When He Fell (18 page)

Lewis balks when I tell him about the appointment. “Why does he need to talk to us? It’s Josh who needs help.”

“Dr. Dannon feels it’s important to get the parents on board first—”

“But we’re already on board. We called him in the first place.”

“He thinks talking to the parents helps. In understanding Josh’s issues.”

Lewis stares at me for a long moment. “So what, it’s our fault?”

“I don’t think it’s about blame.” Even if it feels like it is.

“Fine,” Lewis says. “I’ll come.”

We are both tense as we meet in front of Dr. Dannon’s office down on Christopher Street. Therapy is so not us. There are things we don’t talk about, ever, and there is a reason for that. It’s easier, safer. Our happiness depends on a certain amount of silence.

Dr. Dannon’s office is on the first floor of a Brownstone; when we walk into the waiting room, I feel almost as if I’ve entered a movie set: a few leather club chairs, some tasteful prints and antiques, an Oriental rug. The room is intentionally peaceful, and it makes me tense. It feels forced, even fake, and then when Will Dannon opens the door to his office and smiles at us, I feel like the leading actor has just come on the stage.

He’s tall, slightly gangly, and wearing mismatched socks, an Argyll sweater, and old but expensive corduroys. His office extends the movie set: bookshelves line the walls, and a huge mahogany desk takes pride of place by the windows that are open to the street. On the other side of the room there is a sofa—of course—and two easy chairs around a wood coffee table. I continue my inspection and see against the wall the kind of shelf with cubbyholes you’d see in a school; in the different compartments are markers and paper, beads and bits of fabric, various small toys. Tools of the trade, I suppose.

“Please, take a seat.” Dr. Dannon indicates two of the chairs, and Lewis and I both sit down. I sit stiffly and Lewis lounges in his chair looking unconcerned and indifferent, which I know is his defense mechanism.

I manage a smile. “I’m Joanna Taylor-Davies, and this is my husband Lewis.”

“Will Dannon.” He shakes my hand; his is warm and dry. “Please call me Will.” He turns to Lewis and they shake hands as well.

“So, Joanna, Lewis.” Will sits in the chair opposite us, crossing one long, lanky leg over the other. He actually steeples his fingers together as he smiles, playing the role to the hilt. “You’re both here because of your son Josh.”

“Yes.”

“What about Josh’s behavior concerns you?”

I hesitate, glancing at Lewis. Which one of us is meant to answer? Lewis does not look inclined to say anything. “I think you have Josh’s file from school…” I temporize, and Will nods.

“Yes. But I’d like to hear what
you
both think.” He looks at me, and then at Lewis.

I sit up straighter, as if I am in school, about to answer a teacher’s question. “I’m concerned, naturally, about how Josh has responded to his friend’s accident. To Ben falling, especially considering Josh…Josh was the one who pushed him. Both Lewis and I feel that Josh isn’t telling us something about what happened, but we don’t know what it is.” Obviously. Will says nothing, just gazes at us over his steepled fingers. I wonder which one of us will break first. “He’s gone very quiet,” I continue. Of course it would be me. “At school he refuses to answer any questions. He’s not talking at all.”

“And at home?” Will asks. His voice is gentle and kind, and yet it grates on me. I wish Lewis would say something.

“He seems…normal,” I say. “Maybe a bit quiet. A bit…worried.”

“He doesn’t seem worried,” Lewis interjects. Will cocks his head.

“He was worried about me,” I say quietly. I don’t know if I’m telling this for Lewis’s sake or for Will’s. “On the train, when we were visiting my parents. He asked me if I was okay.”

“What’s the problem with that?” Lewis asks, and Will nods slowly, although whether in response to what I said or Lewis said, I can’t tell.

“Did his question concern you at the time, Joanna?” Will asks.

“A little,” I confess. “Because he seemed so…worried. As if he’d been worried about me for a while.”

Will nods again. “Has Josh spoken to you about the accident?”

“He’s been very reluctant to. When I’ve asked him for details all he’s told me that they were on the rocks in Heckscher Playground, and that he…pushed Ben.”

“He didn’t say it was an accident?”

“No, he’s never said that.” I pause, glancing at Lewis. “Actually, the opposite. Recently he’s intimated that he pushed Ben on purpose, but he won’t say why.” I don’t want to admit what Josh really said.
I’m glad he fell.
I don’t want to prejudice this man against my son. And maybe Josh didn’t really mean it. “He’s a gentle, kind boy,” I say, my voice coming out a little strident. A bit ragged. “He always has been. His issues have stemmed from being shy, being quiet. Not…aggression.”

I realize I’m clutching my purse and I put it down by my feet and then smooth my hands along my skirt. I take a deep, even breath. “Josh has had issues with not talking before.”

Next to me I feel Lewis stiffen. “Joanna…” he begins but now that I’ve referenced that episode in our lives I doggedly continue, for Josh’s sake. I’ll do whatever I can to help him. “When Josh was three,” I tell Will, “he became selectively mute for a year. He wouldn’t speak, not even to us, not a single word. He could make sounds, so we knew it wasn’t some kind of physical problem. We had him assessed but nothing was conclusive.”

“Lots of kids go through that kind of thing,” Lewis mutters.

“Did this correspond with any trauma or instability at home?” Will asks and now I’m the one to stiffen.

“No,” I say after a tiny pause. Will waits. I can feel the tension emanating from Lewis. I don’t want to say anything else; I don’t want to revisit all those painful memories that Lewis and I have suppressed.
But this is for Josh.
I take a deep breath and keep talking. “Six months earlier Lewis and I had some…difficulties. But it was long before. Six months,” I repeat.

Will turns to Lewis, whose face is blank, although his body is still tense. “Lewis? Do you want to say anything about that?”

“It’s just what Joanna said. We had a bit of a rough patch, just like most married couples have. We got through it.”

“Could you elaborate?” Will asks easily. “What kind of difficulties were you having?”

I wait, wondering what Lewis will say, what his version of those awful days is. “Just the usual,” he finally says. “We went through a hard time and had trouble talking about it.” He doesn’t look at me. “Like I said, we got over it.”

“I don’t think Josh even noticed,” I blurt. Will’s silence on this point is eloquent, and I quickly correct myself. “Well, he probably
noticed
. But it was a long time before. If his not speaking was related to that, surely it would have manifested itself earlier.”

“It depends,” Will answers. “But it does seem likely that the two are related. A child doesn’t become selectively mute without a reason.”

Lewis shifts in his chair. “Maybe not, but that doesn’t have anything to do with what’s going on now. We
know
what’s causing Josh’s problems now, and he’s not actually selectively mute. He’s just a little quiet, because the kids in his class are giving him a hard time. What we want is for you to talk to him about it, to help him process what happened.”

“To understand why Josh is responding the way he is now, it’s helpful to know what has gone before,” Will answers. His voice is gentle, patient, and it makes me want to grit my teeth. Again. He glances at the clock. “I’m afraid our hour is up.”

“So you’ll see Josh now,” I say, and even as I say it I know what Will Dannon’s answer will be.

“I could,” he allows, “but I think it would be more helpful if I saw both of you again first.”

“But the important person here is Josh,” I protest.

“Exactly. Children’s issues are almost always closely related to those of their parents.”

It’s basically what his receptionist said, and yet both Lewis and I recoil a little at this.
So it really is our fault.
I force myself to acknowledge the possibility. What if Josh pushing Ben
is
related to us, to something we did or didn’t do, either now or long before? What if the way we responded to each other or to Josh has made him respond the way he did to Ben? The thought is terrifying.

“Okay,” I say, and glance at Lewis. He is staring straight ahead, his jaw bunched, but at least he’s not refusing. I wonder what another session will do to us.

Slowly I rise from the chair, and so does Lewis. We shake Will’s hand and then we leave in silence.

Out in the street Lewis lets out a low breath. “Do you believe him?” he demands.

“About what?”

“That Josh’s issues might be related to…to us.”

I take a deep breath. “It seems possible, Lewis,” I say. “Children pick up on all sorts of things and feelings.”

We stare at each other for a moment, the memory of six years ago stretching between us. Then Lewis turns and starts walking down the street. I follow, taking small, careful steps. I feel fragile; I feel like an egg Will Dannon has tapped with a spoon. There is a crack inside me, and if he taps again it will widen.
I will break.

15
MADDIE

The next two weeks are the longest of my life, longer even than the week and a half waiting for Ben to wake up from the coma, to open his eyes.

Now that he is regaining consciousness, Dr. Velas and her team have begun a battery of tests to assess his cognitive and motor skills, as well as to begin to rehabilitate him. I meet with a raft of specialists and therapists, cheerful people in colorful scrubs who are going to help Ben walk, talk, and remember. Yet at first he can’t even lift a finger or say a word.

For three days after Ben first opens his eyes, nothing really changes. He doesn’t speak, doesn’t even acknowledge anyone or anything. His eyes open, close, open, close. And then they open some more, and then his gaze moves around the room but I can’t tell anything from it. I can’t tell if my son is still inhabiting that familiar body, and the waiting is making me crazy.

Now, every morning is taken up with Ben’s therapies: moving his arms and legs, offering him mental and physical stimulation, monitoring his responses. One therapist, José, keeps up a steady banter as he exercises Ben’s nearly-lifeless limbs. Sometimes Ben is conscious for these, and his gaze rests on José’s face. Sometimes it moves to me, but it feels like he is looking at a stranger. I am still waiting, still hoping, for him to smile and say
Hi, Mom.

Another therapist, Katie, suggests I bring some of Ben’s favorite things into the room, play music he likes, as this can help with recovery. I bring his soccer ball and his old teddy bear, even though he hasn’t slept with it in years. I bring my iPod and play Bruno Mars’s
Uptown Funk
which Ben was listening to incessantly in the weeks before the accident. I was so tired of that song and its relentless, chirpy beat, and now the simple lyrics, and the memory of Ben bopping around to them, can make me cry.

I talk to Ben too, which is harder than I expected. I struggle to keep my voice cheerful and upbeat, to talk about things that are innocuous. I tell him about the weather, about Halloween; the neurology department was decorated with paper pumpkins and a nurse gave out mini Hershey bars. I make promises I don’t know if I’ll be able to keep, about letting him do soccer after school at the club on the Upper West Side; I’d always said it was too far to travel after work. I tell him we can get a pet, not a cat or a dog because my building doesn’t allow them, but maybe a gerbil or a hamster. We will change. I will be a better mother, more attentive and loving and
grateful.
So grateful.

The hours of therapies every morning clearly exhaust Ben, because when they’re finished he falls into a deep sleep and I sit by his bedside, almost as exhausted, and wonder and wait. How long will this go on? There has been progress, yes; Ben is conscious for longer periods, and Dr. Velas says there have been some good signs; yesterday he strained to slowly, painfully lift his hand to push a red button that turned on music in his room. Dr. Velas explained to me how this shows how not only are his motor skills starting to come back, but his brain recognizes the connection between the button and the music.

Now I watch Ben sleep and think about money. I have three more days of paid leave.

I think about the lawsuit again, whether it’s worth dragging everyone into something that is potentially messy and hurtful. But then I think about Juliet not calling me, about Burgdorf distancing themselves from the whole thing, about how they basically lied about Josh and Ben being up on the rocks.

And then I think about Josh, and I wonder yet again why that quiet, gentle little boy pushed my son.

All those people who are involved, who are culpable, and Ben and I are the only ones paying the price.

That night I stop by Brian’s apartment. I’ve seen Brian a few times over the last few weeks; he’s knocked on my door in the evening, when I’m tired and dirty from a day at the hospital and dressed in sweats and an old T-shirt, to ask how Ben is.

More than once I’ve ended up inviting him in and blathering to him about the minutiae of my day, from the cold coffee in the cafeteria to Ben’s finger twitching promisingly. I have no one else to talk to, and Brian actually listens.

“So you’re going to look into the lawsuit,” Brian says when I ask for the name of a lawyer.

“I just want to see,” I say. “The truth is, I’m strapped for cash.” And then I flush, because the last thing I want is for Brian to offer to loan me money. “I mean, I’m fine, I’ve got savings,” I say quickly. “But, still. This whole thing is costing…” I stop, because it’s not just about the money. Of course it’s not. It’s about the fact that my life has been one rip-off after another, people disappointing me, dropping me, leaving me, and I’m tired of it. I finally want something back. But I can’t explain all that to Brian right now, so I settle for, “It’s about what’s right.”

Brian nods and gives me the name of a personal injury lawyer he knows in midtown, and the next day I make an appointment.