Educating Simon by Robin Reardon

Author:Robin Reardon [Reardon, Robin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kensington Publishing Corp.
Published: 2014-06-15T16:00:00+00:00

Boston, Saturday, 22 September

After breakfast, which Mum and I had alone because Brian has been having breakfast with Persie in her rooms since Anna left, Mum asked me if I would stand guard near the bottom of the stairs whilst she and Brian discussed the question of whom to hire. They’d be in the kitchen, the farthest room from Persie’s.

Mum said, “We just don’t want her to have to hear all the ins and outs of the situation.”

“Why don’t you go into the den instead? You could shut the door.”

“She’s upstairs, reading, and if she comes out I want you to be able to let us know immediately.”

I reckoned it was a crap shoot either way. “Has anyone asked her what she wants?”

“Interesting you would ask that. I wanted to. Brian said no. He said that once she expresses a preference, the decision would be out of our hands.”

“Well, that’s probably true. So the solution would be not to suggest a candidate you couldn’t live with.”

“I know, I know. It’s—he’s so afraid for her.”

Everything I’ve heard from Mum about the next stage of Persie’s care has sounded better to me than Brian’s position. I looked at Mum with a new sense of respect and said, “Let me go and fetch some work, and I’ll set up in the music room where I can see the stairs.”

When I got downstairs with my laptop and a few books, Mum and Brian were at the kitchen table. The kitchen is on the other side of the living room from the music room, and at first their voices were low, so I was able to concentrate on homework. Then I heard Mum’s voice, raised, say, “That’s not fair! You can’t keep holding that over my head! Persie is not Clive. She’s not autistic; she has AS.”

Brian shushed her, and they were quiet again for a bit, but gradually the volume rose enough for me to tell that the conflict Mum had described to me yesterday was still alive and well. I kept glancing up the stairs towards Persie’s door, which remained shut.

I renewed my attempts to concentrate on my homework, but I could no longer quite ignore the discussion in the kitchen, which was definitely louder now than when it had started. At one point Mum asked a question that sounded particularly challenging.

“Brian, where do you see her ten years from now?”

“Here.” His answer was very quick, spoken possibly without thought at all.

“Do you see her as ever being able to live apart from us?”

“I don’t see how.”

“It’s likely that she’ll outlive both of us.”

“I’ve provided for that. She has a generous trust fund, and I’ve appointed people to manage her care for the rest of her life.”

“Do you think that when she’s, maybe, twenty-five or thirty, she might rebel and want a little more autonomy?”

At last, something he didn’t have a quick answer for. “It seems unlikely.”

“Or she could begin to feel like that after we’re gone. And that could happen suddenly—a plane crash, something like that.

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