Lark and Termite by Jayne Anne Phillips Page B

“Oh,” he says. “Well. I’m new, so there’s a lot to catch up on. I come and go. That’s a good thing about these small towns. It’s more informal. And you can walk to work. Anyway, I can. I suppose you can walk to the high school.”
    “I’m not at the high school. I take a secretarial course.” I’ve got my hand on the door and I push it shut just a little.
    He steps up closer and looks over my shoulder at Termite in his chair. “This is your brother? Termite. A nickname, I’d guess. What’s his real name?”
    “Terence,” I lie. I always seem to start lying to these people real quick. Even if I don’t have to.
    “By the way, my name is Robert Stamble.” He sticks his hand out at me from under the briefcase.
    Stumble, Stamble, I think. And from that time on he’s stumble, stammer, tumble, someone tripping in my head. Right away, I think he’d better leave. He thinks he means well and he doesn’t know anything. I can smell it on him like a hint, like the Old Spice smell of his aftershave. I hate that smell. Dads wear it in Dadville. I look at him closer and see that he doesn’t even look old enough to be much of a dad. He’s pale pink as the rims of a rabbit’s eyes, and blue eyed behind his thick glasses. Hiding in his suit.
    “Nonie’s not here,” I say, “and she says the check we get from Social Services is not enough to be harangued or bothered about. If you want to make a home visit, you should arrange it with her.”
    “You know,” he says, “we’re very much in favor of in-home care whenever possible, and we want to support you. There may be ways we can help. Physical therapy. Equipment. A wheelchair.”
    “I do physical therapy with him,” I say, “a nurse at the clinic taught me. And he’s got a wheelchair, a big heavy one. We keep it in the closet. He doesn’t like it, but we use it for his medical appointments.”
    Stamble fumbles around, opens the briefcase, shuffles papers. “Oh, yes.”
    “It’s one of the chairs Alderson passed on to the county,” I tell him.
    Alderson is the state hospital that closed two years ago, one town over. They shipped the craziest loonies somewhere else and let go the ones that were only taking up space.
    “Of course.” Stamble looks up at me.
    “Social Services sent it when they said he had to go to the special school.”
    Stamble keeps on. “Still, don’t you find it easier than—”
    I get it. He’s seen me pull Termite in the wagon. I do most every day. The wagon is deep and safe, with high wooden slats for sides, and long enough I can stretch Termite’s legs out. It’s like the old wagons they used to haul ice or coal. It was in the basement of this house when Nonie moved in. She says it’s probably older than she is. “Termite doesn’t like the wheelchair,” I repeat.
    Stamble nods. “He’s a child. He should have a smaller chair, one his size. Something portable would be easier for you.”
    “Portable?” I think about that. Coming into port, like on a boat. Termite, bobbing on the waves. I’m watching him through a round window small as a plate. A porthole. We’re coming up on a pretty little town by the sea, and Stamble blink, blink, blinks. For a minute I think he’s fooling with me, or maybe he’s nervous. Where did they get him?
    He goes on at me. “Child-sized. Not as heavy. Some of them fold. Easier to take in and out of an automobile, whatever.”
    “We don’t have an automobile,” I tell Stamble. I step back. “Anyway, he doesn’t like the chair he already has.”
    “Maybe he needs a chance to get used to it, gradually of course. Does he mind the medical appointments?”
    “No, not really. I wouldn’t say he minds.”
    “Because if he associates a wheelchair only with something he doesn’t like, you might change that by taking him to do something he does like—in the wheelchair.”
    I shift my weight and stand so he can’t see behind me. Termite stays real quiet. If he knows when to be