A Safe Place for Joey Read online

  We looked at his other book briefly, and then I walked to the large blackboard that was fastened to the wall on the far side of the room. I said, “Come on over here. I want to show you something. See this chalk? Did you ever see chalk that fat? We have yellow, blue, pink, white. I like it ’cause it doesn’t break.”

  I drew a circle, the size of a saucer. “Can you make a circle like that?” I asked Eric.

  He produced a wobbly looking oval with overshooting lines and shrugged his shoulders.

  “Not too bad.” I smiled at him and added smaller circles to both, some ears, eyes, mouth, whiskers, and tails. “A fat cat and a skinny cat. Okay, Eric,” I said, handing him an eraser. “Get rid of the cats. Rub them out. Now, how about a square?” This time I did not draw first. Eric made a figure recognizable as a rectangle, although two comers were open and one rounded. He also drew a cross – when I showed him what it was I wanted – but couldn’t do a triangle, diamond, or star.

  I drew two parallel lines on the board, about three inches apart, and a half dozen straight lines between them. “This will be a fence. Can you finish it?”

  Eric tried, but he had difficulty controlling the chalk, and his lines straggled down the blackboard.

  He obviously had trouble with his graphomotor skills – and yet it wasn’t just eye-hand coordination, because he had moved the blocks so easily. I made a mental note to get out the pegboard and puzzles as soon as we left the blackboard. Would he have the same difficulty controlling pegs and judging the spatial relationships, or was it primarily a lack of strength in his fingers?

  Before we left the board, I asked, “Can you write your name, Eric?”

  He picked up the chalk and made an uneven E.

  “Okay. Good. That’s the first letter. Can you do any more?” Silently, Eric shook his head.

  “Watch me. First I’ll do an E like you did – a tall, straight line down – now three arms stick out. One at the top, one in the middle, and one at the bottom. Now a small r – short, straight line down, half as tall as the line in E, and a little curve here at the top. Next is i, a cinch – again, a short straight line and dot it; there, like that. And now the last letter, c – to make it, just start drawing a backward circle and stop before it’s done. Here, now – take this blue chalk and trace over my letters.”

  As Eric wrote I made a mental note to talk about this with his mom at the end of the session. There were lots of things they could do to improve his drawing and writing.

  Eric put down the chalk and headed for the closet. “Da,” he said, nodding positively.

  “Whoa. Come on back here. We’re not quite through. See, Eric, I want to teach you how to read, so you can read books yourself.” I immediately had his attention. And, of course, it was his attention I really wanted. I couldn’t teach him anything without that. Everyone in first grade was learning to read, so, of course, this fascinated Eric. And I could continue working on his language while throwing in a few basic skills.

  “Book,” Eric said, trotting off to the books he’d left on the couch. If he couldn’t have the dolls, his books were the next best thing.

  “Right,” I agreed, steering him back to the board. “We’ll put the books right here by the blackboard. Now see,” I said, opening to a page at random, “books are made of words – like your name Eric is a word – and words are made of letters. Each letter has its own sound, and when you’ve learned the sounds you can read the words.

  “Stay with me, Eric. We’ll do just one letter so you can practice it this week with your mom.

  “Okay, now. We’ll do it together.” I put chalk between his fingers and my own fingers over his. “We’ll make a B,” I said. “Now tall, straight line down. Good. Now one fat stomach – out like a ball – at the top, now another fat stomach at the bottom. There. That’s a capital B. And right beside it we’ll make a small b. Again, straight line down – now just a small ball at the bottom. Good. B is the letter that begins the word ball.” I drew a quick ball on the board.

  “Can you say that, Eric? Ball?”

  “Bow.”

  “Yes. Good.” I’d forgotten he couldn’t or didn’t make the final l sound. “Here’s another.” I drew quickly. “That’s a B for boy.”

  “Boy,” Eric repeated.

  “Terrific. Okay, let’s get the dolls.”

  Much as I wanted to get out the pegboard and puzzles, I had to play fair. Eric had worked hard for me; it was my turn to follow him.

  I handed Eric the box of dolls, and I carried the wooden box of blocks. We both went instinctively to the spot in front of the couch where we had played before.

  Eric opened the doll box and lifted out each doll carefully. His actions were precise. He did not dump and jumble as some children did.

  After he had inspected each doll, he lined them up and then proceeded with his plan for each one. He put the father doll in the back bedroom, laying him down on his stomach. “Slee,” Eric said.

  He put the mother in the kitchen and then held the boy and baby side by side, this time putting the boy beside the mother and the baby under the couch cushion. He made eating noises with his mother, and I said, “The father is sleeping and the mother and boy are eating. I wonder what time it is. Are they eating supper?”

  Eric shook his head. “Bref.”

  “I see. They’re eating breakfast.”

  Now Eric put the mother and boy outside the house. “Co thcu.”

  I remembered that one. “They’re going to school. Where’s the girl?”

  Again Eric shook his head. Evidently the girl did not walk to school with them, but Eric had not yet put her in the house.

  Eric pulled a cushion from the couch. “Thcu,” he announced. He wasn’t going to take time to build a school today. I wondered if somehow he sensed that we were already running late.

  In front of the cushion the mother and boy kissed, then both waved as the mother walked away. “Ma go wer,” he said sadly as he placed the boy on the cushion.

  His longest speech so far – a real sentence! “Yes,” I agreed, “the mother goes to work and the boy goes to school.”

  Tap. Tap. Tap. I got up and opened the door. Mrs. Kroner said apologetically, “I don’t mean to rush you – but the buses don’t run too often out of Grover at night, so we have to hurry to make the eight o’clock. That first night we came we didn’t get back till almost midnight, and I don’t like Errol out that late as a rule.”

  “Of course. I understand. I’m sorry. Could you call me, then, like last week, so we can talk?”

  Mrs. Kroner was putting Eric’s arms into the sleeves of his jacket, zipping it up. I wanted to say, “Please don’t. Let him do it himself.” But criticism is not the way to end a session.

  Instead I dug an empty scrapbook from the bookcase and pressed it into Mrs. Kroner’s hands. “Here. Take this. I’ll explain when we talk.”

  Mrs. Kroner’s call again came just after twelve the next day.

  “Did you get home all right?” I asked.

  “Fine. Made it right on time. No trouble at all. I’ve got my paper ready.”

  She was going to need it this time. I was pleased that she and Eric were working well together, and I felt that she was happy about helping him. I just had to be careful not to overwhelm her and to go over very carefully just how to do the things I asked. I wanted Eric to work where daily practice would increase his skills. I wanted him to improve. And most of all I wanted both of them to be successful.

  I explained how to help Eric write both the upper- and lowercase b (B, b) on the top of two pages of the scrapbook, and then to cut out as many things as they could find in newspapers, ads, or magazines that began with the sound of b and paste them on those two pages. Next I explained that Eric needed to learn to write his name. I told her, as I had Eric, how each letter was formed, and asked her to write “Eric” along the bottom of the scrapbook pages and to ask him to trace the letters every day.

  I asked Mrs. Kroner to get some
clay and snap clothespins, and to encourage Eric to roll and pummel and pinch to increase the strength in his fingers. I asked her to have Eric trace pot covers, bottle caps, and playing cards.

  I asked her to write the letters B and b on index cards or blank pieces of paper and let Eric search through the house till he found two things beginning with the sound of b – any two (bed, bathtub, ball, bureau), whatever he found – and then have him tape the letters there and leave them.

  I suggested she help Eric lay out his clothes for school the night before and let him dress himself by himself as much as possible.

  I asked her to keep on reading to him, to occasionally underline the words with her fingers as she read, to show him how the words ran from left to right across the page. Eric should be encouraged to use words as much as possible. If he wanted milk or a cookie, have him ask for it.

  I told her how well Eric had done at this last session and that I could already see improvement in his speech.

  Mrs. Kroner carefully read back her notes to me, and it was clear that she really understood. I cautioned her to keep their practice sessions to no more than a half hour at a time and to end each one with a task that Eric could do well. I also told her not to worry if something came up and they missed a day – and most of all to have fun.

  Mrs. Kroner proved to be a talented teacher. During the following weeks she not only did the things I suggested, she went further and played games based on the same ideas. When she unpacked the groceries, she had Eric hunt for items beginning with the letters we were working on.

  Consequently, well before the month was out Eric had learned the b, p, t, k, and d sounds, and could also write the letters. He was still having difficulty with l and r, but his speech was clearer and he rarely used single words to express his thoughts. Now he spoke two, three, sometimes four words at a time, arranging them in meaningful order.

  Best of all, there was carryover in school. Each week I reported to Miss Selby what he was doing at home and with me, and I suggested the kinds of things he might be able to do in school, such as matching some of the upper- and lowercase letters, circling pictures to go with sounds, tracing templates, colouring. I ran off some worksheets of visual motor skills (increasingly difficult paths to trace, mazes to follow) and sent them in with Eric.

  And bless Miss Selby, before I knew it she had cajoled some readiness workbooks from the kindergarten teacher, and Eric was actually working along with the other children every day. She was careful to remind me that the work he was doing was “certainly not on grade level, but at least he was doing something.”

  Easter came early that year, and the day before Eric’s sixth visit I set up an Easter egg tree on a table by the window. Not really a tree, just a bare branch sprayed white and hung with decorated eggshells. A friend had shown me how to make a little pinhole at the end of each egg, put a straw to one hole and blow the insides out the other. This way the egg could last forever. And each year I managed to get through this messy job and make a special egg for each child who came to my office.

  Actually, I made six for Eric. They were easy – just dipped in primary colours, a different letter on each one. I couldn’t wait for him to come and pick his eggs and tell me the names and sounds of each letter, his eyes shining with excitement, his head nodding up and down with pleasure.

  Six forty-five. I checked my watch again. Mrs. Kroner had never been late before. They had to leave promptly at the end of each session to make the bus back home, so she and Eric were always in the waiting room well in advance of their appointment.

  At seven o’clock I called the Kroners’ house. A female voice answered on the third ring.

  “Hello,” I said. “This is Eric’s tutor, Mary MacCracken. I was –”

  There was a click on the other end. I dialed back immediately. The phone rang a dozen times. At seven thirty I dialed again. Nobody home – or at least nobody who wanted to answer the telephone.

  I called again the next morning, only to reach a busy signal. A busy signal that lasted all day long.

  I searched the Yellow Pages, trying to find the name of a cosmetic factory in the Kroners’ part of the city, without success.

  At noon I called Miss Selby, and she said Eric wasn’t there; in fact, he hadn’t been in all week. She didn’t know what was the matter, but that this wasn’t unusual. The school nurse rarely had time to track down the absentees.

  “Could you give me Mrs. Kroner’s work number?” I asked.

  “No. Sorry. That would be down in the file in the main office. I can try to transfer you,” Miss Selby offered. “Let me know if you find out anything.”

  The phone disconnected, and I called back and eventually got Mr. Kroner’s work number. Mrs. Kroner’s wasn’t listed.

  I knew he worked the night shift, but I wasn’t sure when that began. I decided to call early and leave a message so I wouldn’t interrupt his work. By nine o’clock I’d stopped caring about interrupting him and dialed Gare Manufacturing again. I had no idea what kind of work Mr. Kroner did there or how big the business was.

  A man’s voice answered the phone, and I asked to speak to Mr. Kroner. I could hear the heavy rhythmic thud of machines in the background.

  “Who’s calling?” the man asked.

  I hesitated. Would Mr. Kroner know my name? I wasn’t sure. Yet he might not like me to identify myself as Eric’s tutor.

  “One of his children’s teachers,” I compromised.

  “Well, is it urgent?”

  “Yes,” I answered, not knowing.

  “Jack,” the man called. “Telephone.”

  There was the sound of the phone against a table or desk. The machines thudded on.

  “Hello.” The man’s voice was softer than I’d expected.

  “Mr. Kroner. This is Mary MacCracken. We’ve never met, but I’ve been working with Eric the last few months, helping him with …” I hesitated. What had I been helping Eric with? Why was I finding it so difficult to speak?

  “Uh, with some of his school work. He didn’t come for his appointment yesterday, and they say he hasn’t been in school all week. I was worried about him. I … uh … couldn’t reach anyone at your house.”

  “That so?” I pressed a hand over my other ear, as if that would help me hear him above the machines. “Well, could be. Mrs. Kroner’s taking a little trip – took the boy along with her.”

  “A trip? She didn’t mention anything about a trip or cancel any of Eric’s appointments. Where did they go?” I realized too late that my question sounded abrupt.

  But Mr. Kroner continued to talk in the same soft voice. “I don’t know where they went. No idea. When she decides to go, she goes and takes the runt along. When she decides to come back, she comes back.”

  The runt? Did he mean Eric? But his voice was so soft, so sweet; perhaps I’d misunderstood. No one at school had mentioned previous absences – but then, I hadn’t talked to his kindergarten teacher and Miss Selby was new.

  “But Eric’s all right? I mean he’s always been all right before?”

  “All right? You said you knew him.” Even the sarcasm came so sweetly and softly off his tongue that I didn’t recognize it immediately. “I gotta go now, lady,” he continued. “But he’ll be back. Always has. It’s just his mama’s got this little drinkin’ problem. Gets worse around the holidays and off she goes.” The phone clicked. The dial tone hummed, and I replaced the receiver.

  A drinking problem? I couldn’t believe it. Mrs. Kroner was always so responsible, so in control. She did look much older than her years, but I assumed that came from work and worry. I had never seen or heard anything to make me suspect she drank. But if she did have a problem, how bad was it? Was she capable of caring for Eric? Mr. Kroner certainly hadn’t sounded concerned, but then Mr. Kroner also referred to Eric as “the runt.”

  Nine thirty. I got out the telephone book again, knowing it was late, but maybe not too late.

  I searched through the half-dozen Torto
nis, found a Frank, dialed, apologized when a woman answered.

  “Mrs. Tortoni?”

  “Yes. Who is this?”

  “Mary MacCracken. I’m sorry to call this late, but, well, it’s a long story. I’ve been working with a friend of yours – little Eric Kroner – and … I guess I was just worried about him and called to see if you knew anything.”

  “Well, Mrs. MacCracken, I’d like to help you. I really would, after all you did for us. Frankie’s still doin’ real well. But I’m afraid I can’t tell you anything, and I really can’t talk more now. Good-bye.”

  Mrs. Tortoni had sounded guarded. Not her usual self. She hadn’t even asked why I was worried about Eric. I had the feeling she knew more than she’d said. But there was no point in calling her back, at least not until tomorrow morning.

  By ten o’clock the Tortoni kids would be in school and Frank Senior at the garage. If Mrs. Tortoni was ever going to talk to me, this seemed the most likely time.

  “Hello.” Mrs. Tortoni’s voice seemed a little friendlier.

  I identified myself, and then without actually repeating what Mr. Kroner had said, I implied that I was concerned about Mrs. Kroner as well as Eric.

  “Well, now, look. It’s really kind of you to be thinking about them,” Mrs. Tortoni said. “I know they’d appreciate it and all, but there isn’t anything you can do. Believe me. Now I’ll let you know if something comes up. And Frankie said to be sure and say hello.”

  Late Friday afternoon the phone in my office rang, and I handed the boy I was working with the stopwatch (I always pay a chip for each second I’m on the phone) and picked up the receiver.

  “Mrs. MacCracken. This is Blanche Kroner. I’m sorry to interrupt you.” She spoke in a strained whisper, but her words were clear.

  “That’s all right. I’ve been trying to reach you. How’s Eric?”

  “That’s why I’m calling. He’s all right, but I need some work for him. I can’t talk over the phone.” Her voice had dropped so I could barely hear her. “What I wondered was if you could come to Grover tomorrow morning and bring work for Eric. I can’t talk anymore. Will you meet me at the Main Street Diner at ten o’clock?”