Once Upon a Time a Sparrow

by Mary Avery Kabrich

  Wilma stands squarely in front of me, daring me to pass without acknowledging her. I breathe deeply and prepare myself to let the conversation run its course.

  “I didn’t sleep a wink last night. I can’t believe parents would keep their own child from getting help. What are we going to do?”

  “Like I said, it’s their right to refuse services. In the meantime, since we know he has difficulty with reading and writing, it’s important to give him the help he needs in the classroom.”

  “But he needs so much more than I can ever give. I don’t—”

  “Wilma,” I say in the tone of a teacher reprimanding a student, “now that you know he can’t read the sentences you write on the board, maybe together we can figure out some alternatives.”

  “I just don’t think it’s enough.”

  “You’re right, he needs more. But at least now you know what’s going on with him.” I pull my gaze away from hers and call to mind Chase’s freckled face. “He wants to do his best—we all do. You know he’s very creative and skilled in math. Play that up, help him feel good about this, and don’t make him read words that are way beyond his level.”

  I see her mouth open to say something else, but I turn away. There’s nothing more I can add in this moment. I walk to my office, intent upon leaving the problem behind me.

  I slump in the chair in front of my computer and stare at a stack of files a dozen or so high—each one an incomplete tale of a child’s life. It’s my job to interpret the tests and determine the presence or lack of a disability. The file labeled “Chase” sits on top. Never before have I had a family get up and leave. “Reading retarded”—damn. No wonder.

  All at once, I’m back in sixth grade. A new year and a new special education teacher in a new location. I’m told to leave class during science—my favorite—to get special help. The new room is no longer in a closet behind the gym, but a glassed-in conference room off the library, and anyone who happens to be in the library at the time can see me. This room has a label outside the door making it official. I ask my teacher to read it to me: “Minimal Brain Damage.” She says it means only a little bit of damage.

  I lift the stack of files from my desk and place them behind me on the small square table, then turn back to my computer where I click on my e-mail. I end up deleting most. Finally, I turn and face the mound of yet-to-be-written reports. I shuffle through the one on top and find the parent contact information. Burt works for Miles Brothers Construction Co., and Cindy Babcock is an employee at LensCrafters. I pick up the phone and call her number.

  “This is Cindy at LensCrafters. How may I help you?”

  “This is Dr. Meyers.” Silence. “From Milton Elementary.”

  “I remember.”

  “Ms. Babcock, I understand your husband’s experience in school was awful and demeaning. But special education has changed.”

  “Why are you calling me at work?”

  “Because Chase needs help, and I can’t let this drop.”

  “Ms. Meyers, I can’t discuss this now. I have customers waiting.”

  “Please.” I squeeze the phone; my breath quickens. “I’ll make it short.” I hear her sigh. “I’m calling to invite you to come and see what I mean when I say special help. Come and watch students Chase’s age working in a small group with a teacher who’s really good at helping kids learn to read. They all love working with her, and they’re making progress.” I bite my lower lip instead of adding, You’ll be able to help Burt understand.

  “I don’t get time off in the middle of a school day.”

  “I see.”

  “Yeah. It was hard enough getting the morning off to come to your meeting the other day. So it isn’t going to happen again anytime soon.”

  “I’m glad you came. I just wish we could have ended differently. Chase needs more help than what his teacher can give.”

  “If you can get him the help without a label and a special class, Burt and I might consider it.”

  “I’d really like the opportunity to talk with you both about this. I can stay late and meet with you after work. And if you can schedule the time, I think you’ll understand why I’m hoping Chase can have this opportunity.”

  I pause, waiting for a response, listening for the sound of her breath. Then I say, “One more thing.” My heart speeds up. “Please let him know that with help, Chase can learn to read.”

  “Ms. Meyers,” she says. I’m squeezing the phone again. “Burt has never gotten over the way he was treated, and I don’t blame him. Besides, I plan to spend more time with Chase so I can figure out what’s going on. Burt’s right—Chase doesn’t need to be dealing with no label.” And then I hear the anticipated click of the phone hanging up.

  The next hour moves like molasses as I try to focus on writing evaluation reports that will qualify children for special education. My mind keeps playing over the meeting with Burt Babcock. I’m left with a finished but unsigned report that lies uselessly atop a pile of folders. Again, I wonder, would it have turned out differently if Burt had known that I too had been labeled?

  It’s been five minutes since the morning bell ushered the children back to class. The halls are once again safe to navigate. I step out of my office toward the copy room and hear a high-pitched shriek coming from Kelly’s special education classroom. Diane Adams is leading Clayton down the hall toward the doors that open out to the playfield. Clayton holds a tight fist around Sammy’s leash. Clayton lets out another shrill squeal, his limbs spasming in a joyous jerking motion while his face erupts in a grin so wide he looks like a cartoon character that has just swallowed a pie plate. Sammy continues to tug forward, his tail wagging. Negotiating the door looks tricky, and I dash over to help. Besides, I could use a few wet-tongued dog kisses.

  “Clayton, stay right there while I get the door,” says Diane, and then she sees me. I can’t meet her eyes.

  “I’ll get it,” I say.

  “Oh, Dr. Meyers, thank you.” I feel her gaze upon me, and I turn to Sammy and Clayton.

  “Hey, Sammy.” The gold-colored mutt spins toward me, eliciting another squeal from Clayton. “Clayton, are you taking Sammy for a walk?” Clayton makes a grunting sound and nods his head up and down.

  “You’re welcome to come,” Diane says. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen you.” I want to disappear into the yellow-and-gray flooring. Diane is such a sincere person, and here I am avoiding her every move since offering to visit with Grace two weeks ago.

  “Wish I could, but I’m so busy I can hardly see straight.” I squat down to Sammy’s level, hold his head between my hands, and massage the back of his floppy ears. His big brown eyes stare into mine, and he makes licking motions with his tongue. In that moment, I’d love nothing more than to spend the day cuddling with him.

  Instead, I return to my office and begin to sort the remaining files by due dates. Next in the pile is Jayden, a good ten days past the mandatory timeline. I see his bright face and curly mop of hair. I flip through the test protocols and see that his answers to the stale standardized questions were awesome. His evaluation should be easy to write as he clearly meets the definition of specific learning disabilities. Six months ago, I would have cranked this report out in no time. Now, I’m haunted by the specter of the label I have grown accustomed to: specific learning disabilities. Sort of like, ‘a little bit of damage.’ Why can’t I simply label him ‘differently abled’—meaning creative and talented in many areas but unexpectedly needs expert instruction in the area of reading? I slap the file back down on the table. Burt and Cindy are right—no kid deserves to be labeled.

  It’s one fifteen, and I wonder if Matt might be free. I need to get out of my office. The moment I step into the hallway, I realize the stack of files I’ve left behind has moved with me in the form of a backpack filled with remorse. I’ve just placed a dozen square-pegged children in a holding pattern where they’ll remain unanchored and misunderstood if I don’t get busy assigning them a lab
el to address their needs.

  Up ahead, I see a familiar figure—a husky, determined girl dressed not so girly and walking down the hall in a leisurely manner. She’s swinging a thick hardback book in her right arm. I pick up my pace and catch up with her.

  “Hi there. Where’re you headed?”

  Grace looks up at me, startled.

  “To Mrs. Stanton’s class.”

  “Is she being helpful?”

  Grace stares, and then slowly nods her head up and down. I catch the title of the book she’s carrying, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. It’s the newest and thickest in the series, clearly her passport for fitting in with the highly capable kids.

  “Your mom tells me you’re working pretty hard this year,” I say.

  “Sort of. I like the science projects. But we always have to write a long report. This week Mrs. Stanton’s helping me.”

  “Well, that certainly sounds helpful.”

  Grace pauses and looks up at me. I see the quick pain in her eyes.

  “I wish I didn’t need so much help.” We’re within five feet of the resource room when I notice a couple of girls Grace’s age walking toward us. Grace stiffens, glances at me, and then strides ahead past Penny’s classroom.

  “Hi, Grace,” they call out to her.

  “Hi.”

  “Where’re you going?”

  Grace holds up the Harry Potter tome. “My book’s overdue. I need to renew it.”

  “Oh, we’re getting our pictures taken for the read-a-thon. See you.”

  I pretend to look at hallway art. Once the girls have scooted past me, Grace pivots, and with the same swiftness, heads back toward the resource room. This time her head is down, examining the tiled flooring as she travels. I step toward her, ready to catch her gaze and deliver a smile that says, It’s okay. I understand. But she passes by with eyes averted. I call out just as she reaches the resource room door, “Grace.”

  She gives me a mortified look, and then I realize she’s not looking at me at all. She’s looking past me at her highly capable classmates, who reappeared just in time to witness Grace slipping into Penny’s special education classroom. The resource room door clicks shut, enveloping Grace, and leaving me on the other side aching.

  Outside Matt’s office, I can see through his window that he has his hands full with three rambunctious boys. An hour later, unable to write a single meaningful word about any child’s disability, I feel woozy. Finally, I go to the school office to let them know I need to go home; I’m sick. Sandy, the secretary, holds me in her gaze, which then travels across my pained face, confirming that I am pale and sickly. She says that the crud is going around, lots of absent children this week. “Go home,” she advises. “At once. And get to bed.” I’m washed with the same relief I felt as a child when my mother would pull the thermometer from my mouth and proclaim that, indeed, I had a fever.

  Once home, crawling into bed seems a ridiculous idea. There’s nothing physically wrong with me. I pace around the house, knowing what needs to happen. Damn. It’s no different from the way I behave when the flu hits. I sit in misery for hours, nursing the nausea with sips of 7UP, delaying the inevitable, but always in the end succumbing to defeat, kneeling before the toilet and heaving. A smarter person would just see the road ahead and get it over with, but I hate like hell retching that acid up from my gut. It hurts. I always feel as though I might choke and die in the process. I pace around a good hour before finally sitting my butt down with Vespers.

  File “writing.9” is now over six hundred pages. My journal has taken a huge leap since weekly meetings with Irene began. I started out thinking therapy would only be a once-a-week encounter, but it always extends deep into the following seven days, right here in my home office.

  I place my fingers on the keys and thoughts spill out: Irene’s right. I can’t do this anymore. I need to know and accept my nine-year-old self. I take a deep breath and look around the small room. My God, Grace is nine years old. Third grade. I pause, and images of the black coat, Mrs. Zinc, bubble up. When did I stop being Madelyn and step into being Mary? How did this happen?

  Feverishly, I write one memory after another. They spring up from a seemingly infinite reservoir, and I simply type, letting my thoughts flow. Five pages later, I have recounted so much. And yet . . . I feel incomplete.

  I go to my window and look out on the sunny skyline. The buildings, all so far from the lake, the oaks, and the bramble bushes. Again, I pace. Unlike evenings I’ve spent with Vespers, I’m left with nothing but churning agitation. Oh God, I know what I need to do.

  As I reach for the phone, my teeth begin to grind. My left hand, holding the creased business card, trembles. I censor my thoughts—the slightest reconsideration surely will send the phone slamming back into its cradle. I dial the number. She answers.

  “This is Mary Meyers. I was wondering.” I swallow down the lump in my throat. “Um, I’m having a hard time. Do you by chance have any extra space in your schedule?” I notice the thick blue veins surface in my right hand as it grips down on my thigh bouncing to a frenzied beat.

  “Sure, that would work. Great. Thanks,” I say. I hang up and sob. Deliriously relieved to be seeing Irene within the next hour and mortified beyond belief that I would feel such a need.

  ~CHAPTER 45~

  1967

  MY HEAD’S POUNDING so hard I’m afraid it’s going to explode. I slide under the covers and wrap my arms around it so it doesn’t burst open. Finally, the ringing stops, but my head continues to throb.

  “Madelyn, are you awake?” It’s Mom. She must have turned my alarm off. She gently shakes my shoulder. “Honey, it’s time to get up. I need to go to work, and you need to get yourself going.”

  “Mom, my head, it hurts bad.” I mumble into the sheets. Mom pulls the covers back.

  “Let’s see.” I roll over onto my back; she puts her hand to my forehead. “Oh dear, I think you have a fever. Let me get you an aspirin.”

  Pound, pound, pound, its rhythm loud and even. What if my head explodes while everyone is getting ready to go to school and work? They’ll find me dead in my bed with arms wrapped around The Fairy Angel’s Gift. I have to bring it back or Paulette will tell on me. It’s today I had promised to tell her who took the book. Tears start to fall down my cheeks. No longer having the book to myself, getting into big trouble with Mrs. Zinc—it’s impossible to stop the crying.

  I’m crying too hard to swallow when Mom returns with the aspirin. “Madelyn, what is it sweetie? Where do you hurt?” I point to my head, but now it’s my stomach that’s hurting, the kind that happens when I’m in big trouble. “Here, I want to take your temperature. Now settle down—you’ll be fine. Did your dream catcher work?”

  “I don’t remember any bad dreams.” I choke out and sniffle. “I don’t remember any of my dreams; it must have worked.”

  “Well, I guess you knew what you were doing, making that dream catcher. Or maybe it was the prayers I said for you last night.”

  I too had prayed to Saint Rita before falling asleep. Was it prayers or the dream catcher?

  “Here, sweetie, open up your mouth.” Mom slides the cool, thin thermometer under my tongue. “I’ll be right back. I need to let the hospital know that I’ll be a few minutes late.”

  I try to remember my dreams, but nothing comes. I shut my eyes and see Yram’s picture on The Fairy Angel’s Gift. I reach under my pillow and feel its solidness. Even if I wasn’t sick, I couldn’t imagine bringing it back, not yet.

  “Okay, let’s see.” Mom leans over in her nurse uniform with the funny starched hat pinned to her head, and there is a faint smell of soap. She holds the thermometer up and, with nurse’s eyes, silently reads the numbers. “Well, it looks like you have a fever. The aspirin should bring it down.” She puts her hands to work feeling my neck for swollen glands.

  “Hmm, they don’t seem swollen. What’s this?” She touches a sore spot on my neck. “You have a little red spot
here—is this a mosquito bite? Have you been scratching this?” I run my hand over the spot. It doesn’t tickle or need to be itched like a mosquito bite.

  “No, it just sort of hurts.”

  “It must be a spider bite.”

  “A spider bite? I don’t have spiders in my bed!”

  “Honey, sometimes little spiders just pass through, and they’re harmless. It’s nothing to worry about. Listen, your father will bring you a piece of toast, and then I want you to rest. I’ll call you at eleven, but you are to stay in your bed until I call, do you understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “If you’re still not feeling well, then I’ll schedule an appointment with Dr. Dean. But I think the aspirin will help. I want you to stay in bed and get lots of rest.”

  “Okay, Mom.” My head continues to pound, and my stomach twists and churns. Mom kisses me good-bye, and I feel for the tender spot on my neck, and remember: I was racing out of the Forest of Wisdom last night, swatting lots of small spiders that collected around my head and neck.

  “Mom,” I call out, but it’s too late. She’s gone.

  Father sticks his head into the room.

  “I hear you’re under the weather and need to take it easy today. I’ll bring you some toast and orange juice in a little bit.” He gives a smile and then he’s gone too.

  The house grows quiet, and I drift back to sleep.

  When I wake up, I’m alone with my book, and I think of Ethan. I prop myself up in my bed and decide to find Gwendolyn. I eye the book’s thickness, take a guess as to how far into the story she appears, and open to that page.

  “Gwen-do-lyn, Ggg-www-aan.” It’s no use; this is a name impossible to spell. I move my finger across the lines of print, looking for a capital letter G. Instead, I notice patterns. I slow down to look more carefully. There are lots of big words, which I skip over, but sprinkled among the big ones are words I memorized last year and this year, easy little ones, like of, you, the, as. Then there are other words, which I had not memorized.