Defending Jacob(45)

She said, “It happened several times. At day care once, Jacob was toddling on the top of a play structure when another boy fell off. The boy needed stitches. Another time, a little girl flew off the monkey bars and broke her arm. A boy down the street rode his tricycle down a steep hill. That boy needed stitches too. He said Jakey pushed him.”

“How often did these things happen?”

“Every year or so. Jacob’s day care teachers told us all the time that they could not take their eyes off him, he was too rough. I was scared to death he would get kicked out of day care. Then what would we do? I was still working at the time, teaching; we needed day care. There were long waiting lists at all the other day care centers. If Jacob got thrown out, I’d have to stop working. We actually put our name on the list at another day care, just in case.”

“Oh my God, Laurie, he was four years old! This is years ago! What are you talking about?”

“Andy, really, you have to let her speak or this just won’t work.”

“But the time she’s talking about, Jacob was four—years—old.”

“Andy, I understand where you’re coming from. Just let her finish, then you’ll have a turn, all right? All right. Laurie, I’m curious: what did the other kids at day care think of him?”

“Oh, the kids, I don’t know. Jacob had very few playdates, so I imagine the other kids didn’t like him especially.”

“And the parents?”

“I’m sure they didn’t want their kids to be alone with him. But none of the moms ever said anything to me about it. We were all too nice for that. We didn’t criticize each other’s kids. Nice people don’t do that, except behind each other’s backs.”

“What about you, Laurie? What did you think about Jacob’s behavior?”

“I knew I had a difficult child. I did. I knew he had some behavior problems. He was rambunctious, he was a little too rough, a little too aggressive.”

“Was he a bully?”

“No. Not exactly. He just didn’t think about other kids, how they would feel.”

“Was he short-tempered?”

“No.”

“Mean?”

“Mean. No, mean isn’t the word for it either. It was more like—I don’t know what to call it, exactly. He just couldn’t seem to imagine how other kids would feel if he pushed them down, so he was … hard to control. I guess that’s it: he was hard to control. But a lot of boys are like that. That’s how we talked about it at the time: ‘A lot of boys go through this. It’s a phase. Jacob will outgrow it.’ That was how we looked at it. I was horrified when other kids got hurt, of course, but what could I do? What could we do?”

“What did you do, Laurie? Did you ever try to get help?”

“Oh, we talked about it endlessly, Andy and I. Andy always told me not to worry. I asked the pediatrician about it, and he told me the same thing: ‘Don’t worry, Jake is still very little, it will pass.’ They made me feel a little crazy, like I was one of those crazy, jumpy moms always hovering over their kids, freaking out about Band-Aids and … and peanut allergies. And here was Andy and the pediatrician saying, ‘It will pass, it will pass.’ ”

“But it did pass, Laurie. You were overreacting. The pediatrician was right.”

“Was he? Honey, look where we are. You never want to face this.”

“Face what?”

“That maybe Jacob needed help. Maybe it’s our fault. We should have done something.”

“Done what? Or else what?”

Her head drooped, hopeless. The memory of these early childhood incidents haunted her, as if she had seen a shark’s fin that disappeared under water. It was lunacy.

“Laurie, what are you suggesting? This is our son we’re talking about.”

“I’m not suggesting anything, Andy. Don’t make this a loyalty contest or a—a fight. I’m just wondering about what we did back then. I mean, I don’t know what the answer was, I have no idea what we should have done. Maybe Jake needed medication. Or counseling. I don’t know. I just can’t help thinking we must have made mistakes. We must have. We tried so hard and we meant so well. We don’t deserve all this. We were good, responsible people. You know? We did everything right. We weren’t too young. We waited. In fact, we almost waited too long; I was thirty-six when I had Jacob. We weren’t rich, but we both worked hard and we had enough money to give the baby everything he needed. We did everything right, and yet here we are. It isn’t fair.” She shook her head and murmured, “It isn’t fair.”

Beside me, Laurie’s hand rested on the arm of her chair. I thought I might lay my hand on hers to soothe her, but in the moment it took to consider it, she withdrew her hand and knotted her arms down tight over her belly.

She said, “I look back on us then and I see we weren’t ready at all. I mean, no one ever is, right? We were kids. I don’t care how old we were; we were kids. And we were clueless and we were scared shitless, like all new parents. And I don’t know, maybe we made mistakes.”

“What mistakes, Laurie? Really. You’re being dramatic. It just wasn’t that bad. Jacob was a little boisterous and rough. Is that really such a big deal? He was a little boy! Some kids got hurt because four-year-olds get hurt. They totter around, and three-quarters of their body weight is in their enormous heads, so they fall down and crash into things. They fall off play structures, they fall off bicycles. It happens. They’re like drunks. Anyway, the pediatrician was right: Jacob did outgrow it. This stuff all stopped when he got older. You’re beating yourself up, but there’s nothing to feel guilty about, Laurie. We didn’t do anything wrong.”