Empathy No. 046
DR. BRAWNEY: I'd like to spend most of today talking about Roderick, if that's okay with you.
ELEANOR: Of course.
DR. BRAWNEY: You've been living in the Levitt house for about two months and Roderick has been at his new school for about a month. Do you feel that he is adjusting well?
ELEANOR: As a matter of fact, I do. He's doing very well, really. He still spends a lot of time by himself, but that's normal for him. We spent some time talking over Labor Day weekend, and...you know, he shut down a little bit when he found out I was getting married, but now it feels more normal between us. He's been telling me about his school, not much but I know the other kids aren't harassing him now. He hasn't made a lot of friends, but he...he has himself a little girlfriend now. It used to be that he'd go to dances and just stand in the corner, and now look at him!
DR. BRAWNEY: Lloyd tells me that he stays up very late, that he doesn't sleep very much.
ELEANOR: Well, part of that is that he's still getting used to sharing a bathroom, but also...that's just Roderick! He's always been able to run on less sleep, it's just how he is.
DR. BRAWNEY: And he isn't having any problems at school?
ELEANOR: ...Okay, I know what you're getting at here. They completely overreacted to an assignment he turned in. You know, he was bullied a lot, for most of his life. If they're going to ask him to write about his life, that's going to come up.
DR. BRAWNEY: Then you are familiar with the incident that Roderick wrote about?
ELEANOR: He didn't talk about it, but I found out. This one day after school, I hugged him and he yelped and pulled away. He was rubbing his shoulder and wincing. I thought he'd hurt himself, but he just kept saying "It's fine, don't worry." He said that, I knew someone had done it to him, but he wouldn't say who. I didn't find out that it was an adult until a lot later, the mother of one of the kids in the class mentioned it while we were talking.
DR. BRAWNEY: Did this incident affect him?
ELEANOR: It always affected him. I mean, every time there was...every time it got bad enough that I heard about it, I wondered why anyone would do this to my son. You said something about sleeping problems, but when he was little, when he was six, and he wanted to stay up all night, he'd say "There's too much to do to waste time sleeping." He smiled a lot back then. Every year after, he smiled a little less.
DR. BRAWNEY: Given how exceptional he is, did you consider finding a new school for him?
ELEANOR: I didn't have the resources...hold on, I should say something else before we move on. It's embarrassing, it's awful.
DR. BRAWNEY: Go on.
ELEANOR: After that awful woman hurt him, I did go to that school once, even though I knew they wouldn't do anything. I didn't...want people to think I was hurting Roderick. When I first found out...God help me, my first thought wasn't for him, it was "Please don't let people think I did this to him."