One Child (20 page)

The issue still uppermost in Sheila's mind was abandonment. She was preoccupied with her mother and her brother, where they were and what they were doing. Often her conversations were punctuated with comments to the effect that if she could have done this thing or that thing better, maybe her family would still be intact. In my mind this was all directly tied to her intense fear of failure.

One night after school Sheila had busied herself doing math problems. She loved math and excelled in it beyond all other areas. From the time she had arrived, she could do basic multiplication and division problems. Together we had worked out the more complicated techniques. She had discovered a dittoed exam from one of the fifth grade classes in a trash can at recess and brought it in to do after school.

When she had finished it, Sheila came over to show it to me. The problems were in division of fractions. This was not an area we had ever covered. Consequently all the problems were wrong because she had not inverted the divisor.

"Here's this. Is it done good?" she asked, handing it to me to look at.

Regarding the paper, I wondered whether or not I should point out the error. "Sheil, I want to show you something." On the back of the paper I drew a circle and divided it into four parts. "Now, if I wanted to know how many eighths were in it..." She immediately perceived that the way she was solving the problem would not give the correct answer.

"I done them wrong, didn't I?"

"You didn't know, kiddo. No one showed you."

She flopped down beside me and put her face in her hands. "I wanted to do them right and show you I could do them without help."

"Sheil, it's nothing to get upset about."

She sat for a few moments covering her face. Then slowly her hands slid away and she uncrumpled the paper which she had mashed. "I bet if I could have done math problems good, my Mama, she wouldn't leave me on no highway like she done. If I could have done fifth grade math problems, she'd be proud of me."

"I don't think math problems have anything to do with it, Sheila. We really don't know why your Mama left. She probably had all sorts of troubles of her own."

"She left because she don't love me no more. You don't go leaving kids you love on the highway. And I cut my leg. See?" For the hundredth time the scar was displayed to me. "If I'd been a gooder girl, she wouldn't have done that. She might still love me even now, if I could have been gooder."

"Sheil, we don't really know that. It was a bad thing, but it's over. I don't think your being good or bad had anything to do with it. Your Mama had her own problems to straighten out. I think she loved you a lot; mamas generally do. I think she just couldn't cope with having a little girl right then."

"But she copeded with Jimmie. How come she tooked Jimmie and left me?"

"I don't know, love."

Sheila looked over at me. That haunted, hurt expression was in her eyes. God, I thought, would I never fill that emptiness? Absently she twisted one pigtail. "I miss Jimmie."

"I know you do."

"His birthday's gonna be next week. He be five years old then and I never seen him since he be two. That do be an awful long time." She turned away from me and went to the window, staring out at the winter-wet March afternoon. "I miss Jimmie almost more than anything. I can't forget him."

"I can tell that."

She turned to look at me. "Could we have a birthday party for him? On March twelfth, that be his birthday. Could we have a party like we have for Tyler when it be her birthday in February?"

"I don't think so, kitten."

Her face fell and she shuffled back over to me. "Why not?"

"Because Jimmie isn't here, Sheil. Jimmie lives clear out in California and not here with us."

"It could be just a little birthday party. Maybe just you and me and Anton. Just after school maybe."

I shook my head.

"But I want to."

"I know you do."

"Then why not? Just a little, little party? Please?" Her face had puckered, her voice pleaded. "I'll be your goodest girl. I won't mess up any other math papers."

"That's not the point, Sheila. I'm saying no because Jimmie isn't here anymore. Jimmie's gone. As much as it hurts to think about, Jimmie may not be coming back. I know you miss him a terribly lot, kitten, but I don't think it's a good idea to keep remembering him the way you are. All it does is hurt you."

She covered her face with her hands.

"Sheil, come here and let me hold you." Without removing her hands she came and I lifted her into my lap. "I know you feel awful about this. I can just feel you hurt from sitting here. It's a very hard thing you have to do."

"I miss him." Her voice broke with a dry sob and she clutched at my shut, shoving her face into my breasts. "I just want him to be here."

"I know you do, love."

"Why did it happen, Torey? Why did she tooked him and leaved me behind? What made me such a bad girl?" The tears shimmered momentarily in her eyes. But as always they never escaped.

"Oh lovey, it wasn't you. Believe me on this. It wasn't your fault. She didn't leave you because you were bad. She just had too many of her own problems. It wasn't your fault."

"My Pa, he says so. He says if I be a gooder girl she'd a never done that."

My heart sank. There was so much to fight and so little to fight with. Why should she believe me and not her father? What could I do to show her he was wrong in that respect? I felt discouraged. "Your Pa made a mistake on this one, Sheil. He doesn't know what happened either and he doesn't know what it's like to be a little girl. He's wrong on this one. Believe me, please, because it's true."

We sat in silence several minutes. I held her close, feeling her warm unsteady breath against my skin. My heart hurt. I could feel it in my chest and it hurt. Her pain soaked through my shirt and my skin and my bones to be absorbed into my heart. God, it hurt.

At last she looked up. "Sometimes, I'm real lonely." I nodded. "Will it ever stop?"

Again I nodded, slowly. "Yes. Someday I think it will." Sheila sighed and pulled away from me, standing up. "Someday never really ever comes, does it?"

Despite our sad moments, Sheila surprised me by being filled with joy. She had a tremendous capacity for joy. Working with these kids whose entire lives were chaotic tragedies affirmed my faith on a daily basis that humans are by nature joyous creatures. Sheila's moods fluctuated a great deal and she was never able entirely to escape the emotional devastation she had suffered. But by the same course, she was never far from happiness.

The smallest thing would ignite a merry sparkle in her eyes and not a day went by now that we did not hear her skitterish laughter. This was heightened by the fact that she had been deprived for so long that everything was new to her. She could not get her fill of the wonders that the world held. Perhaps her greatest discovery in March was the flowers.

Our part of the state comes alive in March with crocuses and daffodils waving from every patch of ground. Sheila was fascinated by the flowers. None had ever grown in the migrant camp and, as unbelievable as it seemed to me, she had never before seen a daffodil up close. One morning I brought a huge bouquet from my landlady's garden into class.

Sheila came squealing over, toothpaste still in her mouth. She was just in her T-shirt and underpants, her bare feet slapping the floor as she ran. "What them things be?" she gurgled through the toothpaste.

"They're daffodils, silly. You've seen them before, haven't you?"

Peering at them she shook her head. "Uh-uh. Just in books, that's all. Them be real flowers?"

"Sure they're real. Touch them."

Putting down her toothbrush, she cautiously reached out, touching the edge of one flower with her fingertip. "Oooooh!" she squealed with delight, spraying toothpaste all around. Jumping up and down, she clutched herself with pleasure. Then stopping suddenly, she hesitantly touched another. Again the little dance of joy.

"Go finish brushing your teeth and get your clothes on, then you can help me put them in a vase."

Dashing back, she spit out the rest of the toothpaste, but was unable to contain her glee long enough to put on the overalls. She came running back. "They do be so soft. Let me touch them."

"Smell them. Daffodils don't smell as good as some flowers, like roses, for instance. But they have a special odor all their own."

She sniffed deeply. "I wanna hug them."

I chuckled. "Flowers don't especially like being hugged."

"But they smell that good and they do be so pretty. They make me feel like hugging them."

"Yes, they do, don't they?" I had gotten out one of the vases a child had made for me years earlier. There were too many flowers to fit in it. Beside me Sheila bounced in delight, first on one foot and then on the other. Her whole body reflected her joy.

"Sheil, would you like a flower of your own?"

She looked up at me, her eyes widening to what seemed to be the very perimeters of her face. "I can have one?"

"Yes, there's too many to fit in my vase. We could put it in a milk carton over by where you always sit at the table."

"Could it really be mine?"

I nodded.

"For me?"

"Yes, silly, for you. Your own flower."

Her face fell suddenly. "My Pa, he wouldn't let me keep it."

I smiled. "Flowers are different than that. They don't last very long, hardly even a day. Your Pa wouldn't care about something like a flower."

Tenderly she reached out and caressed one of the daffodils. "Remember in that book about the fox and the little prince? Remember, the prince had a flower and he tamed it. Remember that?" Her eyes were full of wonder as she looked up at me. "Do you suppose I could tame one? It would be my very own special flower and I could be 'sponsible for it and everything. I could tame it for my very own."

"Well, you'll have to remember flowers don't last too long. But they tame easily. I think you could do it. Which one would you like?" I pointed to the ones left over from the vase.

Considering them all carefully she chose one that looked no different to me from all the others, but it must have said something special. Perhaps the taming had already begun, because like the little prince and his rose, this daffodil was Sheila's and to her it was like no other flower in the world.

Holding the flower gently and stroking its golden cup, she smiled. I had gone over and gotten her overalls and came back, leaning over her, urging her to put her legs in. The other children were arriving, noisy and curious about what was happening. But Sheila stood oblivious, letting me dress her and not looking at the other children. Her lips were pressed tight between her teeth to keep a smile in check.

"My heart do be so big," she whispered, "it be so big and I do reckon I be about the happiest kid for it."

I kissed her soft temple and smiled. Then I picked up the vase of yellow daffodils and took them to the table.

CHAPTER 14.

WE LAUGHED A LOT.

Things were not always very funny in our room. Often the things I did find myself laughing about were matters that, if I had stopped and really thought about them, were only tragic. Perhaps the greatest magic of the human spirit is the ability to laugh. At ourselves, at each other, at our sometimes hopeless situation. Laughter normalized our lives.