Miracle Creek(10)

“Rosa wasn’t,” Teresa said, stepping forward. “She wasn’t born with cerebral palsy. She was healthy. She walked, she talked, she loved the monkey bars. But she got sick, and we didn’t take her to the hospital quickly enough.” She felt a hand squeeze her shoulder—Kitt. “She’s not supposed to be in a wheelchair. And you’re criticizing me, condemning me, for trying to heal her?”

The silver-bobbed woman said, “I’m sorry for that. But our goal is to reach parents with autistic children, which is different—”

“Why’s it different?” Teresa said. “Because they’re born with it? What about kids born with tumors, cleft palates? God clearly meant for that, but does that mean their parents shouldn’t pursue surgery, radiation, whatever it takes to get them healthy and whole?”

“Our kids are already healthy and whole,” the woman said. “Autism isn’t a defect, just a different way of being, and any so-called treatment for it is quack nonsense.”

“Are you sure about that?” Kitt said, stepping up next to Teresa. “I used to think that, then I read that many autistic kids have digestive issues, and that’s why they walk on tiptoes—the muscle-stretching helps with the pain. TJ’s always toe-walked, so I got him tested. It turned out he had severe inflammation, and he couldn’t tell us.”

“The same with her.” Teresa pointed to Elizabeth. “She’s been trying tons of treatments, and her son’s improved so much that the doctors say he’s not autistic anymore.”

“Yeah, we know all about her treatments. Her son’s very lucky that he’s survived them all. Not all kids do.” The woman held the flyer on HBOT fires right up to Elizabeth’s face.

Elizabeth scoffed and shook her head at the woman, pulling Henry close to her and walking away. The woman grabbed Elizabeth’s arm and yanked, hard. Elizabeth yelped, tried to get away, but the woman tightened her grip, wouldn’t let go. “I’m done letting you ignore me,” the woman said. “If you don’t stop, something terrible will happen. I guarantee it.”

“Hey, back off,” Teresa said, stepping between them and slapping the woman’s hand away. The woman turned her way, her hands closing into a fist as if to punch her, and Teresa felt a cold tingle in her shoulders crawl down her back. She told herself not to be silly, this was just a mom with strong opinions, nothing to be scared of, and said, “Let us through. Now.” After a moment, the protesters backed away. Then they raised their signs and quietly resumed walking in a crooked oval.



* * *



IT WAS STRANGE, sitting in court and listening to Matt recount those same events from the morning of the explosion. Teresa hadn’t expected an exact match between his memories and hers—she watched Law & Order; she wasn’t that na?ve—but still, the extent of the difference was unnerving. Matt reduced the encounter with the protesters to one phrase—“a debate about the efficacy and safety of experimental autism treatments”—with no mention of Teresa’s points about other diseases, the substance of the argument lost on him, or maybe just irrelevant. The hierarchy of disabilities—to Teresa, that was central, something she agonized over, and to Matt, it was nothing. If he had a disabled child, it’d be different, of course. Having a special-needs child didn’t just change you; it transmuted you, transported you to a parallel world with an altered gravitational axis.

“During all this,” Abe was saying, “what was the defendant doing?”

“Elizabeth didn’t get involved at all,” Matt said, “which struck me as odd, because she’s usually very vocal about autism treatments. She just kept staring at the flyer. There was text on the bottom, and she kept squinting, like she was trying to make out what it said.”

Abe handed Matt a document. “Is this the flyer?”

“Yes.”

“Please read the bottom text.”

“‘Avoiding sparks in the chamber is not enough. In one case, a fire started outside the chamber under the oxygen tubing led to an explosion with fatalities.’”

“‘Fire started outside the chamber under the oxygen tubing,’” Abe repeated. “Isn’t that exactly what happened to Miracle Submarine later that very day?”

Matt looked over to Elizabeth, his jaws tensing as if gritting his molars. “Yes,” he said, “and I know she was focused on that because she went straight up to Pak afterward and told him about their flyer. Pak said that couldn’t happen to us, he wouldn’t let any of them near the barn, but Elizabeth kept saying how dangerous they were, and she made him promise to call the police and report that they’re threatening us, to get that on the record.”

“What about during the dive? Did she say any of this then?”

“No, she was silent. She seemed distracted. Like she was thinking intensely about something.”

“Like she was planning something, perhaps?” Abe said.

“Objection,” Elizabeth’s attorney said.

“Sustained. The jury will disregard the question,” the judge said, but in a lazy tone. A judicial version of “Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Not that it mattered. Everyone was already thinking it—the flyer had given Elizabeth the idea to set the fire and blame the protesters for it.