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By Root 663 0

I would normally lend a sympathetic ear to such stories, though just then I couldn’t help thinking that my daughter was in the hospital, too, and not—I was fiercely convinced—because she done anything stupid to herself. Besides, I’d heard too many Karen Carpenter tales at Gladstone PTA meetings, and they often took the form of boasts. The prestigious diagnosis of anorexia seemed much coveted not only by the students but by their mothers, who would compete over whose daughter ate less. No wonder the poor girls were a mess.

“We had been making progress,” Mary continued. “For the last few months she’s submitted to her modest portions at family meals, which she is compelled to attend. She’s finally gained a little weight back—as your son Kevin was more than eager to point out.”

I sighed. In comparison to our visitor, I must have looked haggard. What I wouldn’t have looked is surprised, and my failure to gasp oh-mygoodness-me-what-has-that-boy-done seemed to inflame her.

“Last night I caught my beautiful daughter vomiting her dinner! I got her to admit, too, that she’s been making herself upchuck for the last week. Why? One of the boys at school keeps telling her she’s fat! Barely 100 pounds and she’s tormented for being a ‘porker’! Now, it wasn’t easy to get his name out of her, and she begged me not to come here tonight. But I for one believe it’s time we parents start accepting responsibility for our children’s destructive behavior. My husband and I are doing everything we can to keep Laura from hurting herself. So you and your husband might please keep your son from hurting her, too!”

My head bobbed like one of those dogs in car windows. “Ho-ow?” I drawled. It’s possible she thought I was drunk.

“I don’t care how—!”

“Do you want us to talk to him?” I had to tighten the corners of my mouth to keep them from curling into an incredulous smirk all too reminiscent of Kevin himself.

“I should think so!”

“Tell him to be sensitive to the feelings of others and to remember the Golden Rule?” I was leaning on the door jamb with something close to a leer, and Mary stepped back in alarm. “Or maybe my husband could have a man-toman chat, and teach our son that a real man isn’t cruel and aggressive, but a real man is gentle and compassionate?”

I had to stop for a second to keep from laughing. I suddenly pictured you jaunting into the kitchen to report, Well, honey, it was all a big misunderstanding! Kevin says that poor skin-and-bones Laura Woolford simply heard wrong! He didn’t call her “fat,” he called her “fab”! And he didn’t say she was a “porker”—he said she told a joke that was a “corker”! A grin must have leaked out despite me, because Mary turned purple and exploded, “I cannot for the life of me understand why you seem to think this is funny!”

“Ms. Woolford, do you have any boys?”

“Laura is our only child,” she said reverently.

“Then I’ll refer you back to old schoolyard rhymes as to just what little boys are made of. I’d like to help you out, but practically? If Franklin and I say anything to Kevin, the consequences for your daughter at school will be even worse. Maybe it’s better you teach Laura—what do the kids say? To suck it up.”

I would pay for this bout of realism later, though I could hardly have known then that my hard-bitten counsel would be trotted out in Mary’s testimony at the civil trial two years hence—with a few acid embellishments for good measure.

“Well, thank you for nothing!”

Watching Mary harumph down the flagstones, I reflected on the fact that you, Kevin’s teachers, and now this Mary Woolford woman were regaling me that as a mother I must accept responsibility. Fair enough. But if I was so all-fired responsible, why did I still feel so helpless?

Celia came home at the beginning of March. Kevin had never been to visit her once; protective, I’d never encouraged him. You’d issued the odd invitation to come along, but backed off in deference to his trauma. He never even asked how she was doing, you know. Anyone listening in wouldn’t have thought he had a sister.

I had only made modest headway