MELISSA COMES HOME by Mildred Krentel
THE FIRST SHOCK
The next Morning when they brought her into my room for her early feeding, I checked her over carefully. Ten fingers, ten toes-the usual mother's routine.
And then it was that I noticed her large saucer-like eyes and the tiny, tiny slant in her left eye.
I propped her alongside me and she collapsed into a small, uncompromising heap, like one of those Japanese sleeping dolls.
Quite unbidden, there came to mind the face of a girl who had attended our church in Greensboro. She had an unusual first name: Geide!
I stared anew at my baby. Melissa looked exactly like Geide! And I began to shiver from head to foot. For Geide was a mongoloid.
Chapter One
I lay there plucking dream-dust fuzz from my addled brain. What on earth was that noise? The rhythmic pounding of a faraway surf- a devil's tattoo on a bong drum- or someone knocking at our door?
"I'm coming!" I bellowed in a none-too-gentle roar.
I pushed away the warm blanket. My husband's size twelve slippers did not begin to fit, but they bore a faint resemblance to what one should wear for an early-morning pre breakfast visit. I glared at my snoring mate in our king-sized bed and clutched his red paid bathrobe around me protectively as I unbolted the lock to our third-floor haven of rest.
Nineteen-year-old Debbie stood in the long hall. Any moment , now, she will burst into tears, I thought. Her pin-striped uniform and starched cap seemed inappropriate backdrops for her panic-stricken eyes.
"It's Mary Lou again!"
"Where now?"
"Under her bed. I can't get her to budge. All the other girls are downstairs eating breakfast."
"I'll handle it."
The words came out with a reassuring calm. No way did they indicate my inner state of being. I belted up more securely and stumbled down the hall in her wake, transfixed by her nurse's cap sliding back and forth over her blonde hair. She bounced wit a professional vigor that was faintly nauseating at that hour of the morning. I peered at my wrist. without my glasses, I could barely see the watch let alone the numbers.
"6:45, Mrs K." Debbie volunteered.
I shivered.
Mary Lou was flat on her belly under her bed. The pink flowered bedspread was a gypsy tent. As soon as she spotted me, she turned her weak blue eyes toward the wall.
I squatted down on the floor and threw back a corner of the bedspread. Mary Lou did not move. Her strawberry thick-lesed glasses hesitated halfway down her nose, and her spindly arms and legs bore little resemblance to her bulky 165 -pound body. She lay there taking root, thumb in her mouth, and fingers stroking her nose. It was difficult to remember that she was sixteen years old. Yet her application had stated it bluntly, adding rather succinct. "This child is subnormal in intelligence."
"Good morning, Mary Lou."
She eyed me suspiciously.
"Hey, move over a bit."
She managed to squeeze out an inch or so of space for me. I maneuvered alongside her awkwardly.
"Man, this is a cool hiding place! Didn't mind my coming in, did you?"
"Nope!"
Her voice was pure. "Kadiddle-hoffer."
"What ever happened to upset your applecart, Mary Lou?"
" I'm mad!"
It was not a debatable point. I asked the question which she was obviously waiting to hear next.
"Why are you mad?"
"My honey-bunny--she went away."
" Well, I never heard a single word about that! She's the best helper we have around here-just about." I
amended lest Mary Lou quote me later.
"Her didn't even say good-bye."
"You must be teasing me."
"Nope!"
As soon as the words were out for her mouth, her thumb was back in.
"Well, I don't exactly blame you for getting all upset. Hey, let's get out of here and sit up on your bed.
We'll talk about it some more."
In the confusion of squirming out from under the bed, I managed to lose one of the size-twelve slippers. But, since forward progress was being made, I decided that this was not the time to retrieve an innocuous item like a slipper.
Five minutes later, Mary Lou had clarified her sad state of being. One of our child-care workers, a dark-haired Portuguese girl of twenty-three named Mary, had not been on duty in the girls' wing for the past four days. I realized that Mary must have been assigned to the night shift. But Mary Lou was convinced that "her" Mary had vanished. Over and over again I tried to reassure her.
Because I was making little progress with my explanation, I jumped to my feet, grabbed both her hands, and laughingly dragged her up the stairs to the third-floor staff area just outside our apartment.
"Wait till you see! You'll never ever believe it. Hurry up, Mary Lou!"
We stopped before the closed bedroom door where her "honey-bunny" shared a room with another of our staff Very gently, I made a few mouse-scratchings on the door, waited a second or two, then turned the doorknob and let Mary Lou peek through the slit. When she spotted that familiar dark head wedged into the hump of her pillow, a foolish grin crept over her face.
Quietly I pulled the door shut and we went down the stairs together to breakfast.
At the door of the dining room, she left me happily and took her place around one of the small formica-topped tables. There were about twenty boys and girls seated around five tables. You might have thought you had stumbled into a high-school cafeteria. But, if you lingered a moment you would have witnessed the babble of fall-finished sentences, the unexplained laughter, the unblinking stares, the siren of an ascending trial-run scream, the avid attention accorded anything edible, and the unabashed thievery of loose morsels of food.
Debbie looked up briefly, spotted Mary Lou seated complacently in her chair, and winked. She continued to place heaping spoonfuls of scrambled eggs alongside buttered slice of toast. A handsome young Spanish-American Gomez deftly served it with one hand while whisking oversized terry-cloth bibs from the fireplace mantle.
Gomez tapped my shoulder and pointed wordlessly to a football helmet resting on the floor beside the chair of the thin-faced boy of ten with protruding cheekbones covered with set-inflicted deep purplish welts and bruises.
I nodded slowly and walked over to pat Bobby on the shoulder.
"God boy, Bobby. You don't need your helmet after all, do you/"
He threw me a calculated look.
"Daddy will come in the morning."
"Well, " I hedged, "probably not until the weekend, Bob, but it won't be long."
"Morning bells are ringing." His voice had an insistent singsong quality. His piercing eyes demanded answers.
A few of the older girls had noticed my early-morning appearance and started to giggle behind their hands. I acknowledged them with a sweeping bow, holding my red plaid robe regally around me, and flounced out of sight with hasty good-byes all the way around.
My precipitous exit only brought me smack into the path of an advancing battalion of eight toddlers headed for their own special "mess" hall which in more formal moments we chose to call the toddler dining room. Shepherded by a diminutive Miss Lottie, they step-by-stepped down the winding carpeted stairway, hands clinging to the leather- balustrade.
And then I spotted Melissa. She had planted herself dead center on the stairs a good five steps higher than where I was and prepared to fling herself in my general direction. Mouth open, eyes sparkling, and nose running, she stood there with her bath-robed arms askew. I had no sooner looked up than my arms were full of my five-year-old daughter Melissa, my mischievous little mongoloid.
I wiped her nose on a big white hankie stuffed in my husband's bathrobe pocket. Then I smothered her with kisses while she patted me condescendingly on my shoulder. And then she was off, blowing me kisses and heading for her first love-oatmeal!
I pulled out the big white hankie again and wiped my eyes. How quickly the memory of her birth flooded over me. But, to remember was to hurt.
And, dear God, I had hurt so much already..................
