All the Ugly and Wonderful Things(6)

I cleared the table and brewed some decaf. When I was sure I was calm, I said, “Wavonna, will you please come into the kitchen and talk to Grandma?”

She didn’t sit down, but she stood waiting for me to talk.

“If you run away from school, they’re going to take you away from me and make you live with strangers. I don’t want that to happen. I want you to stay here with Grandma.”

She didn’t react to that, but I didn’t expect her to. I could have had a French poodle dancing the tango with a monkey on my head and she wouldn’t have reacted.

“Will you tell me what happened at school? Why did you run away? If you’ll tell me, I’ll try to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

It was like with the alphabet. She had to prepare herself, but after a moment, she said, “The loud lady touches me.”

My stomach almost gave up the coffee I’d drunk. That sweet woman? I couldn’t imagine her doing something like that to a child. In my mind that’s what bad touching was.

“Touches you?”

She stretched her arms toward me, her hands curled into menacing claws, and then brought them back tightly to her chest.

“She hugs you?” I said.

A nod.

“And you don’t like that?”

She shook her head seriously. I was sick with relief, and with knowing how awful the world looked to Wavonna. Of course, she never hugged me, and whenever I touched her, she shrugged out from under my hand.

The next day, we went to school, and I did what I should have done the first day. I walked her directly to class, planning to explain everything to Mrs. Berry.

All that went out the window when I reached the classroom.

In the center of the room sat three children in wheelchairs. I don’t mean to be cruel, but they were drooling vegetables. In one corner, a child flopped around on blue rubber floor mats. The school could paint the walls as bright a shade of yellow as they wanted and hang up all the pretty mobiles in the world, but it was a horrible place. I couldn’t imagine Wavonna spending five minutes there, let alone the four days I’d left her there.

Mrs. Berry hurried over with a big smile and said, “Oh, Mrs. Morrison, what a relief! Wavonna, honey, you had us so worried.”

That was the day I earned Wavonna’s trust. Mrs. Berry swooped toward us, clearly planning to deliver an enormous, smothering hug. I spread my feet and put out my arm to block her.

“Mrs. Berry, we need to talk to someone about changing classes.” She made a wounded face as we backed away from her. I had nothing against the woman, but I was too old to beat around the bush.

When I sat down with the school counselor, I took the same approach. I looked her square in the eye and said, “My granddaughter is not retarded.”

“Mrs. Morrison, we don’t use words like that anymore. Our concern is that her speech problems are a sign of developmental delays.”

“I don’t mean it to offend, but she’s not stupid. Look, here. Wavonna.”

She didn’t look at me, but I knew she was listening.

“Give me paper and a pencil.”

The counselor slid a sheet of paper and a ballpoint pen across the desk. I scooted Wavonna’s chair closer and said, “Go ahead and show her. Otherwise you’ll have to stay in the class with the loud lady.”

As soon as I mentioned the special-education teacher, Wavonna picked up the pen and put it to the paper. First, she wrote out her name, neat as can be. Below that, she wrote her alphabet: Aa Bb Cc, and on like that. Under that she put her numbers. Then she did something I didn’t even know she knew. She turned the paper over and wrote: Cassiopeia. Next to it, she drew five dots and connected them. Then seven more dots that she labeled Cepheus. She filled the paper up that way. The only ones I recognized were the Big and Little Dippers.

The way the counselor’s jaw dropped down set me to giggling. I laughed right in that poor woman’s face. Laughed until I cried. Before Wavonna, I’d been feeling pretty good. My cancer was in remission, and I had myself a nice retirement planned, before Wavonna moved in. After everything I’d been through in the last month, I needed a good laugh.

They put her in a regular classroom, but I told them right up front, “Don’t give her a nicey-nice teacher.” I spelled it out for them. Nobody could touch her. They couldn’t expect her to talk, but they shouldn’t assume she wasn’t listening and learning. I didn’t make requests and I didn’t apologize.

Things weren’t perfect after that, but they got better.

She lived with me for almost two years, and in all that time, she touched me twice. On what would have been Irv’s and my fortieth anniversary, I had a little wine and got maudlin. Wavonna touched my hand, my wedding ring. To comfort me, I think. The second time was right before Valerie got paroled, and I hired a lawyer to help her get custody of Wavonna and the baby she’d had while she was in prison.

We drove down to Tulsa for Leslie’s birthday and had a fine old time: singing, wearing silly hats, and cheering as Leslie ripped open packages. After all the big hoopla, the three girls settled into the living room to play, while Brenda and I cleaned up.

I couldn’t keep putting it off, so I sat down at the kitchen table and said, “I’ve been talking to Valerie’s lawyer about this transitional program she can get into.”