Miracle Creek(23)

Elizabeth cleared her throat and said, “His name is Henry. He’s three,” managing to sound casual, with none of the thickness of embarrassment that was threatening to gag her. When little Beth toddled up and said, “Hi, Hen-wee,” the adults said some variant of “Awwww, isn’t that adorable?” and went back to their corner, chatting and offering drinks to Elizabeth, leaving her to wonder if she alone had registered the intense awkwardness. Was that possible?

For the next five minutes, while Elizabeth mingled, Henry stood quietly in one spot. He didn’t play with the kids, didn’t look to be having fun, but at least he wasn’t calling attention to himself, which was the important thing. Elizabeth gulped her wine, its cool acidity soothing her throat and warming her stomach. An invisible dome seemed to veil her, making the kids look distant and unreal, like a movie, and muting their cacophony into a pleasant buzz.

The moment broke when Sheryl said, “Poor Henry. He’s not playing with anyone.” Later that night, waiting for Victor’s call (conference in L.A.—the third that month), she’d imagine the different ways of handling that moment. She could’ve said, “He’s tired. He needs a nap,” and left, or she could’ve given Henry one of those music baby toys he fixated on so that he’d appear to be playing near, if not exactly with, the other kids. For sure, when Sheryl started a game to include Henry, she should’ve stepped in.

In the days to come, Elizabeth would blame her inaction on the fog of wine, the way it tricked her into a fizzy state of numbness. She kept drinking as Sheryl and her husband sat five feet apart and held up their arms to form a gate. No one explained the rules, but it seemed simple enough: whenever they said bee-beep and raised their arms, kids ran, trying to make it through before their arms came down. She wasn’t sure why this was funny, but everyone guffawed, even the parents.

After a few gate-opening-closing cycles, Sheryl said, “Henry, you want to play? It’s really fu-un.” One of the boys—a three-year-old, like Henry—held out his hand. “Come on, let’s run together.”

Henry stood, not reacting, as if he were blind to the boy’s hand and deaf to his voice, nothing registering in his senses. Henry looked up at the ceiling, so intently that half the others looked up to see what was so interesting, then he turned his back to everyone, sat down, and started rocking.

Everyone stopped and stared. Not for long—three seconds, five at most—but something about the moment, the absolute silence and stillness apart from Henry’s rocking, stretched time. She’d never understood the concept of time freezing during accidents, the preposterous notion of your whole life flashing before your eyes in one second, but that was exactly what happened: as Elizabeth stared at Henry’s rocking, snippets of her life played like a spliced movie in her mind. Newborn Henry refusing her breast, rock hard with milk. Three-month-old Henry crying for four hours nonstop; Victor coming home from a late-night client dinner to find her lying on the kitchen floor, sobbing. Fifteen-month-old Henry, the only one not crawling or walking at their playgroup, the mom of the girl who was already running and speaking in short sentences saying, “It doesn’t matter. Babies develop at their own pace.” (Funny, how it was always the moms of precocious kids who extolled the virtues of not worrying about developmental milestones, all the while flashing those smug smiles of parents congratulating themselves for having “advanced” children.) Two-year-old Henry still not talking, Victor’s mom running around his birthday party saying, “Einstein didn’t talk until he was five!” Henry just last week at his three-year checkup, not making eye contact, his pediatrician saying the dreaded a-word (“Now, I’m not saying it’s autism, but testing can’t hurt”). Yesterday, the Georgetown scheduler saying the autism-test wait list is eight months, Elizabeth furious at herself for not calling a year ago—hell, two years ago—when, let’s face it, she knew there was something wrong, of course she did, but she wasted all that time just hoping and denying and talking about effing Einstein. And now, here he was, rocking—rocking!—in front of their new neighbors.

Sheryl broke the silence. “I don’t think Henry feels like playing right now. Come on, who’s next?” There was a noticeably forced casualness to her voice, a fake joviality, and Elizabeth realized: Sheryl was embarrassed for Henry.

Everyone turned back and resumed their game-playing and wine-sipping and small-talk-making, but cautiously, anxiously, at half the volume and energy level as before. The adults were trying hard to avoid looking Henry’s way, and when little Beth said, “What’s Hen-wee doing?” her mother whispered, “Shhh, not now,” and turned and said to Elizabeth, “Isn’t this dip great? It’s from Costco!” Elizabeth knew that everyone’s let’s-pretend-nothing’s-wrong act was for her sake. Maybe she should’ve been grateful. But somehow, it made it worse, as if Henry’s behavior were so deviant that they had to cover it up. If Henry had cancer or hearing loss, everyone would’ve felt pity, sure, but not shame. They would’ve gathered around, asking questions and expressing sympathies. Autism was different. There was a stigma to it. And she’d stupidly thought she could protect her son (or was it herself?) by saying nothing and desperately hoping no one would notice.

“Excuse me,” Elizabeth said, and walked across the room toward Henry. Her legs felt heavy, as if chains were tethering her to a cage, and it took all her strength to move. The moms pretended not to notice, but she could see their eyes darting at her, could see in their faces intense gratitude that they weren’t her, and she felt fury surge up her throat. She grudged and envied and coveted and downright hated them, these women with their exquisitely normal kids. Walking through the kids laughing and talking, her arms ached to pick up one, any of them, and claim that child as her own. How different her life would be, full of mirth and trivialities (“I’m at my wit’s end—Joey won’t drink juice!” or “Fannie dyed her hair fuchsia!”).