Risking It All Page 14

  “Wait up, Jeff. Hey, Danny, want to sail one with me?”

  “I don’t know how,” Danny said, looking down.

  “Me neither. We can try to figure it out together. You in?”

  Danny shrugged.

  “Yes or no?”

  Danny didn’t answer but he walked over to the rental booth with Charlie and they spent the next half hour trying to position the boat so it would catch the wind and sail across the pond. At first Danny just watched, but little by little he got involved, and when Charlie offered him the controls he took them eagerly, joining in a discussion of the best sailing strategy. They weren’t very successful, especially compared to another boy whose father, they learned, was a sailing instructor in Montauk, but they did manage to get it going a few times. Marcia looked gratefully at Charlie, thinking how different it would be if Jeff could bring himself to behave that way with Danny. Even Jeff seemed chastened. After they returned the boats, he offered to put Griffin in the stroller and play catch with Danny, but Danny said he had a lot of homework and asked if he could just go home. Jeff tried to share a “see what I mean” look with Charlie but Charlie wasn’t looking his way. Jeff shrugged and said, sure, Danny could go home, so Danny turned to leave. Marcia reminded him to say goodbye and thank you to Charlie, and he dutifully did. She asked if he had his key, which he didn’t, so she gave him hers. After he left, Charlie looked at his watch and said it was time for him to go too. Jeff said he needed to go into the office for a few hours so the men shook hands and said their goodbyes. Marcia didn’t object. It had gotten to the point where it was easier when Jeff wasn’t there. She helped take Griffin out of the backpack and put him in the stroller, and Jeff took off on his own since Marcia said she’d stay a bit longer in the park.

  She was sad to say goodbye to Charlie. This was the first family day they had spent in a long time and he was central to it. She also felt that she should have tried to talk to him more about his marital problem. It had segued so quickly into the trouble between her and Jeff, they had just glided past Charlie and Eden.

  “Do you have ten more minutes?” she asked.

  “Yeah. I think so. Why? What’s up?”

  “I thought maybe we could walk together for a bit.”

  “You going to tell me how to fix my marriage?”

  “No. As you can see from mine, I have no idea how to fix a marriage. I was just going to tell you how much I hope you can work things out. I know an outsider never knows what’s really going on in another marriage, but I always thought you two were good for each other.”

  “I thought so too.” He shrugged. “Look, it’s not a done deal. We’ve got plenty to work on and we know it. Maybe it’s just a rough patch and we’ll get through it. Don’t worry about us. But I’m worried about you.”

  She seemed surprised. “No. I don’t think there’s anything to worry about—long-term, I mean. I know things are tense now, but we’re going to work it out. I mean, we’re not talking about anything drastic. If we could just come to an agreement about Danny, everything would be okay.”

  “I hope you’re right. But I’m not so sure you can come to an agreement about Danny. Is there any way you would bend on that? How about boarding school?”

  “We’ve talked about it. He only just turned twelve and he’s behind a year at school. It would still be another two or maybe even three years before that could happen. And Charlie, his mom died in this dramatic way, he’s still adjusting to a drastically different life; it would be a second abandonment, a cruel act, to send him away now.”

  “It can’t be good for him to realize that he’s the cause of the trouble between you and Jeff. It can’t feel good to know how Jeff feels about him.”

  “I know. I try to tell Jeff. He’s not a bad person, you know that. He wouldn’t purposely hurt a child. But he feels threatened somehow. I honestly don’t understand it.”

  “I’ve never seen him take against someone like that,” Charlie said. “It’s almost like he blames him for what happened. It’s screwed up, but it’s almost like he’s jealous of him. I think Danny isn’t the only one who was traumatized by what happened. Maybe you need to get Jeff some help.”

  “I’ve tried. He went a few times and then refused.” She reached into her bag to get some Advil and swallowed two without water. “Look, I can’t manage my job and these kids and him too. He has to step up to the plate. I’m feeling pretty much like a single mother lately.”

  “Yeah. What’s up with that?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Why does he spend so much time in the office?”

  “You should understand that more than I. Do you think it’s too much?”

  “A bit.”

  “I wish you’d tell him that.”

  He looked uncomfortable. She noticed and blurted a thought she’d had before but had tried to convince herself to reject. “You don’t think he’s cheating, do you, Charlie? I mean, did he say anything?”

  “No. Nothing.”

  “Would you tell me?”

  “You know I would. He’s probably just working too hard. Maybe he’s using it as an excuse to stay away because life isn’t as much fun at home lately.”

  “It isn’t as much fun for me either,” she muttered angrily. She wasn’t at all sure Charlie would tell her if he knew.

  “I don’t know. But if I were you, and I was worried, I’d ask him.” He looked at his watch. “I really have to go now or I’ll miss my plane.” He gave her a hurried hug. “I’ll stay in touch. Good luck.”

  “Yeah, good luck to you too.”

  19

  The weeks passed and although there was little change in Jeff’s attitude or in the tension at home, there were no new dramatic episodes with Danny. Marcia had convinced herself that he was doing better. But it wasn’t as if all Danny’s problems had evaporated. He could still be sullen and uncommunicative at home, and he still had trouble at school. Having a friend made him happier but he still had problems controlling himself. When a math teacher forced him to stay after school in detention for throwing food across the room during lunch period, he claimed it was unfair. He told her he was just trading another kid a banana for an apple. The other kid was in the front row and he was in the back, they weren’t allowed to get up without permission and the teacher had stepped out of the room for a minute. She came in just as the banana whizzed across the room, accidentally hitting another boy in the head. Danny joined the rest of the class in laughing, but the boy started to cry—“like a baby,” Danny spat out derisively—and the teacher sent Danny to the principal’s office. He would have to do detention for a week, she told him, her face flushing red with anger. He looked at Joe Scelfo, the kid he had tried to trade with, hoping he’d support him, but Joe didn’t look back, staring fixedly at his desk. “It’s always my fault here,” Danny mumbled, suddenly feeling his eyes tear up and fighting hard not to shame himself by crying. “I didn’t do nothing bad.”

  “Leave now, Danny,” Mrs. Woolf had said in her most authoritative voice.

  “Stupid fucking bitch,” Danny hurled at her as he grabbed his books and lunch box and headed for the door.

  She heard him, of course. Everyone did.

  “What did you say?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “I’m talking to you. Do you hear me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then answer me. What did you say?”

  “Nothin’.”

  She wrote something on a piece of paper and put it in an envelope, licking it sealed. “Give this to the principal,” she said. She turned back to the class.

  “Now, who was able to solve the extra-credit problem in the homework?” she asked in a cheerful voice that everyone in the class knew was fake.

  Danny didn’t go to the principal’s office. He left the school and wandered around the streets for a while, warming up by stopping in shops where he looked so conspicuous—a gangly twelve-year-old kid alone during school hours—that he was wa
tched carefully. Finally, not knowing what else to do, he went back to school. He was seen and sent immediately to the principal’s office. His detention was three weeks instead of one—an extra two weeks for the rude words he had hurled at his teacher and for leaving the school without permission.

  The story of his outburst didn’t remain in his classroom. Word spread and soon it was the main topic of conversation among groups of kids huddled in the school yard during recess and among parents who congregated at the pickup point. Danny could hear the whispers, the voices that trailed off as he approached, just as he could feel people pointing at him or looking up from their conversations to indicate he was nearby, or stopping talking as soon as he approached. The worst part, however, was that the principal called Marcia, and because, as Marcia believed, luck had deserted their family, she was at work and Jeff was going in late that day so he took the call and called Marcia immediately after.

  The incident was another arrow in Jeff’s quiver, or at least that’s how Marcia saw it. Danny wasn’t a problem they could work on together; it was her against him, and every time Danny did something wrong, Jeff used it as ammunition. She almost believed he was glad Danny was getting in trouble because it proved his point. The upshot of this last incident was depressing. She no longer had hope for a reversal of Danny’s expulsion. He would have to leave the school and she had to look for the best replacement she could find. She was disappointed in, even angry, at his therapist. Danny had been going to him every week since he’d arrived and he still didn’t have enough self-control to hold back insulting curse words to his teacher or stop himself from barging out of school just because he was angry. She called to make an appointment to talk to the therapist directly. She hoped he would squeeze her in later that same day. She was lucky—he had a cancellation and told her to come right over.

  They called him Dr. Benson, but he wasn’t really a doctor. He wasn’t even a psychologist, which she would have preferred; those doctors were way too expensive. Dr. Benson was a clinical social worker who specialized in children and families, and though Marcia thought he wasn’t really up to a case as difficult and complicated as Danny’s, he was the best they could afford. One of the problems with Jeff’s refusal to actually adopt Danny was that he was not eligible for their health insurance, and every appointment, whether with the social worker or with a doctor when he needed one, had to be paid for out of their own pockets. Marcia left work early and headed to his office.

  Dr. Benson’s practice was on West Ninety-eighth Street in a walk-up brownstone on the third floor. She entered the small waiting room, sat on the cracked fake-leather couch and waited for Dr. Benson to call her in. Another woman sat in a faded side chair, looking nervous. Marcia nodded and smiled at her, and she nodded back. Marcia looked for a magazine to get her mind off how worried she was, but could only find that day’s New York Times, which she had already read. Further searching revealed a pile of People magazines, which she read only in doctors’ offices. A story about Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt caught her eye—reading about those two was her particular guilty pleasure—and she picked it up and leafed through it. A few minutes later, Dr. Benson entered from his inner office accompanied by a girl of about ten years old. The girl walked to the door without so much as glancing at the woman but they were obviously together because the woman hastily gathered her things and followed the girl out, calling to her to wait up. The doctor asked Marcia to wait for a few minutes and withdrew, returning shortly and asking her to come in.

  She got right to the point, explaining what had been happening and expressing her concerns about Danny. Dr. Benson was understanding but unapologetic. He explained what she already knew—this was a difficult, traumatic situation and would take time to resolve. He asked if there was anything going on at home that he should know about. That was the way in which the conversation passed from Danny to Marcia and Jeff. Dr. Benson suggested it would be best if Jeff would resume family counseling, but she explained that he was unwilling and lately unable to do that because of time constraints.

  “Look, Marcia, Danny was the child of a single mother. A boy his age really needs a male figure in his life, a kind of same-sex model for him to identify with and feel accepted by. This would have been a problem for Eve if she had lived, but not a difficult one. Most people handle this with family friends or uncles or teachers who become, excuse the word, ‘surrogates.’” He smiled, pleased with himself.

  Marcia gave a weak smile back.

  “But now he is an orphan so his needs are even more pronounced. There’s not just a missing father figure, there’s a hostile one and that is a much more serious problem. On top of that, he’s angry and he isn’t quite sure where to direct it. But he knows that all this would not have happened to him if you and Jeff had never come into his life. He doesn’t blame Griffin, fortunately, because he knows Griffin came from his mother and Griff is his last tangible connection to her. He is slowly coming to trust you. But he knows Jeff doesn’t like him, doesn’t want him and is uncomfortable with him, and when he behaves wildly or impulsively or angrily, it often comes from the combination of all those elements.”

  “I understand that,” she said quietly. “But what I can’t understand is where Jeff is coming from. Why is he so dead set against him?”

  “You know what he expressed to both of us in this office. This was not the life he signed on for, he says. He never even wanted a continuing relationship with Eve and he certainly doesn’t want to be a father to a twelve-year-old boy he thinks is disturbed.”

  “But that’s so selfish, so inflexible. I never saw that in him before.”

  “I think he’s jealous of your affection and attention to Danny, jealous in a way he doesn’t even understand or acknowledge. And because he knows that being jealous of a kid is wrong, he’s overreacting about the possible bad effect Danny could have on Griffin. And just as Danny hangs on to Griffin as the symbolic connection he can maintain with his mother, Jeff, in some deep unaware way, conflates Danny with all the bad luck you two have had. He looks for ways to reject him and, unfortunately, he finds them.”

  “Well, that’s just crazy and unacceptable. How can we fix something like that?”

  “With a long time in therapy. He needs to see and accept it first and then he needs to want to change it. I don’t see either of those happening if he won’t even come in to talk.”

  Her shoulders sagged and she closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “You’re right. So what should I do?”

  “I can’t tell you that.”

  She frowned.

  “I don’t mean because it wouldn’t be therapeutically correct, Marcia. I mean I don’t know. You have to work it out with Jeff.”

  She was about to thank him and get up to go, but she hesitated.

  “Was there something else?” he asked.

  “Well, there is something I’d like to ask you,” she said. “But I need you to be completely honest.”

  He bristled. “I’m always honest,” he replied crisply. “That’s my job.”

  “I’m sorry. I just wanted to emphasize how important your answer is. I don’t even really know exactly how to ask this.”

  He waited.

  “I guess I want to know if you think Danny is worth it. I mean, that sounds awful. Of course he is but what I mean is, will things get better? Will he get better? Am I fighting with my husband and creating a terrible atmosphere for my son and maybe even risking my marriage because I feel guilty in a lost cause, or is it Jeff who is unreasonable? I guess I want you to tell me I’m doing the right thing.”

  He seemed to be gathering his thoughts in the silence that followed. Sometimes silence served to prod Marcia to say more, but this time, she waited for him to speak.

  “Look, Marcia, I can’t totally answer all those questions. Do I think you feel guilty and are acting partially out of guilt? Yes. Do I think Jeff is being unreasonable? Partly. But do I think Danny is a lost cause? No. Definitely not. Only you can decide
what helping him is worth to you. But, if you can pull it off with Jeff, I would urge you not to give up on him. Remember how Danny was at the beginning? He still has problems, of course, but he’s doing better. It’s a long, slow process but there is undeniable improvement. His friendship with Raul is helping him a lot. Everyone needs a friend—some people have many, but having even one friend who likes you and whom you like is very important, as you know. For a kid like Danny, it could have been anyone. But he picked a really nice kid, from what I hear.”

  “Yeah. I’m grateful for small favors.”

  “It’s not small, Marcia. That’s my point.”

  “I guess that’s what I needed to hear. Thank you.”

  She gathered her bag and coat and said goodbye. On the way out she checked her messages. Jeff had called to say that he had cancelled an important meeting and decided to come home that evening to handle the “Danny situation.” This didn’t augur well for her or for Danny, and she wanted to be there before Jeff arrived. She hurried home.

  20

  She made it home in good time. She stopped first to see Griffin, fresh from his bath in his blue bunny pajamas. He stretched his pudgy arms out to her and she gratefully embraced him and inhaled his sweet scent. How innocent he is, how trusting, she thought. Danny had been like this, she was sure. She could imagine Eve as infatuated with him as she was with Griffin, as protective, as fierce. Somehow, she had to provide at least some of that for Eve’s boy. She asked Berta if she could stay, telling her what had happened. They both knew how angry Jeff would be and Marcia expected an unpleasant scene.

  “It would be good if you could take Griffin into his room and play with him after Jeff sees him, and then read him a book and put him to sleep. Hopefully he’ll go right down but if he doesn’t, please stay with him until he does.”

  “Of course.”

  “Where is Danny?”

  “In his room.”