I stayed away for two weeks, but always checked up on Kevin and his dad by phonecall.
"How's he doing?"
"He's quiet." I rolled my eyes. When WASN'T he quiet? "He's stroking around in his jumper drawer a lot now."
I smiled knowingly. I knitted Kevin a lot of jumpers. He loved those jumpers more than he loved my care. One day I witnessed him holding them up to himself in the full-length mirror, smiling and rubbing his cheek against the softness of each one. When he saw that I'd witnessed this chink in his armour, he flew at the door with a wild fury, and was extra-naughty for weeks. From a young age, we knew that Kevin had a jumper fetish.
When I returned, we made an effort to go to Church, a vain attempt to 'save' my son. As a family, we were never particularly religious. My husband was catholic, but he never forced it on us. However, I think he was relieved to return to a more church-going lifestyle.
I hoped the Church wasn't too focused on 'straaaaaight to Hell' style politics, because I knew Kevin would be spellbound in a ghoulish way. No, I wanted Kevin to be a good boy. But Church affected Kevin deeply-He loved the preaching of Cardinal Roarke (yes, back when Roarke was a lowly priest!) and really sat up and took notice. Too much notice, because as glad that I was that Kevin was enjoying Church, he started to quote Bible verses, showing off, repeating, schreeching them throughout the house, Bible verses again and again and again. Apart from the same blunt sentences and odd, disfigured Bible-quote-chanting, Kevin was his silent self, like a Chaplin film without the humour.
At another school meeting, Miss Blake gushed "I really think Kevin could benefit from special classes, Mrs. Miller!" I think apart from Kevin getting a 'higher' education, she would also relish the idea of Kevin out of her hair, out of his classroom with a special teacher (there had been more attempted scalpings). I agreed, and the lessons were underway.
They were set up rather cheesily, so that 'creative craft' would be set up for Kevin, and the teacher could 'discover him at work' as it were, and question him about it-this was to build confidence and vocabulary. Kevin was surprised at the amount of activities that greeted his destructive little self, and settled himself at a table, scribbling with 'bigboy' pencil crayons. The teacher snuck up on him.
"Oooh, that's a nice drawing. What are you drawing there?" The pencils slowly slid from Kevin's grasp.
"Oh, it's a shame you've stopped. What are these? Flowers? Boats?"
He stared at his picture. The teacher was fat.
"I bet a big boy like you isn't drawing flowers! That was a silly question, wasn't it?"
No reaction. You see, a technique with mute children is to bombard them with questions. Be relentless, make them annoyed enough until they are forced to answer. But Kevin was no mute, he was just very selective. She tried for two more hours, but he stared steadily at her until she flopped back into her chair.