The Meridians(34)

***

Kevin's eighth birthday came and went as most days did. His schedule was set and he did not enjoy deviations from it, not even for an event as important as a celebration of the anniversary of his birth.

Autistic children were even more dependent on routines than other children their age, and the slightest deviations could be cause for problems or even self-destructive tendencies. Luckily for Lynette and for Kevin, he was developing into a very high-functioning autistic child, with real hope for becoming an independent member of society some day, though he would always face challenges and problems.

Equally lucky-seeming today was the fact that, though Kevin resisted the smallest changes to schedule and diet, he was able to make concessions in one very important area: he was willing to have cake if it was presented to him properly: on his Thomas the Tank Engine plate, laying on its side in an unbroken wedge. The last condition was a bit infuriating for Lynette since she was not a skilled cake cutter and tended to end up with several pieces of cake rather than one perfect slice, but if presented with irregular chunks of cake - even on his Thomas the Tank Engine plate - Kevin would either continue with his other activities as though the plate did not exist or, worse, would throw a tantrum until the offending broken sweet was removed from his sight.

After three tries, however, Lynette managed to get a neat slice of cake maneuvered onto his plate, unbroken and unblemished. She resisted the urge to put a candle in it. As much as she wanted to try doing so, she had put a candle in his cake two years ago and the resulting fallout had been traumatizing for both of them. Kevin was a child who seemed to identify with things better than with people, and he appeared to view his cake as being threatened with fire, and screamed in terror until she removed the candle and then put a Band-Aid over the resulting hole in the cake. Even then he refused to eat that particular slice, but insisted that it go on a place of protection and honor, sitting at his right side at the kitchen table for the entirety of his birthday meal.

So no, no candle. Just as perfect a wedge of cake as she could manage, and a party hat - for Kevin, not the cake. Granted, the party hat was mostly for her benefit, as that was one thing that Kevin barely seemed to register about his birthdays, suffering the indignity of having a pointy hat placed on his head with a certain gravitas, as though he knew that the hat was important for his mother and so permitted it to be placed on his head for her benefit. This could in fact be true, or it could simply be Lynette placing her own emotive interpretation on his actions. It was often impossible to tell with Kevin what he was thinking, or even whether he enjoyed something or not. New things had to be introduced with care, however, for if they were simply thrown into his schedule without a proper integration the reaction would, again, be something resembling an emotional nuclear strike, with both Lynette and Kevin standing at ground zero.

Kevin was typing on his laptop, as he usually was mid-morning. The discovery that he enjoyed typing had been a boon to Lynette, who had gone back to school and finished a degree in accounting and then gotten certified as a CPA subsequent to Robbie's death. She worked at home as a freelance consultant, which was perfect for her since it enabled her to keep an eye on Kevin while working. Still, the first few years had been something of a difficulty, with Kevin insisting on her attention and her trying to find a way to deal with the special needs of her very special boy at the same time as she did the work that kept a roof over their head and food in their mouths. She had barely touched the money that Robbie had left to her, preferring to keep that in an interest-bearing account where it would be ready for a rainy day - or at any rate, a rainier day, since most of Lynette's days were punctuated by at least minor cloudbursts. Though to be fair, each cloudburst ended with a sunny dose of love and caring from her boy, her love, her life.

The laptop had solved the stormy problem of what Kevin could do while his mother was working, at least. Lynette had brought a laptop into the front room one day so she could work while Kevin played with his favorite toys. He had long ago discarded the wooden toy cars in favor of a sleek and gleaming collection of Hot Wheels cars that he could play with for hours on end.

The two red balls, tattered and dark with sweat and use, were still an integral part of his collection, however. And though Lynette still could not look at the aging orbs without a small shudder of remembrance, she could at least function around them now.

But the day that Lynette brought the laptop into his presence, little Kevin dropped what he was doing instantly and came over to do something highly unusual: directly watch what she was doing. Like most autistic children, new things had a tendency to render him overwrought in an eyeblink, so such were to be treated with care. One way that he dealt with novelty was to avoid looking at it directly. Sideways glances from across the room were his preferred mode of examining some article that had newly come into his life.

Not so with the laptop. When she opened up the computer and began inputting figures into the accounting program she was using, Kevin immediately dropped his Hot Wheels in a pile on the floor - in itself a small wonder, since he usually refused to stop playing with them until each had been properly parked in its spot in his Little People Ramps Around Garage - and walked directly over to stand at her arm to watch what she was doing.

Aware what a signal occurrence this was, Lynette carefully avoided making eye contact or even slowing what she was doing. She simply worked on, her son at her arm, for a full ten minutes before finally speaking. Then, without altering her cadence of typing or inputting, she said, "Do you like the computer, Kevin?"