Left Neglected

Chapter 5





On the way to the laundry room, I notice a door I’ve never seen before behind the exercise equipment. I stop and stare. How can this be?

“Bob, where’d this door come from?” I holler.

He doesn’t answer.

I grab the knob that I swear never existed before now and pause. My mother’s voice says, SARAH, MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS.

I twist the knob to the right.

A menacing Alfred Hitchcock movie voice says, DON’T.

I have to know.

I push the door open. I’m standing in the threshold of a room I’ve never been in before, and in the far corner, a lion is drinking water from a stainless steel lobster pot. The room is bigger than our kitchen, but that’s the only detail about it that I can take in because I’m transfixed by the lion—his muscular hind legs, his lively tail, his intolerable stench. I cover my nose and mouth with my shirt to keep from retching.

Moving was not a good idea. The lion looks over his shoulder, sees me, turns to face me square on, and roars. His stinky breath is hot and damp on my face. I don’t dare to wipe it. Drool drips from his mouth, accumulating into a sizable puddle on the floor. Our eyes are locked. I’m trying not to blink. I’m trying not to breathe.

Bob strolls in carrying a bundle the size of Linus wrapped in white deli paper. He walks past me, untapes the package, and dumps a slab of bloody, raw, red meat onto the floor next to the lion. The lion forgets about me and pounces on it.

“Bob, WHAT is going on?”

“I’m feeding the lion dinner.”

“Where did he come from?”

“What do you mean? He’s ours. He came with the house.”

I let out an uncertain laugh, thinking this must be the punch line to one of Bob’s weird jokes, but stop when he doesn’t join in.

Now that the lion is busy devouring something other than me, I look around the room. The walls are paneled, the concrete floor is covered in pine shavings, and the beamed ceiling is two stories high. A framed picture of me and Bob hangs on the wall. I notice another door in the wall opposite the lion. This one is small, about half the height of a regular door.

I have to know.

I tiptoe past the lion, open the door, and crawl inside. The door slams shut behind me, leaving me in total darkness. I can see nothing but assume that my eyes will adjust over time, like they do at the movies. I sit cross-legged against the door, blink, and wait, excited about what I’ll see.

I’m not scared.





T H U R S D A Y


Bob and I are standing in Charlie’s empty classroom, on time, hands in our coat pockets, waiting for Ms. Gavin. Every bone in my body doesn’t want to be here. However long this meeting lasts, I’ll probably be late for work and can already foresee chasing the rest of the day and never catching it. I feel as if I’m coming down with a miserable cold, and I forgot to down a shot of DayQuil before we rushed out the door. And I really don’t want to hear whatever it is Ms. Gavin is going to tell us.

I don’t trust this Ms. Gavin. Who is she, anyway? Maybe she’s a terrible teacher. I remember from Open House Night that she’s young, in her twenties. Inexperienced. Maybe she’s overwhelmed with her job and has been scheduling a meeting like this with the parents of every kid in her class. Maybe she has a thing against kids who challenge her. God knows Charlie can be challenging. Maybe she doesn’t like boys. I had a teacher like that once. Mrs. Knight only called on the girls, only gave the girls smiley faces on their papers, and was always sending one of the boys out into the hall or to the principal’s office. Never one of the girls.

Maybe this Ms. Gavin is the problem.

I look around the room for evidence to support my well-reasoned suspicion. Instead of the individual desks with attached chairs that I remember from my elementary school days, this room has four low, round tables with five chairs arranged around each, like little dining tables. Ideal for socializing, I’d say, not for learning. But my nice long list of things that the inept and unqualified Ms. Gavin is doing wrong ends with that single, lame observation.

Art projects line the walls. At the front of the room, printed-out photos of kids are taped onto two giant poster boards titled “Stellar Spellers” and “Math Olympic Champions.” Charlie’s picture is on neither. Five vibrantly colored, stuffed, kid-sized armchairs sit in a corner labeled “The Book Nook” next to a shelving unit packed with books. At the back of the room, there are two tables: one with a hamster in a cage and the other with fish in a tank.

Everything looks organized, cheery, and fun. I’d say Ms. Gavin loves her job. And she’s good at it. I really don’t want to be here.

I’m just about to ask Bob if he wants to make a break for it, when she appears.

“Thanks for coming. Please have a seat.”

Bob and I sit in the kiddie chairs, inches from the floor. Ms. Gavin sits high in her grown-up teacher’s chair behind her desk. We are munchkins, and she is the great and powerful Wizard of Oz.

“So, Charlie’s report card must be concerning to you both. Can I start by asking if you were surprised by his grades?”

“Shocked,” says Bob.

“Well, they’re about the same as last year,” I say.

Wait, whose side am I on?

“Yeah, but last year was about the adjustment,” says Bob.

Ms. Gavin nods, but not because she’s agreeing with him.

“Have you noticed if he has a hard time completing the homework assignments?” asks Ms. Gavin.

Abby starts the process with him in the afternoon, and Bob and I continue with him often past his bedtime. It’s supposed to take only twenty to thirty minutes. He struggles, agonizes, stalls, complains, cries, and hates. Worse than broccoli hates. We threaten, bribe, implore, explain, and sometimes just do it for him. Yup, I’d call it a hard time.

In his defense, I know I didn’t have homework at his age. I don’t think kids, with the exception of a few precocious girls, are ready for the responsibility of homework at the age of seven. I think the schools are putting too much academic pressure on our little kids. That said, we’re talking one page of “greater than or less than,” or spelling words like man, can, ran. it’s not rocket science.

“He does,” I say.

“It’s brutal,” says Bob.

“What are you seeing here?” I dare to ask.

“He’s struggling. He can’t complete any of the class assignments on time, he interrupts me and the other children, and he daydreams a lot. I catch him staring out the window at least six times before lunch every day.”

“Where is his seat?” I ask.

“There.”

She points to the chair closest to her desk, which also happens to be right by the window. Well, who wouldn’t get lost in thought when you’ve got a view? And maybe he’s sitting next to someone who’s distracting him. A troublemaker. A pretty girl. Maybe I gave Ms. Gavin too much credit.

“Can you try moving his seat to the other side of the room?” I ask, sure I’ve solved the whole problem.

“That’s where he started the year. I need him right in front of me if I want any chance of holding his attention.”

She waits to see if I have other bright ideas. I have none.

“He has a hard time following directions that have more than two steps. Like if I tell the class to go to their cubbies, get their math folders, get a ruler from the back table, and bring it back to their desks, Charlie will go to his cubby and bring back his snack, or he’ll bring back nothing and just roam the room. Are you seeing anything like this at home?”

“No,” says Bob.

“What? That’s Charlie,” I say.

He looks at me like he can’t imagine what I could be talking about. Is he paying attention? I wonder what Bob would get on his report card.

“Charlie, go get dressed and put on shoes. Charlie, put on your pajamas, put your clothes in the hamper, and brush your teeth. We might as well be speaking Greek.”

“Yeah, but he just doesn’t want to do those things. It’s not that he can’t. All kids try to get out of doing what they’re told,” says Bob.

I sneeze and excuse myself. My congested sinuses are killing me.

“He also doesn’t participate well in activities that require taking turns. The other kids tend to shy away from playing games with him because he won’t follow the rules. He’s impulsive.”

Now my heart is breaking.

“Is he the only one doing these kinds of things?” Bob asks, convinced that he’s not.

“Yes.”

Bob glances around at the eighteen empty little chairs and sighs into his hands.

“So what are you saying?” I ask.

“I’m saying Charlie is unable to focus on all aspects of the school day.”

“What does that mean?” asks Bob.

“It means that Charlie is unable to focus on all aspects of the school day.”

“Because?” challenges Bob.

“I can’t say.”

Ms. Gavin stares at us and says nothing. I get it. I envision the policy memos stamped and signed by the school lawyers. No one is saying the words I think we’re all now thinking, Ms. Gavin for legal reasons, Bob and I because we’re talking about our little Charlie. My mother would be great at this conversation. Her next words would be about the nice weather we’re having or Ms. Gavin’s pretty pink shirt. But I can’t stand the unspoken tension.

“Do you think he might have ADD or something?”

“I’m not a physician. I can’t say that.”

“But you think it.”

“I can’t say.”

“Then what the hell can you say?” asks Bob.

I put my hand on Bob’s arm. This is going nowhere. Bob is gritting his teeth and is probably seconds away from walking out. I’m seconds away from shaking her and screaming, “This is my boy! Tell me what you think is wrong with him!” But my business school training kicks in and saves us all. Reframe the problem.

“What can we do?” I ask.

“Look, Charlie’s a sweet boy and he’s actually very smart, but he’s falling way behind, and the distance between him and the other kids will get worse if we do nothing. But nothing can happen fast enough here unless the parents initiate an evaluation. You have to ask for it in writing.”

“Ask for what exactly?” asks Bob.

I half listen while Ms. Gavin describes the red-tape-lined mountain climb to an Individualized Education Program. Special education. I remember when Charlie was born, checking him for all ten fingers and toes, studying his delicate pink lips and the conch-shell curviness of his ears. He’s perfect, I thought, amazed and grateful for his perfection. Now my perfect boy might have Attention Deficit Disorder. The two thoughts refuse to hold hands.

Kids are going to label him. His teachers are going to label him. What did Ms. Gavin call him? Impulsive. The kids are going to throw names that are sharper and uglier than that at him. And they’re going to aim for his head.

“I want him to see his pediatrician before we start doing anything here,” says Bob.

“I think that’s a good idea,” says Ms. Gavin.

Doctors give kids with ADD Ritalin. That’s an amphetamine, isn’t it? We’re going to drug our seven-year-old son so he doesn’t fall behind in school. The thought flushes the blood out of my brain, as if my circulation won’t support the idea, and my head and fingers go numb. Ms. Gavin keeps talking, but she sounds muffled and far away. I don’t want this problem or its solution.

I want to hate Ms. Gavin for telling us any of this. But I see the sincerity in her eyes, and I can’t hate her. I know it’s not her fault. And I can’t hate Charlie. It’s not his fault either. But I feel hate, and it’s growing massive inside my chest and needs a place to go, or I’ll hate and blame myself. I look around the room for something—the innocent faces of the kids on the “Stellar Spellers” board, the painted hearts and moons and rainbows, the hamster running on its wheel. The hate stays trapped inside my chest, crushing my lungs. I have to get out of here.

Bob thanks Ms. Gavin for informing us and promises that we’ll get Charlie whatever help he needs. I stand and shake her hand. I think I even smile at her, like I’ve enjoyed our conversation. How ridiculous. Then I notice her feet.

In the hallway, after Ms. Gavin has shut the door to her room, Bob hugs me and then asks me if I’m okay.

“I hate her shoes,” I say.

Baffled by my answer, Bob decides not to ask any more questions of me at this point, and we walk to the gym in silence. Before the Bell is just about over, and the kids are lining up to go to their classrooms. After saying hello and good-bye to Lucy, Bob and I find Charlie in line.

“Hey, bud, gimme five!” says Bob.

Charlie slaps his hand.

“Bye, honey, see you tonight. Do what Ms. Gavin says today, okay?” I ask.

“Okay, Mom.”

“Love you,” I say and hug him hard.

The kids ahead of Charlie begin to walk, following one another in a line, inching out of the gym like a single caterpillar. The line breaks at Charlie, who doesn’t move.

“Okay, bud, get going!” says Bob.

Don’t fall behind, my perfect boy.