It was why she didn"t like the television. All the filled-in faces. She wanted, sometimes, to ask people about their memories. Do you remember people when you are away from them? The faces? At what point do they come alive?
Even her husband"s face grown ghostly.
But she never said these things. She kept to herself. Smiling, quiet, clean. She and her son.
Never causing trouble.
Keeping things up.
Arriving on time for the social worker.
The clinic.
The dentist, who said it was all right if she sat on the chair and he sat on her lap to be examined. Otherwise he"ll scream.
Fine, then, Mrs. Verbeck. Just keep it up. Keep him away from sugar snacks. Fresh fruit. Apples or carrot sticks. Water rather than soda or other sweetened drinks.
Yes, thank you. Yes.
You"ve done a good job. Not one cavity. You floss his teeth?
I will.
We"ll show you how. Miss Havenick, the hygienist, will show you.
"Let"s open our mouth, Billy."
Not yours. His.
And mine.
She wanted to phone the call-in radio and ask one of the doctors. Are the faces of people empty to other people as they are to me?
Except his face. The one face I have always known.
At night while he slept she sat on a stool beside him just to learn his face. So that she never would forget.
An angry baby. Happy only in her arms.
He doesn"t take to strangers. Thanks, no, I can manage. Thanks.
Did anyone look at her face? In the shadowy childhood, family of shadow, furniture the part of it that she remembered most. The green couch. The red chair.
Did anyone look at my face?
He needs a group experience.
But we are happiest alone.
But never say it. She knew what people thought. Children need other children. They believe that, everyone believes it.
Only I do not believe it.
Only he and I.
Happy, happy in the studio apartment, in the trailer, in the bas.e.m.e.nt rented in the rotting house. Happy in the supermarket, laundromat, bank where we stand on line to cash the check from welfare. Singing, eating meals we love, the walks we take, bringing back leaves, pinecones. Puzzles we do in silence, cartoon shows we watch.
She wanted to say to them: "We"re very happy."
She never said these things. She moved.
Five towns. Five different states.
He needs a group experience.
This time she thinks they may be right. Now he is four years old. Next year, no hope.
No hope. No hope.
All I have ever wanted.
On the first day of school, she dresses him. She didn"t dare to buy new clothes for school. She puts on him the clothes that he has worn all summer. Black jeans with an elastic waist. An orange short-sleeved shirt with a design of a bear on the left breast pocket. White socks, his old red sneakers he is proud of. Velcro. He can do them himself.
The teacher says: "He"s never had a group experience?"
"No, just with me."
"Maybe, then, for the first few days you can stay with him. For a little while. Until he adjusts to the group situation."
She sees the other mothers bought their boys and girls new clothes. And for themselves. She parks the car behind the church and waits till they have all gone in the little building, like a hut, built for the children. All the other mothers know each other. Like each other. And the children.
There is no one that we know.
The teacher is standing at the door. "Good morning Jessica, Kate, Michael, Daniel, Jason, Alison." "And here comes Billy."
Children are playing on the swings and slides.
Children are playing in the sandbox.
Girls are pretending to cook at the toy stove, using toy pots and spoons and dishes.
Boys are in the corner making a house of large blocks, then shoving it down, building it, knocking it down, fighting, building.
Billy hides his face in her shoulder.
"I won"t leave you."
"Maybe tomorrow," says the teacher. "After he gets more used to the group, you"ll feel that you can leave after a while."
The teacher"s pants are elastic-waisted, like the children"s pants. She wears blue eye shadow, her fingernails are pink as sh.e.l.ls. She is wearing sandals with thin straps. She is wearing stockings underneath the sandals. JoAnn wonders: Maybe they are socks that only look like stockings. Maybe they stop.
At night he says: "Don"t take me back there."
"All right," she says. Later she says: "I made a mistake. We have to go."
The second day of school he will not look at anybody. When the teacher puts her hand on his shoulder to ask if he sees anything he might like to play with, he pushes her hand away and looks at her with rage. "No one said you could touch me." He hides his eyes. He grinds his eyes into his mother"s shoulder blade.
She"s proud that he can speak up for himself. But she is frightened. Now what will they do?
In the playground, he lets her push him on a swing. She lights a cigarette. The other mothers don"t approve, although they try to smile. They tell her about their children, who had problems getting used to school.
"My oldest was like that. Till Christmas."
No one is like us. No one is like he is.
One morning he says he"s tired. She tells him he doesn"t have to go to school. She keeps him home for three days. Both of them are happy.
But the next day it"s worse in school. Only one of the mothers smiles at her. She says: "You know, maybe Billy"s finding the group too large. Maybe he could just come over to our house. Daniel"s used to the group. If they made friends, maybe that would help Billy in the group."
"Thank you," joAnn says. "But we"re so busy."
The social worker says: "You"re not working on this separation."
Everything has been reported. The social worker takes it as a bad sign that loAnn refused the other mother"s invitation. Which she knows about.
"If I were you," she says, "... or maybe some counseling. For both your sakes."
JoAnn is terrified. She tells the other mother she would like to come. The other mother writes her name and address down on a piece of paper torn from a pad in the shape of an apple with a bite out of it. It says "Debi- 35 Ranch Road." And in parentheses, "Dan"s mom." For this, she buys her son new clothes.
He never cries anymore. n.o.body can make him do anything he doesn"t want to. His eyes are bright green stones. No one can make him do anything. This makes her feel she has done right.
The morning that they are going to the house they take a bath together. They laugh, they soap each other"s backs. Lately she sees him looking at her s.e.x a second longer than he ought to, and his eyes get hard and angry when he sees she sees. She knows they will not bathe together much longer after this year. But this year. Yes.
Debi, the mother, has to look several places for an ashtray. JoAnn hasn"t realized there are no ashtrays until she has already lit up. They are both embarra.s.sed. Debi says, "Somehow most of the people I know quit." She goes through her cabinets and then finds one from a hotel in Canada. "We stole it on our honeymoon," she says, and laughs.
Billy knows his mother doesn"t want him to play with Danny. She knows he knows. But she can feel his bones grow lively on her lap; she feels his body straining toward the other children. Danny and his sisters, Gillian and Lisa. And the toys. The house is full of toys. Trucks, cars, blocks, toy dinosaurs are scattered all over the wooden floors. But the house is so big it still looks neat with all the toys all over. The house is too big, too light. The house frightens JoAnn. She holds Billy tighter on her lap. He doesn"t move, although she knows he wants to. And she knows he must.
"Look at the truck," she says. "Should we go over and look at that truck?"
Debi jumps out of her chair, runs over to the children.
"Let"s show Billy the truck. See Danny"s truck, Billy?" She gets down on her knees. "Look how the back goes down like this."
JoAnn doesn"t know whether or not to go down on her knees with Debi and the other children. She stands back. Billy looks up at her. His fingers itch to touch the truck. She sees it. She gives him a little push on the shoulders. "Go play," she says. She lights another cigarette and puts the match in the heart-shaped ashtray she has carried with her.
Billy isn"t playing with the other children. He is playing alongside them. Danny and his sisters are pretending to make dinner out of clay. They don"t talk to Billy; they don"t invite him to play with them; they leave him alone, and he seems happy with the truck. She sees he has forgotten her. For him she is nowhere in the room.
Debi says, "Let"s go into the kitchen and relax. They"re fine without us."
JoAnn feels the house will spread out and the floor disappear. She will be standing alone in air. The house has no edges; the walls are not real walls. Who could be safe here?
In the kitchen in a row below the ceiling there are darker-painted leaves. She tells Debi she likes them.
"I did them myself. I"m kind of a crafts freak. Are you into crafts?" JoAnn says she always wanted to do ceramics.
"I do ceramics Thursday nights," says Debi. She brings a cookie jar shaped like a bear to the table. "I made this last month," she says. "And while you"re at it, have one." She offers JoAnn the open jar. "I made them for the kids, but if you won"t tell I won"t."
The cookies frighten JoAnn. The raisins, and the walnuts and the oatmeal that will not dissolve against her tongue.
"If you want, there"s room in our ceramics cla.s.s on Thursdays. I think it"s important to have your own interests, at least for me. Get away, do something that"s not connected to the kids. Get away from them and let them get away from you."
JoAnn begins to cough. She feels she cannot breathe. The walls of the big room are thinning. She is alone in freezing air. Her ribs press against her thin lungs. Debi says: "You okay, JoAnn?"
"I smoke too much. This year, I"m really going to quit. I"ve said it before, but now, this year I"m really going to do it."
They hear a child scream. They run into the living room. Danny is crying.
"He hit me with the truck."
"Did you hit him with the truck?" JoAnn says. "Tell Danny you"re sorry."
Billy looks at them all with his bright eyes. Except at her. He does not look at his mother. He knows she doesn"t want him to apologize. He knows that she is glad he did it. He did it for her. She knows this.
"We"ve got to be going," says JoAnn, picking Billy up. He presses the truck to him. "Put the truck down," she says.
He doesn"t look at anyone.
"Don"t go," says Debi. "Really, they were doing great. All kids get into things like that. They were doing great for a long time."
"We"ve got to go," JoAnn says, looking in the pocket of her plaid wool jacket for the keys. "Billy, give Danny back his truck."
"Danny, can Billy borrow the truck till school tomorrow?" Debi asks.
JoAnn pulls the truck from her son"s grip.
"Thanks, but he doesn"t need it," she says, smiling, handing back the truck. "It isn"t his."
The truck falls from her hand. It makes a hard sound on the wooden floor. Hearing the sound, Danny begins to cry again.
"Let"s try it again," says Debi. "They were really doing great there for a while."
JoAnn smiles, holding Billy more tightly. "Sure thing," she says.
At night, while he sleeps and she sits on the stool beside his bed to watch, she thinks of him in the room with the other children. Him forgetting. She thinks of him pushing the truck back and forth on the floor beside the other children, thinks of the walls thinning out, and her thin lungs that cannot enclose the breath she needs to live.
Alone. Alone.
All I have ever wanted.