Divisible by Zero - A Serial Novel (3)

Jeannie Powell sat down across the table from them. Zeke sat next to his mother, his hands resting on the wooden surface. He was still. His stillness was disconcerting. He was small for his ten years. It would be easy to mistake him for a six or seven year old. Until you looked in his eyes. One of the teachers had told her, when she arrived at Dearborn, that Zeke was undiagnosed autistic. “He just stares,” the woman had said, an uneasy expression on her face. “But not really staring… it’s like he’s always watching and waiting. He’s just different. I don’t know how to explain it. You’ll see.”

Jeannie had seen. At first, she’d been inclined to agree with the veteran teacher’s assessment. Ten year olds were restless, perpetually shifting in their seats, their eyes roving across the classroom… window, to chalkboard, to friends, to teacher, to door. They reacted to every sound. Even when trying to be quiet, they made noise all the time. But Zeke was different. Everything seemed to happen around him but not to involve him. In her own mind, she saw the currents of motion and activity and incessant energy swirl past him, like water in a stream flowing around a rock. He seemed unaffected. It was definitely unnerving. She understood why the other teachers were so disturbed by Zeke.

In college she’d been taught to detect signs of autism and other psychological or mental disorders. Lack of response to outside stimuli, compulsive focus on an object or an idea… none of this, though, accurately described Zeke. He was not unaware of what was going on. In fact, he seemed hyper aware, as though he was sucking it all in; at the same time, he did not react to it. The world was happening outside of him – he was outside of it. When called upon to participate, he did. Otherwise he observed. She’d found herself fascinated by this unusual little boy that was so not a little boy. She found herself observing him closely – and she soon realized, he was aware of the intensity of her interest. One day he’d looked at her and given her a knowing smile and the slightest hint of a nod.

The other children instinctively knew he was not like them. They were generally deferential towards him. Polite. When he spoke they listened quietly, and seemed to absorb what he said much more deeply than words from other children or adults. She expected some degree of childish cruelty towards the “other”, but it did not occur. Zeke was welcome amongst them, despite the very obvious difference from them. He was not approached or pulled in or invited – but when he chose to join them, he was never excluded. This, in itself, was unnerving. What – she wondered – did these little minds perceive? One of the older teachers had told her, “There is trouble there. He’s a ringleader.”

No. That wasn’t accurate, any more than was the amateur autism diagnosis. He wasn’t trouble – he was the antithesis of trouble. If anything, he most often settled and… civilized?... the other children. When he joined a game, it became less chaotic, less contentious, less violent. But, she admitted, it was jarringly unnatural. Parents and teachers for time immemorial knew that silence and quiet was a sign of trouble when it came to children. If you couldn’t hear them, they were doing something wrong! But not if they were with Zeke.

As she’d prepared herself for her career in teaching, she’d learned about the surrogate syndrome. “One reason you want to teach is you have a deep instinct for nurturing. You are a surrogate parent for your students,” the professor had lectured. “There is a reason unmarried and childless women were traditionally targeted for this role. You will all find yourself, at one time or another, extremely drawn to a specific child, and you will cross the threshold from teacher to surrogate parent. Be aware and beware.” These words had been playing through her head for many weeks now. In fact, she’d considered calling her old professor to tell him she’d crossed the boundary… and she didn’t know what to do about it.

As she sat down, she looked at the mother and child across from her. Deborah Kiechle was probably her age – within a year or two – but they were very different. The trials and struggles of life had already imprinted themselves on the young mother. She must have had him very young, she thought, as a teenager. Jeannie Powell had never known struggle, not in the way Zeke’s mother had. The Powells were old, old money. “Money so old it’s forgotten and senile,” as her uncle had once said. She’d grown up in a century old, rambling house on a lake in a mountain resort town that barely existed on maps. Everyone she knew in childhood worked for, or with - or was somehow dependent on - the Powells. She was an only child. Her household had been lively and happy. The Powells wore their wealth like an old, comfortable sweater – in the metaphorical and literal sense. Her father traveled often for family business, but when he was home he favored sweatshirts and jeans he’d worn for years and years. He cut down trees and split firewood. He took Jeannie and some of the other kids in the community on boat trips on the lake in the summer, and shoveled snow from the doorstep in the winter. He and his “men” were always fixing something on or about the property. Her mother taught school in the town and otherwise engineered a constantly social household. They always had guests – staying for days or weeks – and there were always picnics, brunches, dinners with neighbors and relatives. When Jeannie closed her eyes and imagined her father, she saw him in a thick plaid woolen hunter’s coat, leaning on a snow shovel, his breath billowing like a storm cloud from his mouth. Her mother was sitting at her desk with her calculator, wearing her reading glasses, going over the household books in a pool of lamplight, the scratching of her pencil accompanied by music playing low from her radio.

Jeannie had had no consciousness of wealth or privilege in the way only the wealthiest and most privileged did. When it had been time for college, Jeannie had chosen teaching with the support and encouragement of her parents. She chose an urban college almost at random, based on proffered scholarships and the program that seemed most aligned with her interests. It was not until college that she became viscerally aware of the vast gulf between herself and her college peers. Jeannie didn’t own a car and she lived first in a dorm and then in an apartment shared with three other students. She had a limited and utilitarian wardrobe… She rode the city bus, and she worked at a variety of part time jobs on and off campus. She moved effortlessly within all social circles – no one knew she was wealthy with a capital W. Yet none of this was because she was trying to “pass” for normality or hide her economic station – it was because she enjoyed a luxury few others would ever have. She had choices. She would never be hungry, unless she chose to be hungry. She would never have to work, unless she chose to work. She would never have to worry about paying her rent, unless she chose to worry. The benefit of wealth, she realized, was not in the material security it provided, but in the emotional security. Life would be made up primarily of her own choices, not choices imposed on her by her circumstances. When she’d shared this insight – so profound to her – with her mother, her mother had said, “Fish don’t know water exists – until they discover air.”

And now she was at Dearborn Elementary, in a town of the same size she’d grown up in, but very much part of the “air.” Only seventy-five miles from home. The town existed on maps because it was at the intersection of major commerce routes, with trucks and traffic rumbling by and through at all hours of the day and night. The local lake wasn’t surrounded by summer cottages – it was surrounded by signs warning of its toxicity. Kids wore the same clothes year after year, not because they were comfortable, but because they had no choice. Fathers cut down trees and split firewood not because they liked a merry wood fire, but because they’d freeze to death otherwise. Mothers wore down pencils going over the household finances long into the night, not to keep track of how much they had spent, but how much they didn’t have to spend… People who could bought new cars and clothes to demonstrate and reinforce their sense of security, knowing they might never be so secure again. Families gathered for brunches and dinners to celebrate surviving another month, season or year. Kids went to college in hopes of getting jobs that would pay enough for them to someday find a way out of their lives… This was the air.

She realized both Zeke and Deborah were staring at her. She blinked, wondering how much time had passed while she’d been lost in her thoughts. Deborah was now quiet and composed. Somehow having Zeke next to her, in the room, had calmed her. Zeke smiled at her. “You can never know now,” he said, “You can only know what was, and it no longer is by the time you know it.”

Deborah looked at her son, her lips pursed in disapproval. Zeke said, “I am different because I know now.”

“Zeke,” Deborah remonstrated, “Don’t talk that way.”

“It’s okay, Mom. Ms. Powell is the one we need. She will be your friend and help you with me.”

Jeannie shook her head. “I don’t understand.”

“No. You are the fish in the water, just like your mother told you.” Jeannie gasped.

“Zeke!” Deborah said sharply. “What are you doing?”

“Mom, she will understand.”

“How do you know that, Zeke?” Jeannie asked, eyes widening.

The little boy shrugged. “You can’t understand now. You will need to help me explain it. That is what we need you for. You will teach me how to teach me to you. But you haven’t yet, so I don’t know how you will.”

Deborah looked helplessly at Jeannie. The teacher remained focused on the child. He returned her study placidly. Jeannie asked, “How did you Mom know I would call her?”

Zeke finally showed an emotional response. He frowned and his hands moved uncertainly on the table. He shook his head. “She knew because it already was. It had already happened so she remembered it.”

She looked at Deborah. “What does he mean?”

“Maybe we should go,” Deborah said.

Zeke turned to his mother and said severely. “No. Tell her.”

“Zeke, I can’t.”

He sighed. “She remembered it. That’s the only way I know how to explain it.”

Deborah groaned and slumped down, looking defeated. Jeannie reached out for Deborah’s hand. “Is it ESP?” The mother’s hands were cold and limp. She looked away.

“No,” Zeke answered, sounding frustrated. “It is a memory.”

“A memory of something that didn’t happen yet?” Jennie asked.

“You are a fish in the water. It had happened so it was a memory.” His little boy voice had risen in annoyance. “When it happens it is now. Everything that is is now! And to you it was, because you can’t see now. She already came here, so she remembered it!”

“It’s like that,” Deborah averred in a whisper. “Before the phone rings, it’s like it already happened. I remember the phone ringing, but I know it is a… premonition.”

“It’s a memory,” Zeke said crisply. “My Mom can remember things, but only a little bit and not always.”

“It runs in the family?” Jeannie asked.

He shrugged. “No. You don’t understand yet, so I can’t explain it to you. When you understand it, you can have memories, too. You haven’t taught me yet how to teach you, so I can’t yet.”

“It started when he was a baby. I’d remember picking him up and cuddling him when he was crying. Then he’d start crying.”

“Oh my god,” Jeannie murmured.

“Pretty soon,” Deborah went on distantly, “I’d pick him up before he cried.”

“Oh my god. How do you do it, Zeke?”

His nostrils flared. “I don’t do it. It is, so it is.” He suddenly had tears in his eyes. “I don’t know how to explain it. I need to learn. She didn’t teach me. No one has taught me yet. Mom can’t teach me.”

Deborah put her arm around him and pulled him close. He snuggled under her arm, sniffling. “No, I can’t. He said last year that I needed help. I needed someone to help me help him.”

“You will help but you haven’t yet,” Zeke said through the cloth of his mother’s blouse. He sat up and wiped his nose. “That is all the now there is so that is all I can remember, and you can’t remember yet because you don’t know how, and Mom and I can’t tell you how to remember. She can only remember a little bit sometimes.”

“And only about Zeke… I don’t know if he somehow triggers it. He claims not to,” Deborah added. She reached into her pocket for a tissue and rubbed it across his nose. He reacted like any other child, pushing her hand away, looking embarrassed. “I can’t explain it either. But he can’t, like, send me messages or anything. It’s not like we are talking to each other in our heads.”

Jeannie looked from mother to son and sat back. “This is overwhelming. I’ve never heard of anything like this, not for real.”

Deborah looked at Zeke. He was impassive again. “There’s more… you really won’t believe it until you see it. Are you going to show her Zeke?”

“After school. She will come to the apartment and I will show her.” He grinned suddenly. “I will show you the air, Ms. Powell.”