sitting on the couch with Samuel on her lap, the telephone receiver in the crook of her neck. “But you don’t understand. He’s never been away from me. As in never.” She pauses, and I can hear someone talking on the other end. Samuel reaches up to the phone cord, wrapping it around his wrist. “I know there’s a first time for everything,” she says. “I know that, okay?”
The night before the first day of school, my mother knocks on my door and tells me that Samuel probably won’t get to start school tomorrow. She can tell he is already upset. He knows something is up, she says, and she expects he will put up a fight. She doesn’t see how she’ll be able to get him up and dressed and waiting for the bus by eight.
“It just won’t work,” she says, shrugging. “They don’t understand.” She is standing in my doorway, wearing the jean skirt and a shirt that is on backwards. I watch her for a moment, pushing my glasses up so I can really see her. She bites her lip, looks back at me.
“I’ll stay home and help you,” I say. “I can miss the first day.”
The next morning, we get up at six, and even though she insists on being the one to lift him and help him brush his teeth, it really is a good thing I am there. He thrashes and swings when she lifts him from his bed to his wheelchair, from his wheelchair to the tub, and then up and over the rim of the tub into his wheelchair again. She leans him up against her so she can shimmy his pants up and over his hips, pushing his arms into his shirtsleeves, and he screams. I stand behind him, holding his arms down with mine, careful not to squeeze or pinch his thin skin. But still he grabs hold of her hair when we are coming out of the bathroom, and his grip is so strong that he is able to bring her to her knees before I can get him to let go. We wait until after breakfast to put on his shoes, because he is kicking wildly, swinging his legs with more strength than I thought he had.
He has never been like this before. He knows today is different after all.
When the bus comes, things go badly. My mother wheels him outside, and there is no doubt in my mind at all that he sees the bus, the lowered wheelchair ramp, and the smiling paras waiting on each side. He screams as if he is dying, holding on to my mother’s shirt with his crooked hand until his fingers turn the color of bruised peaches. I am so busy trying to pry his fingers away that for a while I don’t see that she is holding on to him too, her arm locked around his waist.
I touch her hand. “Mom.”
One of the paras, a large woman wearing running shoes and a fanny pack, pats my mother on the shoulder. “Don’t worry,” she says. “We’re going to take care of him. We’re going to teach him things. I promise.”
But he manages to pop the other para in the nose before they get him on the bus. She stands up for a moment, wrinkling her nose like a rabbit. “I’m okay,” she says. “I’m fine.” They strap his wheelchair onto the lift, and he starts to move upward.
“It’s only for a few hours, baby,” my mother says. She’s crying now, not even embarrassed that the paras can see. “You’ll be home by two.”
They put him next to a window, both of them kneeling to buckle him in. I can see two other people on the bus, a little girl who looks normal, and a boy with a very large head. Samuel bangs his fist against the glass, and we can hear him screaming. My mother has to turn around and put her hand over her eyes until the bus pulls onto the highway.
“Are they gone?” she asks.
“They’re gone.” I put my arm around her. “You did a good job. He’ll be home by two.”
She is still crying, her shoulders heaving beneath my arm, but after a while she looks up at me, and even with the tears on her face, she looks like she could also be laughing. “Look, you’re a nice lady and everything,” she says. “But what have you done with my real daughter?”
I take my arm away, embarrassed.