Free Safe Passage by Ellyn Bache Page A

children, wanting only an education and her career. But at that moment she ceased to regard herself as the center of her own life and began to think of herself as a mother (not without resentment), and, spraying herbicide just before dawn, was astonished at the violence of her love.
         But it didn't make her into a Beth O'Neal.
         "Never in my life, not one time," Percival would yell at her, "have I ever gotten anything I want." It was true. Alfred had insisted on having his own room, Izzy wanted lizards and snakes. But Percival stumped her. No matter what she did for him, he never went off happily like the others, never seemed content, never left her alone. If she'd been like Beth, Mag might have invested whatever extra energy it took to figure him out. But she didn't. And if he were trapped beneath a ton of concrete now, it would be as if nothing had changed.
         A bitterness filled her. She had tried. When Percival was seven, she'd even sent him to take piano lessons from Alfred's teacher, thinking that would calm him, but it didn't. Waiting for Alfred after his own lesson was over, Percival would be sitting livid on Mrs. Weilman's couch when Mag came in to get them: hateful, challenging, furious.
         "I'm thirsty," he would say in a stage whisper audible over Alfred's scales.
         "There's nothing to drink here. You can wait in the car if you're going to act up."
         "At least ask her. She has a kitchen."
         "No."
         "I'm really thirsty ."
         Alfred, smug, would look around from the piano bench, exercising the brilliant passive resistance he knew would eventually remove Percival from the situation.
         " Shhh ," Mag would say.
         "Don't talk to Mrs. Wellman, either," Percival would hiss. "At all ."
         "What if she asks how I am?" Mag would ask. "Am I allowed to reply?"
         "Just don't get into one of your conversations."
         Then Mrs. Wellman would glance into the living room, making Mag feel as if she'd walked into a formal dinner in jeans. Weeks later, when Percival complained about practicing, Mag let him quit, while Alfred continued his lessons for years—Alfred with his measured playing, his indifference to music, his rational soul. She'd expected from Percival's music something akin to the spell of a snake charmer—Percival slithering up from the piano bench mesmerized, obedient—but they had no such luck.
         "I never get anything I want," he'd yelled at her later, "and I never get anything to eat."
         She tried, but there was nothing she could do. Percival's blood sugar plummeted after he ate sugar or if he missed a meal. He held her responsible, never feeding himself a single morsel she didn't set before him on a plate. He shot imaginary enemies in the yard with a stick, climbed trees, fought with his brothers in the car—and then crept into the house, hands shaking, too weak to move. She found him lying under the kitchen table, groaning. "I don't feel good," he accused her.
         "You don't feel good because you need to eat."
         "It's your job to feed me."
         "It's not my job. You're old enough to feed yourself." Seeing the situation, Alfred started making him a peanut-butter sandwich even as Mag railed. "What are you going to do when you move out someday?" she yelled at Percival. "You can put a slice of cheese on a cracker. You're not an invalid. Alfred shouldn't have to feed you."
          "I'm probably dying." He rolled back and forth on the floor, crying, groaning, making a display. "Why are you letting Alfred do it, anyway? You make stuff for them ," he said, pointing to the twins. "And him. " Pointing to Gideon, who in those days loved him so much he would have starved rather than take food from Percival's mouth.
          "Oh, for God's sake, Percival." She plopped the sandwich in front of him with a glass of milk. He ate, and ten minutes later his blood sugar was normal, the