A Live Coal in the Sea Part 34

Luisa said, 'It's time you sent Taxi to boarding school.' She had come to them after work, after Taxi and Frankie were in bed, and normally Camilla and Mac would have retired, too. They sat in Camilla's study, which was the room farthest from the sleeping quarters. Mac had used some of their precious h.o.a.rd of wood to light a fire.

He turned to Luisa. 'Will he see that as rejection?' Luisa said calmly, 'I know you believe what they tell you, that nothing happened. But what about next time?'

Camilla asked, 'Would there be a next time?'

Luisa said, 'No telling. Taxi's unpredictable as well as damaged.'

Mac sat in the battered brown leather chair that had come with them from Corinth. 'Sending him away-it seems like failure.'

Luisa said, 'It's an honorable thing to fail, Mac. This seems the right time for many reasons. Isn't Taxi's therapist moving to San Francisco?'

'Yes.

Another betrayal. Another loss.

'Talk to Liz Wickoff. She seems to have a better rapport with Taxi than anybody else.'

Dr. Wickoff said, 'Taxi clings to past wounds. G.o.d knows he has plenty. What we will never understand is why one child can survive incredible trauma and manage to get along fairly normally, and another has wounds which never heal. Taxi's A Live Coal in the Sea,197 variable. Sometimes he seems like an extremely bright lad with all the ordinary problems that go along with brightness. Sometimes, and I can see no predictable pattern, his light flickers and dims: -Like the Cepheids, Camilla thought. -Papa's a.n.a.logy. Dr. Wickoff continued, 'I.

know a good boarding school in Ma.s.sachusetts where he will be challenged, and where there is an excellent psychiatrist in the next town, which may be better for Taxi than having to go to someone new here.'

Camilla spoke in a dull voice. 'It will be a relief to have him out of the house.'

Andrew came into his wife's office, squatted down in front of Camilla. 'Do not b-blame yourself for your feelings.'

'Or lack of them,' Camilla said.

'Whatever. Do not get hung up on the hook of false guilt.' Camilla tried to smile. 'I come close to falling into Taxi's trap of wanting to blame someone, of wanting someone punished.!

'You'll get over that,' Dr. Wickoff said. 'It's a perfectly normal reaction.'

Noelle called. 'I spoke to Andrew. He says you're sending Taxi to boarding school. He thinks it's a good idea.!

'Yes,' Camilla said. 'It's probably time.' Andrew would not have told Noelle the reason.

'I wanted to talk to you,' Noelle said, 'because we're thinking about boarding school for young Ferris. He's my problem kid. He's been really disruptive lately. How do you feel about it, Camilla? Sending Taxi away?'

'Boarding schools still exist,' Camilla said, 'because some kids need the discipline, and a little separation from the parents can be a good thing.''Some people send their kids away to get rid of them.! 'Maybe. But not all parents, and the school Liz and An- Madeleine L'Engle298 drew suggested is known to be one where parents truly want the best for their kids.'

'Let me know how Taxi does. That's the school we're considering for Ferris.'

In a way Noelle's call was comforting. Other parents had disruptive children, too.

Noelle continued, 'I'm going back to school to get a master's. My brain has turned to mush with all this domesticity. I need a challenge. You're marvelous, the way you've managed to get on with your own work and yet not neglect your kids.' 'I hope I didn't. But I do know things worked better when I was teaching and doing research than when I had only the family on my mind.'

'That was true of Mom, too,' Noelle said. 'Andrew and I never felt neglected or unloved. Mom was pretty consistent with us. Dad tended to be erratic. Anyhow, when he married Harriet, we lost him. Harriet didn't want any living reminders that he'd ever had another life with another woman who'd had the kids she couldn't have. As far as I'm concerned, Harriet killed my father.'

"Everybody seems to have made Harriet the scapegoat," Raffi said. "Was she as bad as all that?"

Dr. Rowan said, "She was rich and selfish. I didn't care for her, but n.o.body's as bad as all that. She was desperate to have the child she couldn't have, and was used to getting her own way. You're right when you say she was the scapegoat. Everybody else's mistakes were conveniently put onto Harriet. Even Grange's. If he hadn't married Harriet, none of the horrors would have happened.

However, he did marry Harriet, and that gives him a certain responsibility.

He liked Harriet's money. He liked not having to work within the inevitable stresses of the academic world."

"Did he like my dad? His son? Did he love him?"

A Live Coal in the Sea299 "Grange and Rose both loved being loved." "But did they love?"

"Maybe they loved the idea of love, of being in love," Dr. Rowan suggested.

"I.

don't know how to put limits on love, Raffi. People love differently. Some ways of love we recognize because they're at least reasonably close to the way we, ourselves, love. Some of it is quite different. When it stops being love I am not sure."

"We've been reading Anna Karenina in cla.s.s. Seems to me Tolstoy saw most families as being unhappy. His certainly was."

"What's happy, Raffi? Speaking of which, any news about your father and his contract?"

"I haven't been home. I don't think there's any news, or Mom would have told me.

Why did Tolstoy write about unhappy families rather than happy ones?"

"Isn't the new term dysfunctional vs. functional?" "That's the present jargon."

"What strikes me, Raffi, is that your grandparents, despite everything, managed to have an amazingly functional family."

"But they're not my grandparents."

"Oh, yes, they are. Emotionally they are your grandparents, and that's been a blessing to you, hasn't it?"

"Well, yes. Grandmother. I never knew Grandfather, remember? Aunt Frankie seems to have, done pretty well." "Frankie's an amazing combination of love and forbearance and self-protection"

"She got away, didn't she? Far, far away, by marrying someone from Seattle."

"And also through her work. She's an excellent ill.u.s.trator. Not a great artist, perhaps, but her work in the children's book world is highly regarded, and she has more jobs than she can accept. Frankie was born strong and loving, and somehow she's managed to hang on to that."

Madeleine L'Engle300 "Good genes?"

"Good genes help, but we do have to live our own lives and make our own decisions and abide by the consequences. Some pretty horrendous characters started out with good genes, and others, who had bad starts, have managed to do splendid things with their lives. Consider your father, Raffi. According to the world's standards, he's amazingly successful."

"Yeah, I guess that's true." Suddenly she stopped, almost shouted, "Hey, Dr.

Rowan, I just remembered something!" "What?"

"About Dad." "Yes?"

"I don't have the faintest idea why I remembered it now. It was long ago, when I.

was a little kid, and Grandmother was still in New York."

"Go on," Luisa urged.

"Dad used to drink. He wasn't an alcoholic. It never interfered with his work, but he used to come back home from the studio and have a couple of drinks.

Martinis, I think. And then he'd go into a gripe session, where nothing pleased him. One night he began shouting about how much he hated his father, and how his father had ruined his life."

"Which father?" Luisa asked.

"That's just it," Raffi said. "I'd never heard of this Red Grange character, so of course I thought he was talking about Grandfather. It was really weird, because usually he talked about how much he loved Grandfather and how sorry'

he was I never had a chance to know him. But that night he kept on talking about how selfish his father was, how he wanted only his own pleasure, and how he'd deprived Dad of his ident.i.ty. Mom just took me up to bed and said Dad didn't know what he was talking about, gin breeds aggression, and I should forget it.

Forget it, she said. How could I?"

"Go on." Luisa's voice was gentle.

"But I did forget it, after all, didn't I? I mean, I haven't A Live Coal in the Sea-301 thought about it all these years till this very minute. I remember Mom gave Dad an ultimatum. No more booze, no more drugs."

"Drugs?"

"Pot, I suppose. Maybe cocaine, that's what a lot of people were doing.

Anyhow, Dad quit. Cold turkey."

"With the help of AA?"

"Dad? My dad didn't need AA. He could do it himself." Her voice was heavywith scorn.

Luisa asked mildly, "But he did do it himself, didn't he?" "I guess he did. I never saw him drink any liquor after that. But, Dr. Rowan, don't you see?

When Dad was going on about how he hated his father, he wasn't talking about Grandfather, was he? He was talking about this Red Grange who was his biological father. No wonder he hated somebody who took him away from where he was happy, from Aunt Frankie and Grandmother and Grandfather."

"Does it help you understand?"

"A little. Thank G.o.d Dad doesn't have any of Harriet's genes. If he has the same genes as Grandmother, and I guess he has to, half of them, if they have the same mother, well, he must have started out with a good chance. In the world's eyes, in my friends' eyes, Dad is terrific."

"Isn't he, at least some of the time?"

"Maybe."

"And you, Raffi? Are you terrific?"

"I've come to see that I'm not a total blot on anybody's escutcheon, and that I.

don't have to let all this screw up my life completely. I'd have to do that myself."

"This is a real breakthrough, Raffi." "Is itT"

"You know it is. You've made remarkable progress. How's college?"

"I like it. I like having Grandmother nearby. I've made some good friends."

Madeleine L'Engle302 "How are your grades?"

"Good. I'll be on the dean's list, so that means I can try out for the next play, and I'm going to."

"Good," Luisa applauded.

"I'm beginning to realize I don't have to have Dad's approval. I've got the grades, so I can go ahead and do what I want. I may be stunted in some ways, but not academically."

Taxi did moderately well academically at his boarding school. His mandatory weekly letters home were brief and uninformative, and referred to the school as the prison to which he had been unfairly committed.

From the school's point of view, he had adapted reasonably well, got his work in mostly on time, and was the star both of the chorus and of the drama club.

He came home for spring vacation looking pale, then flushed. Camilla took his temperature and called Dr. Wickoffs office.

'You'd better bring him right in,' the nurse said. 'Dr. Liz isn't in, but Dr.

Andy will see him.'

There seemed no reason to refuse. Taxi had met Dr. Andy, as everybody called him and, as far as Camilla could see, a.s.sociated him with nothing unpleasant.

Andrew's office was, like Liz's, cluttered with things which might appeal to children. One wall was hung with photographs, some of young patients, some of family. An drew and Elizabeth now had two little boys, who were prominently displayed. There were several snapshots of Noelle's twins and her younger little girl. Camilla's eyes were drawn to a large color photograph of Andrew and Noelle, Andrew an early adolescent, Noelle a charming child. Andrew's hair blazed, and Noelle's was a .rather lank brown; no wonder she played with it.Andrew examined Taxi methodically. 'I'll s-send this cul A Live Coal in the Sea > >303.

ture to the lab, but I'm betting it's strep, so I'm going to start you right away on medication-' He was looking carefully at the chart. 'Something you're not allergic to. You're to take all of it, Taxi, even if you s-start to feel better. Lie low for a couple of days. Read. Watch TV. Rest. You've grown a lot since I last saw you, and you're underweight.'

'I've no intention of becoming an obese slob.'

'No anorexia allowed in this office. Go home and let your family pet and pamper you.'

'Oh, yes, and then they'll send me back to that prison.' 'It's not a prison, it's an excellent school. The head's a friend of mine, and the report is that you are d-doing very well indeed, and that the other boys like and admire you.'

Taxi shrugged. 'Peasants.'

'Okay, T-Taxi. Strep does tend to bring out the negative. When your fever is gone and you're feeling better, the rest of the world will be brighter.'

Camilla and Mac went up to the school to see Taxi in Amahl and the Night Visitors. He was still small enough to play a younger boy, his voice on the verge of deepening but still pure and sweet. Camilla and Mac held hands and watched him transcend himself. He brought a quality to the opera seldom seen in an amateur production.

'I wish Frankie had come,' Camilla said.

Frankie was keeping her distance from Taxi, and the day of the production conflicted with one of her art cla.s.ses. 'Give Taxi my love,' she said. 'He'll understand I can't skip cla.s.s.' Of course he didn't.

A few weeks later they had a troubled call from the headmaster. Taxi had been found in the stacks of the library on the floor with one of the girl students.

Both of them were being Madeleine L'Engle304 suspended for a week. Then they would be allowed to return to school, on probation, under strict supervision.

Taxi came home, delighted to see everybody, not regarding the suspension in any way as a punishment. At dinner he said, 'There are quite a few shows I want to see in these few days, so I'm going to Times Square and stand in line.'