Note: The muse for this story finally returned! She'd been gone for so long I thought I'd have to go visit the bog witch to retrieve her like Hans Christian Anderson had to his fairy tale in "The Will-o-Wisps are in Town." And I feel about this story much the way he felt about his. "But they will only think that it's a fairy tale when it is earnest truth." The special education teacher in me definitely comes out in this one. This is to all of my not-quite-legally neglected kiddos.
"Mommy, can I have a friend come over?" Naima begs as I pick her up after school.
"Sure," I say, trying to remember the proper protocol for play dates. I never had to worry about this before. She always had instant friends with the wonders of Air Force wives. But my daughter is too old for that sort of friendship that starts with parents and trickles down. Naima is ready for real friends, ones that she chooses. "We'll just give her mom a call."
"She said her mom doesn't care," Naima declares.
"Sure, honey," I say in disbelief. "Do you have her mom's phone number?"
Naima nods.
"Ok, we'll give her a call tonight."
-0-0-0-
"Hello, this is Naima's mother," I say into the phone when a woman answers with a rather surely "yeah" later that night.
"Who's?" she asks, with an even grumpier tone of voice.
"Naima. Our daughters go to school together," I respond.
"Right, ya wanta speak ta Claire? I think the rat is around here some place," she says, beginning to scream her daughter's name without removing her mouth more than a few centimeters from the mouthpiece. I flinch at both the volume and harshness.
"No, actually I wanted to speak to you. My daughter was wondering if Claire could come over to our house sometime."
"So then you do wanta speak to Claire," the woman says, sounding tired.
"No, I want to know if Claire has your permission to come home with me after school tomorrow. I'll drop her off after dinner."
"Claire can do whatever she wants," the woman says.
"She's seven!" I exclaim, immediately kicking myself in the butt for having put myself at odds with the mother of my daughter's first friend.
"Yeah, and that's plenty old enough to arrange her own schedule," the woman says, hanging up the phone before I can say anther word. It was probably for the best, because I didn't really have another word planned.
-0-0-0-
"Dan'yel, once on Abydos, when I was a child, there was a little girl who got beaten by her father," I say that night when we are both in bed. He rolls over and studies my face, "The village elders took her away and gave her to a young couple who couldn't have children," I explained. He nods his head, waiting for me to continue, "What would have happened had she lived in America?"
"Well, hopefully," he says, "Someone would report her to social services and she would have become a foster child."
"Like you," I say.
He nods his head.
"You didn't like foster care," I remind him.
"Right, but that was just me. Some places are better than others."
"But none of them are family," I say sadly.
"Well, actually some of them are. Sometimes kids stay with a family for a long time. They just can't get adopted for some reason or another."
"But what are the odds of a kid ending up in a home like that?" I ask.
He looks at me for a few long seconds before he says, "Sha'uri, do you know about a kid being beaten? Because I don't care how bad foster care is, it is most certainly better than that."
"No," I shake my head, "Maybe on Earth they don't do anything. If… if a child just isn't taken care of."
He shakes his head, "Sometimes neglect is enough reason for a child to be taken out of a home. That's often a bit harder than an abuse case. Especially if the parents say they are willing to make changes. Who do you know of that's being neglected?"
"I don't really know anything for sure. I could just be overreacting. I could have just caught the woman on a bad day. Lord knows I've had enough bad days myself. But…"
"Your gut tells you something is wrong," he presses.
I nod my head.
"Who?"
"Naima has a friend from school. She's actually coming over to our house tomorrow," I say.
"Ok, then we'll have more information soon, and we'll be able to talk about what to do about it," he says, holding me close as I fall asleep.
"I just can't imagine someone not loving a kid. They're so easy to love."
And my husband's voice takes on a tone I've never heard before as he says, "I can."
I can't believe I haven't talked with him about his childhood more. I knew that he didn't want to talk about it, but that isn't really an excuse. What did my husband go through in the years before I knew him?
And what is this little girl going through right now?
-0-0-0-
The next day, when I got to pick the kids up from school, Naima is standing there holding the hand of a seven-year-old girl. The girl has blond hair, and huge frightened blue eyes.
"Hi!" I exclaim, opening the door.
"Ma'am Naimsey told me that I could come home with you. But that can't be right, can it?" she asks uncertainly.
"Yes, you can come over and play tonight," I assure her with a smile.
"Thank you, Ma'am," she says bashfully.
"You can call me Sha'uri," I say, getting out of the car to help her settle into the car seat. It's the one that Eshe uses, so I know it will take a little adjustment to make it fit an older girl. She's old enough that I could just let her sit in a seat, but I'm kind of paranoid about all those safety things.
"What are those?" she asks, cocking her head to the side as she looks at all three of the car seats.
"Car seats," Naima explains, unphased by the question. "You know, safety first."
"How come we use them and your mother doesn't?" Claire asks.
"They're only for little kids. You're supposed to wear them 'til you're like a big kid or whatever. Your mom probably just had you stop wearing them when you got bigger."
"I'm pretty sure that my mother never had me wear them," Naima says with certainly.
"Well, you'll wear them tonight," I tell her as I finish pulling the straps into submission and buckling her in.
"Thank you, Mrs. Jackson," she says, with a bright smile and so much gratitude that you would have thought I'd done something truly extraordinary for her.
"It's DR. Jackson," Naima corrects.
"Not quite yet, it isn't," I tell her.
Naima turns to her friend proudly, "Soon, both of my parents are going to be doctors!" I shut the car door, and by the time I open the driver's side door again my daughter is just finishing up a discussion on how our doctorates are different than the medical kind. "It mostly means they are like the smartest people in the galaxy."
I'm about to protest when Claire adds, "Sorta like you're the smartest girl in the class."
I grin at this report about my daughter's achievement. I figured that she was probably doing pretty well in school. After all, she was way ahead back when she was homeschooled. When I started sending them to school and day care during the day last year, I put Naima in first grade, although she was the age of the kindergarteners. Her grades showed I made the right choice. So when we moved back to the Springs after I finished the class part of my schooling (leaving only the dissertation) my daughter entered the second grade, although she hasn't quite turned six.
"Do you two have any homework?" I ask in the rearview mirror.
"Yeah, we've gotta read a book," Claire explains.
"Don't worry, Mommy, we'll do it before we go play," Niama assures me. "Otherwise Claire might forget again. Claire forgets to do her homework lots of the time."
I smile as Claire shots Naima a look of shock and dismay.
"It's true, Claire," Naima defends.
"Yes, but sometimes it's more polite not to say the truth," I offer from the front seat.
Little pearls of wisdom like this are the only punishment our oldest daughter really needs. So she's doing this pouty remorseful thing. Her younger sister, that one takes more discipline.
"So, Claire, tell me what you like to do for fun?" I ask.
"Fun?" she asks, puzzled.
"What do you do at home?" I ask her.
"Mostly I play with Jonny," she explains.
"Jonny is your brother?" I ask.
"He's a baby," Naima explains, "And she doesn't play with him. She takes care of him like you take care of Danny."
I glance back at Claire.
"Johnny isn't a baby, he's two years old."
"Do you take care of your brother?" I ask her.
She shrugs.
"Do you feed him, change his diapers, pick him up when he cries?" I flinch at the last one. This girl is so tiny that I can almost see damage to her spine when she tries to pick up her little brother.
"Mostly, but only since Matty left," she says.
"Matty?" I ask.
"Yeah, he's my big brother. He got runded away through," she says, hiding a sniffle.
I feel like my heart is shattered into a million pieces.
"I hope Jonny will be ok without me," she says.
"I'm sure your Mommy and Daddy are going to take care of him," I assure her.
"Nope, his Daddy and my Daddy aren't the same, and they both lefted," she says.
The picture of this family is just getting worse and worse. "Well, I'm sure your Mommy will take good care of your little brother. That's a mommy's job," I tell her.
Claire nods her little head, but she looks unconvinced. I can't imagine a little girl growing up not knowing what mothers are for. I intend to show her over the next couple of hours.
-0-0-0-
"Is this your Daddy?" Claire asks in shock, looking up… and up… at my husband.
"Yep," Naima says, with a big grin on her face.
"He's way prettier than all of my Daddies," Claire says decidedly.
"Daddies aren't pretty," Naima informs her, "They're handsome."
"Fine, but yours is the handsomest Daddy," Claire continues. My husband's face is burning bright red by this time.
"Claire, we're having hamburgers and fries for dinner. My girls are possibly the pickiest eaters in the world, so I thought I'd ask you if you liked it," he says.
"What's dinner?" Claire asks.
My husband thinks it's a joke, "Oh, just a colloquialism for the evening meal."
"Colloque…?" she questions.
Naima rolls her eyes, "Daddy is trying to make a joke. Dinner is when your family all sits at the table and eats. 'Member, we do it when we play house."
Claire's eyes go big, "I thought you made that up! I didn't know families eat all together like they do at school. For real? Do you do it every night?"
Naima nods her head.
"And you'll let me do it, too?" she asks with pure joy on her face.
Daniel glances at me in shock and pain.
"Of course we'll let you do it," I assure her. She grins.
The two girls head off to their room to do some homework, and Daniel turns to me, "She seriously didn't know what dinner was?"
"And apparently she spends most of her time raising her baby brother since her dad, and the brother's dad, and the big brother, all took off," I whisper.
"Is the mom home when she's taking care of the brother?" Daniel asks desperately.
I shrug.
"If she is, there might not be anything we can report," he says sadly.
"What?" I ask in shock, "Are you kidding me? She's never even seen a car seat!"
"I know honey, but unless she's actually leaving the kids alone, she's not doing anything illegal."
"It's still wrong," I insist.
"I agree with you, but wrong isn't going to help us get this kid into a better situation," he says.
"I'm going to go check on them," I say.
"Good idea, I think she could use a bit of smothering." Danny lets out a cry from his playpen, and Daniel moves over to pick him up.
Claire was running down the steps at the sound of tears.
"I've got this," Daniel assures her.
"Habit," Claire says bashfully.
"You know, I love your name," Daniel says, smiling at her as he picks up his son.
She has a look of shock on her face that makes me wonder if this is the first compliment that the little girl has ever gotten.
"My mom had the same name," Daniel says.
"I'm named after my Mommy's mom, but she died," Claire admits.
"My parents died too," Daniel says, locking eyes with her, "When I was not much older than you."
"That's not fair," the girl says.
"No, life is certainly not fair," he says. Although this sentence is also true for him, I know that he's thinking about the little girl as he says it.
"Well, Claire, can I come listen to the two of you read a book?" I ask.
"I'm a super bad reader," Claire confesses.
"That's ok, I bet you the story is good enough that I'll enjoy it even if it's not read perfectly," I tell her.
She grins at me, "It's an ok story, it's about this boy named Max and some monsters he plays with."
"Ah, Where the Wild Things Are, that is a good one," I say.
"I guess, I'd rather it was about aliens, I love aliens. Do you like them, Mrs. Jackson?" she asks.
"I certainly do," Daniel says from downstairs, and I can't help but laugh.
-0-0-0-
I sit down on the bed of Naima's room, and each of the second graders sits down next to me as I hold the book. Eshe rushes over, and wiggles her way onto my lap. I put an arm around Claire as I hold the book with the other hand.
Claire looks at me in surprise, but it's clear that she is liking it. The girls take turns reading the one page after the other. Naima reads hers effortlessly and quickly. Claire's are a bit of a struggle. When we're done, Eshe begs, "Again."
I oblige, reading the whole thing again with voices and expression. When I finish, I hear Claire's "again" spoken so softly that I don't think that I was meant to hear. I read it again with even more feeling.
"I can find another book," Naima says, rushing off to the bookshelf.
Then my daughter and I have the same thought at the same time. Naima turns to her friend and says, "You want to pick out a book?" and the same time I say, "Why don't you let Claire pick out a book?"
The two rush over to the bookshelf, and Naima suggests the classics while Claire examines the selection. Daniel enters the room and sets his son on the floor, and smiles.
"Mr. Jackson, your wife is letting me pick out a book. Any book! And then she's going to read it to me!" she says.
"Wow," Daniel says, as if this weren't the sort of thing that happened five times a day in our house.
Claire picks up a book and looks at it in confusion, "Is this book written in alien language?"
My husband and I are trying to keep back the chuckle. After all, we do have books in this house that are written in alien languages. They just aren't on our children's bookshelves.
"No silly, it's just Arabic. That's one of my Daddy's books. When he was little, that's the language he spoke."
"How come?" Claire asks.
"Well, his mommy and daddy and him used to live in Egypt, and that's what they speak there," Naima explains.
"Wow, did you ever meet a mummy?" Claire asks clearly impressed.
"No, I can't say I ever did," Daniel says with a chuckle.
"Can you read me this book?" she asks handing it to him.
"Ah sure, do you want me to translate the words into English?" he asks.
She shakes his head.
"Ok, but then you won't understand them," he warns.
"That's ok, I can tell it is beautiful, and if you turned it into English all the beautiful parts would be gone."
"That's true. It's poetry, and poetry never translates well," my husband concedes as he begins the book. I haven't heard my husband read to the kids in a few years. Ever since Eshe got big enough to request her own stories, we double-teamed story time. And then their brother came along, and the story time had to be split three ways.
I'd forgotten how amazing my husband was at making a story live using nothing but his voice.
Claire closes her eyes, and rocks slightly as the words wash over her. Her reaction to the Arabic poetry is even more beautiful than the poetry itself.
I don't know much Arabic, only the bit I picked up in Egypt. But I know enough to understand that the poem is a description of a long ended battle. I think that understanding them might actually detract from their beauty. And the kids who know no more Arabic than a greeting and 'please' and 'thank you' are enjoying this story even more than the adults.
As the poem finishes, Claire opens her eyes, and they are shinning.
"I told you words were magical," Naimia reminds her.
"The words at school were never as magical as that," Claire defends.
It occurs to her suddenly that Claire probably doesn't own a book. "Honey, would you like to pick out a few books to take home with you. You can keep them and read them for a while, and then trade them for new ones."
For a second Claire's eyes are shining in pure joy. Then she shakes her head, "No, I'd better not, something might happen to them."
I don't say anything else, because I don't feel like I have a right to risk my daughter's books. But Naima and Eshe both clamor over themselves to offer her the books anyway.
Claire carefully selects books. They are both thick and pictured filled. One is a book of fairy tales while the other is Winnie-the-Pooh.
"Keep them as long as you like," I say, having the irresistible urge to give her a hug. She goes stiff the minute I touch her. I am about to pull away, but then she relaxes and leans into it, and makes a contented sigh which makes my heart absolutely melt.
-0-0-0-
Claire is having so much fun that I almost hate to bring her home. After reading stories, she and Naima made a fort. Claire was so tentative at first. "Isn't this going to make a mess?" she'd asked. After both Daniel and I assured her again and again that we REALLY didn't care about the mess, she finally attacked the idea with relish. Then she'd made Naima help clean it up, which certainly didn't hurt her case with me.
We'd had dinner afterward, and she'd loved that as well. We always ask all of our kids what they learned in school that day. Our kids roll their eyes at having to answer the question. Claire got excited and described the day with all the detail of an epic poet describing a battle.
And then, although I'd promised to bring her home right after supper, I let the kids catch fireflies in the back yard for a while. But it was a school night, and it was already past Naima's normal bedtime, so it was really time to bring her home.
The whole car ride back to her house was one long and detailed thank you from Claire. The things she thanked me for, the really simple stuff that I did every single day for my own kids, almost broke my heart more than anything else.
And then I followed her directions until I pulled up in front of her house. There was nothing really wrong with the house itself. A bit of chipping paint, and a few excess weeds. It didn't really look like a place a kid would live, but absence of toys in the front yard doesn't always mean an absence of toys. What really gets me is Claire's reaction to arriving in front of her own house. She goes silent and stiff.
"Honey, are you ok?" I ask, looking back at her.
"I'm fine, Mrs. Jackson," she says in a voice devoid of all the excitement that I've heard in the past few hours.
"Honey, is there anything you need to tell me about your house? Does… your mother ever hurt your or your brother?" I ask, almost hopefully. I don't want Claire to be hurt, but I do want her away from here.
She shakes her head.
"Ok," I say, putting the car in park, "I'm going to come in with you."
"No," Claire says shaking her head hard, "Mommy doesn't like us to have company when the house is messy," her head goes down, "And the house is always messy."
"I am just going to come in for a minute. I can't very well just leave you on step like a package," I say, trying to turn it into a lighthearted jest.
I ring the doorbell.
"Claire! Get the door," a woman bellows.
I'm quite worried that the woman doesn't appear to know that her daughter hasn't been home all afternoon, but Claire isn't bothered by it. She opens the door up, and gestures me inside.
"Mrs. Moore?" I ask, entering the house.
The toddler starts to cry.
"Claire!" the woman yells, but she really didn't need to, Claire was already running down the hallway to retrieve her baby brother.
"Mrs. Moore?" I ask again, walking toward the voice that came from the kitchen.
"Who are you?" she asks.
"I'm Sha're Jackson. We talked on the phone. Our daughters are friends, and she's been over at my house all afternoon."
"Well, that explains why that crying kept me awake. I work nights, and Claire keeps the boy quiet," the woman grumbles.
"Did it occur to you to go check on your son?" I ask.
"I don't need parenting advice from you," she says, narrowing her eyes at me, "It's called self-sooth'ng. It's in the books 'n everything."
"True," I confess, "But when with self-soothing , you're supposed to check on the kid first to make sure that they are fine. Then if they are just crying because they don't want to go to sleep, you leave them."
"Mommy," Claire says, carrying a boy that is almost half of her size, "Did you feed Johnny?"
"Course I fed him. You think I can't take care of my own kids?" she says angrily.
"He said he hasn't eaten since day care," Claire says.
"The boy lied, he had food not twenty minutes ago," Mrs. Moore says angrily.
"I'll just make him something," I offer.
"I can take care of my own kids," the woman says, angrily pulling bread and peanut butter out of the cupboard to make a sandwich. "Get out of my house!"
"Of course," I say softly. "Claire, I loved having you over, we'll have to do it again some time."
She nods her head, but I can see the conflict. She feels responsible for her brother's hunger. As much as she wants to come to my house and be a kid, I can tell she also wants to stay here and be a mother.
