A Safe Place for Joey Read online

  “Suppose I go over to Eric’s school and talk to his teacher. Miss Selby? Is that her name? Maybe she can give me some more information about the kind of help Eric needs.”

  “No!” Mrs. Kroner spoke sharply. “I don’t want the school to know I’m here. Then they’ll be even surer there’s something wrong with him. Or else they’ll say it’s the tutor what’s doing the work, not Eric.”

  “Mrs. Kroner, I’m sorry.” And I really was. Despite the hour, despite the obvious problems, there was something about this little boy and his mother that drew me to them, and I was moved by how much she obviously loved her son and how desperately she wanted to help him. Still, I couldn’t work behind a cloud of pretense. I tried to explain. “I can’t work that way. I need your help and Eric’s teacher’s, too. We all have to work together, be a team, if we’re going to help Eric.”

  “What would you say to her?” Mrs. Kroner asked. “I wouldn’t want you talking behind Eric’s back – or mine neither.”

  “I would ask about the kind of things Eric does in school – where he does well and where he has trouble. I would ask about the other children and how he gets along with them.”

  “No,” Mrs. Kroner said again.

  I sighed – half weariness, half exasperation.

  “Then I don’t see how I can …”

  I stopped speaking as something touched my right foot. I looked down and saw that Eric had put the baby in one of the trucks and was crouched beside his mother’s legs, pushing the truck back and forth. The truck had bumped against my shoe. An accident, or was this Eric’s way of asking for help? He was as pale and silent as before, but now he looked steadily up at me and pointed at the truck. My heart capitulated.

  “What is it, Eric?” I asked, bending down. But the moment was gone. I had lost him. He buried his head back against the couch. But during that one brief instance of eye contact I could feel the intelligence behind those eyes, and I knew without a shadow of a doubt that if I could reach this little boy, I could teach him.

  Mrs. Kroner interrupted my thoughts. “Could you call her instead – his teacher?” she almost whispered. “Instead of going over there?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I guess I could. If you would feel better about that.”

  “If you did call her, would you tell her what I told you? You know – about how I didn’t even really want Eric at first?”

  “No,” I said. “I don’t think there’s any need to talk about that. In fact, I’m not even sure it’s true.”

  I wished Mrs. Kroner had given me permission to visit the school. I could have gathered so much information by observing Eric’s interaction with the other children and his response to his teacher. And I certainly needed all the information I could get, particularly since there was to be no formalized testing. I had compromised because I didn’t want to lose Eric, and now I had to stick to my agreement. I could only hope his teacher was a good communicator.

  Miss Selby spoke clearly and matter-of-factly. “I’m very concerned,” she said at once. “I’m new. This is my first year here and it’s a big school. There’s a lot I don’t understand – I’m the first to admit it. But I really don’t see why Eric’s in our school at all. He just doesn’t fit in with the other children. Why they ever promoted him from kindergarten is beyond me.

  “He doesn’t do anything. Good or bad. And he isn’t getting any help. Not even from me, and I want to help. But I don’t know where to begin. I’m not even sure he hears me.”

  “Does he talk to the other children?” I asked.

  “Well, yes and no. I can’t make any sense of it. But they somehow like him, and somebody or other always seems to be watching over him.”

  We discussed the testing she’d suggested to Mrs. Kroner and her refusal to consider it. “I told her,” Miss Selby said, “that I thought Eric had some kind of language disability and that he should be referred to the Child Study Team for a workup. But she just acted as if I were the one who needs help. She said there wasn’t anything wrong with Eric and that nobody had complained about him last year.

  “Well, in spite of that, I did talk to the psychologist the other day – and asked him to just stop by my room sometime for a kind of informal observation. He agreed, but he didn’t say when.”

  I pressed on, asking more questions. Does Eric play? Does he colour? Does he eat at snack time?

  “I told you,” Miss Selby replied. “The others keep him with them, but he doesn’t actually do anything.”

  I thanked Miss Selby. She was certainly interested and trying to do all she could. But somehow Eric and school were still a blur to me.

  I called Mrs. Kroner to tell her that I had talked to Eric’s teacher and felt she genuinely wanted to help him – and that it might be a good thing to have the Child Study Team do an evaluation. Again, Mrs. Kroner was adamant – no testing.

  I also asked again if she couldn’t find someone closer to where she lived who could help Eric, trying not to admit, even to myself, how much I wanted the chance. But when she insisted that there was no one and that she was determined to bring Eric to me after she got home from work, I couldn’t hold back my unabashed delight. I cut my fee in half, and we set up an appointment for half past six on the coming Wednesday.

  Eric surprised me by leaving his mother’s side and coming slowly but without complaint into my office.

  He stood in the middle of the room as I again gathered up some toys, but this time I sat down on the floor myself, putting the toys in front of me. I needed to be on eye level with Eric if I was to have a chance of making contact again. There was so much I had to know. Mrs. Kroner had said Eric wasn’t one to talk much, although she was unable to supply any details. His teacher had said she suspected a language problem. But what kind? Was it a receptive problem? Was he unable to hear or if he did hear, unable to understand what was said? Could he hear the sounds of the world around him? Could he decipher words? Did he understand a sentence, or a group of sentences?

  Listening comes before speaking. The first thing I had to find out was if Eric could hear me, and then if he understood what he had heard.

  I had promised not to do any testing, but nobody had said anything about playing.

  I piled some blocks together, talking to myself. “I guess I’ll make a garage for this truck. Here are the walls – and this will be the door. It just swings open like this. Now here comes the truck. Rummm-rummm …”

  Out of the corner of my eye I could see Eric turning, taking a step toward where I sat by the couch.

  “Rummm-rummm, I’ll drive it right into the good old garage. Rummm. Rummm. Rummm. Oh-oh! Oh, boy. I didn’t mean to do that. Knock down the wall. I guess I drove too fast.”

  I reached to put the block upright, but Eric’s hand was there before mine. Caroom! I had him! At least he was down on the floor with me. Now we could begin.

  A siren wailed as an ambulance drove by on the street outside my front window. Eric turned, distracted for a moment. Had he heard the sound or was it happenstance? Too soon to tell.

  I went back to my play. “Thanks, Eric, for fixing that wall. Now I guess I’ll build a store over here.” I began to make a two-tiered square building. “No, I know,” I said, making it up as I went along, “not a store. I’ll make a farm. That’s better. That’s more fun. I’ll get the animals.”

  I got up, taking a chance, hoping he’d stay. I brought back some small plastic animals, moving quickly, watching Eric. He stayed crouched beside the garage, eyes on the truck.

  “All right. Now. This is the barn, and I’ll put some of these cows in there – and this part is a field. That’s where the horses go. That’s enough.” I left the pigs and chickens and ducks in a pile.

  “Okay. Now I’m going to drive my truck over to the farm. Rummm. Rummm. Backing out now. Careful. Want to come?” I paused, looking at Eric, but he kept his eyes fastened on the blue truck. “Guess not,” I said cheerfully. “Well, here I go. Rummm. Rummm. This sure is a loud old
truck. I’m going to drive it right up to the barn.” I pushed the truck in front of me, moving on my knees perhaps a foot or so away from Eric.

  “Well, here I am. Mmm. Nobody here but the cows. I wonder if anybody else is around.”

  And what do you know. Here comes Eric, creeping right along beside me. Not only creeping, touching me now. His hand on my knee. Not only touching – talking!

  “Da,” he says.

  “Da?” I repeat. Make me understand. Don’t lose him now.

  “Da.” He pointed to the closet at the side of the room. “Da – ’fore.”

  “Four da?” Come on. Come on. What’s the matter with me?

  Eric shook his head. “Da – wi ’fo.”

  Yes! Of course. The dolls.

  “Dolls,” I repeated, getting it, blood pumping hard. “Like you played with before when you were here. Good idea.”

  Eric heard. He understood. He talked. He communicated. Maybe not clearly. Maybe not in sentences. But that was okay. That could be fixed.

  I lifted the box containing the doll family down from the closet shelf and handed it to Eric.

  “Da,” he nodded affirmatively and headed back to our primitive farm.

  I followed, quiet now, letting Eric take the lead.

  He took off the cover and lifted out the mother doll. “Hou?” he said, pointing to the floor.

  “How what?” I was certainly out of practice in this kind of communication.

  Eric shook his head, pointing again. “Hou.” He put the mother doll on the floor and picked up a block, putting it near the barn I had built. Carefully he placed another on top. “Hou,” he said positively. “Bill hou.”

  I placed a block alongside his. “I see now. We need to build a house for the people, right?”

  Eric nodded without answering, busily piling block on top of block, colour in his cheeks, eyes bright.

  There certainly didn’t seem to be anything wrong with his eye-hand coordination. His movements were swift and accurate. He lined up the edges of the blocks with ease and soon had built a house three blocks high, with both a front and a back door.

  “Ma,” he said, placing the mother inside the walls and nodding.

  I joined him again, pushing the blue truck over from the barn. “Guess I better go on over to the house. Doesn’t seem to be anybody here at the barn. Rummm. Rummm. Just back her up and go on down the road. Rummm.”

  I let my little finger knock down a brown and white plastic cow. “Oops. I guess I scared the cow. A little too noisy.”

  “Cow,” Eric said clearly, placing it back on its feet.

  Well, no trouble with the k sound, or ow either.

  I tapped on the door. “Hello, there. Anybody home?”

  Eric maneuvered the mother to the front door; the baby followed in his other hand.

  “Hello there, ma’am. How’re you today? That’s a fine-looking baby you have there.”

  Eric bobbed the mother up and down.

  “Is your husband home? I need to talk to him.”

  Eric shook the mother and his own head as well.

  “Mmm. Well, that’s too bad. I’ll come back another day. Rummm. Rummm.” I drove my truck back to the garage.

  It was clear that Eric could hear and understand what was said to him. He could also process the information, match it with what he had learned before, and make it meaningful. His difficulty lay with expressive language – his words were unfinished and unclear. Both his vocabulary and sentence formation were limited, and he had trouble articulating the l, r, and s sounds.

  Now that I had a general feel for Eric’s language, I wanted to get to the blackboard. I wondered about his graphomotor skills. Could he draw, write? Did he know the letters of the alphabet?

  It was difficult to contain my eagerness to find out. But I knew myself well enough to know that my excitement could carry me away. I had to watch myself – not go too quickly. I must remember to move to Eric’s rhythm.

  Eric put the mother and the baby back in the house. He laid the father down on the bottom of the box in the same place he’d had him before. He took out the girl and boy dolls and looked around for me.

  “Thcu?”

  “I haven’t a glimmer,” I said.

  He laid down the dolls and picked up more blocks. I sighed. We obviously weren’t going to get to the blackboard today. Eric was much too involved with his play – to interrupt would be unfair and pointless. The thing to do was to stay tuned in to him right where he was.

  I moved back to his side and placed another block alongside his. He nodded his approval, “Thcu,” he said again. “Big thcu.”

  B and g sounds are intact, and he sometimes uses descriptive words, I thought, still building. But what could “thcu” be?

  The building was now twice as big as the barn, and Eric put the boy and girl inside it. “Go thcu,” he informed me.

  “Right again, Eric. You’re way ahead of me. That’s where they should be. In school.”

  Our eyes met across the school. Could he sense my pleasure? I wondered. He knew so much – so much information inside this little boy. Why didn’t it show in school? Maybe there were too many children, or maybe his kind of information wasn’t valuable in school if he couldn’t communicate it verbally.

  “Listen, Eric,” I said. “We have to stop in just a few minutes, but you’ll be back next week. Shall I help put the dolls away? Or would you rather do it?”

  Eric spread his hands protectively over the dolls. “Okay,” I said. “I’ll work on the blocks. You do the dolls.”

  I began fitting the blocks back into their wooden box, and Eric took the boy and girl out of the school and put them in the house with the mother and baby. Then he reluctantly transferred them to the doll box, laying them in a row – mother, baby, boy, girl, father.

  “Thank you, Eric. Let’s go find your mom now.”

  Mrs. Kroner almost fell into the office when I opened the door. She’d obviously had her ear pressed tight against it, which was fine with me. Who had a better right to know about Eric?

  She steadied herself and then asked defensively, “Did you sound out?”

  “We began,” I said. “Look. I really need to talk to you. We need to make plans for helping Eric. Could you call me during your lunch hour tomorrow?”

  The phone rang at exactly twelve o’clock the next day.

  “Mrs. MacCracken? This is Blanche Kroner. You wanted me to call you.”

  “Yes. Thank you. I wanted to tell you how pleased I was to find out how much Eric knows and understands. And I also wanted you to work with him yourself, if you’d be willing.”

  How much parents can or should work with their children is always a tricky thing. Sometimes it is just an exercise in frustration, with more being lost than gained. In this case, Mrs. Kroner was already working with Eric – but on the wrong things. Eric’s teacher was right – he couldn’t “sound it out” – but he also wasn’t ready to do it. Learning proceeds along a continuum. It’s like building a wall – each brick carefully placed, each skill carefully sequenced. My guess was that Eric couldn’t sound it out because he didn’t know any sounds. That would come. In fact, we’d begin next time. But right now he needed to hear as many meaningful complete sentences as he could so he would have a model for language.

  “All right,” Mrs. Kroner said. “Wait. I’ll get a pencil.”

  “No, you don’t need …” But in her eagerness she was already gone.

  “All right. Go ahead now. I’m back.”

  “Well, all I was really going to suggest for right now is that you go over to your library and go down to the children’s room. If you don’t already have a card, ask them to show you what to do to get one. Then tell the children’s librarian that you’d like some picture books for young children – say, age four to six – and have her show you where they’re kept, and then just pick out a half dozen different books that you think Eric would like.”

  “Yes. All right. I can do that. T
hen what?”

  “Then every night before Eric goes to bed read to him for a half hour. Don’t feel you have to read all the words on the page. Just read as much as you can, but if he starts to lose interest then just look at the pictures and talk about them – talk about concepts like over and under. The sun is over the house. The flowers are under the tree. Point to some of the pictures and ask him to name them. We want to build his vocabulary as fast as we can.

  “Don’t worry about how his speech sounds. We’ll talk about that later. For now, just teach him all the words you can. Try to keep your own sentences short and clear and ask questions to get him talking.”

  Eric was through the door before I had it all the way open. “Book,” he said, holding two out in front of him.

  I paused for a minute in the doorway and smiled at Mrs. Kroner. “You’re a fast worker.”

  She smiled back, and again I was struck by the radiance in her face when she spoke of Eric. “He loves it,” she said. “Can’t get enough. We read every night, and he carries his books around with him the rest of the time. And they were real nice over at the library. I’m going to take Eric with me this time when I go on Saturday.”

  “Good. I’ll see you in a little while.”

  Eric was sitting on the floor in front of the couch, same spot as before, except now he leaned back against the couch, one of the books open in his lap. I sat beside him, leaning back myself.

  “Bawne,” he said, pointing to a large bear, standing behind a chair.

  “Yes,” I agreed. “I think that’s the mother bear and I think somebody’s been sitting in her chair.” I put a slight emphasis on the r in both bear and chair.

  Eric nodded emphatically as I retold Goldilocks’s story, and he pointed to pictures in answer to my questions.

  “Who is Goldilocks, anyway? What did she do when she got tired?”

  At our next session I’d try to get him to tell me the story, or at least part of it.