Leave a Trail (Signal Bend #7)(140)
For Bo, public school had been an unmitigated disaster. With a tested IQ of 163, learning was not his problem. But learning in the clamor and cacophony of thirty other children had been impossible. She’d fought his kindergarten teacher hard at first—hard enough to scare the little twat. Well, Jesus, she’d nearly instantly decided he was ‘intellectually disabled’—which was the new term for what used to be ‘mentally retarded’—because he was quiet. Six weeks into kindergarten, and she’d decided she knew everything she needed to know about his intellect and abilities. So, since kindergarten attendance wasn’t mandatory in Missouri, and since he’d been reading chapter books already, she’d pulled him out of kindergarten at the winter break and started with first grade the next fall.
His first grade teacher had been more experienced both with developmental disabilities and with understanding how to work productively with parents, and she had finally convinced Lilli that Bo needed to be evaluated. Once she’d grasped the implications of his diagnosis, and what he would need to be able to develop successfully, Lilli had spent a lot of time looking for the right school placement for him. There was none. She was homeschooling him.
She’d become a self-taught expert on what felt like everything in the world. On Asperger’s and the rest of the autism spectrum. On the required state curriculum for elementary and middle grades. On all the best places for field trips and enrichment activities. The guys had built them a little schoolroom in the yard at home, so that the house would no longer be overwhelmed by their teaching and learning supplies.
Lilli’s life had become devoted to Bo in a way she knew Gia felt. She did everything she could to balance and give her daughter what she needed, and she knew that Gia was intensely devoted to Bo and would never begrudge him. But Gia would be thirteen next week. It was hard to be a thirteen-year-old girl under the most ideal circumstances, and Gia’s circumstances had not been ideal for a long time.
But that time was coming to an end. Isaac was coming home. He was on his way now. He had called her on Show’s phone, sitting astride his bike. His voice had sounded more real, more him, than it had in two thousand, seven hundred, and thirty-six days.
Sitting next to her at the picnic table, Bo stared at an ant ambling over the worn, dry wood. Lilli laid her hand on the table, over the space at which he’d been staring. “Bud. I need your attention.”
He turned vivid green eyes on her. Both of the children had their father’s eyes.
“Daddy’s going to be home—here, with us—in about forty minutes.” Bo looked at his watch, and Lilli waited. When he looked up again, she knew he’d figured out what time that would be. “I need you to do me a very big favor.”
He didn’t say anything. She hadn’t expected him to; as far as Bo was concerned, she wasn’t finished speaking, because he didn’t know what the favor was yet.
“Two favors, really. I need you to do two things. When he gets here and comes up to you, I need you to say ‘Hi, Dad.’ And you have to use words that he can hear. That’s one favor. The second favor is: I need you to give him a hug.”
He turned and looked out toward the road. Again, she waited, letting him process her request.
“I get a favor back. Two favors.”
“Yes. For the hug, you can have thirty extra minutes tonight playing video games at Uncle Show and Aunt Shannon’s.” The next favor was a tactical risk. “For the words, Dad will take you to the art store in Springfield for one hour, and I will give you fifty dollars to spend there.” Yes, it was bribery. Yes, she was trying to pay her kid to say literally two words to his father. She didn’t care whether it was a good parenting idea or a bad one. She did not want Isaac to come home after all these years to a cold shoulder from his son. Plus, this bribery also forced Bo to choose to spend time alone with Isaac. Knowing him, Lilli was betting that the trip would break the barrier between them.
“When?”
“Use a full sentence, so I know what to answer.”
He spoke slowly. “When do we go to the art store?”
“He’ll take you on Monday.” She hoped like crazy nothing would get in the way of that.
Bo nodded. “Okay.” He looked at his watch. “It’s been five minutes. Can I help Parrot now?”
She leaned over and kissed his cheek. “Yes. Thank you, bud. Love you.”
“Love you, Mamma.” He got up and returned to the clubhouse. Lilli sat where she was and, alone for the first time since Isaac’s call, allowed her heart to race.
oOo
She was still sitting there, her mind rioting while her body had not moved, when Gia sat down across from her. On the table before her she set the white vinyl binder Lilli had bought her years ago. Inside were the calendar pages Lilli had created on her laptop, printed out, and hole-punched, so that Gia could mark the days her father was gone. She had not missed a single day.
The cover had a clear sleeve, meant for a sheet of paper to slide in and serve as a title page. Over the years, Gia had taken to using that sleeve, front and back, like a kind of scrapbook, sliding little mementos in, things she wanted to tell her father about. The stub from a movie she’d seen and thought he’d like. A flyer from a bike rally Uncle Show had taken her to. A fortune from a fortune cookie, things like that. Now the cover bulged, and she’d had to tape the edges of the clear vinyl back down in a few places.