After Anna(6)

‘You can deal with it, and so can she.’ Noah leaned a forearm on the shovel handle, a lanky six-footer in a faded gray T-shirt and old jeans. He was in good shape since he never over-ate, which Maggie couldn’t relate to.

‘I hope so.’

‘She’ll understand. When you see her, just tell her the truth.’

‘That I went to a mental hospital?’ Maggie hated the words, then she hated herself for hating the words. Crazy, bonkers, batshit, nuts, psycho. She and her friends used the terms all the time, but she never told them that she qualified. She’d started to wonder if she had postpartum psychosis after she’d taken a quiz in a parenting magazine. I have thoughts of harming myself. She’d checked all twelve boxes. She’d gone to her OB/GYN, and he’d diagnosed and treated her, but she wasn’t improving. It had come to a head one awful night, and she dreaded telling that story to Anna.

‘Don’t blame yourself.’ Noah put an arm around her. ‘Your ex took advantage of you because you were in the hospital. He deprived you both of the relationship you could have had.’

‘I know. It’s true.’ Maggie still needed to hear Noah say it, like a reassuring call-and-response. After she’d been admitted to the hospital, Florian had divorced her and won custody of Anna, asking that Maggie be declared unfit. Maggie had neither the ability nor the money to fight him until a year later, but by then, Florian had sold his start-up, gotten mega-rich, and taken Anna to his parents in Lyon, France, creating a jurisdictional nightmare that defeated her suit. Florian had deposited Anna with them and started flying around the world, but that didn’t matter to the courts, which was when Maggie learned that money could buy anything, even children.

‘Dad, Mag!’ Caleb came over with a buttercup on a flimsy green stem, and Wreck-It Ralph trotted after him, his tail high.

‘What, honey?’ Maggie said, turning to him. Caleb called her Mag because kids with apraxia had trouble pronouncing longer words, to the point where it was hard to understand them. But he got great grades, and his speech was getting clearer after years of practice. He had an IEP and received some services at school, but Maggie took him three times a week to a speech pathologist, who gave them target words to practice at home. They were given ten at a time, and the idea was to use them in normal conversation. Caleb had cut his knee on the playground at school on Wednesday, so this week’s target words were about accidents. They made it a game, like family Mad Libs.

‘Ralph likes butter.’ Caleb grinned, a smile that lit up his face. His eyes were a warm brown, and he had a cute nose with a smattering of freckles, from his late mother, Karen. His intensity was pure Noah, and it helped him cope with the teasing at school, due to his disorder. Even when his speech was understandable, it could sound halting and robotic, since he had to think about the words before he said them.

‘He does?’ Maggie smiled. ‘How do you know?’

Caleb hoisted the wilted buttercup. ‘I held this under his chin. It turned yellow. I got it on my phone.’

Maggie smiled. ‘So you figured it out by accident?’

‘Good question,’ Noah chimed in, with a wink. ‘It must have been by accident. Was it an accident, Caleb?’

‘Yes.’ Caleb rolled his eyes, knowing what they were doing. He paused, thinking, and Maggie knew he was forming his motor plan, rehearsing in his head the way he was going to make the sounds for the word accident. It killed her that talking, which came so naturally to other kids, was something that Caleb had to fight for, every day.

‘Caleb, don’t forget your “tippy T,” ’ Maggie said, which was a trick their pathologist taught them, to remind him to put the tip of his tongue behind his upper teeth to form the T sound.

Caleb nodded. ‘Yes, by ac-ci-dent.’

‘Accident! Way to go!’ Maggie ruffled Caleb’s reddish-brown hair with long bangs.

‘Great job, Caleb! By accident.’ Noah grinned down at him. ‘Say it again. Was it by accident?’

Maggie held her breath. Caleb was supposed to repeat the word three times, which was difficult for kids with apraxia. If he couldn’t, they were supposed to let it go. The pathologist didn’t want them turning every conversation into a drill. They needed to encourage Caleb to talk, not shut him down.

Caleb answered, ‘It was an ac-di-dent.’

Noah smiled. ‘Try it again, buddy. Accident.’

Caleb pursed his lips, thinking again. ‘Acc-di-tent.’

Noah touched his shoulder. ‘Good enough for now, buddy.’

‘It sure is,’ Maggie added, but she could see that Caleb was disappointed. ‘Caleb, you don’t have to learn that word. It’s not an emergency.’

‘Ha!’ Caleb smiled slyly at Maggie, knowing it was another of their target words. ‘No, stop! That’s too hard.’

‘Caleb, it’s an emergency!’ Noah grabbed Caleb and gave him a hug. ‘It’s an emergency! I need a hug!’

Maggie laughed. ‘Yes, an emergency hug!’

‘Dad, no!’ Caleb shoved Noah away playfully, and father and son started laughing and wrestling, falling onto the grass as Ralph sprang out of the way.

Maggie watched them with another surge of happiness, feeling lucky in them both. Caleb was more than she ever could have asked for, and she’d treated him as her own since the day she’d met him. She wondered if she’d ever get that close to Anna or if it was too late to make up for lost time.