Read Online Once in a Lifetime by Danielle Steel - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Danielle Steel
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The doctor's voice had been gentle. "It doesn't have to be forever, Daphne. But you have to face facts. You can't teach him at home what he needs to know. He needs totally different skills than you can give him."
"Then I'll learn them!" She had shouted at him because she couldn't shout at Andrew's deafness, or at life, or fate, or the gods who had been so unkind to her. "Dammit, I'll learn them and I'll stay with him night and day to help him!" But she had already done that, and it wasn't working. Andrew was living in total isolation.
"And when you die?" the pediatrician asked bluntly. "You don't have a right to do that to him. You'll make him totally dependent on you. Give him the right to his own life, for God's sake. A school will teach him independence, it will teach him how to function in the normal world when he's ready."
"And when will that be? When he's twenty-five? Thirty? When he's so totally used to being out of the world that he's institutionalized? I saw those people up there, I talked to them, through an interpreter. They don't even trust what they call 'hearing people.' They're all freaks, for chrissake. Some of them are forty years old and have never lived anywhere but an institution. I won't do that to him." He had sat, watching them talk, fascinated by the gestures and the expressions on their faces, but Andrew had heard none of the angry words between his mother and his doctor.
For three years she had fought her private war, to the slow but steady detriment of Andrew. It had become obvious long since that Andrew could not speak, and when he was three, her renewed efforts to introduce him to hearing children at the playground were a disaster. Everyone shunned him. It was as though they somehow knew that he was terribly, terribly different, and one day she watched him sitting in the sandbox alone, watching the other children with tears running down his face, and then looking at his mother as though to say "What's wrong with me?" She had run to him and held him, rocking him gently as they both cried, feeling isolated and afraid. Daphne felt that she had failed him. A month later, for Daphne, the war was over. With lead in her heart she began to visit the schools she so desperately hated, feeling as though at any moment Andrew would be torn from her. She couldn't face another loss in her life, and yet she knew that not to do it would destroy him. Freeing him was the ultimate gift she had to give him. And at last she found the only school where she could bear to leave him. It was in a small, comfortable town in New Hampshire, with birch trees surrounding it, and a pretty little pond, and a small river that ran along the grounds, where she watched the children fish. And what she liked best about it was that there were no "students" there older than twenty. They weren't called patients, or residents or inmates, as she had heard in other institutions. They were called children and students, like "real" people. And most were sent back to their families in their late teens, to attend colleges when they could, or take jobs, and return to the families who had stood behind them for so long and waited. As Daphne walked slowly around the grounds with the director, a stately woman with white hair, she felt the weight of her loss again, knowing that Andrew might live there for as long as fifteen years, or at least eight or ten. It was a commitment that tore her heart from her. This was her last child, her last love, the only human being alive who was related to her, and she was going to leave him. Her eyes filled with tears again at the thought, and she felt the same shaft of unbearable pain she had felt for months as she had come to terms with the decision, and as the tears poured down her face she felt the director's hand on her arm, and suddenly she was in the older woman's arms, being held close in a strong comforting grasp, sobbing out the pain of the past four years, since even before the birth of Andrew.
"You're
"Then I'll learn them!" She had shouted at him because she couldn't shout at Andrew's deafness, or at life, or fate, or the gods who had been so unkind to her. "Dammit, I'll learn them and I'll stay with him night and day to help him!" But she had already done that, and it wasn't working. Andrew was living in total isolation.
"And when you die?" the pediatrician asked bluntly. "You don't have a right to do that to him. You'll make him totally dependent on you. Give him the right to his own life, for God's sake. A school will teach him independence, it will teach him how to function in the normal world when he's ready."
"And when will that be? When he's twenty-five? Thirty? When he's so totally used to being out of the world that he's institutionalized? I saw those people up there, I talked to them, through an interpreter. They don't even trust what they call 'hearing people.' They're all freaks, for chrissake. Some of them are forty years old and have never lived anywhere but an institution. I won't do that to him." He had sat, watching them talk, fascinated by the gestures and the expressions on their faces, but Andrew had heard none of the angry words between his mother and his doctor.
For three years she had fought her private war, to the slow but steady detriment of Andrew. It had become obvious long since that Andrew could not speak, and when he was three, her renewed efforts to introduce him to hearing children at the playground were a disaster. Everyone shunned him. It was as though they somehow knew that he was terribly, terribly different, and one day she watched him sitting in the sandbox alone, watching the other children with tears running down his face, and then looking at his mother as though to say "What's wrong with me?" She had run to him and held him, rocking him gently as they both cried, feeling isolated and afraid. Daphne felt that she had failed him. A month later, for Daphne, the war was over. With lead in her heart she began to visit the schools she so desperately hated, feeling as though at any moment Andrew would be torn from her. She couldn't face another loss in her life, and yet she knew that not to do it would destroy him. Freeing him was the ultimate gift she had to give him. And at last she found the only school where she could bear to leave him. It was in a small, comfortable town in New Hampshire, with birch trees surrounding it, and a pretty little pond, and a small river that ran along the grounds, where she watched the children fish. And what she liked best about it was that there were no "students" there older than twenty. They weren't called patients, or residents or inmates, as she had heard in other institutions. They were called children and students, like "real" people. And most were sent back to their families in their late teens, to attend colleges when they could, or take jobs, and return to the families who had stood behind them for so long and waited. As Daphne walked slowly around the grounds with the director, a stately woman with white hair, she felt the weight of her loss again, knowing that Andrew might live there for as long as fifteen years, or at least eight or ten. It was a commitment that tore her heart from her. This was her last child, her last love, the only human being alive who was related to her, and she was going to leave him. Her eyes filled with tears again at the thought, and she felt the same shaft of unbearable pain she had felt for months as she had come to terms with the decision, and as the tears poured down her face she felt the director's hand on her arm, and suddenly she was in the older woman's arms, being held close in a strong comforting grasp, sobbing out the pain of the past four years, since even before the birth of Andrew.
"You're
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