The Meridians(36)

Lynette had heard of this kind of thing happening with other autistic children: though unable to complete certain basic tasks such as having a normal conversation or conducting their own personal hygiene with regularity, some discovered themselves capable of amazing feats of intellect, such as being able to do long division in their heads, or being able to tell a person what day of the week a given date fell on in any time during the last thousand years. Still, when she discovered Kevin had such a prodigious skill at finding synonyms to words that most eight year olds would not have understood if you stood and explained them to the kids, and when she realized that his math skills were at least the equal of his English abilities, she was constantly amazed. It was as though Kevin was a blind man, and just as a blind man's other senses developed keenly to offset the loss of sight, so Kevin's skills in certain endeavors had sharpened to a razor's edge to counteract the dulling of his abilities in certain other arenas.

"Arena," he typed, and followed it up with "gridiron, battlefield, coliseum, field, stadium...."

"Kevin," she whispered, and touched his arm gently in the gesture that signaled she was going to interrupt his work. Kevin had become more and more capable of handling such interruptions over time, but he did require advance notice.

Without any apparent further thought, Kevin immediately withdrew his hands from the keyboard and sat motionless, clearly waiting for whatever his mother had in mind.

"Happy birthday to you," she sang.

Kevin, of course, did not sing along, but she thought she saw him glance quickly at the cake she held, and then appeared to smile ever so slightly. It wasn't much - just a tiny upturn of one corner of his mouth, the slightest unbunching of eyebrows that usually huddled together like opposing teams over his eyes - but it was a smile, and Lynette's heart soared. She lived for the small moments, the moments like this when she knew that her son, though different from other children, could still find what anyone in the world most hoped for: happiness.

She sang the rest of the song, then put the cake down in front of Kevin.

He typed something: "Happy birthday to me."

Lynette laughed, and held her son tightly for a second. Just the barest fraction of a moment, so quickly that a hummingbird would have missed it if it had blinked. She didn't want to make her son uncomfortable, but she also knew that if she didn't hug him - even for the smallest instant - she would explode with love for her wonderful, special, amazing, loving, beautiful boy.

"My Kevin Angel," she whispered in his ear.

"Angel," he typed. "Archangel, guardian, spirit, beauty, darling, dear...."

"Yes, my sweet," she answered. "You are all of those things."

"Guardian," he typed. "Attendant, defender, sentinel."

It took a moment for Lynette to realize what Kevin was saying. Her years with him had given her a greater ability to crack the Kevin Code, but it still took some time occasionally. She didn't hug him this time, but touched him on his shoulder, a "bug hug" as she had come to call the gesture.

"Yes, honey, you are my angel, my guardian. Because without you, I'd be totally lost. I'd be wandering without a hope of finding my way. You keep me safe, honey, more than anyone ever has except for your daddy."

"Robbie," Kevin typed.

Lynette felt tears begin to flow down her cheeks. "Yes, honey," she answered. "Just like Robbie."

"No," he typed.

This stopped her; puzzled her. No, he was not like Robbie? No, he did not accept that Robbie was his father? The sudden negative did not seem to make any sense in the context of their conversation.

"What do you mean, honey?" she asked.

"No," he wrote again. And suddenly Lynette smelled something: the pungent, ammoniac smell of urine. She looked down and saw that Kevin had wet himself, something he had not done in years.

"No," he typed once more. Then, "No no no nonononononononono." He began rocking back and forth as he typed, the motions rolling more and more exaggeratedly, until it seemed like he would end up unseating himself and falling to the floor.

"Nononononononono...."

Lynette's tears disappeared in an instant, the grief she had felt for her husband swallowed instantly up in concern for her son.

"Kevin, what's going on?"

"Nonononononononono...."

And then Lynette became aware of something. There was a sound, a rushing noise as of air blowing all around them, and she was transported back to the gale that she had felt on the day that Robbie died, on the day that her entire life changed.

Papers began flying all around the room as though ghostly hands were playing with them, whipping around in tiny cyclones of wood pulp and ink before finally tearing themselves to shreds in the ferocity of the storm that had found its way once more into their lives.

Lynette began looking around in as many directions at once as she could, trying to spot any danger or sources of distress before they could harm her or - more importantly - Kevin. But when it came, it came from behind.

There was a rancid smell, an odor so unpleasant that it was almost palpable; so thick that it literally carried a taste that made her mouth pucker in disgust. Then the hairs on the back of her neck stood up as the air around her electrified and became charged with static electricity.

She heard a voice, and froze. So did Kevin, stopping his rocking back and forth and becoming so still he might as well have been a graven image of her son. He was looking at something, looking right over her shoulder, and even though she could not see it, she knew what it was. For that voice was burnt into her mind and soul like a brand, a red-hot scar that forever burned her, that forever left her empty and alone because it signaled the loss of her husband.