8

Thomas kissed me with his big lips on my lips. It tickled and it felt funny. Warm and squishy. He tasted like my mom’s ziti, but it wasn’t yucky. It tickled my belly, which was weird because he didn’t touch my belly, just my lips.

I stand on my tiptoes and look at my face in the bathroom mirror. I do it a lot. Sometimes I make faces, but not tonight.

When I look at my face I look the same, but I feel different. Like when Thomas came to Minnie’s the first time.

I liked it when Thomas kissed me. It felt good. Not like when Mom kisses me good. Different good. Like in my private parts good.

I swish my mouth with water, then I spit. Then I drink more water, but I don’t swallow it. I spit more. I look at my teeth. Clean. I wash my toothbrush: wash, wash, wash. Then I turn off the water and shake, shake my toothbrush. I put it in the Dumbo toothbrush holder. It goes in the hole by Dumbo’s trunk. Never by his tail.

I make straight my towel on my towel rack and then I get a wipe out of the tub of wipes under the sink and I clean my sink. I always clean my sink before I go to bed. I don’t like spit in my sink. If your spit has toothpaste in it, it makes your sink all white and dirty. I throw the dirty wipe in my princess trash can and I shut off my bathroom light. I always shut the light off. Electricity costs money. That’s what my mom says. I don’t know how much. Maybe like as much as a million-jillion dollars.

I get in my bed and I get the book I’m going to read. I don’t really read, but I remember most of the words because Mom can read. She’s a teacher at college. Different college than Miss Minnie’s. Mom has to read so she can read papers people give her. I mostly look at the pictures in books.

I wiggle under the covers and lay on my pillow. I read some pages of my book, but it’s not a good book tonight. Sometimes it’s a good book. It’s the one about the bird that gets lost from its mother. It asks a bulldozer, “Are you my mother?” That’s funny and it makes me laugh. Birds don’t have bulldozer moms. They have bird moms.

But the book doesn’t make me laugh tonight. I try to think about the bird that can’t find his mother, but I can’t because I’m thinking about Thomas.

When we were watching Aladdin, I had to keep telling him who Prince Ali and Princess Jasmine were. And the bad guy, Jafar. Jafar’s scary but not as scary as Scar. Scar’s in Lion King. Thomas never did watch Lion King, either. Him and his mom watch Veggie Tales. They’re stupid head but I didn’t tell him because that would make him sad. When he comes to watch Lion King at my house, I will tell him who Simba is.

Tonight Thomas kept asking me what a genie is. When I told him it was a guy in a lamp, he said I was very smart.

No one ever told me I was very smart before.

I close the book because I’m not reading it.

I keep thinking about Thomas saying I’m smart. I’m not smart. I’m a dummy head because I can’t read Are You My Mother? for real. Thomas can read. He’s smarter than me.

At the bowling alley, he said we had to have one dollar and twenty-five cents to get a soda. He had money in his pocket. We didn’t know how much one dollar and twenty-five cents was, but Thomas is smart because he could read that sign.

He gave the girl two hundred dollars and she gave us money pennies back and gave us a Coke. We shared.

Thomas keeps saying I’m his girlfriend and he’s my boyfriend. He said he bought me a Coke so now I’m really his girlfriend. I don’t think if he bought me a Coke I’m his girlfriend. I’m his girlfriend because he kissed me like Hercules kisses Meg. Meg is Hercules’s girlfriend. And Ariel kisses Eric. In Little Mermaid.

I close my eyes and I think about Thomas’s mouth when it touched my mouth.

I think Mom is mad that me and Thomas kissed. I’m sorry I made her mad. I don’t want to make her mad.

But I want to kiss Thomas again on his lips. Maybe on Wednesday.

 

* * *

 

That night, the minute Chloe goes up to bed, and Jin goes back to her place, I sit down with my laptop. I’m disturbed by Chloe’s physical display of affection toward Thomas. She’s always been a hugger. Down syndrome people tend to be physically affectionate, but I’ve never seen her behave this way. Where did she learn to kiss like that?

We always kiss on the cheek. She and I. I don’t think Randall kisses her anymore, but when she was younger, he kissed her cheek, always her cheek. How can she know about kissing on the lips and what it means?

I do a Google search on intimacy between mentally challenged adults. It’s not as easy to find information as I thought it would be. I find very little using the word intimacy, but when I dare type in sex, I get more hits than I care to look at.

I wonder if Margaret has gone home and Googled the same topic. Is this the first time she’s encountered this with Thomas? Or has he kissed other girls before . . . maybe in Ohio? Maybe they do that sort of thing in Dayton. Around here, it’s just not done. It’s not even talked about in the parent support group I attend.

I read.

Apparently, until recently, very few studies have been done on intimacy and the mentally disabled. Because people like Chloe were once institutionalized and housed by gender, there was very little interaction between males and females; there was no research on the subject. Until recently, society hadn’t really considered sexuality among the mentally challenged.

I read an article about sexual abuse of the mentally disabled. There’s an article about Down syndrome women being particularly at risk because of their tendencies toward physical affection.

It makes me angry. I don’t read the whole article. If I’m overprotective, this is why. It’s right here, in black and white.

I read about an eight-week sex education class for mentally handicapped young adults being taught at a center in California.

I’ve taught Chloe about bad touching and good touching, but not sex, per se. I’ve explained to her how Jin holding her hand is good touching, but a man touching her butt at the grocery store is bad touching. I’ve tried to make her understand that anything that makes her feel uncomfortable is bad touching and that she needs to tell me about it.

But I don’t think she understands. I’m sure she doesn’t.

I read for more than an hour. I read about society’s recent shift in beliefs, how mentally challenged adults are being encouraged, by their parents and caregivers, to have relationships. Supported in sexual relationships. I find several references to an HBO documentary about two Down syndrome adults who marry and live with the woman’s parents. I write down the title to check later to see if I can see it On Demand.

My reading leaves me more upset than I was before I sat down. I don’t know what to do. My first impulse is to put an end to the relationship before anything bad happens.

Do I tell Chloe she can’t see Thomas anymore? Do I not let him come here, or let her go anywhere with him? Could I just make sure they’re never alone? Should I take her out of Minnie’s or change her schedule with Minnie?

But Chloe likes Thomas. He’s her first real friend. She likes everyone at Minnie’s, but no one has ever called her to do things outside of Miss Minnie’s. I suspect that, like Chloe, they don’t have a life beyond Miss Minnie’s, except for their families. Thomas is a friend Chloe can meet on equal ground, unlike Huan, whom she calls her friend but who isn’t really. Not any more than the bagger at the grocery store or the clerk at the post office is her friend. And Chloe’s obviously thrilled to have Thomas for a friend. How can I take that away from her? How can I not want my daughter to be happy? If she were normal, I’d be encouraging her to seek a healthy relationship.

If she were average is what I mean. We don’t say normal in mentally challenged caregiver circles. It’s not politically correct. This is normal for Chloe, and men and women like her. Political correctness has not, however, prevented me from thinking it.

I stare at the computer screen, thinking how different my life might be if Randall and I hadn’t discontinued that first pregnancy. I never use the word abort. Just like I never use the word regret when I think of it. Regrets never do anyone any good. We can learn only from our mistakes.

But you can’t help where your mind goes sometimes.

If I’d carried our first child to term, he or she would have graduated college. I think about it all the time, my thoughts sometimes bordering on obsession. I go over the same questions again and again in my mind. Would she have gone to Princeton as Randall had dreamed? Would she be married and working in the academia field?

It’s easy to let my mind wander over the possibilities. Without the stress of a disabled child, maybe Randall and I would still be together.

But if I’d had that first baby, would we have ever had a second? Would we have ever had Chloe? I always come to this question, eventually.

And I always know, in my heart, the answer. Knowing Randall, had I delivered our first child, Chloe would have never been born. Randall would never have agreed to a second child. We’re academics, after all. We don’t do children. We teach them.

I can’t imagine giving Chloe up for Randall. Chloe is, by far, the best thing that has ever happened to me. Ever will happen.

And this is how I repaid her for coming into my life, for making my life? I screwed up her chromosomes?

I close my eyes. This is silly. Why do I do this to myself? This is not my fault. Chloe’s Down’s is not my fault. I know that logically. Scientifically.

So why does it still feel like it’s my fault? After all these years, why do I still feel this way? Because I did it. I gave birth to a damaged child.

If we lived in some societies, we would both be ostracized. My husband would have divorced me, and my in-laws would consider Chloe and me pariahs. Really . . . not so different from Main Street America. Oh, everyone is polite about it, but I see their looks, and sometimes I can almost hear them thinking, I wonder what she did to have a child like that. Most pity me, but I don’t want their pity. What I want is acceptance . . . acceptance for both of us. Acceptance I know we’ll never get.

My fingers hover over the keyboard. I feel lost. Like I can’t find my way home. I can’t read any more articles about people like Chloe being in love or having sex.

I barely realize what I’m typing, until the words come up. I bring up the Friends’ Meeting House in a town twenty minutes from here. I don’t know what makes me think of it, or look it up.

I haven’t been to a Quaker Meeting in twenty-six years.

I stopped going after Randall and I were married. After we were married, we were so busy. And my mom was dead. I didn’t have to go for her sake anymore.

But I remember going a couple of times before Chloe was born, when my stomach was huge. To this very same Meeting House in Oak’s Bend.

The truth is, I really stopped going after Chloe was born. When she was born with Down syndrome. I abandoned my faith because I felt it had abandoned me. I felt that God had abandoned me and Chloe. Or maybe He never existed at all?

How is that for academic thinking?

I’m surprised that my eyes have filled with tears. I’m not a crier. Never was, but any tears I had inside me have been cried out. I cried for Chloe, for myself, yes, even for Randall in the days after she was born. It seemed as if I did nothing but cry in those first weeks and months after we brought Chloe home from the hospital.

The thing was, despite the sentence, Trisomy 21, Chloe was a beautiful baby. The way she looked up at me with those big blue eyes of hers, eyes that would stay blue. The way she cooed and batted her little fists. She loved me from the moment she came into the world, a nonjudgmental love that I had never experienced before.

And she was such a good baby. Despite the nurse’s warnings that Down’s babies have trouble suckling, Chloe took to my breast right away. She slept when she was supposed to sleep and she rarely cried. Chloe was always happy, always wanting to please me. Her physical development was slow, but eventually she did all the things babies were supposed to do.

She made me happy.

I stare at the picture of the quaint nineteenth-century Meeting House on the computer screen, with its cedar shakes and big, plain windows. Inside, I know there are old benches facing each other. No crosses on the walls, no adornments.

There are some Friends’ Meeting Houses where there’s a service with a sermon and singing. This Friends’ Meeting practices the tradition of silent worship; attendees sit in contemplative quiet in the hopes of experiencing the presence of God.

I think about sitting on one of the benches, and I remember the sense of peace I had felt there once upon a time.

The phone rings, startling me. The house phone. I glance at my cell phone as I reach for the other phone on the coffee table. It’s nine fifty-five. Who could be calling this late?

I look at the caller-ID. “Mark?” I say into the phone.

“Sorry I’m just getting back to you.”

For a moment, I draw a blank. I don’t remember calling the plumber. Not since last week. I haven’t gotten last week’s bill yet.

“Jin’s kitchen faucet,” he reminds me.

“Right,” I say quickly. “Sorry, things have been crazy here tonight.” I rub my temple. “Jin called you.”

“I didn’t get an answer at her place. I was going to come by tomorrow morning, if that’s okay.”

“Tomorrow . . . that’s fine. Great.”

He’s quiet for a second. “You okay, Alicia?”

His tone of voice catches me off guard and my eyes actually tear up again. No one but Jin ever asks if I’m okay. Not my colleagues, certainly not Randall. He never asked about my emotional well-being, even when we were married. I know Mark is just my plumber, but I’m somehow comforted by the concern in his voice.

“Just a long day. Some things going on with Chloe.”

“Kids,” he says with understanding in his voice. “I have two. They live with my ex-wife, in Chestertown.”

I never thought about the fact that Mark had probably been married, probably had kids. He’s younger than me, but only by a few years, I would guess. “Boys or girls?” I ask.

“One of each. Twins. Emma, she’s the oldest by six minutes, and Elon. They’re sixteen.”

I smile because I hear him smile. “Twins,” I say. I had always thought about what it would be like to have twins. Of course, Randall and I had never even contemplated having another child after Chloe. He had a vasectomy when she was three months old. Randall and I were responsible parents. We would have never dared taken our chances in conceiving another child.

I realize that I’ve allowed an awkward pause between us. “So . . . I’ll see you in the morning?”

“See you in the morning.”

I hang up and look at the computer screen. An ad for a well-known online dating service pops up on the screen. Half off tonight. I click the box that launches me onto the site . . . just for the hell of it.

I look at the cost. With the half-off coupon, it’s $14.99 for a month. It goes down to $12.99, if I sign up for six months.

Would it really take six months for them to find me a date? I could find my own date in six months. I read some of the testimonials.

Ah . . . these people are looking for a spouse. I don’t need a husband. I would never do that to Chloe—bring a man into the house. But surely there must be men looking for companionship without marriage.

I nibble on my lower lip. Fifteen bucks, I tell myself.

I hear a tap at my front door. I know who it is. It’s the only person who scratches at my door at ten at night. Jin’s back.

I shuffle to the door in sweatpants, sweatshirt, and shearling slippers.

“Sorry,” Jin says as I unlock the door. “I know it’s late but you’re not in bed.”

I raise my arms and let them fall. “Not in bed.” I wave her in. Ours is the most comfortable relationship I’ve ever had. The easiest. The kindest. Without Jin, I’d be lost. “I’m just surfing the Net.” I close my laptop when we walk into the living room. I know Jin would be supportive of the idea of me Internet dating, but I don’t want to discuss it with her. Not right now, at least.

“So, what’s up?” I can tell by the look on her face that something is. She’s still wearing the pink wifebeater and yoga pants, but at least she’s thrown a sweatshirt over them. Of course, it’s one of those off-the-shoulder sweatshirts, the kind skinny people dance in. I gave up feeling frumpy around her years ago. I just don’t have the energy.

I sit. She sits across from me.

“Chloe in bed?” she asks.

I nod. “I can’t believe she kissed Thomas,” I blurt out.

“So he is her boyfriend.”

“Never mind.” I hold up my hand. “I can’t talk about this tonight. If I think about it anymore, my head is going to explode.” I pull a throw pillow onto my lap. “You didn’t just come over to say hi after you ate all the pasta?”

She looks at her hands in her lap. She’s one of those people who, even at our age, can still sit Indian-style comfortably on a couch.

I wait.

She groans and hangs her head. “Abby called my cell. That’s why I didn’t pick up when Mark called.”

“He’ll be here tomorrow morning.”

She nods, then hesitates long enough for me to think I might have to wheedle the Abby information out of her, but then she goes on. “I didn’t actually talk to her.” Jin nibbles on her lower lip. “She left a message. She wants to come this weekend.”

“I thought Huan was going to the Metropolitan Art Museum in New York with friends this weekend.”

Jin picks at the hem of her yoga pants. “That’s why she wants to come this weekend. To see me. Without Huan.”

“Why?”

Jin shrugs, but doesn’t look at me. “What if it’s bad? What if she has cancer or something?”

“I doubt that’s it.” I open my laptop and casually close the windows on the dating service and the Google searches. I’ll think about couples.com later.

Now Jin is picking at the polish on her big toenail. “You think she’s getting married again?”

I slide one foot under me. That’s about as flexible as I get. “I thought you said that Huan said that she broke up with that corporate lawyer, like, three months ago.”

“She did,” Jin says. “But maybe they got back together and they’re getting married and she wants to tell me face-to-face.” She opens and closes her arms. “I want to be happy for her, but I can’t. How could she be happy with this woman when she couldn’t be happy with me?”

I’m surprised by the emotion in Jin’s voice. She’s really upset.

“You don’t know that she’s getting married.” I power down my computer. “That’s as crazy as guessing she might have cancer. There’s no evidence that either is true.”

“What do I do?” Jin asks, meeting my gaze, again.

What do I do? I think. About Thomas. About Chloe and Thomas. “I guess we just wait and see.”