A Safe Place for Joey. Mary MacCracken

had been frightened of Grandpa, and it would certainly be expected that Joey would be relieved not to have Grandpa after him all the time.

      I tried to talk to Joey, but he tuned me out as effectively as if his headphones were in place. He worked while he was in my office and most of his skills were still there, but he handed in absolutely no homework and Ms. Answera reported that he did not “contribute” in class. Mr. Templar called to say that Ms. Answera had told him she didn’t think Joey belonged in a regular class.

      I strongly recommended that the Stones arrange for Joey to see a psychologist, but Al Stone wouldn’t hear of it.

      “Joey’s not crazy,” he said. “Grandpa was the crazy one. Joey’ll be all right now that Grandpa’s not around. Just give him time. It’s only been a few weeks.”

      I wondered if Al Stone had taken off his headphones yet. I knew that Joey hadn’t.

      It was almost Christmas, a month since Grandpa had died. I put a little tree at one end of my office and decorated it with paper chains and ornaments that the children brought in. There was a small wrapped gift for each of them beneath the tree to take home after their last visit before the holidays. My other children were all thriving. Only Joey remained cold and silent, nervously chewing his fingernails.

      Just before Joey arrived for his last session before the holidays, I impulsively scratched out the lesson I had planned and decided to read to Joey instead. If he couldn’t tell me what was wrong, maybe we could at least share a story. It was a gentle tale, and the boy in the story had small worries of his own. There was no fireplace or chimney in his house, and he was certain that Santa wouldn’t know how to find him. Finally his mother persuaded him to hang his stocking from a post at the foot of his bed and to go to sleep thinking loving thoughts. Santa, of course, found the stocking, and in the morning the boy woke to find it fat and overflowing with toys and candy.

      In the center of one page there was a black line drawing of a narrow bed with four spool posts; a bulging striped stocking dangled from the post at the bottom of the bed.

      I started to close the book, but Joey, sitting beside me, pushed it open. Silently he traced the bed with his finger. I moved my hand to cover his, but he shoved me away impatiently. Over and over he traced the drawing of the bed from head to foot.

      I thought I heard him say something and I leaned closer.

      “The bed,” Joey mumbled.

      “What did you say, Joey?” I asked softly.

      Joey didn’t hear me, or if he did he gave no indication of it. But he was surely talking, if only to himself. “On the bed. On the bed.”

      “On the bed,” I repeated. “Something was on the bed.”

      Now Joey responded, nodding his head. “On the bed. He was on the bed.”

      I willed myself to tune to Joey, to understand what he was saying.

      I repeated, “He was on the bed.” I took a chance, adding a little more. “He was lying on the bed.”

      Joey continued nodding, almost frenzied now. “Lying on the bed. Lying on the bed. Grandpa.”

      Grandpa?

      Suddenly Joey turned his body so that he faced me squarely. His voice was flat and cold, but he was talking directly to me, not to himself or the book. “Grandpa was on my bed when he died. I killed him.”

      “No,” I said. “No, of course not. You didn’t kill him.”

      “Yes,” Joey insisted. “Yes, I did. I even listened to him die.”

      My eyes stayed locked with Joey’s, and he went on talking in the same flat voice.

      “See, he chased me,” Joey said. “I didn’t know he was going to. I just ran out of the TV room ’cause he got so mad when I imitated the way he yells. I ran up to my room and hid under my bed so he couldn’t get me.

      “But then I heard him coming after me, running all the way up the stairs and sort of bumping along the wall. Then all of a sudden he came crashing into my room and fell down on my bed real hard and began making these choking noises.”

      The way Joey told it made it so clear. Joey’s facility for imitating and dramatizing must have infuriated Grandpa. No wonder he’d charged after the boy, forgetting his own high blood pressure.

      “Then after a while he stopped and it was real quiet … and that was even worse,” Joey went on, “because then it began to get dark and I knew I had to get out of there before Rich and Bill got home and found me under that bed. If they found me there, they’d know for sure I’d done it.”

      There were three loud knocks on my office door. My next child had arrived. “Just a minute,” I called as softly as I could, never moving my eyes from Joey’s. “Go on, Joey. Don’t stop.”

      “I got out,” he said, his voice just above a whisper, “but it was hard ’cause the bed was way on top of me ’cause Grandpa was so fat, but I squeezed out and ran downstairs and turned on all the lights. The TV was already on, and so I just stayed there in front of it, real quiet.

      “When Mom found him … see, Grandpa didn’t come to supper like usual, so they started calling him and then they went looking for him, and after a while Mom found him in my room. And she began to scream and cry and yell that he was dead. That’s when I knew I’d killed him for sure. I’d been thinking he was maybe just sick. But he wasn’t, he was dead.”

      The knocks sounded on the door again. “One more minute,” I called back.

      “Don’t tell,” Joey said, panicking, pulling at my sleeve. “I didn’t mean to tell you.”

      “Joey, listen. Grandpa was very old and very sick. He had a heart attack. Your mom told me he did. That happens to lots of old people.”

      “I don’t even know when he died,” Joey said. “Maybe he was still alive when I left. Maybe if I’d called a doctor, he would’ve been all right. Besides, I wanted him to die. Sometimes I even prayed that he would. Maybe my praying made it come true.”

      No wonder Joey hadn’t told anyone. He must have been terrified, lying there alone trapped underneath Grandpa while he died, later convinced that he had killed him.

      Joey put his head down on the desk. I put my arms around him for a second and then I phoned his mother.

      Joey stayed in my office through my next two appointments. He lay curled under a woolen afghan on the couch and either slept or pretended to, until his mother arrived.

      In the waiting room, I asked Gail Stone if it was true that she had found Grandpa in Joey’s room.

      She nodded. “Why?”

      “Why didn’t you say something at the time?” I asked in return.

      Tears gathered in Mrs. Stone’s eyes. “I don’t know. Joey was taking it so hard I thought it would just make it worse if he realized that I’d found Grandpa in his bed. Joey was downstairs watching TV the whole time it was going on. I think Dad must have been on his way to the bathroom just across the hall from Joey’s room. All I can think is that maybe he felt sick or dizzy or had a spell and thought he’d go in and lie down on Joey’s bed for a minute. Nobody will ever know for sure. What does this have to do with Joey, anyway? Why’d you call me? Is anything wrong?”

      The next day Gail Stone and I met in my office during her lunch hour.

      “Al and I talked for hours last night after the boys were in bed,” she said. “It really shook Al up to realize what had been going on in Joey’s head and he – Al, I mean – had never suspected it.

      “Al’s a good man. He works hard, he’s smart, he loves his family. He’s been true to me through thick and thin. It was my fault – bringing Grandpa home. I know that now. I think I was still trying to please him, like I did when I was little. It never worked then either. I should have just hired