Finding a Voice (8 page)

M
om 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.

Last period, I was seeing Dr Sharon again. Maybe I would say something to her. Apparently there was something called ‘client confidentiality’, which Dr Sharon had explained
meant that anything I said to her could not be shared with anyone else.

It was getting easier to talk to her now. She had this way of not even asking me anything, and yet somehow I ended up talking about things I hadn’t even meant to talk about.

Today was like that. I walked in having decided to confide in Dr Sharon about my lunch hour with Chris – and I did start to talk about just that. I told her in detail about how I had planned the test, thinking about how Chris would be able to communicate with me if he was able to comprehend words.

‘It was amazing. He can actually understand me!’

Dr Sharon was sitting forward in her seat; still and fully listening as usual. She never reacted with more than subtle facial expressions to anything I said, and it was the same now. She smiled slightly but didn’t offer any comment. I sometimes wondered if I revealed I was an axe murderer in these sessions if she would just nod and encourage me to go on speaking.

‘Just think of what Chris can say if he has a way to say it! I just
know
I’m going to be able to make his life so much better.’

‘It feels good to help other people,’ Dr Sharon commented.

‘And that’s what I’m going to do at home too. My mom is never going to have to go back into the hospital again.’

I had not meant to say this at all. It just fell out.

I really did feel more hopeful this time. Mom seemed so much calmer than usual. She hadn’t once been sarcastic or snappy with Grandma like she usually was. And she wasn’t staying up late pacing around. She had even done a little housework on Sunday, almost like a normal mom.

It had made me want to work especially hard to make sure that I kept her calm and well.

‘I’m going to totally listen to her, so I can know right away if something is bothering her. She can get so frantic about things if they aren’t fixed immediately.’

‘What things would bother her, Jo?’

‘Anything really. It could be that the kettle isn’t working.’ I thought back to the time that had happened. It had sparked her to check all of the appliances, finding that the iron, which we hadn’t used in ages, also didn’t work. And that had led to a two-day rant on how multinational companies were keeping everyone slaves to consumerism.

‘Small things can kind of tip her over the edge. But if I’m there to know the small things that bug her, she will be better. And I know her; I know the things that have to be right to keep her well.’

‘Like making sure the kettle is working,’ Dr Sharon stated.

‘Yep.’

‘And what if it isn’t working? What would you do?’

‘I’d hide it and make her tea in the microwave. And then I’d buy a new one before she noticed it was gone.’

‘Do you notice something?’ she hinted. ‘Your relationship with your mom and the one you are creating with Chris are pretty similar aren’t they?’

‘What do you mean?’ My defences rose up.

‘You want to fix them both.’

‘That’s not true!’ I denied. ‘Is it a crime to hope someone’s life can be better?’

‘Sometimes you need to take the kettle to the repair shop because you are not a small appliance mechanic.’

‘What does that mean?’ I felt annoyed. Dr Sharon usually just nodded in agreement when I spoke. Why was she trying to make me feel bad, just when everything in my life was going so well?

‘Jo, it sounds like you are a fantastic help to your mom and to your friend. But Chris is Chris, and your mom is your mom. Not everything can be fixed.’

I didn’t respond. She was getting everything wrong.

‘Ok. We’ll leave that,’ she said. ‘What about you? Who is in your life helping you?’

‘I’m fine. I don’t need any help.’

I realised that the people I had thought were helping me – Mr Jenkins, Dr Sharon – were as useless as anyone else who had ever tried to help me. They didn’t understand me, and I didn’t need them.

The only thing is, as I left Dr Sharon that day I had this feeling in the centre of my stomach that wasn’t there when
I went in to see her. It was the feeling that I might not be in as much control of my world as I wished I was.

E
ach day with Chris there was new excitement. I would help him eat as quickly as he could manage, gulping down my own food in between Chris’s mouthfuls, so that we could work on learning to talk to each other. Using the red and green dot system, I had asked him question after question about things that I definitely knew the answers to. I had wanted to be sure that Chris was getting it.

He was. His eyes were focused when we worked on questions, just like when he was painting.

After a couple of days of questions like,
Am I sitting on a chair?
, though, he stopped answering me. His eyes were no longer on me and he wouldn’t move his head to either side.

I was quicker to figure him out now though. He was bored. What was the point in answering questions like these? It was probably more interesting for him when I rattled on and on about my life and didn’t ask him a thing.

So I started to ask Chris about things I wanted to know.

‘Do you have any brothers or sisters?’

No, he didn’t.

‘I don’t either. It’s just me and my mom.’ I was so used to
being the odd one out with no siblings; it was nice to find out I wasn’t so alone.

‘Does your dad live with you?’

No. Another way we were the same! I didn’t go as far as asking whether he
had
a father. As open as Mom was with me, this was one area she refused to answer any questions about.

‘So is it just you and your mom?’

No.

I was a bit stumped by this one and thought maybe I had read an answer wrong, or that Chris had made a mistake in answering, so I went on to other questions.

‘Ok. A bit about me. I’m thirteen, for forever it seems. Fourteen in a couple of months though.’ I had shared so much personal stuff, but this is the first time I’d told Chris any of the usual facts. ‘How old are you? Oh, sorry, that won’t work. Are you thirteen? Fourteen? Fifteen? Are you saying fifteen?’

I had to ask each age and wait for the answer. Chris was fifteen. I had been able to get to the answer, but it was terribly tedious if this was the only way to communicate. Plus, I had to ask all the questions. He couldn’t ask me anything. There had to be a better way for us to talk.

I had lots of questions to ask Mr Jenkins about Chris now. I wanted to know so much more about him, but I also wanted to have more avenues for things to talk to Chris about. If I
had a bit more information, I would at least have some clues as to things to ask.

‘Mr Jenkins, who does Chris live with?’ I interrupted him from his marking of the assignment I had handed him during our science class.

‘He lives in a group home for kids with physical and intellectual disabilities.’

‘Oh.’ That explained the difficulty I had run into with my questions about his family. ‘So does his mom live nearby? Does he see her often?’

‘That’s kind of confidential stuff, Jo. I can’t ask Chris if it would be okay to talk to you about his family, or lack of family.’ Maybe he couldn’t ask him, but I could.

I had decided not to let Mr Jenkins in on our communication lessons. At first I had wanted enough evidence to prove him wrong about Chris’s abilities to understand and be understood. Now though, I was feeling kind of protective of the fragile strand of connection that I shared with Chris. He had chosen to talk to me, and I didn’t want to give up our secret. I was afraid that it might be taken out of my control before we could explore where it might lead.

‘Is asking how he gets to school confidential?’

‘I guess not. The home he lives in has a special van that lifts Chris’s chair onto it. The staff who work at his home drop him off and pick him up every day in the van.’

‘Like the way wheelchairs get on the bus?’ I had been on
the bus when it came to a stop where someone in a wheelchair wanted to get on. The whole bus lowered down, the person wheeled on and then the bus lifted up again.

‘Same kind of thing, only the lift is hydraulically raised and lowered, rather than the bus.’

‘What does he do at home? Like, does he have anything he’s interested in?’ I launched into another question.

‘Now you are getting outside of my knowledge. There’s a dividing line between school and home, same as for you,’ Mr Jenkins said. ‘I could probably arrange for you to go and visit Chris in his home though if you are interested.’

‘Cool. I’d like that.’

Things were better than they had ever been at home. I was making sure of that.

I still left the house before Mom began to stir, but I made sure that her medication was ready for her, and that her favourite breakfast, French toast and bacon, was prepared and ready to be put in the microwave when she woke up. Then I rang her after first period class.

‘Wake up call, Mom,’ I said, trying to sound as cheerful as possible.

‘Thanks, Jo,’ she mumbled, never much of a morning person.

‘What are the plans for today?’ Every night I helped her to
write down what she was going to do while I was at school. For once Mom was going along with something that might actually help her.

After talking with Dr Sharon I had thought about what it was that often began Mom’s spiral into uncontrollable thoughts and feelings. She had too much time on her hands. A job was not a possibility. She always ended up quitting or being fired. Mom didn’t value things that employers usually felt were important, like being on time and staying until quitting time.

She also wasn’t even able to operate in the normal world of filling time with the things that needed to get done: cleaning the house, cooking, doing the shopping, paying the bills. These had been my concerns as long as I had been able to do those things. I supposed it must have been Grandma who made sure the major things were done before that. I remembered there used to be a cleaning lady who came in once a week, which Mom had hated, and eventually she had literally chased her out, with a broom.

So Mom needed a project. She needed something to focus her energy and mind.

She could spend days or weeks obsessively learning about something she was interested in, writing copious notes that filled every surface in the house. This could be dangerous territory though because she was usually interested in some controversial cause that got her all upset. And she usually got
upset in a crazy sort of way.

Plus she needed to see people. When she was in the routine of going to the drop-in mental health clinic she was always more steady, but she usually only did this in spurts, when she was focused on being normal, mostly for my sake. And this could lead to rants about her guilt about being a crazy mother. So, going to the clinic was not ideal either.

Mom had come up with a project herself. She was developing a series of workshops for kids to introduce the classic children’s books. Then she planned to go to the libraries and community centres to see about putting them on.

‘It’s
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
today, Jo,’ Mom said, suddenly sounding much more awake. ‘So many great characters. What do you think about getting some kiddies designing costumes of their favourite character?’

‘Sounds great!’

It was good to hear her so excited about something kind of productive – and at 9.30 in the morning instead of 2a.m.