"Let's not talk about this anymore, okay?" William said. Fear had creased his brow. He wrung his hands.

"No, I wanna," Sarah said. "I want to know how Sheila is."

"No," William said again. Tears returned to his eyes.

"You're scared, William," Guillermo stated. "What are you scared of?"

I reached a hand out. "Why don't you come over here and sit with me."

He rose and came over. I put an arm around him.

"This is a scary thing to talk about, isn't it?"

He nodded. "There's dust under my bed sometimes if my mom doesn't use the vacuum."

"William, that's off the subject," Peter said.

"That dust scares me. Sometimes I think maybe that used to be people. Maybe it's dead people under my bed."

"That's stupid."

"No, sir. It says right in the Bible, Peter, that you came from dust and you turn to dust after you die. It says so. My mom showed it to me. You ask Torey."

"I don't think that's what the Bible means, William," I said.

"And that might have been people under there, that dust. Might have been my grandpa after he went to the hospital. He might be under my bed now. Maybe it's Sheila."

"No, it's not Sheila. Sheila isn't dead, Will. She's in the hospital and she's going to get better," I replied.

"Torey?" Tyler asked.

"Yes?"

"How come Sheila's uncle did that to her? She just told us the other day that he was nice and played with her. How come he cut her?"

I regarded her. I did not have an answer. No matter how long I waited, an answer did not come to me. "I don't know, Ty."

"Did he have problems?" Sarah asked. "Like my father? They put him in the ward at the state hospital 'cause he had problems. That's what my mother told me. He never came back."

"Yes, I guess you could say he had problems. He didn't understand the right way to touch little girls. Or rather, I suspect he understood, but sometimes people do things without thinking first. They just do what sounds good to them at the moment."

"Is he going to go to the state hospital like my father?"

"I don't know. It's against the law to hurt people."

"When's Sheila coming back?" Peter asked.

"As soon as she's better."

"Will she be the same?"

"What do you mean?" I asked.

Peter frowned. "Well, if she got cut down there will she be the same?"

"I'm still not following you, Peter. Explain what you mean."

He hesitated, glanced nervously around the group, back at me. "Can I say some dirty words? I got to so you'll know what I'm talking about. I need to use dirty words."

I nodded. "This is different than yelling them at people. They aren't dirty when they mean something. Go ahead."

Again a hesitation. "Well, down there, that's a girl's c.u.n.t, isn't it?"

"Yeah."

"And down there, that's where a girl goes to the bathroom. Well, what if he cut her there? That's where babies come out. What if he cut her there?"

I still did not have the exact question Peter was asking. I decided to turn the question back on him to see if I could pull further information out of him. "What if he did cut her, Peter? What do you think would happen?"

His eyes widened with anxiety. "What if she grows up and has babies?"

"What if she does?"

There were tears in his eyes. "She might c.r.a.p on them when they're being born." His mouth pulled down in a sob. "That's what my mom done to me. That's why I'm crazy."

"Oh, Peter, that's not true," I said.

He came crawling over on his hands and knees. I was sitting cross-legged on the floor with William against my right side. Peter laid his head in my lap. "Yes, it is."

"No, it isn't. I don't know where you got that idea, but it's wrong."

"Peter, you're not crazy," William said. "n.o.body's really crazy. That's just a word. Isn't it, Torey? Just a word. And n.o.body's a word."

We talked a long time. The bell to go home rang, the buses came and went and we talked. About s.e.xual abuse. About Sheila. About ourselves.

Afterward, I loaded all eight of them into the hatch of my car and drove them home. We never lost the seriousness of the discussion. Even in the car, the questions kept coming. No one ever kidded or made a joke or goofed off. The things we had to talk about were not funny to anyone. The need to talk about them surpa.s.sed all other needs that afternoon. And all our differences.

After I had dropped the other children off I collected the get-well notes and a few books I knew Sheila especially liked, and headed for the hospital. She had been placed in an observation room right off the nurses' station and the doorway I was to use was pointed out to me. I entered.

She was alone in the large room with gla.s.s windows on one whole wall, like a cage at the zoo. She was lying in a crib with high metal sides. An IV dangled above one post and next to it a unit of blood. The arm that the needles were in was tied to a rung of the crib with a restraint to immobilize it. She looked so young and small.

Tears filled my eyes before I could stop them and they spilled over my cheeks. The only thing I could think of was why had they put her in a crib? Sheila had a lot of dignity for a little kid. I knew that would humiliate her. I knew she would be embarra.s.sed to have me see her in it. Why hadn't they given her a bed like a nearly seven-year-old child should have? Not a crib. Cribs were for babies.

Sheila turned her head toward me when I entered. In silence she regarded me. "Don't cry, Torey," she said softly. "It don't hurt much. Really it don't."

Humble in the presence of such courage, I stared at her. "Why did they put you in a crib?" I asked my mind blank. I let down the side nearest me and touched her free hand. "You shouldn't be in a crib."

"I don't mind really," she said. I knew that was not true. We had been friends long enough for me to know the extent of her carefully guarded sense of self. She smiled softly, as if I were the one to be comforted, and reached up to touch my face. "Don't cry, Torey. I don't mind."

"It makes me feel better. You scared me so much and I was so worried about you, Sheil. It makes me feel better to cry a little bit and I can't help it."

"It don't really hurt bad." Her eyes had lost some of their expression. Perhaps the medication was causing the gla.s.sy effect. "But I do get sort of scared sometimes. Just a little bit. Like last night, I didn't know where I was at. That was kind of scary. But I didn't cry none or anything. And pretty soon the nurse comed over and talked to me. She be right nice to me. But I still be a little scared. I wanted my Pa."

"I bet so. We'll see if we can't get someone to be with you when you get scared."

"I want my Pa."

"I know, honey. And he'll be here when he can."

"No sir. He don't like hospitals none."

"Well, we'll see."

"I want you to stay with me."

I nodded. "I will as much as I can. And Anton will come sometimes too. And I know Chad will want to. He's been asking all day about how you are. We'll do the best we can. I don't want you to get scared, love. I'll try my hardest to help."

She turned her head away from me for a moment and looked up at the IV. "My arm hurts some." Her eyes wandered back to me and suddenly the hurt and the fear were alive in them. Her face contorted in a grimace. "I want you to hold me," she whimpered. "My arm hurts fierce bad and I do be so lonely. I want you to stay here and hold me and not go away."

"Kitten, I don't think they would like me to hold you. I think it'd mess up all the stuff they have hooked up to you. I can hold your hand, if you want."

"No," she whined. "I want you to hold me. I hurt."

I smoothed back her hair and leaned close to her. "Oh I know you do, sweetheart, and I want to. But we can't."

She looked at me a long moment and then that glaze of control filmed over her eyes. She took a deep, shuddery breath and that was all. Once again she was pa.s.sive, locking up one more thing she could not bear to feel.

"I brought some books. Maybe you'd like me to read to you. It might take your mind off things."

Slowly she nodded. "Read me about the fox and the little prince and his rose."

CHAPTER 17.

SHEILA REMAINED IN THE HOSPITAL THROUGH the rest of the month of April. During that time her uncle was arraigned and tried for s.e.xual abuse. He returned to prison. Her father didn't go to see her the entire time she was hospitalized, pleading a phobia of hospitals. Instead he drowned his fears at Joe's Bar and Grill. I went every night after school to see her and usually stayed through dinner. Chad came up most evenings and played checkers with Sheila even after I had left. Anton visited regularly and Whitney was allowed on the unit for a couple brief stops even though she was underage. Oddly, even Mr. Collins came to see Sheila and I surprised him one Sat.u.r.day afternoon playing a game with her. To the astonishment of the hospital staff Sheila turned out to be one of the most popular children on the unit with a whole entourage of well-wishers coming and going each day. I was thankful for the interest shown in her because much as I wanted to, I could not afford to spend more than a couple of hours up there every night. Yet I knew that I probably would have stayed longer if no one else had shown up.

In a way the hospitalization was good for her. Being so physically attractive and having come through such a harrowing experience, she was the darling of the nursing staff. They showered her with attention. Sheila responded delightedly. She was cheerful and cooperative in most instances and, of course, never cried. Best of all, she was getting three balanced meals a day and was beginning to put on much-needed weight. It was not until the very end of her hospital stay that she began to get restless, not wanting to stay in bed, and getting cranky with those who insisted she did. Her emotional problems seemed totally eclipsed by this event. Certainly for as severely disturbed a child as she had been, there was almost no evidence of her acting up in the hospital. To the contrary the nurses were forever commenting on her outstanding behavior. This concerned me. While it made the stay more pleasant for everyone, I knew neither the hospitalization itself nor the reason she had gone in were anything other than vastly traumatic events. I feared that like her absurd ability to keep from crying, she had sublimated this misery, making it seem as if it had never happened. That was to me a greater indicator of the seriousness of her disturbance than anything else.

In the meantime the rest of the children had adjusted to life without Sheila. We enjoyed the April sunshine and the resurrecting earth around us. Things calmed down and, except for weekly letters to her, Sheila ceased to be a major topic of conversation.

During this time I learned for certain that my cla.s.s would be disbanded permanently. A number of things had contributed to that situation and I had been aware of all of them. First, the district was doing some shuffling within itself and now felt that placement of many disturbed children such as Freddie and Susannah could be accomplished without maintaining another separate cla.s.s as had been done this year. Second, the others had all made enough progress that, realistically, they could go into a less restrictive placement. Perhaps most important, rumblings were coming down of a new bill in Congress on mainstreaming handicapped children back into the normal cla.s.srooms. In response to this federal law, a number of special rooms were being eliminated altogether in an attempt to free some specially trained teachers for consultation to the regular cla.s.sroom. As I had the most severe level, those in charge of placement were most interested in eliminating my level entirely. And last, and certainly most consequential, money was running tight. Maintaining children in cla.s.ses like mine was very expensive. The low ratio of children to teachers, the greater training of the teachers who could thus command higher salaries, the special equipment all cost a great deal of money. The district could not afford to run as many special cla.s.ses in the future as they had this year.

While I was saddened by the news, it was not unexpected. My sadness was only the same one I felt every year as it drew to a close and I wished we could start all over. In fact I had my own personal plans. The school district had offered me another position; however, I had applied to graduate school and had been accepted. I already possessed a master's degree in special education and my regular teaching certificate. But I did not have full certification for teaching special children. While the state was not yet requiring this full certificate in addition to the regular certification, I could see it on the horizon. Too many good teachers I had known had lost their jobs simply because they had not been able to keep up with the certification requirements. If the day came and I found myself in a job that I did not want to give up to go back to school, I would not want to be caught short of credits. This job was essentially over; I wouldn't be able to go back to the same kids and the same cla.s.s in the fall anyway; so now seemed as good a time as any to return to school.

I was also toying with the idea of pursuing a doctorate. I had become increasingly involved in research during the previous years and had been appalled by the huge gaps in research in the areas of childhood withdrawal and depression.

While I loved teaching, the months just past had been filled with soul-searching about my future. In addition, Chad was renewing pressure to marry and settle down. That night after the trial with Sheila had affected him and he now openly acknowledged he wanted a family. Yet I was getting restless. When the acceptance from the university had come on April sixth, I had agreed to go, which meant when school let out in June, I would be moving half a continent away from Chad and Sheila and a place that had given me several of the best years of my life.

Sheila returned to school early in May. She came back with the same extroverted gusto she had displayed in the hospital, giving the distinct impression that she had been on an extended holiday. As I watched her resume her old place in the cla.s.s I was more unsettled than ever by her att.i.tude. One could not swallow that much pain and get away with it. I feared she might be even more disturbed than I had thought; that perhaps she was slipping off into some fantasy to protect herself from the horrors of the real world. But throughout the day and then the next couple of days she gave no indication of any problem. For all the world she seemed like some normal child who had stopped by to partic.i.p.ate in our cla.s.sroom activities.

By the end of the week the veneer was beginning to wear thin. The old ha.s.sles had begun to raise their heads again. I started demanding more out of her and she found herself making mistakes. This put her in a sulk for a few hours on Thursday. The other kids were readjusting to her return and were not giving her the attention to which she had grown so accustomed. This provoked a bit of angry fussing when things did not go her way. But most important she slowly began to talk to me again. That, I decided, was what had been missing. While she kept up a constant chatter in school and after, she never really did say anything. It was all just prattle over the immediate situation. Unlike before when she was open and voluntarily brought up her feelings, now she spoke only about safe things. Bit by bit, however, a statement would creep in that mirrored what was below the carefree surface.

She had returned to school wearing the old overalls and T-shirt. The blood stains were still visible and after having gained weight in the hospital, Sheila was too large to wear the overalls comfortably. They were too short and too tight. I wondered what had become of the red-and-white dress, so finally on Friday evening after school, I asked. Sheila was helping me cut out figures for the bulletin board; so we sat together at one table, the work spread between us.

She pondered my question a moment. "I ain't gonna wear it no more."

"How come?"

"That day..." she paused, concentrating on her cutting. "The day my Unca Jerry... Well, he says it be a right pretty dress. He could feel under it. He done it before but this time he wouldn't stop. He kept putting his hands under there. So I ain't wearing it no more. I ain't having n.o.body feel there."

"Oh."

"Besides, it got all blooded up. My Pa, he throwed it away when I was gone."

A long, heavy silence fell between us. I did not know what to say next so I just continued to work on what I was cutting out. Sheila looked up. "Torey?"

"Hmm?"

"Do you and Chad ever do that stuff together? Like Unca Jerry did to me?"

"What your uncle did to you, no one should do. That was wrong. Having intercourse is something grown-up people do with each other. It's not something kids do. And no one ever uses a knife. That was wrong."

"I know what it is. My Pa, he brings home ladies sometimes and does that. He thinks I be asleep but I ain't. It makes a lot of noise, so I wake up. I seen them. I know what it is."

Her eyes were cloudy. "Is it really love?"

I took a long breath. "You're not really old enough, Sheil, to understand altogether. Sometimes it's called love. But it isn't exactly. It's s.e.x. Usually two people do it when they really love one another and then it's good and they like it. But sometimes people just do it but they don't love each other. It's still s.e.x, but it's not love. Sometimes a person forces another to do it. And that's always wrong."

"I ain't never gonna love anybody if I have to do that."

"You're too little. Your body isn't ready to do those sorts of things yet, so it hurts you. But it isn't love, Sheil. Love is different. Love is a feeling. What happened was a really wrong thing. No one should do that to a little girl. It hurt you because it was not something that should have happened. You're too little."

"Then why did he do it to me, Torey?"

Putting down the figure I had been cutting, I pushed back my hair. "You're asking me awfully hard questions, sweetheart."

"But I can't understand that. I liked Unca Jerry. He played with me. Why did he want to hurt me?"

"I don't really know. Sometimes people just lose control. Like remember you and me back in February when I went to the conference? I mean we sort of did that to each other. It's something that happens."

Sheila stopped her cutting, letting the paper and scissors drop through her fingers to the tabletop. For a long, silent moment she sat motionless, staring at the paper and scissors and at her still spread hands. Her chin quivered. "Things never are the way you really want them to be, are they?" She did not look at me.

I did not respond, not knowing how-to.