A Map of the World - Jane Hamilton [111]
“I’m Mrs. Lexin,” the blond woman said to Emma. “Let’s you and I talk for a minute while Miss Anderson is playing with your sister.”
Theresa had mentioned an anger on my behalf strong enough to make her want to smash her recyclable glass against her garage door. As I sat listening to the noise of Rafferty’s talk, I did not so much want to break anything specific. I felt I might have shouted with a force unusual to me, those flights up to Alice’s pod. Look! Look at your daughters!
Although the time went slowly Claire was out in about ten minutes, and Emma shortly after. Claire had been crying, judging from her feverish look and her matted lashes. Mrs. Lexin, a good ten years my junior, called me into her office. She had short hair and glasses that took up half her face. She was studying her folder. “The girls are quite upset about their mother, about her having been taken away.”
“Yes, I’m aware of that.”
“We’d like to see them again, tomorrow, if you don’t mind.” When I didn’t answer she glanced at me. “Would that work out?”
I nodded.
“It is clear that your girls are experiencing a good deal of trauma about their mother being gone and I would recommend to you, Mr. Goodwin, strongly recommend, that they see someone to help them through this time. We have a listing here, of therapists and human service agencies in the county. You are not legally bound to seek out help, but it would be most beneficial, under the circumstances.”
I would have liked to say that they’d been fine before they came for the interview. “Thank you,” I said from between my clenched teeth.
“They were brought up to try, try again, if at first they don’t succeed,” Rafferty said as we went out the doors, back into the furnace of the July day. Claire was whining into my shoulder and Emma was silent, keeping close at my side. “Most of us are raised to toe the line, conform, follow the rules. Rules sure make the world go around, but I’ve got a bit of the anarchist in me. How beautiful it would be to buck the system. To get away with thumbing your nose at a few key people in high places. The trouble is the stakes are always too high. Too high.” He came down on my free shoulder. “Tomorrow, then. More of same. Same old crap, same conclusion. Onward. Upward. Back to work.” He tweaked Claire’s chin. “You make sure your father watches his manners, girls.” He ruffled Emma’s hair and then he darted between the cars to get across the street.
The second interview went much the same as the first. Claire hugged her rabbit and cried. Emma too did not want to play. She remained dry eyed. I was proud of her. She was polite, tight-lipped. She wanted to go back to her dad, she told Mrs. Lexin. When she was asked if anything bad happened at home, Emma spoke about the cat that had jumped up into the engine and gotten ground to bits. It had been I who had started the car. I was again given the recommendation that the girls get immediate help from a local therapist. As we left Rafferty looked at me and said, “We have one thorn out of our big, soft pads.” To Emma he said, “Isn’t that right, kiddo?”
Emma yanked on my shirt after he was gone. She wanted me to squat, to get to her level so she could whisper in my ear. “I don’t like him,” she said.
As the weeks wore on I stayed beyond the lunch hour at Theresa’s. Each day I stayed longer. Finally I put yesterday’s paper on the chaise lounge as protection against my dirty clothes and sat on it. I read Time magazine and Country Home. Theresa went about her chores. It was hard to catch the words to the songs she sang. I read, feeling her movements in the next room. “Aren’t you ever going back to work?” she said once. I jumped to attention. “No, no, no, Howard,” she said as she laughed.