All the Little Pieces

‘We have to go, Maggie; Mrs Wackett wants to go home. School’s over.’

Again the shake of the head. This one was even more defiant. The ponytail whipped about like the stinging tail of a scorpion, hoping to find a victim within its reach. ‘No!’

It was the same thing most every day. On red-light days, it was guaranteed. Faith felt her cheeks go crimson. She followed her over to the toy box. ‘We have to go now.’

‘No!’ Maggie screamed.

Next would be the pony, thrown across the room. Followed by half the toy bin. Then the stomping feet, the crying, the pacing of the room like a wild tiger. And then Maggie would go to the place in her head where she could not be reasoned with.

At this very moment, Faith didn’t care what anyone thought about her or her parenting skills – she just wanted to go home. She leaned in close to Maggie’s ear. ‘Do you want to go for ice cream? Huh? Would you like that? Chocolate? You can get marshmallows, too.’

Maggie’s face calmed to pink. ‘I don’t want to go to ballet. I don’t like Cecilia.’ Cecilia was another little girl who, for some reason, Maggie despised.

‘We’re not going to ballet; we’re going to Publix. You can help me pick out dinner.’

‘I want ice cream.’

‘OK, then let’s go for ice cream, but only if you’re good. And we have to go now. No screaming. No tantrum. Best behavior.’

Mrs Wackett shook her head in disappointment.

With Maggie’s hand firmly in hers, Faith walked to the door. In Maggie’s other hand was the My Pretty Pony. ‘I’ll bring the pony back tomorrow, OK, Mrs Wackett?’

Mrs Wackett nodded. ‘How’s therapy working out, Mrs Saunders? Is she still going?’

Faith nodded. ‘Very well, thanks. See you tomorrow.’

Then she and Maggie walked out the door and across the dark parking lot as the sad-eyed boys looked on from the other side of the window, waiting for their parents to come for them.

14 (#ulink_67566f93-10b0-54b5-927a-6031847bffa2)

‘I don’t like her,’ Maggie said as she licked her cone and played with her pony on a table outside the indoor gym at A Latte Fun. ‘She’s a mean lady.’

Faith sighed. ‘Why? What makes Mrs Wackett so mean? I think she’s very nice.’

‘She put me in time-out.’

‘Did you do something bad to that new girl?’

Maggie shrugged. ‘I pushed her.’

‘Why?’

‘She called me a mean name. And she pulled my hair.’

Faith frowned. ‘She did? When was that?’

‘When I pushed her.’

‘Well maybe you shouldn’t have pushed her, and then maybe she wouldn’t have pulled your hair and called you a name.’

Maggie’s face grew dark. ‘She shouldn’t call me names. That’s not nice.’

Faith sighed and sipped at her water as she watched Maggie draw circles in the puddle of ice cream that had dripped on the table. She had the face of an angel – creamy white and round, with a sweetheart chin, apple cheeks, big, pouty pink lips and light blue eyes, that often looked like they were off dreaming about somewhere else. Her unkempt blonde hair had natural highlights that women would pay big bucks for at a salon. She didn’t like Faith to brush it, so it was usually up in a pony or pigtails. A splash of sprinkles across her nose completed the look.

The diagnosis, if one wanted to call it that, was ‘developmentally delayed’ – an evasive, catch-all condition that made Maggie sound stupid, which she wasn’t. Most of the time she knew what she was doing was wrong, but she did it anyway. ‘Poor impulse control’ was the name of that symptom. Then there was her ‘short attention span’, her ‘forgetfulness’, ‘anxiousness’, and, of course, her ‘anger management issues’. She’d hit some developmental milestones right on time, but not others: rolling at three months and sitting up at six, but she never crawled and she didn’t walk by herself until she was almost fourteen months. She lacked some fine motor skills, but mastered others without any apparent difficulty. The behavioral problems, which were the real worry, began after her second birthday. Maybe earlier, but Faith and Jarrod hadn’t seen the signs – no parent wants to think their child is different from other kids. It was only when Lyle, Vivian’s son, who was almost a year younger than Maggie, toddled up to Faith with his sippy cup and asked for ‘mo moke, peez’ that she started thinking something might be wrong with Maggie. She hadn’t yet said a word. Not ‘mama’ or ‘da-da’ or anything and she was two and a half. She’d point if she wanted something, and shake her head if she didn’t, so they knew she understood and that she wasn’t deaf. In hindsight, what made it both ironic and sad was that stay-at-home-mommy Faith had been churning out articles for the parenting magazines, writing pieces like ‘Important Milestones for You and Your Baby’ and ‘Why Crawling Is So Important’ and didn’t realize her own kid was missing all the marks – and for that she still felt incredibly guilty. In her defense, as she had assured other moms in her articles, most every developmental milestone was scaled: kids ‘usually’ started walking ‘between nine and eighteen months’, and babbling ‘around twelve to eighteen months’. She herself had written advice like: ‘But don’t worry if your baby doesn’t start right on time. Every child learns to walk at his or her own pace. Some children skip crawling altogether and go straight to walking!’ She hadn’t seen the problems because she hadn’t wanted to. She’d wanted to hold out to the absolute last second hope that Maggie was just in the bottom of the milestone class, and that everything would eventually work out fine.

Then the head-banging started.

That particular milestone wasn’t in the ‘What to Expect’ books. At least not to the extreme that Maggie did it. Walls, floor, high chair – anything that was in proximity to her head was in grave danger whenever she got frustrated, which, by the age of three, was often.

Pediatrician #1 suggested putting Maggie on Adderall, a drug for hyperactivity, after a five-minute exam. But drugs were something Faith couldn’t see putting a three-year-old on. After garnering a few other second opinions, none of which were consistent and all of which subscribed to medicating toddlers, she’d found Dr Michelson, who explained that ADD or ADHD – or whatever acronym it was that might be causing Maggie to put holes in walls with her head and jump into pools even though she couldn’t swim – couldn’t be accurately diagnosed until a child was six or seven. He’d suggested a gluten-free diet, occupational therapy, and patience. Lots of patience.

The circle drawing turned to palm smearing. And for the grand finale, Maggie giddily smacked her hand into the ice cream, so it splashed back up on her clothes and hair. She started to walk around and around the table, shaking her head. Dancing to music no one else heard.

Faith grabbed the stack of napkins from her purse. ‘Did you run away from Mrs Wackett and Ms Ellen? What did we talk about?’

‘No running.’

‘That’s right, Forrest – no more running.’ Maggie might have taken too long to learn how to walk, but once she did, she went straight to running and never stopped. Jarrod had nicknamed her Forrest Gump because she didn’t stop until she got tired, which was … well, never. Faith handed her the napkins.

Maggie’s face went dark again. The napkins fluttered to the floor. ‘Don’t call me Forrest Grump.’

Faith tried not to laugh.

‘It’s not funny.’ Maggie smashed the ice-cream cone which she still held in her hand face down on the table and crossed her arms. Jarrod had named that look the Incredible Sulk.

Faith had seconds to defuse the bomb. ‘You’re right; no one should call you names,’ she said, picking up the napkins. ‘That’s not nice. Please wipe your hands.’

‘Like Melanie.’

‘That’s the new girl?’

‘It’s an ugly name.’

‘Why don’t you like her?’

‘She called me a name.’

‘What was that?’

‘She said I was a weirdo and that no one wanted to play with me ’cause I play weird.’

Faith felt something stab her heart. She crushed the empty water bottle with her hand. ‘That’s not nice. I understand why you got upset, but you can’t hit her.’

Maggie turned to run off to the ball pit, then stopped midway and ran back. ‘Are you mad?’ she asked, looking at Faith strangely, her head cocked.

‘I’m mad that someone said something mean to you. And that you won’t listen to me or Mrs Wackett.’