The memory keeper's daughter - Kim Edwards [78]
The talk around the table had turned to numbers and logistics, the impossibility of change. Caroline stood up, trembling. Her dead mother’s hand flew to her mouth in shock. Caroline herself could not quite believe it, how her life had changed her, what she had become. But there was no going back. A flood of the mentally retarded, indeed! She pressed her hands to the table and waited. One by one the men stopped speaking, and the room grew quiet.
“It’s not about numbers,” Caroline said. “It’s about children. I have a daughter who is six years old. It takes her more time, it’s true, to master new things. But she has learned to do everything that any other child learns to do: to crawl and walk and talk and use the bathroom, to dress herself, which she did this morning. What I see is a little girl who wants to learn, and who loves everyone she sees. And I see a roomful of men who appear to have forgotten that in this country we promise an education to every child—regardless of ability.”
For a moment no one spoke. The tall window rattled slightly in the breeze. Paint was beginning to bubble and peel on the beige walls.
The voice of the dark-haired man was gentle.
“I have—we all have—great sympathy for your situation. But how likely is it that your daughter, or any of these children, will master any academic skills? And what would that do to her self-image? If it were me, I’d rather have her settled in a productive and useful trade.”
“She’s six years old,” Caroline said. “She’s not ready to learn a trade.”
Ron Stone had been watching the exchange intently, and now he spoke.
“Actually,” he said. “This entire discussion is beside the point.” He opened his briefcase and took out a thick cluster of papers. “This is not just a moral or logistical issue. It’s the law. This is a petition, signed by these parents and by five hundred others. It’s appended to a class-action lawsuit filed on behalf of these families to allow the acceptance of their children into Pittsburgh’s public schools.”
“This is the civil rights law,” the gray-haired man said, looking up from the document. “You can’t use that. That’s not the letter or the spirit of this law.”
“You look those documents over,” Ron Stone said, shutting his briefcase. “We’ll be in touch.”
Outside, on the old stone steps, they burst into talk; Ron was pleased, cautiously optimistic, but the others were ebullient, hugging Caroline to thank her for her speech. She smiled, hugging them back, feeling both drained and moved by a deep affection for these people: Sandra, of course, who still came over every week for coffee; Colleen, who with her daughter had gathered the names on the petition; Carl, a tall sprightly man whose only son had died young from heart complications related to Down’s and who had given them office space in his carpet warehouse for their work. She’d known none of them four years ago except Sandra, yet they were bound to her now by many late nights, many struggles and small triumphs, and so much hope.
Agitated, still, from her speech, she drove back to the preschool. Phoebe jumped up from the circle group and ran to Caroline, hugging her knees. She smelled of milk and chocolate and there was a streak of dirt across her dress. Her hair was a soft cloud beneath Caroline’s hand. Caroline told Doro briefly what had happened, the ugly words—flood, drag—still running through her mind. Doro, late for work, touched her arm. We’ll talk more tonight.
The drive home was beautiful, leaves on the trees and lilacs blooming like drifts of foam and fire against the hills. It had rained the night before; the sky was a clear bright blue. Caroline parked in the alley, disappointed to see that Al hadn’t yet arrived. Together, she and Phoebe walked beneath the flickering shade of the sycamores, through the piercing hum of bees. Caroline sat on the porch steps and turned on the radio. Phoebe started spinning on the soft grass, her arms held out and her head flung back, face to the sun.
Caroline watched her, still