Читать книгу All the Little Pieces - Jilliane Hoffman - Страница 20

‘I don’t like her,’ Maggie said as she licked her cone and played with her pony on a table outside the indoor gym at A Latte Fun. ‘She’s a mean lady.’

Faith sighed. ‘Why? What makes Mrs Wackett so mean? I think she’s very nice.’

‘She put me in time-out.’

‘Did you do something bad to that new girl?’

Maggie shrugged. ‘I pushed her.’

‘Why?’

‘She called me a mean name. And she pulled my hair.’

Faith frowned. ‘She did? When was that?’

‘When I pushed her.’

‘Well maybe you shouldn’t have pushed her, and then maybe she wouldn’t have pulled your hair and called you a name.’

Maggie’s face grew dark. ‘She shouldn’t call me names. That’s not nice.’

Faith sighed and sipped at her water as she watched Maggie draw circles in the puddle of ice cream that had dripped on the table. She had the face of an angel – creamy white and round, with a sweetheart chin, apple cheeks, big, pouty pink lips and light blue eyes, that often looked like they were off dreaming about somewhere else. Her unkempt blonde hair had natural highlights that women would pay big bucks for at a salon. She didn’t like Faith to brush it, so it was usually up in a pony or pigtails. A splash of sprinkles across her nose completed the look.

The diagnosis, if one wanted to call it that, was ‘developmentally delayed’ – an evasive, catch-all condition that made Maggie sound stupid, which she wasn’t. Most of the time she knew what she was doing was wrong, but she did it anyway. ‘Poor impulse control’ was the name of that symptom. Then there was her ‘short attention span’, her ‘forgetfulness’, ‘anxiousness’, and, of course, her ‘anger management issues’. She’d hit some developmental milestones right on time, but not others: rolling at three months and sitting up at six, but she never crawled and she didn’t walk by herself until she was almost fourteen months. She lacked some fine motor skills, but mastered others without any apparent difficulty. The behavioral problems, which were the real worry, began after her second birthday. Maybe earlier, but Faith and Jarrod hadn’t seen the signs – no parent wants to think their child is different from other kids. It was only when Lyle, Vivian’s son, who was almost a year younger than Maggie, toddled up to Faith with his sippy cup and asked for ‘mo moke, peez’ that she started thinking something might be wrong with Maggie. She hadn’t yet said a word. Not ‘mama’ or ‘da-da’ or anything and she was two and a half. She’d point if she wanted something, and shake her head if she didn’t, so they knew she understood and that she wasn’t deaf. In hindsight, what made it both ironic and sad was that stay-at-home-mommy Faith had been churning out articles for the parenting magazines, writing pieces like ‘Important Milestones for You and Your Baby’ and ‘Why Crawling Is So Important’ and didn’t realize her own kid was missing all the marks – and for that she still felt incredibly guilty. In her defense, as she had assured other moms in her articles, most every developmental milestone was scaled: kids ‘usually’ started walking ‘between nine and eighteen months’, and babbling ‘around twelve to eighteen months’. She herself had written advice like: ‘But don’t worry if your baby doesn’t start right on time. Every child learns to walk at his or her own pace. Some children skip crawling altogether and go straight to walking!’ She hadn’t seen the problems because she hadn’t wanted to. She’d wanted to hold out to the absolute last second hope that Maggie was just in the bottom of the milestone class, and that everything would eventually work out fine.

Then the head-banging started.

That particular milestone wasn’t in the ‘What to Expect’ books. At least not to the extreme that Maggie did it. Walls, floor, high chair – anything that was in proximity to her head was in grave danger whenever she got frustrated, which, by the age of three, was often.

Pediatrician #1 suggested putting Maggie on Adderall, a drug for hyperactivity, after a five-minute exam. But drugs were something Faith couldn’t see putting a three-year-old on. After garnering a few other second opinions, none of which were consistent and all of which subscribed to medicating toddlers, she’d found Dr Michelson, who explained that ADD or ADHD – or whatever acronym it was that might be causing Maggie to put holes in walls with her head and jump into pools even though she couldn’t swim – couldn’t be accurately diagnosed until a child was six or seven. He’d suggested a gluten-free diet, occupational therapy, and patience. Lots of patience.

The circle drawing turned to palm smearing. And for the grand finale, Maggie giddily smacked her hand into the ice cream, so it splashed back up on her clothes and hair. She started to walk around and around the table, shaking her head. Dancing to music no one else heard.

Faith grabbed the stack of napkins from her purse. ‘Did you run away from Mrs Wackett and Ms Ellen? What did we talk about?’

‘No running.’

‘That’s right, Forrest – no more running.’ Maggie might have taken too long to learn how to walk, but once she did, she went straight to running and never stopped. Jarrod had nicknamed her Forrest Gump because she didn’t stop until she got tired, which was … well, never. Faith handed her the napkins.

Maggie’s face went dark again. The napkins fluttered to the floor. ‘Don’t call me Forrest Grump.’

Faith tried not to laugh.

‘It’s not funny.’ Maggie smashed the ice-cream cone which she still held in her hand face down on the table and crossed her arms. Jarrod had named that look the Incredible Sulk.

Faith had seconds to defuse the bomb. ‘You’re right; no one should call you names,’ she said, picking up the napkins. ‘That’s not nice. Please wipe your hands.’

‘Like Melanie.’

‘That’s the new girl?’

‘It’s an ugly name.’

‘Why don’t you like her?’

‘She called me a name.’

‘What was that?’

‘She said I was a weirdo and that no one wanted to play with me ’cause I play weird.’

Faith felt something stab her heart. She crushed the empty water bottle with her hand. ‘That’s not nice. I understand why you got upset, but you can’t hit her.’

Maggie turned to run off to the ball pit, then stopped midway and ran back. ‘Are you mad?’ she asked, looking at Faith strangely, her head cocked.

‘I’m mad that someone said something mean to you. And that you won’t listen to me or Mrs Wackett.’

‘You was mad yesterday,’ Maggie said slowly, as if she wasn’t sure she should proceed. As if there was another thought floating around in her head and she was toying with throwing it out there by testing the temperature. ‘Really, really mad …’

Faith swallowed hard. Perhaps it was the guilt hangover that was making her paranoid. Maggie had been asleep the whole time in the back seat – she’d checked on her. ‘What are you talking about?’ she asked, hoping to disguise the anxiousness in her voice. ‘Are you talking about at Aunt Charity’s? When we had to leave Aunt Charity’s? What are you talking about?’

Maggie squirmed in her shoes uncomfortably and looked around the gym.

‘Yes, I was mad at Aunt Charity’s,’ said Faith. ‘My feelings were hurt, the same way yours were when Melanie called you a name you didn’t like. Do you want to talk about it?’

‘I don’t like it when you’re mad,’ Maggie said, her eyes wide and tearing up, her lip puffing. ‘You’re scary, Mommy.’

But before Faith could pull her close to ask her what she meant by that, the tears were gone and she was off running, squealing with delight as she dove into the ball pit face-first.