MacCracken - A Safe Place for Joey, Part 2 of 3

Nobody was in the waiting room the night that I met Eric. In fact, the lights werent even on.

It had been a long day, and once the last child had left and I had cleaned up and put away books and toys, I was eager to be off. It was a good forty-five-minute drive from my office to our apartment, and the commuting traffic was heavy on the highways.

I shrugged on my jacket, turned out the lights, pulled shut my heavy office door, and almost stepped on Eric.

I rocked back away from him in surprise. Hey, now! Whats this? Are you okay? As my eyes grew more accustomed to the dim light, I could make out a small boy sitting on the waiting-room floor just outside my door, examining the contents of a womans purse.

The janitor had evidently already turned down the lights in the waiting room, so the only illumination was from the overhead light in the hall. I groped my way toward one of the reading lamps, and the little boy gave a whimper as light flooded over us.

A womans voice came from one edge of the room. Mrs. MacCracken? Is that you?

She pushed herself up from the sofa with effort, at the same time pulling her worn black coat more closely around her. She must have once been a handsome woman, but now as she came closer I could see that her face was gaunt and deeply lined and there were dark circles beneath her eyes.

She spoke to me, but she was looking at the boy. She walked past me toward where he huddled against the wall, hands across his eyes. She pulled him toward her, gently cradling his head against her thigh, crooning, Shhh, Errol. Shhh. Its all right now.

She turned to me and said, He doesnt like the light.

They made a strange picture here in the lamplight the black-cloaked figure bending over the tiny boy, her knobby fingers entangled in his limp brown hair, his face buried in her coat.

I glanced at my watch. Almost eight oclock. More than a half-hour drive back home. I cleared my throat. Im sorry, I said. Its very

Please, the woman interrupted. Dont go. She moved closer to me, her dark eyes searching my face, the boy clinging to her leg. She looked too old to be the mother of such a young child, but her next sentence implied she was.

Mrs. Tortoni told me to come. You helped her Frank. She said youd help us, too.

I felt a small rush of pleasure. When Id begun my private practice as a learning disability consultant, Frank was one of my first students. Frank was dirt-poor, streetwise, smart as a whip. His father was a mechanic at the garage I used. Frank had been easy to help, mainly because there was nothing really wrong with him. No signs of any learning disability, no serious emotional problems. Hed just fallen through the cracks of the huge, inefficient school system in the economically bankrupt city where he lived. Someone had equated poor with dumb and placed him in the lowest track of skills classes. Each year he was passed on to the next grade in the same slow, dull track. But given a chance and a little outside help, Frank was off and running, eager to show what he could do, his parents cheering him on.

I get it, hed shout. That stupid factoring! Aint nothin but doin times and matchin em up. Whynt they just say so?

I coached Frank before the state competency tests and called the school to see how hed done.

The next year he was in the second-highest track in the middle school and flourishing.

Seduced by my thoughts of Frank and how little it had taken to help him, I hesitated.

Please, the woman said. Please just let me talk to you for a few minutes.

Do you live near the Tortonis? I asked, knowing they lived almost an hour away.

She nodded. Two blocks down.

How did you get here?

Bus, she said, matter-of-factly. We changed at Grover.

A long, cold bus ride, particularly at this hour of day. This worn, weary woman must care a great deal about this strange boy or she would never have bothered.

I unlocked my office door, and they followed me back inside.

Now she sat silently. The effort of getting them both to my office seemed to have used up all her strength. I walked around the room collecting toys for the boy who sat on the floor by her feet. He was tiny, the size of a four-year-old, although his pale, pointed face seemed older. He turned away when I leaned down to place the cars and trucks and dolls beside him, and hid his face against the couch. I was tempted to stay on the floor myself, but then decided that right now I needed to talk to his mother if indeed that was who this woman was.

I pulled a chair beside her and reached for a pad and pencil. Why dont you begin by telling me both your names?

Kroner, she said. Im Blanche Kroner and this is Errol. Well, his names really Eric. I just give him the name Errol, like a nickname. You know like the movie star. Handsome and all.

I watched as Eric began to push one of the cars back and forth across the rug, never looking up, his little peaked face serious and intent. Did she really think him handsome?

Gradually Erics story emerged bit by bit. Eric had one older sister, Bella, now fourteen. She had been born on the Kroners first anniversary. Mrs. Kroner had vomited every day of her pregnancy with Bella, and after a labor of eighteen hours shed sworn shed never have another child. And she hadnt for eight years, although she said she had lost two when she was two or three months along.

The summer after Bellas seventh birthday, Mrs. Kroner began to feel sick, and when the vomiting started she knew she was pregnant again. She thought about having an abortion, but somehow she couldnt bring herself to do it. She counted the days until the baby would be born, not because she wanted it, but to get relief from the pain and exhaustion. Then, to make matters worse, the baby was two weeks late, and when he did finally come he weighed only five pounds so little and weak he couldnt even suck right.

Mrs. Kroner sighed. I had to get him a bottle with a hole in the nipple so big I could practically pour the milk down him.

Unexpectedly, her face lit up, and for a few seconds there was a radiance that eliminated the weariness. Even so, he was a sweet little tyke. The nurses were all crazy about him, she smiled, remembering.