Under Her Care(66)
I tap on the wooden doorframe again so I don’t startle him. “Hi, Mason,” I announce, but he doesn’t look up. His thousand-yard stare stretches across the room. “Remember me? We played school together a few days ago?”
The difference in his demeanor strikes me immediately. He doesn’t seem agitated. There was always a low level of anxiety thrumming through his body that you could feel just being near him, but that’s all gone, like it’s been drained out of him.
I take a few steps into the room, reach over, and pat the end of his roommate’s bed. “Can I sit?”
His fingers start to twist. Then snap. Twirl.
“Or I can just stand.” I step back, coming up against his dresser. Pages from a coloring book lie on top of it next to other crayoned drawings of dogs and sunsets. “This is a beautiful picture. Did you do it?”
He likes to draw. At least that’s what all the psychologists in his reports said. They all listed it as one of his strengths. So does Genevieve. She claims they do most of their communication through pictures and drawings using real paper. Whenever she says it, she always emphasizes real and in an arrogant way, like she’s better than the rest of us who rely on assistive technology to communicate with our kids. She says she refuses to use screens to communicate with her son.
I couldn’t disagree more. It seems barbaric to have all this technology available and not use it. Harper responds so much better to visual instructions than verbal ones, and she uses her AT devices constantly. Our lives wouldn’t function so smoothly without TouchChat. She has access to over two thousand different phrases, and she’s constantly changing the voices. It’s her favorite part of the app.
Suddenly, I get an idea.
I pull out my phone and open TouchChat. The screen loads, bringing up the discussion Harper and I had over which syrup to use on her pancakes two days ago at breakfast. It’s been three mornings without her at the table, and nothing feels right with her gone. The social worker assigned to the report was dragging her feet on the paperwork, so I went straight to the head of the department, and she assured me things look good for Harper coming home in the next day or two. The judge just needs to sign off on everything, since they’ve decided not to open a formal case.
I clear the speech display bar and bring up the vocabulary area. The familiar seven-by-six grid of boxes opens up, revealing buttons, messages, and symbols. All of them colorful and bright. I tap out a message to him.
“Hi, Mason. I’m Ms. Walker. Remember me?” The message comes out in the cute little-boy voice with a British accent. It’s Harper’s current favorite. I like this one way better than the gruff old-man voice she had before. That one always creeped me out.
He jerks his head up quickly. Then snaps it back down just as fast.
I quickly tap out another message:
“Do you want to try?” The little boy with a British accent asks my question.
Mason stares down at his hands, unspeaking and unmoving. I take a chance and toss my phone on the bed, hoping I don’t startle him.
“Go ahead; you can use it,” I say, pointing to where it lies next to him on the bed.
He pauses for a second, then snatches the phone and brings it toward him before waiting another few seconds to make sure I don’t grab it back. His eyes widen as he brings it back to life. He taps on the buttons. Words and phrases randomly spit out, then cut off, interrupting each other with jagged stops and starts. He giggles in between his manic taps. Nothing is connected. All the words nonsense.
“Apples. Seven. Bathroom. To be. Toast. Go.”
But it doesn’t matter to Mason. He squeals every time the little boy talks. The British accent is as big of a hit with him as it is with Harper. I wait for him to put it all together, hoping that he can. For every kid who loves TouchChat, who it opens a whole new world for, there’s another that it doesn’t. They don’t make the connection that you can tap the buttons to speak a word or phrase in any way that you choose. Just as I’m about to give up on anything except random tap and play from Mason, he slows. His body stiffens as he stares at my phone in his hand. Concentration lines his forehead the same way it did when I tested him. My eyes are locked on him as he taps, and then:
“Hi!”
Mason lets out a squeal and drops the phone in his lap like it physically shocked him. He claps and lets out a hysterical laugh like he’s completely tickled and pleased with himself. His feet jiggle on the bed. I fight the urge to throw my arms around him and give him a celebratory hug. I don’t want to scare him off. He gives a few more claps before picking the phone up again.
“Hi! Hi! Hi! Hi! Hi!” Huge shrieks of laughter bubble up from his insides. The kind you only have when you’re a kid. His entire being lights up.
“Hi, Mason,” I say, holding back tears.
His face fills with delight just like Harper’s did the first time she felt like she had control over her communication. She could pick what she wanted to say, and there were so many choices. As quick as the light came, his eyes darken as it’s extinguished. His smile slowly fades until it disappears. He grips my phone in his hand, and his brow furrows as his gaze rolls to the screen. There’s a long silence as he works his jaw. His hair falls forward onto his face, and he blows it off rather than letting go of the phone. My insides freeze, and I can barely breathe as he finally starts tapping and making his choices. Every tap is slow and deliberate. It’s painfully long until he finishes. His hand trembles as he holds the phone straight out in front of him and taps speak: