Finding a Voice

by Kim Hood

  ‘What now?’ I had asked quietly. Chris had frowned at me and then down at the paper. And then he had done it again. And again.

  When I had moved the painting in front of him his eyes stayed firmly on the paper. So I’d brought back the paints. He’d given me a triumphant smile and sure enough had continued to paint. This time I had let him tell me when he was finished.

  Mr Jenkins and I were falling into a rhythm for science.

  ‘Ok. So, parts of the eye. Here’s the diagram.’ He placed a labelled picture in front of me. ‘You’ll need to be able to label all of the parts for the test.’

  ‘Right. Got it.’ I wrote Parts of the eye under my for the next test heading.

  ‘Next. Assignment of the day. Page 38. Five questions there about what the parts of the eye do. That’s your work for the day. Page 30 to 37 will give you the answers.’

  ‘Ok. Got it.’

  ‘Now, do you have a particular interest in how the eye works? Burning questions? If you do, now’s the time. Let’s talk science.’

  ‘Not really. Don’t think optometry is for me.’ I could pretty much say anything in this class.

  ‘Okay then. You work away and meet me in the resource room when you’re done.’

  I’d quickly finish up my work and then spend the rest of the class helping Mr Jenkins with whatever was needed. Sometimes it was folding laundry, sometimes it was reading with one of the kids. Every day was different in the Special Education wing. And I loved it.

  The next two weeks seemed to fly by. There was something to look forward to at school every day. Even on the one day a week with no art or science, I had lunch with Chris. So between school and hiding out at my cabin as much as I could get away with, life with Grandma was even falling into a tolerable rhythm.

  ‘It was a pretty nice day, wasn’t it, Grandma?’

  ‘A fine day. I put the washing out on the line and it was dry in less than two hours.’

  After the awful day at the hospital, things began to improve with Mom as well. She was on a new drug, and by the next visit she actually seemed almost normal. She was even allowed to go out and we had walked down to the park and fed the ducks the cupcakes Mom bought on the way.

  ‘Every duck needs a real treat once in a while,’ she had rationalised. Ok, so she was never going to be completely normal, but feeding cupcakes to ducks on a sunny afternoon was a huge step up from ranting to herself.

  Now we were talking on the phone every evening. And most nights Mom showed at least a slight interest in me before she went off on a tangent about herself.

  ‘So, tell me what you read today, Jo.’

  ‘Well, I looked on your shelf and found Watership Down and I used to love that book when you read it to me, so I thought I’d read it myself.’

  ‘Excellent choice, my sentimental penguin, you.’

  I smiled. It felt good to hear a new pet name. It was a good sign.

  ‘I’m writing you a list of “Must Reads” before you turn sixteen. It’s a watershed age and some books you’ve got to read before you’re too cynical to stop appreciating them. I’m thinking that I might look into teaching a community course on children’s literature. There is such a dearth of knowledge as to the true children’s classics.’

  My typical self-centred mother. This time, when she came home though, I was going to do everything I could to help her keep happy, if it meant having these sorts of conversations every minute we were together.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Chris was driving me crazy. I had gotten used to his sudden jerks and random flailing limbs, and most of the time I could dodge his arms and legs when I was helping him with lunch or art. In the last week though, it seemed to be so much worse. I was going home with bruised shins from the kicks.

  ‘Ok. One more spoonful and we’re done here.’ He booted me again as I raised the spoon to hopefully be done with his dinner. ‘Ouch, Chris! That hurt!’

  I was trying to be patient. Mr Jenkins had said that Chris didn’t have control of these movements, so it wasn’t that he meant to kick me. But something was wrong.

  I had come to see that I could influence Chris’s spasms. If I was very calm, or if I talked in a steady voice to him, or if we were in a quiet space Chris became stiller. Art worked for him too. When his eyes were on what he was painting, he seemed to have so much more control over his arms and hands.

  It was usually when he seemed excited, or if there was a lot going on around him, that Chris lost control and I knew I would have to dodge his limbs.

  This week, though, even when we were in our quiet lunch room and even when Chris seemed to be as in control as possible, these random kicks came out of nowhere.

  It was beginning to grate on my nerves, especially on days when I came to school already tense from trying to keep my temper with Grandma. This was supposed to be my sanctuary.

  I tried again to get the last spoonful of food into Chris’s mouth and yet again his right foot collided with my shin. I cursed my bad reflexes, knowing that kick had been coming. Knowing the kick had been coming … There was a pattern!

  Then I thought back to my first day of painting with Chris, and the way he had used his body to get across the message that he would tell me when he was done with a painting. He was communicating! These weren’t random kicks; they were a message to me. I was sure of it.

  ‘Chris, you don’t like this, do you?’

  Chris gave me the biggest grin.

  His food never looked very appealing. Florence had explained that Chris’s swallowing reflex was pretty poor, so he could only eat foods that were nearly mush. Still, usually the mush was a slightly different colour each day and I could often tell by the smell what it had been before being made into mush.

  I looked down at the last spoonful from this bowl. I hadn’t noticed until now that it had been the same food all week. It was Thursday now. It had definitely been in the last week that the kicking had started.

  For once, I wanted to see Grandma as soon as I got home.

  ‘Please, please can you make shepherd’s pie for dinner?’

  ‘I haven’t any lamb, Jo,’ she said.

  ‘It can be with mince beef,’ I begged, uncharacteristically throwing my arms around her thick middle. ‘A big pan of it. We need leftovers. I promised a friend at school a taste of your famous shepherd’s pie. He’s never had a proper one.’

  Grandma remained stiff, and her expression never changed, but she sighed in acquiescence.

  ‘Don’t take off your shoes then. Get yourself in the car.’ I thought I saw a hint of a smile. ‘Since you’ve promised the original, I’ll have to get the lamb. No point in using the wrong ingredients.’

  I couldn’t wait until lunch the next day. I had packed a big container of Grandma’s best shepherd’s pie, enough for me and Chris. Grandma had gone all out and also made soda bread with real buttermilk as well, and I had kept quiet about the fact that Chris probably wouldn’t be able to eat that.

  I had thought about lunch hours with Chris. There were days when it was easier to feed him. Sure, there were always those involuntary missiles of arms and legs to be avoided. But some days he seemed to fight to keep them under control and to get his head into a position that made it easier to get the spoon to his mouth.

  Why were some days easier than others? I thought it must have to do with what he was eating. How much choice in what he ate, or anything, did he have? Of course, everyone in the SE did their best to make Chris smile, but had anyone ever directly asked him anything? And what about at home? I didn’t even know anything about his home. I had been so busy talking about my own life; I hadn’t thought to find out anything about Chris’s.

  I asked to use the microwave to heat up the meal. I hoped that I had guessed right about what he would most want to eat. Hopefully my memory was right in leading me to think that mashed potatoes and mashed up meat seemed to be a favourite. Shepherd’s pie was the one thing I could think of that would have the right consistency
not to choke Chris, without having to put it in a blender to turn to unappealing goo.

  ‘Ok, Chris,’ I said as I walked in, putting the plate of food in front of him. I had also snuck out one of Mom’s pottery plates, the brightest one of the mismatched pile. If Chris was going to have nice food, I wanted it to be on a proper plate. ‘I’m listening. Or at least, I’m trying to listen.’

  I looked at him and smiled. He grinned back at me. His arms and legs thrashed, but I just waited patiently until they settled down again.

  ‘This is my grandma’s famous dish. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t like it. But let me know if you don’t. I’m listening,’ I reiterated.

  Chris did seem to like it, or at least I wasn’t receiving the thumping I had endured all week.

  Florence had also delivered Chris’s lunch in his usual preschool-style bowl. It was the same meal that he had had all week. I suddenly thought to see what he would do if I switched to this meal.

  ‘Trust me! Tell me if I’m right in hearing that you don’t like this mush,’ I said as I raised a spoonful to his mouth. Sure enough, his right leg darted out and I moved back just in time to avoid another bruise.

  My stomach fluttered in excitement. Chris was talking to me! He really was! This kick meant something. He was saying NO in the one way he could.

  I was quiet as we finished the lunch. Chris’s body was quiet too. I didn’t know what he was thinking about, but my mind was whirling with questions to ask him – questions that I was pretty sure he could answer no to.

  Last period of the day on Fridays was my new science block. I was doing my work as fast as I could, bursting to tell Mr Jenkins of my breakthrough with Chris and to ask him the questions that I had been starting to wonder about.

  ‘Slow it down, Jo!’ Mr Jenkins said, as he swept back into the room after stepping out to help one of the aides who had requested help with a transfer. One of the wheelchair users needed to lie down after a seizure. I now knew that the big machine with bits hanging off it that I had seen on the first day in the SE was called a hoist, and it was used to move kids from wheelchairs to other chairs or to the floor.

  ‘You can talk. You’re always rushing about yourself,’ I found myself secure enough to retort in jest.

  ‘Guilty,’ he said holding up his hands and straddling the chair opposite my table. ‘Really, though, what’s the rush today?’

  I told him all about my week with Chris and how I was certain he was trying very deliberately to communicate with me. Mr Jenkins listened as I spoke, nodding his head and not interrupting me. When I was finished, he just sat quietly a moment, looking down. When he looked up I was sure that I wasn’t going to like what he had to say next.

  ‘Listen, Jo. I don’t want to dash your enthusiasm, I really don’t,’ he said. ‘I totally agree that Chris is letting you know when he doesn’t like his food. You know as well as I do by now that he obviously has likes and dislikes.’

  ‘But?’

  ‘But I don’t want you to be disappointed if he isn’t able to understand words you say to him.’

  ‘Have you ever actually asked him anything?’ I was annoyed that Mr Jenkins, who I thought would understand how important this was, didn’t seem to get it at all. ‘I’m not expecting that we’ll be discussing Shakespeare or anything! I just think that Chris has something to say.’

  ‘And he does say it, in his own way, all of the time.’

  I no longer wanted to ask Mr Jenkins any of the questions I had come to class hoping to get answered. I’d ask Chris himself. Somehow I would find a way to ask him the questions nobody else was bothering to ask.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Mom was coming home! It seemed much longer than just over five weeks that she had been in the hospital. So much had changed for me.

  Nothing had apparently changed between Grandma and Mom though. During the whole time Mom was in the hospital, Grandma had never visited her once and they had not even spoken on the phone. It was always me who ran for the phone when it rang in the evenings at the time when Mom always made her phone call. Grandma would suddenly be very busy somewhere in the furthest part of the house from the phone.

  It wasn’t that she didn’t care at all; I knew that. She talked to the social worker at least a couple of times a week, and I had overheard parts of a few of these conversations.

  ‘Is she getting on all right? Does she need anything?’ she had asked, gripping the phone tightly, when Mom had first been in the hospital.

  ‘I might send her in a few more bits of comfortable clothing,’ she had suggested later in the month.

  ‘Tell me, now, is she still going to that group thing you mentioned?’ she had inquired, obviously being kept informed, when Mom had started to finally improve.

  ‘Do you think this new medication is going to work?’ she had asked, eyes shining with hope, just last week.

  But it was me who went in to help Mom carry her two bags when we collected her on a Saturday afternoon.

  The drive home was quiet. With Mom reading a book in the front seat of the car, and Grandma only occasionally asking if everyone was warm enough, it would have been difficult for anyone observing to even believe we all knew each other.

  On Monday, I was ready with my questions for Chris, and I had a new idea of how he might answer them. If it worked, I would be able to prove that he wasn’t just vaguely showing his unhappiness with his kicks.

  I had spent Sunday helping Grandma make meals for the freezer. I had asked her if she could cook us a few things to save, before she drove home on Monday. I had told her it would be handy for days when both Mom and I were out until later. Mom had raised her head from her book suspiciously at the request, but said nothing.

  I had leftover chicken dinner for Chris today. I’d had to use the blender for the meat, but the mashed carrots and turnips, the mashed potatoes, and the chicken were all on their own corner of the plate, not the usual grey mass all together. But while I hoped that he liked the dinner, I was way more excited about the bit of time we might have after the dinner was over.

  ‘So, my mom came home and I think she’s much better. It’s hard to tell because she won’t stop reading until Grandma leaves. I think it’s her way of not yelling at her.’

  It was definitely a good eating day. There was hardly a jerk from him.

  ‘It’s weird, having her home. I didn’t think about her as much this time. Usually I worry, worry, worry the whole time she is in hospital.’

  Another two bites for Chris and I took a couple of hurried bites of my own sandwich.

  ‘Plus, I was thinking, when she went into the hospital I was in bits about trying to be her daughter and have friends. And now I don’t even care about friends,’ I thought out loud, and then added, ‘Well, there’s you of course, Chris. But it doesn’t count to my mom. She’s only worried if I have a life outside school and home – and this is just school to her.’

  We were both finished our lunches in record time. I glanced at my watch. Twenty minutes left.

  I put the dishes to the side and sat down opposite to Chris. Out of my bag I brought two pieces of paper. On one I had coloured a big green circle and written the word ‘YES’ neatly below it. On the other, I had coloured a big red circle and written the word ‘NO’. These I placed on the table, with the words facing him.

  ‘Ok, Chris. I told you I’m listening,’ I started, wanting him to be able to focus on what I was going to try to explain. ‘This is for no. I’m going to put it to this side of you.’ I put the red circle just to his right side, so that he could easily see it.

  ‘Now, this one is for yes and I’m going to put it to your other side.’

  I had thought and thought about how Chris could ‘talk’ without kicking me. One, I was a little tired of getting bruised. But also, sometimes he couldn’t control his kicks, so if he was using them to say no, it wasn’t a good system. How could you know when he was telling you something, or just having a spasm?

  He had
the most control over his head and eyes, so if he could understand me, maybe he would be able to use his head to talk to me more easily. At least, I was crossing my fingers that it would work.

  ‘Ok. There are so many things I want to ask you, and I just know there are lots of things you want to tell me, but we’ve got to test it out first. Look at the red side for no and the green side for yes.’

  Chris was smiling and his limbs jerked as they always did when he seemed excited, or when something new happened.

  ‘Is your name Chris?’ I asked.

  His answer was clear and immediate. His head hit the left side of his head rest several times.

  ‘Is your name Philip?’ I asked.

  Chris’s head hit the right side.

  ‘I knew it!’ Tears came to my eyes and I jumped up to hug him as well as I could around his prison of a chair.

  My heart was breaking for all of the years he had not been able to say to anyone something as simple as yes or no. So many weeks I had spent pouring my life out to Chris, and not asking him a single thing. He had so patiently listened. I knew what it was like to want to talk, and not have anyone to talk to. At least I had the words to do it. What did Chris have hidden inside him, bursting to be said? I hugged him tight while my tears soaked his shoulder.

  When I came away though, he was just smiling his familiar lopsided grin as if nothing was all that different.

  I didn’t have time to share my discovery with Mr Jenkins before I had to head off to P.E. I was still pretty shaky with excitement and sadness anyway and besides, as sure as I was that there had been a breakthrough with Chris, Mr Jenkins’s reaction to my last revelation made me a little wary of rushing in to tell him more. I had to have solid evidence before I showed anyone our crude communication system.