Where You Are. J.H. Trumble

me if you want to talk. Okay? Don’t worry about Curtis. I’ve got him wrapped around my little finger.” He winks and gets out.

      “You sure you’re up to this?” Ms. Momin asks as she closes the front door behind me. She’s the facilitator of the group, an elementary school music teacher who does music therapy with special-needs kids on the side.

      “Yeah. Of course.”

      I wasn’t so sure about working with these kids when Ms. Lincoln first suggested it. I’d completed most of my sixty hours of community service—a graduation requirement—last summer working at the animal shelter, but Ms. Lincoln thought some diversity would look better on my college applications and hooked me up with Ms. Momin’s group. I’m glad she did. It’s the highlight of my week now.

      From the foyer I see Patrick wrestling an ornery chair toward the living room. It tips. He steps back and utters a frustrated “Bah” as the chair falls over on the tile floor.

      “Patrick,” I call out.

      When he sees me, a big goofy grin takes over his face. He lumbers over and gives me an awkward hug.

      “Hey, man. Thanks for starting to set up the chairs. You want some help?”

      He bears down and concentrates hard before exploding with a big “Bah.”

      “All right. Let’s do it.”

      I right the chair and help him maneuver it into the other room, careful not to get ahead of him and pull the chair from his hands. When we position it, he steps back and throws his bent arms out to the side. “Bah.”

      “Good job, man.”

      “Ya. Ya.”

      Patrick makes me smile. He’s fourteen and tall and lanky, with a sprinkling of acne on his forehead. But despite his physical challenges, which play out in exaggerated smiles and frowns and spastic movements, I think he is quite handsome. One in a million in fact, or perhaps one in seven hundred thousand to be more exact—the odds of being struck by lightning in any given year. He was only nine. Sucks to stand out sometimes.

      By the time Sophie and Jo-Jo arrive, the chairs are set. Ms. Momin helps me settle everyone, then straps Jo-Jo into his chair so he won’t slide to the floor, and takes up her usual position behind them all.

      I look at their faces, and I’m really glad I came.

      “Who’s excited about Christmas?” I ask.

      Patrick jumps up from his chair and spazzes a moment, then drops back in his seat. Sophie is staring off at something or nothing over my shoulder. Jo-Jo, the smallest in the group, is laughing. It’s an uncontrollable kind of laugh, but I find it infectious. Jo-Jo is the least physically capable of the three. In addition to some physical challenges I don’t fully understand, Ms. Momin says that, like Sophie, he has some form of autism. He laughs a lot, at nothing, and sometimes he whimpers, and sometimes he breaks down and cries. But he’s laughing right now, and that’s good.

      “Me too, Jo-Jo. Soooo, I have a surprise for you guys. We’re going to learn a new song today. ‘Jingle Bells.’ ”

      There’re a couple of beats of silence, and then Jo-Jo’s face contorts and he starts this snuffling crying.

      “It’s okay, Jo-Jo. Let’s just try it. I think you’ll like it.”

      Patrick looks like someone just farted. Sophie’s expression remains blank. Ms. Momin grins at me, then tries to comfort Jo-Jo.

      “I’ll play it first.”

      I’m hoping once they recognize the Christmas song their attitudes will improve. So far, we’ve only played “Mary Had a Little Lamb.” “Jingle Bells” requires only two additional notes. I mean, after three months I think we’re ready for a new song. And frankly, they aren’t really playing the notes anyway, so learning a new song is no big deal.

      Despite their obvious displeasure, I place the recorder in my mouth and play “Jingle Bells”—chorus only.

      With each note, Jo-Jo grows more distressed and is soon wailing.

      And Patrick looks downright angry. He’s agitated and throwing his arms around and drops his recorder. Then suddenly he leaps up and tries to cover my mouth with his hand. His fine motor skills are rather deficient and he misses my mouth altogether, but succeeds in smacking me in the eye and knocking my contact off center.

      “Bah.”

      “Patrick!” Ms. Momin darts out from behind Jo-Jo and grabs his flailing arms and settles him back in his chair.

      “Are you okay, Robert?”

      I think I may have a corneal abrasion, but otherwise, I’m okay. I excuse myself and go to the bathroom to reset my contact. When I return, Patrick is sulking. I take my seat.

      Ms. Momin smiles down at me and shrugs. “They don’t much like change,” she says.

      Got that. I survey my charges. “All right, guys. I have a great idea. How about we play ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb’?”

      Patrick beams. It takes him a couple of tries, but he finally manages to get his mouthpiece in his mouth and grins with self-satisfaction.

      Ms. Momin helps Sophie. Jo-Jo is gripping his recorder and sniffling and rocking back and forth. I lift his arms so the mouthpiece fits in his mouth. It’s like moving a toy robot. His arms will stay exactly where I put them until one of us moves them again.

      “On three. Ready?” I smile to myself. Ready enough. “One. Two. Three.”

      The racket that comes from the recorders sounds nothing like “Mary Had a Little Lamb.” It doesn’t matter. I ratchet up my own volume so they hear the tune and believe in their own performance.

      We play the song maybe a dozen times, and I congratulate them after each one. And after each one, Patrick stands and spazzes because he’s happy, the kind of happy that is so pure and simple it breaks your heart, the kind of happy I don’t think I’ve ever known, or at least can remember. Sophie still stares off into the distance, but she played. I could hear her play, and that’s something of a triumph in itself. Jo-Jo is laughing now. It’s truly one of the sweetest sounds I’ve ever heard, and I can’t help but smile back at him.

      Sometimes it’s hard to say good-bye when the session ends. Today, it’s especially so.

      I step in it when I get home, although I’m not exactly sure what it is. At first it looks like apple juice pooled in the grout grooves between the kitchen floor tiles, but it could just as easily be pee. I don’t really want to know. I pull some paper towels from the roll as I scan the rest of the kitchen—a soggy waffle with one bite out of it crowning a pile of dishes in the sink, a carton of milk warming on the kitchen counter next to an open jar of peanut butter with a knife sticking out of it, the refrigerator door standing open.

      I close the refrigerator door, and I’m just about to wipe up the floor when Noah darts through the living room toward me. “Wobert!” he squeaks in a voice I know means he’s a little freaked out. “Aunt Whitney needs help.” He grabs my hand and tugs me toward my parents’ bedroom. I drop the paper towels on the counter, and with a feeling of dread, follow Noah.

      Franny, who at twelve is the oldest of my cousins, presses herself white-faced against the wall as we pass her in the hallway, and I fear what new horror awaits me. At the foot of the bed, the huddled twins—Matthew and Mark—look up at me with tear-filled but hopeful eyes.

      “Robert, is that you?” Aunt Whitney calls from the bathroom.

      There’s something about a crisis in a bathroom that screams, You don’t want to be a part of this. As it turns out, it’s not as bad as I feared. Dad is sitting on the shower floor and leaning against a plastic chair seat, his forehead cradled in the crook of his arm, his eyes closed. A towel is draped across his lap.

      “Where have you been?” Aunt Whitney demands.