Are You Alone on Purpose? Read Online Free PDF Page A

office. She was on the telephone, but had placed one hand over the mouthpiece upon seeing them.
    Mrs. Shandling ignored her. Still pulling Alison, she walked quickly on into the next office and closed the door. “Rabbi Roth,” she said clearly, “you’ll remember me. Betsy Shandling. And you should remember my daughter, Alison, too.”
    â€œMrs. Shandling. Of course.” Harry’s father looked up from the huge old personal computer that, despite its size, was nearly lost amid the stacks of paper on his desk. There were sagging bookshelves hung over the entire wall behind the desk, similarly crammed with books and pamphlets. “Hello. Uh, hello, Alison. Let me just save this . . . .” He gestured at the computer screen, and then fumbled with the keyboard.
    â€œSit down,” said Rabbi Roth finally. “Oh, just a second.” He got up to clear more paper and books off the two visitor chairs.
    Alison hung back. She watched her mother. Mrs. Shandling waited until the rabbi was through dusting the chairs off and had sat back down. “We won’t sit,” she said then. She smiled, a thin curl of the lips. “Alison and I have come to ask you about this letter, which arrived today.” She handed it to him. “There must have been a mistake. My son, Adam, has been refused admittance to the Hebrew school.”
    Rabbi Roth turned the letter over in his hands, studying it briefly. “Well,” he said. He reached across the desk to hand the letter back to Alison’s mother, who folded her arms in front of her, refusing it. After a moment, Rabbi Roth put it down on the desk.
    â€œMrs. Shandling,” he said, “you must understand. We are not equipped for special education. We haven’t the facilities, the experience, the teachers . . . .” He paused, apparently waiting for Alison’s mother to say something. When she didn’t, he continued : “Much as we’d like to have Adam, we simply can’t. We have to think of the other children. There are more of them.”
    â€œThere are more Christians in the world, too,” Mrs. Shandling said. “How would you like it if they said there wasn’t room for you?”
    â€œIt’s been done. Look, Mrs. Shandling—”
    â€œPerhaps we will sit,” said Alison’s mother, suddenly, dangerously calm again. She nodded at Alison, who perched herself gingerly on the edge of the chair nearest the door. Then she took the other chair for herself. “Go on,” she said.
    â€œI really don’t know what else there is to say.” Rabbi Roth shifted a little in his seat, and then looked directly into Alison’s mother’s unblinking stare. “I am sorry, Mrs. Shandling.”
    â€œSorry?” said Mrs. Shandling, in her most reasonable tone. “Tell me exactly what you’re sorry for, Rabbi Roth. Are you sorry for me because I have a handicapped child? Or are you sorry because you haven’t got the—what did you say?—the facilities, the experience, the teachers, that would enable you to allow an autistic boy to sit in a corner of a classroom?”
    â€œMrs. Shandling—”
    Alison’s mother ignored him. “You know who you should be sorry for? You should be sorry for yourself! Rabbis are supposed to be compassionate and understanding, but you . . . you can’t see past bureaucratic details to the simple difference between right and wrong!”
    â€œMrs. Shandling—”
    â€œIt really is that simple, Rabbi. This is a house of God, and you won’t admit a Jewish boy because you think it would inconvenience you. Now, I expect this sort of crap from bureaucrats. From strangers. Even from some of my own neighbors. I live with it. But never in my life did I imagine I would see it in a rabbi.”
    â€œPlease—” Rabbi Roth tried to interrupt. Alison could have told him he had no hope of saying a word. Her