she might go “tomorrow” with the intent to repeat the request like water torture, which had worked for other things. This told me how important this mission was to her.

  I admit, I had a certain curiosity about the collection, myself. “Brian,” I said, “what if Maxine, Mum, and I all go with her on Tuesday? I’ll have a mostly open school day, and maybe by then the crowds will have diminished somewhat.”

  His face grew tense, and I’m sure he was about to raise his voice in denial, but Mum laid a hand on his arm. “Let’s you and I talk about this later, what do you say?”

  So now, she was calming him down. I stifled a smile so as not to be misinterpreted as impertinent, but it occurred to me that they really are a good couple. And I was pretty sure she’d convince him.

  She did. So early this morning, hoping to avoid crowds as much as we could, we all—including Brian—walked quietly and purposefully to Copley Square, that open area surrounded by ancient Trinity Church, the huge glass John Hancock Tower, and the Boston Public Library across Dartmouth Street. Our approach brought us along Boylston past Trinity to the memorial area. There were lots of people already there, and as I walked behind Persie I saw her stiffen, I hoped in resolve rather than fear. Brian was in front of her, Mum and Maxine on either side.

  As we drew close, Brian stopped and turned to ask Persie if she was sure. She was. She locked arms with Mum and Maxine, and as we moved forwards I wondered for the umpteenth time why this was so important to Persie. I’d asked her once, but she’d just shaken her head and said she had to.

  Not a large space, the site was cordoned off on three sides by those dull metallic gates often used for crowd control, open only on the sidewalk side. Tied all the way around to the metal gates were pairs and pairs of running shoes, some with messages written or taped on them. There were colourful handprints made by children, a large piece of black slate with chalk messages scribbled all over it, piles of stuffed animals with messages on some of them, and there were hats.

  I was moderately unmoved until I saw the hats. Set on the ground, so close together that you couldn’t see between them, most were baseball hats with stylized B initials, but there were also hard hats worn by construction workers, something that looked like a policeman’s hat, all manner of hats, really. And I couldn’t tell you what it was about them, except that each represented someone’s head. Someone’s brain. Someone’s face. All connected, all close together, all pulling together and sharing whatever there was to share.

  My eyes watered as I stood there, transfixed. To break the spell, I lifted my head and looked to my right, past Persie and towards the library. An involuntary shudder went through me.

  That beautiful building! What if it had been damaged? Wouldn’t that have been the worst possible thing?

  Then I looked back at the hats. And no, the library would not have been the greatest loss. People conceived of that library. People built it. People created what went into it, from knowledge to art. People visit it, admire it, take advantage of its resources. People maintain it.

  If I need any proof about how much I’ve changed these past months, it’s this: I know, finally, that it’s people who matter here.

  When we got back to the house, Persie ran to her room. Maxine followed, no doubt assuming the same thing I was, which was that the experience had been a lot for Persie to bear. But as I started up the stairs, headed for my room, I heard Persie’s door slam, and I knew Maxine would not have done that.

  Sure enough, Maxine stood outside the closed door, knocking, trying to open it, calling to Persie. If I remembered right, there was no lock on Persie’s door; why couldn’t Maxine open it?

  Maxine looked at me as I drew close. “I think she’s propped a chair under the doorknob.”

  “Oh, my.”

  We stood there, staring at the door as though trying to see through it, when we heard Persie say, “Simon. Only Simon.” Something shifted in the room, and when I tried the handle, the door swung in.

  Maxine nodded at me and stood back.

  Persie had assumed the position, the one she’d taken before, where she sits in a wooden chair facing the one she wants me in, even though she won’t quite look me in the eye. I closed the door behind me and sat. And waited.

  Finally, she said, “I need to know how to do it. How to feel what they feel. Tell me.”

  And it dawned on me what she’d tried to do. “You mean, like at the memorial. You want to feel moved, to feel connection with people who are sad about what happened. Is that it?”

  “Yes. I’ve watched you, because I think you don’t care about other people very much. So I need you to tell me how you can feel. I saw your eyes water.”

  It was as though she’d hit my chest with something sharp enough to pierce into my heart. I took a shaky breath, opened my mouth, and no words came out. I took another shaky breath, reminding myself that if there was one thing that was true of Persie, it was that she didn’t say that to hurt me. She just calls it as she sees it. I would try to do the same.

  “As a matter of fact, I care about people a lot more now than I used to do. I wish I could tell you how or why it changed. I really do, because I understand why you’re asking. But I didn’t know my eyes were going to water. I didn’t know how moved I would be by what we saw. All I can say is that it wasn’t what we saw that moved me. It was what it meant. And I don’t know how to tell you where that comes from. I’m sorry.”

  “It was just a pile of hats.”

  True enough. “But they represented people. Individual people, and people all together. It made me feel connected to the people who were hurt and to the people who care about them, but beyond that I felt connected to everyone. Because it’s something universal, caring about each other. And that caring, that connection, defined what happened that day so much more than the bombs themselves. So for me, that’s what the hats meant.”

  Her face crumpled. “It’s not universal. I don’t know what that feels like.” She sat there and cried, not even trying to cover her face or turn away. It was everything I could do not to weep, myself. I felt an urge to reach out to her, but that felt wrong for her. I got up and fetched a box of facial tissues; it was the only thing I knew to do, other than to repeat, “I’m sorry I can’t tell you more.”

  And then something else occurred to me. “But I will tell you this. I think the fact that you cry for wanting to feel is important.”

  “You do?”

  “I do. I think it’s very important.”

  She nodded and blew her nose. “You can go now.”

  I can’t sleep. My brain keeps bouncing between that dart Persie shot at me, about not caring about other people, an
d the realisation I came to at the memorial. I’ve come to the conclusion that I have no excuse for ever falling back into that way of thinking, of feeling—the way that Persie can’t escape. Maybe she will one day; I don’t know enough about AS. Yet.

  And now I think that this escape from not caring that she wants and doesn’t know how to find might be the area that I want to concentrate on when I get to Oxford.

  Boston, Sunday, 5 May

  I’ve just browsed back through my journal, picking a spot here or there to reread, surprised that I haven’t done more rereading than I have up to now.

  There’s so much of me in here. I mean, of course, that should be obvious. It is obvious. But my point is . . . What is my point?

  My point is that this journal paints a picture of me that’s painful for me to see, in places. Some places it makes me ashamed, or it makes me laugh, or it makes me cry, and sometimes it makes me proud. And always, it makes me wonder what will come next. What will I be like in five, ten, twenty years? Will I be that Oxford don Mum has in her mental picture of me? Will I marry some handsome fellow, and will we have children? For sure, we’ll have cats. Will Kay come and visit me in England? Will she be at Oxford, perhaps?

  I had a dream about Michael the other night. We were a couple, and we were at school together someplace. We walked around campus holding hands. And we made love. Tender, sweet love.

  Michael. What will become of him? What has become of him? We haven’t been in touch since that night in his rooms when he’d told me he really is gay, and I never did go to his nonna’s for dinner. Did I leave him in the lurch? I don’t think so. I’ve searched my soul a few times to consider what I might have done to help him. And each time I found myself on the verge of contacting him, it felt like a fool’s errand. What could I say to him? If we could have been friends, perhaps I could have offered support. But I’d wanted him, and even after that was no longer true, he had wanted me. Nothing good could come of that. Still, perhaps I’ll at least let him know I’m truly off for home in a few months.