Everybody's Son Page 6

  He stared at her blankly. Was she being deliberately obtuse? Or was this one of those celebrated communication failures between men and women?

  “Is that a rhetorical question?” he asked.

  “What?”

  “To state the obvious, the good news is that Anton gets to live with us for the next several years without any of us having to look over our shoulders. We can provide him with a great education, a loving home, and a . . . a stable family life.”

  “I see.” Delores didn’t bother to hide her sarcasm. “So it’s good news for us. And shitty news for Anton.”

  “I can’t believe you said that.”

  She shrugged. “Why? It’s true, isn’t it?”

  His knees buckled. In order for this to work, he needed Delores on his side. How could she not see that this was in everybody’s best interest? “Baby,” he said urgently. “Think of what this means for him. What opportunities we can provide him.”

  Delores looked him squarely in the eyes. “I’ll only say this once. So you better listen good.” Her lower lip quivered a bit, but she held his gaze. “Anton is not James. He never will be.”

  He flinched as if she had slapped him. “That’s the lowest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

  “I know that’s how it comes across. But that’s not how I mean it. I’m not trying to hurt you, David. I just want you to understand what’s going on. To see what you’re doing.”

  He tilted his head back defiantly. “This isn’t about me. It’s about helping an innocent child.”

  “Are you sure, David? Are you sure about that?”

  He forced himself to maintain eye contact. “Yes.”

  She looked at him for a full minute, and then, as if she’d come to a decision, she nodded. “Good,” she said as she moved away from him. “Then you break the good news to him.”

  WHICH HE COULDN’T do, of course. Not that day. The next day, Saturday, he took the boy with him to the video store, where he allowed Anton to pick out three action movies, groaning inwardly at the thought of having to sit through them. After they got back in the car, he stroked the boy’s hair gently and told him he had some bad news: His mom was going to stay in jail for a while.

  A tearful Anton turned to face him. “For how long, David?”

  David understood now what Delores had tried telling him, and his heart was genuinely heavy when he said, “I don’t know, son. At least until after Christmas, okay?” And then, to punish himself for his earlier thoughtlessness, he added, “You must miss her a lot?”

  In reply, Anton said, “Can I just go to my old apartment and get my things?”

  “Afraid not, son.”

  Anton nodded. After a few minutes, he turned away from David and looked out the closed window of the air-conditioned car. His right hand curled into a fist, and for a split second David thought he was going to attempt to smash the window. Instead, Anton tapped on it with his knuckles. Twice. Then he stared straight ahead.

  And David had the strangest feeling that Anton had just tested the boundaries of his freedom and found that it extended only as far as the plushness of this car. It wasn’t just Anton’s mom they had locked away, he realized. Anton, too, was in a jail that he hadn’t chosen.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  They said this was a school, but maybe they were fooling him. This didn’t look like no school he’d ever been to. There were no buckets collecting rainwater in the classrooms. Nobody was shoving anybody against the wall in the hallways. And all the windows were closed because the whole building was air-conditioned, and you could actually hear what the teacher was saying instead of the sounds of traffic horns and police sirens.

  The building itself wasn’t one of those crumbling brick structures that said “school.” Rather, it was shaped like a spaceship or something, with a curved roof and slanted walls inside. And instead of an ordinary blackboard, the classroom had a whiteboard upon which the teacher wrote with a marker.

  FM had walked him to the principal’s office this morning, and the lady, Mrs. Johnson, had escorted him to his first class. The other students were already there, talking and joking with each other. “There you go, Anton,” Mrs. Johnson said at the door. “This is your classroom. Your teacher will be here in a moment.”

  He stood quietly for a second, trying to still the churning in his stomach, feeling their eyes upon him as he walked to an unoccupied desk. These kids seemed so different from the boisterous classmates at his old school. Although these kids also talked loudly and were clearly happy to see each other after the summer, they were not shoving each other around, as he and his friends would’ve done. It was as if the air-conditioned air and the carpeted floors had muffled some essential trait that Anton recognized as childhood.

  The first period was social studies, and their teacher was a nice-looking lady called Ms. Green. Her eyes searched the room until they fell on him and she smiled, and Anton had the odd and self-conscious feeling that she had been looking for him. Instead of smiling back, he looked down at his desk, hoping her eyes would glide away from him. And so he winced when he heard her say, “We have two new students this year, class. One of them is Natasha, who is from Russia. The other is Anton, who is from . . . around here. I hope you will make them feel welcome.”

  Natasha, a petite girl with blond pigtails, leaped to her feet and waved quickly to the other students, who then looked expectantly at Anton. Feeling the heat of their expectations, he rose grudgingly to his feet. “Hiya,” he mumbled before sitting down again.

  “Great,” Ms. Green said brightly. “Now, does everyone know where Russia is?”

  Maybe it was because he was in the act of settling back into his chair when she asked the question. Maybe it was nervousness. Whatever the reason, Anton heard himself say, “In China?”

  Natasha’s response was immediate. “China’s a different country, silly,” she snapped, and the class giggled.

  He knew that. He was pretty sure he knew that China was a different country. Why, then, did he think that Russia was in China? And what had made him open his mouth during the first class of the first day at a new school where he didn’t know anybody? And where everybody was now laughing at him, and a strange girl who looked like a Barbie doll had called him silly? Anton was mortified.

  “It’s an easy mistake to make,” he heard Ms. Green say, and he loved her for it. “They’re both Communist countries, after all, although Russia’s president is trying to change that. Now, who knows another name for Russia?”

  “The Soviet Union,” several of the students yelled, and Anton felt a wave of fear. How come his classmates knew so much? How come he knew so little?

  The rest of the morning was full of surprises and challenges. Anton was delighted to receive what looked like brand-new textbooks for each of his classes. At his old school, the books often had torn or missing pages, or were so covered with the scribbles of former students that it was difficult to read the text. He held his breath as he turned the pages, secretly reveling in the new-book scent, even as he noticed that the other kids didn’t seem nearly as impressed as he was.

  After the embarrassment in social studies, he didn’t dare raise his hand during the other morning periods, not even during math, when he was pretty sure he knew the correct answers. However, he noticed that Natasha, despite her heavily accented English, spoke up several times. And that all her answers were correct. A new feeling entered his body—shame. Something was wrong. This was why David and FM had spent so much time ruining his summer by making him do homework. But why did he know so little compared to all these other students, with their cheerful voices and their ready laughter and hands shooting up in the air before the teacher had finished asking the question? Was it true that white people were smarter than black people? If so, why had FM brought him to this school? And why was she always telling him how clever he was, how quickly he picked up on new things? Because it was true? Or because—Anton felt a sob gather at the base of his throat—it wasn’t?
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  At lunch, he bought himself a hamburger and fries with the money FM had given him, then carried his tray to an empty table at the far end of the cafeteria. He noticed that Natasha was sitting with a group of girls at one of the tables, but it didn’t occur to him to be hurt by the fact that no one had invited him to sit with them, relieved as he was to be by himself. He bit in to the burger and thought it was the best thing he had ever tasted. He remembered the insipid, stale food he ate daily in the school lunch program at his old school and fought the urge to gag at the memory. This cafeteria looked like a restaurant in a movie, compared to the dingy, dirty, crowded lunchroom where he had eaten so many nasty meals.

  He was dipping the fries in ketchup when a group of four male students approached him. “Hey, can we sit here?” one of them asked and, without waiting for an answer, set his tray next to Anton’s.

  The four boys settled in, and then the first one turned to him. “I’m Jerry,” he said. He was a tall, gangly kid with braces.

  “Anton,” he said with his mouth full.

  “Atom?”

  “No. Anton.”

  “Oh. Pleased to meet you, Anton-io,” Jerry said. The other boys giggled. “See? I told you he was Italian.”

  Anton stopped chewing. “I’m not Italian,” he said indignantly.

  “No, you’re Jewish.”

  “Huh? No, I’m not.”

  “That’s right. You’re An-ton. From An-twerp.”

  Another boy piped up, “Hey. You said, ‘An twerp.’ Get it? An twerp.”

  He knew that they were mocking him, but he didn’t even know what Antwerp was, so it was hard to respond. He looked down at his plate, his appetite suddenly gone.

  Jerry was apparently not finished with him. “Well, where are you from?”

  Anton looked around helplessly. “From here,” he said finally. “I’m American.”

  Jerry grinned triumphantly. “Oh. I thought you were a Russian. From China.”

  At his old school, he would’ve pushed the boy hard, but here, Anton was afraid to. Jerry was laughing, and there was something mean about his laughter. It reminded Anton of when he was younger and would occasionally go with his mother to the grocery store where she worked. The store manager would pat his head and say that he was cute, but he always kept his eyes on Anton. Mam said it was because Mr. Hudson thought all black boys were thieves.

  Anton eyed his half-eaten burger, unsure whether to stay or to leave. If he left, where would he go? He knew there was a playground outside where they were expected to go after lunch, but he also knew that no one would invite him to join their games. He was debating his next move when someone poked him from the back and said, “Hi, Anton.”

  Anton saw the jolt of surprise in Jerry’s eyes before turning his head to see Bradley Stevens. Anton’s heart leaped with joy. But before he could respond, Jerry said, “You know Anton?”

  Brad’s tray was empty, but he set it down across from Anton, waiting wordlessly until the boy occupying that spot scooted down the bench. As Brad sat down, he turned to Jerry and said, “Yeah. We’re friends. Why?”

  The “why” hung in the air, packed with a hidden challenge. In the second that it lingered, several things happened—Jerry heard the dare and backed down from it; the other boys shifted and rearranged their allegiances; and Brad Stevens, with his mop of red hair, sharp features, and compact, fearless body, became Anton’s lifelong friend. Although he couldn’t quite take in everything that had just occurred, Anton felt the overpowering sense of having been saved, and he understood that Jerry had just been demoted from emperor of the lunch table to court jester.

  He remembered now that FM had told him yesterday to look for Brad during lunch, but in his nervousness, he had forgotten. In any case, Anton looked from under hooded eyes as Brad now held forth, mimicking his new teacher, stealing a french fry from Anton’s plate, quoting a limerick he had learned that had them all hooting. The burger tasted good again, and for the first time all day, Anton felt the faintest sense of belonging. Still, he didn’t trust himself to speak, awed as he was by his companions’ verbal nimbleness, their choice of words. At his old school, there was a lot of verbal jostling, but it was different—rougher and yet more intimate. Here, the wordplay was cooler, the jokes more sophisticated, the humor less obvious. It bewildered Anton, but it also excited him, as if he were about to learn a new language.

  Brad waited until Anton finished his burger and then stood up. “We have about twenty minutes. Wanna go play soccer?” It was a general invitation, but he was looking directly at Anton, who smiled and nodded.

  They put away their trays, and the six of them walked together toward where the glass doors of the cafeteria led to the outdoors, Brad and Anton heading the procession. Anton noticed that several girls called out to Brad, but he barely seemed to notice them.

  They played for fifteen minutes, and all that time, Anton felt like he was under the shadow of a large shady tree, one that offered him protection from the hot glare of everybody’s curiosity. Brad passed to him constantly, forcing Anton to keep his attention focused on the ball, until his muscle memory kicked in and he began to play his natural game. Then his lithe body sliced through the August heat, and even though he was sweating and flushed, he felt clean and laser-sharp as he chased the ball and maneuvered around the other kids, who suddenly looked thick and clumsy.

  “Wow,” one of the boys said after they were done. “Where’d you learn to play like that?”

  Anton simply shrugged and mumbled, “I don’t know,” but Brad beamed with pride and smacked his friend on the back.

  In what seemed like seconds, word got around the playground that the new boy was a killer soccer player, and other kids wandered up to them as the bell went off and they began to stream into the building.

  YEARS LATER, WHEN he would remember nothing else about that first day in school, Anton would remember this tableau: Brad puts his arm around Anton’s shoulder as the final bell rings and they push open the glass doors and enter the school building, two confident nine-year-olds who have just conquered the soccer field. The air-conditioned air that greets them is as sweet as a drop of dew on their flushed faces. Behind them, the chatter of the other students is already muted as they enter the building. They stand together for a second, and then Brad says, “I wish we were in the same classroom. Anyway, see you tomorrow?”

  It is the casualness of the “See you tomorrow?” that makes the other boy blink back the embarrassing tears that sting his eyes. In it, there is a promise, not just of friendship but of something else—a promise of continuity, an acknowledgment that today was not an aberration.

  And so, when Anton takes his seat, he is not thinking about Russia or China. His head is swimming with the tantalizing possibility that he has made a new friend.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The boy was flailing. Floundering. Failing. Fucking up.

  Whatever you called it, the fact remained—Anton was not doing well at school. Delores was beside herself. She and Anton were spending longer hours at schoolwork, staying up well into the late evening. Every few weeks, she drove to school to meet with his teachers. Nothing was helping. In fact, he was regressing. David had tried talking to Anton repeatedly about whether something was wrong: Are the teachers mean to you? Are the other students teasing you? Do you miss your old school friends? To each question, Anton would shake his head.

  In late October, Anton came home with a D in math. A frantic Delores met David at the door when he came in from work. “That’s it,” she said. “There’s no way he gets a D in math. This boy is a whiz. I tell you, he’s just not applying himself.”

  It had been a long day at the courthouse, and David was exhausted. “What do you want me to do?” he asked.

  “I’m gonna homeschool him,” Delores said. “That’s the only thing I can think of.”

  “What does that do? How does it help?” He put his hand on his wife’s shoulder, but Delores shook it off. “I don’t know,
” she snapped. “You have a better idea?”

  He did not, not right then, but after they’d finished dinner and he’d retired to his study while Delores and Anton sat at the kitchen table going over homework, an idea presented itself. He rose from his chair and went back into the kitchen. He stood in the doorway and watched them for a second, took in the panic on Delores’s face, the sullenness on Anton’s.

  “Okay,” he said to them both. “Here’s what we’re doing. We’re gonna take a quick family vacation this weekend. We leave for New Hampshire Friday afternoon.”

  As he could’ve guessed, Delores frowned. “And how is Anton going to get his homework done?” she said. “He’s already behind.”

  Anton came to life. “Yay,” he cried. “Where’re we going, David?”

  “To a ski lodge,” he said. “To ski.”

  The boy’s face fell. “I don’t know how,” he mumbled.

  David grinned. “That’s why we’re going. You’re going to learn to ski.”

  He ignored the fact that neither Anton nor Dee was thrilled. He had a plan, and he intended to execute it. Delores was wrong. Homeschooling would only isolate Anton, would reinforce whatever self-doubts he harbored. The secret to success, David believed, was success.

  THEY TOOK TO the slopes early on Saturday morning, and the air was cold and thin. Anton had grumbled about waking up early, about leaving the warmth and comfort of the lodge, about being fed a light breakfast of hot chocolate and oatmeal. Still, his mood had recovered once he put on the jacket Delores had bought for him and slipped into the skis that they’d rented. He enjoyed being pulled up by the rope tow to the beginner’s slope and breathed in deeply as the three of them stood at the top of the hill, admiring the bluish mountains in the distance. He also listened intently as David gave him his first lesson.

  The first time he landed on his back, Anton looked so nonplussed that David and Delores burst out laughing. Anton was a good sport and laughed, too, as David offered him a hand and helped him back onto his feet. He was eager to try again, and David could see the competitiveness in his eyes as smaller kids flew gracefully past. But again and again, he landed on his butt, his feet tangled up in the skis, and his face began to burn, although it was hard to say whether it was from the cold or embarrassment.