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There were certain conversations that Shane was pretty sure only happened in sappy rom-coms. That wasn’t to say he was very familiar with sappy rom-coms, since he thought he had maybe seen one back in high school, or in passing when one was playing at some doctor or dentist’s office, but he knew enough about how they worked to be pretty secure in his knowledge that some questions weren’t actually ever asked.
Sitting on the couch with Ilya was one place he was proven wrong pretty often, and this was going to be no exception-- clearly.
“What was your first word?”
The question came out of nowhere, and Shane tilted his head up slightly to meet Ilya’s gaze. It wasn’t one he had expected, so he just looked at him for a minute before he came up with a response.
“What do you mean?” Maybe it wasn’t the most well-thought-out sentence he had ever said, but it was sufficient, and it got a tiny little smile, one that still made his heart flutter in his chest. It was probably dumb to still have that reaction after all of these years, but it wasn’t like he could control it. To be honest, he’d probably be sad if it ever went away.
“Your first word. The first thing you said. Usually mama, or… something.” Ilya shrugged, his thumb making slow back and forth motions on Shane’s upper arm. It was an idle motion, and one Shane was pretty sure wasn’t even conscious. “I heard it is a good question.”
“I mean, I don’t remember. I know what my mom says, though. Apparently it took me a while to say anything. One of my teachers told my parents I might not ever talk, then I just… started one day.”
“And never got better at it.”
“Shut up.” Shane’s cheeks were getting pink, if the warmth in his face was anything to go by. “So, according to them, I was in preschool…”
Shane Hollander was one of the nicest of the boys in Ms. Rebekah Clarkson’s preschool class. They were all around three, maybe the oldest was about to turn four, but he’d move up once he did. Their main focuses were sharing, taking turns, identifying colors, and fluent speech, with a stretch goal for the year being to recite the first thirteen letters of the alphabet. Their program aimed to get the kids speaking fluently and knowing the alphabet by their first year of kindergarten, and almost all of the kids were reaching their goals.
Except for Shane.
The sticker chart on the wall had pink stars on each line except his. He was a sweet little boy, if shy, but he never spoke. He only pointed. One of their occupational therapists had tried to tell her to not give him what he was asking for unless he spoke, and that had ended with a shameful phone call home and a disappointed Mrs. Hollander chewing them out for neglecting her son.
She would never do that again. The look in his mother’s eyes and the sad look in Shane’s when he had tugged on her cardigan had been enough to decide that maybe that wasn’t the approach to use for a little boy who was just barely not scared of the world around him.
Naptime, as always, led to coloring. It was easily one of her favorite parts of her day, with a herd of fifteen three year olds coloring on the carpet and chattering to one another. Sometimes one would run to show her what they’d done on their coloring sheet or their blank paper, and she had an entire wall decorated with drawings and doodles. There were a lot of animals, a lot of trees and houses and families, and a good bit of sports drawings. Mostly sports she knew their dads played, or that their families loved. Shane often drew hockey scenes. He’d be starting lessons in the following fall, so it didn’t surprise her. She fully expected to be watching him win goals in fifteen years.
There was music playing from the stereo in the corner, some quiet stuff she’d found on a random radio station that the kids liked. She’d just barely sat down to look at some basic pencil-holding work she’d had them do when a new, small, shaky but angry voice caught her attention.
“Ms. Clarkson, Jason stole my FUCKING crayons!” Shane roared, and before she could even move to separate the children, one little, focused hand flashed out and hit the other little boy square in the chest. Jason immediately fell and started to cry, and the class was left to their parapro Ms. Jansen as she took Shane straight up to the office. Less than fifteen minutes later, both of the Hollander parents were in the main office, sitting across from both Ms. Clarkson and the program director, Mr. Gonzales, while Shane sat in a smaller chair nearer to his parents.
“I have to say, Mr. and Mrs. Hollander, this is absolutely not a response we expected to see from Shane.” The director began. “I have no doubt that at home, you’ve addressed that hitting does not solve our problems. The other child’s mother has expressed that she isn’t interested in having any extreme consequences, especially since we’ve not had any issues with Shane otherwise, but we are concerned with both the use of profanity and the aggression.”
There was a pause.
“Shane spoke?”
The silence was broken by Mrs. Hollander.
“And the first time he spoke was standing up for himself, because another child thought it was okay to take crayons away from the one boy who doesn’t talk? It sounds more to me like he thought Shane wouldn’t know how to stand up for himself.”
“Mrs. Hollander--”
“I’m not finished.” There was a burning in Mrs. Hollander’s eyes, one that she could only
describe as admirable. This was a woman defending her only son fiercely, protecting him from kids that would try to take advantage of what they saw as different. “Did he steal his fucking crayons? Is he getting any kind of consequences? I know there are enough crayons in that classroom for every child in there, plus a friend.”
Mr. Gonzales’ eyes moved left, and suddenly there were three adult sets of eyes on her.
There was also one set, small, brown, and wet, looking at her like a puppy waiting to be kicked.
“I’m going to set up a meeting with his mother to discuss that he isn’t meeting our sharing goals. It wasn’t okay for Shane to hit him, but he shouldn’t have taken something that wasn’t his. I’m proud of Shane for standing up for himself. He didn’t know what else to do, and so he responded in the first way he could think of, and that’s normal. He has plenty of time to learn not to hit, and to use nice words, but the other student knows we don’t take things that don’t belong to us. Shane isn’t the only responsible party here.” Rebekah said, taking a few moments to form her words together. How she responded to this was important. It sent a message.
She got a silent little nod from Mrs. Hollander, and a tiny, near-microscopic smile from Mr. Hollander, and when she looked at Shane, the tear tracks on his face had no new tears threatening to spill over.
“He’s had a big day, though, and it’s Friday. I think it might benefit him to go home a little early today. I trust you two to speak with him about how we handle our feelings, and it shouldn’t be overlooked that he talked.”
“How was his speech?” Mr. Hollander asked. It was a reasonable query for a father to make, especially for a father of a late talker.
“Smooth.” Rebekah admitted. “Like he’s been talking all his life. I think this was just… The first time he felt he couldn’t express it any other way. I don’t know if he’ll speak again soon, or at all, but we can figure that out as we go.”
Mr. Gonzales cleared his throat. “I do have to put an incident report in his file, but following policy, Ms. Clarkson is right. Shane should go home for the remainder of today, and we can start with a clean slate on Monday morning. He won’t get a sticker on his behavior chart for today, however. Does that sound reasonable to you two?”
Both of the parents nodded, and Mr. Gonzales looked over at Shane. “Does that sound reasonable to you, Shane?”
He got a tiny nod in response. “Then I think we’re done here.”
“So, yeah. My first words were telling a teacher another kid stole my fucking crayons.” Shane admitted, laughing slightly in the back of his throat. “I do remember that Mom got onto me about hitting and swearing, but they also got me ice cream for talking, so it turned out fine. I don’t think I ever had an issue with the kid again.” To him, his retelling had been kind of emotional. Having his mom and his teacher stand up for him, when all he’d done was stand up for himself, had felt good. It had felt like being listened to, being heard, and he’d learned his response was wrong.
Apparently, though, all Ilya was hearing was I punched a kid and said fuck, because he was snorting.
“What’s your problem?” Shane demanded, sitting up slightly and watching as Ilya’s nose crinkled, and the corners of his mouth turned up, and he started to laugh.
“Of course you never had issue! You said fuck and punched him!” He snorted, shaking his head. “They called parents for that?”
“...Yes? Of course they did. I hit someone, Ilya.”
“I hit a classmate when I was six. The school, they just smacked me and made me stand the rest of the day.”
It was funny to Ilya because the idea was so foreign. That made sense. He hadn’t really considered that it was coming out of a lack of understanding, that the laughter wasn’t at him but rather at the idea that it was so absurd for a school to call a kid’s parents and send him home for something so simple.
“I was right. You have not gotten better at talking. You have gotten worse.” Ilya teased, and Shane rolled his eyes and shifted closer to give him a little bit of a kiss. It was connection that made people ask those questions, he guessed, and even if he didn’t get it, maybe Ilya had learned something about him from it.
Two days later, over breakfast, he asked him the same question,
and immediately felt uneasy as something flickered in the hazel depths of his eyes.
“...I was two.”