Children of the Fleet (Fleet School #1)(18)

—Events can’t be controlled, Dabeet. They can only be influenced.

—Just like people.

—You’ve passed all my tests now, Dabeet. Welcome to Fleet School.

What do you do when all your plans work out? When all your dreams come true?

In his heart, Dabeet was already gone. From the moment Graff told him he was accepted into Fleet School, Dabeet detached from his friends. None had been close—or so it seemed to Dabeet, since he never felt toward his friends the kind of relentless dependency that others seemed to feel. He noticed when he wasn’t included in some event—a party, a movie, a new game—but he didn’t mind much, because he had other things to do. And now that he was preparing to go to Fleet School, he declined such invitations as he received. There was no point in investing any more time and effort with people he would never see again.

His friends, if they noticed his increased distance, said nothing about it. It was the teachers who were most demanding. Dabeet had not understood until now how much his teachers valued him. They were so eager to congratulate him—not just once, but over and over. And without Dabeet telling a soul about it, news of his acceptance into Fleet School flew through Charlie Conn. But only the teachers seemed to think it mattered much.

There was only one real surprise for Dabeet—how painful it was to think of leaving Mother. For more than a year, he had bent all his efforts to get away from her, preferably with many miles of empty space between them. Now that he was really leaving, he began to realize how completely she had given over her life to him, and how dependent he was on her. Perhaps one of the reasons he hadn’t minded that he didn’t have close friends was that his mother cared about everything he did, praised what was praiseworthy, commiserated with his miseries, and constantly told others how gifted he was. That which had been most annoying about her—the constant brag, the promises and lies—was now the mainstay of his life, and he could not imagine living without seeing her every day.

And yet when she immediately started trying to think of ways to come with him, he resisted her almost instinctively. Yes, he would miss her, and going to this new school would be frightening because of her absence. But he also knew that it would be disastrous if, through some fluke, she were allowed to come along.

“They must need some kind of nursing staff for the children,” said Mother. “It wouldn’t take me long to take a refresher course.”

“Nursing staff?” asked Dabeet.

“I was a school nurse, once upon a time,” said Mother.

It was the first Dabeet had ever heard of it. “Then why aren’t you working in medicine?”

“Because I chose not to,” said Mother. “I chose to work at the same kind of job as the other women in the neighborhood.”

“They hate their jobs.”

“And so do I,” said Mother. “Why do they do their jobs even though they hate them?”

“To put food on the table for their families.”

Mother shrugged as if that answer would do for her, as well.

“Mother, with a nursing job you could put far more food on the table!”

“Have you ever been hungry? Did you aspire to be fat?”

“Why would you work at a job beneath your ability when—”

“And they probably need cleaning staff in Fleet School, too. Anything. I could be useful.”

“It’s a boarding school, Mother,” said Dabeet. “Do you want to infantilize me by being the only mother who followed her child to school?”

“Nobody even has to know I’m your mother.”

“Then what would be the point?” asked Dabeet. “Stay here and … get a real job, one you like.”

“I have the job I like, Dabeet.”

“But that job is disappearing. This household is being downsized, from two persons to one. You’re the one. Now it’s time for you to take care of yourself.”

Mother’s eyes filled with tears so suddenly that Dabeet thought for a moment that tears had squirted out away from her face instead of merely spilling over her lids and down her cheeks. “What self do you think I have left?” she asked softly.

Dabeet’s first response was the one that Mother had intended: He threw his arms around her and began to weep as well.

But his mind could not stop working, and he thought: She took me when I was too young to ask. She freely offered the gift of caring for me, and I’m grateful. But I’m not in bondage to her. In the sense that I never consciously incurred a debt, being a child, I owe her nothing, not in a way where she has a right to compel me to repay. “Am I not what you raised me to be?” whispered Dabeet. “Am I not doing what you always said you wanted me to do?”

“I wanted your father to recognize you,” Mother answered in a voice made almost unintelligible by weeping. “I wanted you to have your heritage. But I never thought I’d lose you.”

“Every mother loses every child,” said Dabeet.

“Not when they’re ten!”

“Some much younger than eleven,” said Dabeet. “You let the child go when it’s for the child’s own good.” Almost he added, The way my birth mother gave me to you. But it was better to let her believe that he still believed her version of his birth and infancy.

“Dabeet, I always said that I meant for you to go to Fleet School, but I never…”