my help is like
dust on her sheets
a breeze when she sleeps
effort drips from hidden cracks above
into 2 silver buckets
that I carry and slosh around
with hope
I blow kisses that never land,
and blink but stay foggy
our love lightly dances around us
through the days
and the knowledge-induced haze
but I understand when she looks away
would I, any other way?
I pulled Zoe’s soft little curls into pigtails and tied blue ribbons into perfect bows around each elastic. I turned her around and looked in her big brown eyes, she gazed off somewhere else. I had been paranoid about her being hurt when she was in the car with Chris when his “foot slipped” and he hit Jake’s truck.
“Are you OK?” I said. “Do you have any owies? We are going to see the doctor to make sure you are doing OK.”
She chewed on her pacifier like it was gum.
I tried again, making sure it wasn’t a ‘wh’ question. “Zoe, touch the owie.”
She reached forward and pressed my heart with her hand. I couldn’t help but scoop her up and hold her tightly. I carried her out to the car in the driveway, getting wet along the way. But I was glad for the gray of the rain and the splashing on the windshield that dulled the thoughts that wouldn’t stop. It seemed perfect to just wash everything away. I couldn’t even drive past his house. Instead I drove the other way down the street, even though it was completely out of the way.
I turned on the radio and on NPR they were talking about religion. The main topic was self-forgiveness. I figured I wasn’t quite at that point yet, since I wasn’t ready to give up what I would need to be forgiven for. In fact, I had pretty much alienated everyone who cared about me except for Zoe. I couldn’t think of anyone who wasn’t utterly disappointed with me. So I pulled over on the the side of the road in the parking lane under a bridge, got out my phone and called my mom.
“Hey mom.”
She said, “You sound defeated.”
“Yeah.”
“What’s wrong, Love?”
“I don’t know what’s going on, I just, I’m having trouble doing the right thing these days.”
“Well, why?”
“I don’t know. I just always have this feeling like I want more. And I don’t even know what that is. I can’t just be happy with what I’ve got, Mom. And it is so stupid because some people don’t even have a roof over their heads or enough to eat, and all I can focus on is myself. I should just be a good mom and wife and not be so selfish I know. But it doesn’t matter knowing what is right, when you don’t listen to that part of yourself.”
“Well honey, you need to get your power back. Instead of living inside your head all the time like you do far too much, Odette, loose yourself in the successes you have already built. What about Chris, how are things with him?”
“They are not so good.”
“But he’s such a nice guy. You need to take care of that relationship. Isn’t that what you want?”
“Does anybody know what they want?”
“I think so.”
“Mom, I’m going to be 30″
“I know, what do you want for your birthday?”
“Mom, I don’t mind getting older, but it is that romance of youth that I miss. I don’t mind leaving all the other parts of youth behind, but to abandon romance seems unbearable.”
“Oh, lord, When you are 60 you are going to be kicking yourself for not appreciating 30. And Odette, isn’t Chris romantic?”
“Sometimes….sporadically. But, there is something about someone who can’t help but be romantic even if it goes against every fiber in his body.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean like…” I tried to think of a character she would know…”James Dean.”
“Well James Dean was very fetching, but don’t you find romance in what a good father Chris is and how well he takes care of you when you aren’t feeling well? A “bad boy” would abandon you in the times that you need him because, well they are always putting themselves first. There is nothing romantic about being abandoned.”
“Thats for sure” I said. “But then, mom, what if they have been horrible and you just want them to be nice again….like before they were horrible?”
“Who are you talking about honey? Is there someone in your life besides Chris?”
“No….um…no. I was thinking about myself. I have been horrible to Chris and maybe he just still wants me around because he is yearning to get me back to when I was really into him. No one likes to loose that…that glow that you once had in someone’s heart.
“Well, honey, it is hard for me to help you when you are talking in such broad terms, but I can tell you this. If you miss romance, then you need to tell that to Chris. He may surprise you.”
“Ok , mom”
“Ok, Love. Take care and give Zoe a kiss for me. Oh and Odette, sometimes you just have to do the right thing even when it goes against, what did you say?.. every fiber in your body.”
“Ok, bye Mom.” I looked up to pull back out into the road and a black truck with a large dent in the back drove by. I took a breath and waited for a couple more minutes for a few more cars to go by, then pulled back out into the rain. I would see Chris at lunchtime, and then I would do the right thing, no matter what.
I’m actually almost feeling sorry for that guy. I’ve always thought, if he can’t satisfy his wife, then fuck him, I’ll do it for him. But after he came over today, for a few minutes I actually felt like maybe what I was doing wasn’t such a good idea.
He just opened my door on his own and stood there looking at me playing video games on the couch. I put down my controller and got up to see what he wanted. I was getting a bit pumped because I wasn’t sure if I was about to get in some stupid fist-fight at my front door. But he just stood there looking really pathetic and he said, “We have a daughter.”
“We do?” I said and couldn’t help but smile at my joke. I looked at his face, ready to duck, but he was just standing there looking miserable. Then I felt bad. I said, “OK, you and Odette have a daughter. I know that”
He said, “We have a 2-year-old daughter with autism.” He looked utterly dejected. It was terrible to see a guy looking like that. I could feel the back of my neck getting itchy and my cheeks burning. I knew what he was saying. This wasn’t funny anymore. “Ok dude” I said. Then he turned and walked away.
I left the door open and leaned against the wall. A surprisingly cool breeze brushed against my face. Odette’s husband continued down our path to the sidewalk. He didn’t turn back around. I relaxed a bit. My roommate, Danny was sitting there on the living room couch playing video games and he said, “Oh man, that was brutal. What are you doing dude?”
I said, “Shut up, Danny. Just shut up. I paused for a while while Danny gunned down everything in front of him. “I still like her though,” I said.
“I know you do. You are a misogynistic fucked up bastard.”
“Philogynist, not misogynist. I like women.”
“I disagree,” Danny said. “What about that little girl with autism? I’m pretty sure you know she would rather have Daddy around than you.” He gunned the last man down with splendid annihilating technique. But even so, I noticed he still had a few things to learn.
Odette is screwing the kid down the street, Zoe has autism and I am getting gray-fuckin hairs. I do not actually know for sure that she is screwing him, but I know she wants to. We had not made love for months and then, one night, she suddenly leads me to the bedroom. I could tell right away that it wasn’t me she wanted. It wasn’t me she was thinking about when she closed her eyes. I didn’t care though. All I cared about was that Odette was finally letting me touch her, hold her, kiss her….”
Now, we are working together to help Zoe and things are supposedly “better”. Odette even held my hand the other day for no reason. Just like, she grabbed my hand and gave it a squeeze as we were walking through the gluten free aisle at Whole Foods. So, why don’t I feel happy? Why do I still feel like I am walking on eggshells around her?
Odette apparently thinks that all those months when she just lied in her bed and cried and couldn’t get up and couldn’t care about Zoe, about me, that I just “took it like a champ”. If I didn’t have the guys in the band, at the music shop, I would have probably run off somewhere. Maybe I should have. Maybe I should have taken Zoe and gone to my parents and let Odette just wallow. There is that girl at Starbucks….”
My band got back together. I am still not sure if it is a good idea. We are older now, tired. Does anyone really care what some 30 year old guys have to say? Do we even have anything to say? Alex said we have to get a “new look”. I wish I could just bang the drums and forget. Maybe James should be the singer; he always liked the attention more than I did. All I ever liked was Odette.
I am supposed to go to some autism parenting support group with Odette. Why does it feel like I am always supporting the women in my life? What are they going to do when I go on tour?
When I picked Zoe up a little early from preschool yesterday she was crying. I asked her what was wrong as we walked out to the school hallway and she said, “chair seatbelt.”
“Chair seatbelt?”
“Chair seatbelt.”
I turned us around and we walked back to her classroom. I was holding her wrist, (she doesn’t hold back when I hold her hand) and I opened the wooden door and stuck my head in. Her teacher came up to me and I walked in and said, “What is a chair seatbelt?”
He teacher looked a little flustered and I though it looked like her checks were going red. My heart started to pound, worried about what I was about to be told. The assistant teacher overhead and she walked up to me. She was an older woman, in her late fifty’s and quite gruff, from the south, usually told funny stories but the kids always listened quickly to her stern voice when it got a little louder. She pointed to a newish-looking wooden chair against the corner wall of the classroom that had straps dangling from it.
“When the kids get out of control we put them in timeout in the timeout chair.” She said. “Zoe threw a chalk-board eraser at Emily today and wouldn’t listen when we told her to apologize so she had to sit in timeout”.
“With straps?” I said.
“That is only if they are out of control and not listening,” she said.
I looked at the lead-teacher who looked to me like she was struggling to hide her embarrassment. The kids were still playing around them, puzzles on the short table while they sat on the rug, play-dough with the intern, blocks in the “block corner”. It seemed calm but there was a serious tension between me and the teachers.
I walked over to the wooden chair and inspected it, then I looked over at my little Zoe who was trying to chew on her hair. I imagined them buckling her into it while she protested. It was hard to even imagine her protesting. There was not a more laid back and sweet child than Zoe.
“I understand you have to discipline the kids” I began, trying to sound diplomatic and calm. “But Zoe is never violent, would never intentionally hurt anyone. Why did she throw an eraser at Emily?”
“I think she wanted to play with what Emily was playing with”, the teacher’s assistant said.
This didn’t make sense. Zoe didn’t care enough about things to get upset. In fact, pretty much any kid could take any toy out of her hand and she would never object. Her speech therapist is actually trying to TEACH her the concept of “mine”.
My heart was pounding and I took a breath to try and be brave and I simply said, “I don’t want Zoe to be disciplined in that seatbelt chair, ever. If things ever get to that point, call me first and I will come and pick her up.”
Her teacher said, “OK, no problem. We can make that exception for Zoe.”
As Zoe and I walked out of the classroom I couldn’t imagine bringing her back to the classroom again. I wondered if I should tell the other parents about the seatbelt chair, or if I was just an overprotective weirdo who cared too much about this type of stuff.
Today we are at home. I’m feeling good. We are having fun…waiting on return phone call from a local private school called Oxbridge. I thought the name was funny, like they couldn’t decide between Oxford or Cambridge so they called it Oxbridge. I’ll have to ask them that during our tour. Wish me luck.
Amazing news…it looks like a famous singer (shhhh) is going to cover Chris’s hit song from the good ol’ days when his band was super popular. The gears are in motion…his band is already talking about getting back together for some reunion shows around San Fran and Marin. We pretty much will always live off the money that comes in from that song. Chris is utterly sick of playing it and is hoping this new cover of his song will be a spring board to get people interested in some new stuff. As soon as I get the “all clear” I will post the song. I’m wondering if this means we will start hearing some new music around the house again…fingers crossed.
Also today I got Zoe some cotton-candy-pink cleats and a ridiculously cute soccer skirt and shirt so she can start on her toddler soccer-team this Saturday. She looks so delightfully pink in everything. I made her wear the cleats to “break them in”, so I could giggle at her clunking around the living room.
More good news…Chris and I are going to start a program called, “More than Words” which is basically where the parents learn how to be therapists for their kids. We both have to go to two meetings a week and also someone comes to our house once a week and video tapes us playing with Zoe. It is supposed to be an amazing program. We are are doing it through CARD.
But I couldn’t have been excited about any of this if it weren’t for this morning. After I dropped off Zoe, and after Chris got someone to come in for him at the music shop so he could go to his all day band meeting…I went out and sat on the sidewalk. I was hoping that Jake would come out there like he did a few days ago. He did. Right at 9:30 I heard a bark and Milo came running towards me. Then I saw Jake walking out of his house. I pet Milo and Jake smiled at me as he walked down the street. I grinned back. We were like two kids who were embarrassed about our dumb fight. He just came and sat down next to me. Then he took my hand and rubbed the back of it with his other hand. Then he suddenly got worried, like he didn’t know if he was allowed to touch me or not.
“Is this OK?” he said.
I nodded.
“I’m sorry I was a jerk” he said, looking embarrassed. I don’t know what the rules are with this thing we are doing. I get confused and it makes me act stupid. I want to help you with Zoe and I don’t care if it comes with benefits or not.”
I smiled, trying not to smile too big. He couldn’t have chosen the words better. My heart was doing flips and I could feel my face getting flushed with relief and happiness.
“I guess I haven’t been too clear about my intentions,” I said. “And I suppose they do change daily. I don’t think there are any rules. I don’t know what I want. Actually, I do. I do know what I want.”
I looked at my shoes.
“We don’t have to have rules. We could just make this up as we go along.” he said.
I smiled and nodded. He gently tickled the back of my hand as we spoke and I just wanted to kiss him so badly. I couldn’t do that out on the street though, and I didn’t want to bring him inside my house.
“I wish we could spend some real time together. Just me and you without any distraction.” He said.
I nodded again. Why did what I want seem like it was so doomed?
He saw that I was getting a bit miserable again. “Hey, it’s like you are the Bachelortte but you get to keep the winner and the runner up!”
“Oh shut up!!” I gasped. “That is horrible!”
He laughed loudly at his joke and rolled back on the sidewalk, his head in the grass and Milo ran up to lick his face. “Dog, get away from me!” he was still laughing.
I shook my head. “The Bachelorette. I sure wouldn’t mind going out on one of those dates,” I said. “Lets fly around the city in a helicopter.”
“Give me a date and time and I can arrange that,” he said.
I looked at him. He wasn’t kidding. “I can’t give any dates and times” I said.
“We’ll figure it out” he said petting Milo’s ears. “I never shy away from a challenge.”
“Did you read about Kristen Stewart and that director?” I said as we headed to the kitchen.
“Who is Kristen Steward?” he said.
“Oh come on, Twilight?”
“Is she that vampire actress? One of the many?”
“Did you read about how she cheated on her boyfriend with a married director?”
“I don’t keep up with that stuff. I read about sports.”
“Hm.”
As I went to open the fridge he intercepted my hand, pulled me in and wrapped his arms around me.
“Did you really ask me to come over to look in your fridge?” he said. He pushed some hair behind my ear and smiled.
“Yes, actually. I’m really worried about Zoe and everything I read was conflicting and I thought, you know, with your Nutrition major, that you could help…remember?”
“We have all morning though, right?” he said, eyeing the guest room from the open kitchen.
“Well, there is a chance that Chris could come home and he is very stealth on his bike.”
“Why would he come home?”
“I don’t know. He just does sometimes.”
Jake furrowed his brow. He stepped back from me. “I’m gonna go then.”
“But you said you were going to do this.”
“Not if I’m going to get my ass kicked in the process.”
“Can you just look in the fridge really fast and tell me what is good for Zoe and what isn’t?”
He shook his head and ran his hands through his hair with frustration. Then he yanked open the fridge door and said, “OK, let’s see what you are doing to this kid.”
He took out the milk. “This has casein in it. You don’t want to give her cows milk, organic or not. You should give her almond milk.” He slammed it back in the fridge door. I jumped a little. Then he took out the organic apple juice. “This is like drinking sugar. All the nutrients are lost in the juicing process. Sugar feeds candida…bad for spectrum kids. Just give her water.” He stuck that back in the fridge with a thunk and took out some cheese from the dairy drawer. “This has casein in it and it isn’t organic. Dairy doesn’t leave the body for two weeks. Get rid of this.”
He stuck the cheese back in then took out some eggs. “Not organic.” He shook his head, then stuck them back in and slammed the dairy drawer shut. I was starting to get angry.
He took out some blueberries. “Not organic again.” He said. “You are pretty much feeding her poison. Don’t even give her berries if they are not organic. Spectrum kids can’t shed toxins as well as the rest of us. Feeding her pesticides is a terrible idea.”
“But I wash them” I said, but he cut me off with,”Doesn’t matter. The pesticides seep into the berries.” He slammed them back into the fridge.
I thought about asking him to leave but i realized that I was both a little afraid to and also quite astonished at his knowledge.
He grabbed some tofu. “This is nasty,” he said. “A major allergen. If you must give her soy it has to be organic. Same thing with these potatoes. Don’t ever buy potatoes or even potato chips that are not organic. They are the number one thing that are soaked with pesticides.” He tossed the potatoes back in the crisper bin, closed the fridge and yanked open the freezer. He took out some popsicles. “These are full of artificial color, which is so bad for kids it is banned in all civilized countries except for the United States.” Then he tossed them back in and slammed the freezer door shut.
I didn’t know weather to thank him or tell him to get the hell out.
“Is that what you wanted?” he said, then he tried to grab my hand. I yanked it away and stared at him angrily. “
“Why did you have to be so rude about it?”
Then he simply turned and left, banging the screen door behind him. I walked over to the window and watched him breeze down the path, out of the gate and off behind the trees lining the sidewalk.
I sank down on the couch and buried my head in my hands, tears spilling through them. My brain scanned his sudden change in demeanor, my slight fear of having him in the house, how terrible the food is that I am feeding Zoe. This was too much. He was too much.
I got the diagnosis on the phone earlier that day, high functoning autism, and I had been on the computer ever since.
Autism, therapy, spectrum, reversable, irreversable, life long, curable, no cure, caused by shots, nothing to do with shots…it was dizzying. I read about how a stomach is a second brain and eating the right foods and cutting out the wrong foods can make amazing changes.
I sat there and looked at the screen. Gluten free, casein free diet…wasn’t Miley Cirus gluten free? Wasn’t that because she had celiac disease? Why do this diet if Zoe didn’t have anything wrong with her stomach? Then I read that gluten can be an “intolerance” and wouldn’t be detected as an allergy when tested. It all seemed like grasping at straws. It was so much to sift through. I wondered where the truth was. I wished I could just press a button to highlight all the parts that were right so I could delete the wrong information and know what to do.
Jake was a health and nutrition major. Perhaps he knew what I should do. I suddenly really wanted to talk to him really badly. It was late, 11pm. Zoe was asleep and Chris was asleep on the couch. He had fallen asleep there watching TV while I was on the computer in our bedroom.
I had never wanted to se Jake so badly. I stood up and looked at Chris on the couch. I looked at the front door. Chris let out a loud snore. I quietly took a front door key from a hook next to the door and opened the door. I shut it very gently and locked it quietly. I stood outside and listened. The crickets were chirping. I could hear Chris still snoring inside. I looked up and the sky was almost purple with clouds floating by all lit up by the moonlight. What was I going to do now, just walk down the street to Jake’s house and knock on the door? Hadn’t he had enough of my baggage today with me telling him about my sister dying? Now I was going to go and tell him my daughter had autism? I was going to completely scare him off. But he was a health and nutrition major, which meant he was learning all the new cutting edge information about what Zoe should and shouldn’t be eating. If the stomach really was like a second brain, he would probably be studying that too.
I walked down the three steps and the pathway to my front gate at the sidewalk and looked at where Jake and I had sat that morning. He had walked away when things got too heavy. Why was I going to lay more on him now? Was this some kind of a test? Was I trying to get rid of him? I walked down the street. The college students were in their houses, lights on with music coming from them. I got closer to Jake’s house. His living room light was on behind the partially closed curtains but his yard was dark. There was his hammock. I smiled. Then I walked up to the front door and stood there. I could hear the TV and guys voices. His roommates were in there. I got nervous. What would they think if I was at the door? What if Jake wasn’t there and I just knocked on the door of the house of some college students that I didn’t know?
I took a breath and knocked. I heard someone say, “Is that the door?”A second later someone opened the door. He had red hair and bright blue eyes. He looked at me in utter amazement. I flushed. But I didn’t have to say anything.
“Jake!” He yelled through the house. “Hot mom is here!”
I looked out at the yard. An escape route. I could just walk away right now. When I looked back at the door Jake was walking up and there was a girl behind him. Of course he was with a girl. I was so stupid. I started to stammer that I could go but the girl turned and hugged Jake, “bye!” she said, giving him some weird knowing smile.
Then she brushed past me, but not too quickly to give me a wink and off she went to her car parked in the yard. I looked at Chris.
“This is a nice surprise” he said, grabbing my elbow and leading me off to his room.
“I’m just here to talk” I said.
He shut the door and we sat on his bed.
“I have a question”
“What’s up?”
“Well, you are a health and nutrition major right?”
He held up a text book that a picture of two pears on the front and it said, ‘Nutirition, Concepts and Controversies’.
“Perfect” I smiled.
“What do you need to know?”
“Well, my little one has autism and I have been reading how food affects kids with autism and I was wondering if you know anything about that because I don’t know anything about it.”
He smiled. “I can help you with that. Listen, tomorrow morning, why don’t I come over and look in your fridge. I can tell you what she should eat and what she shouldn’t eat and why.”
“Ok. That sounds good. I’m gonna go now.”
“Now? Don’t you want to stay for a little while?”
“I can’t.”
I jumped up to go but before I could grab the door handle he wrapped his arms around me.
I shook my head. “I can’t do this.”
“Not one kiss?”
“Um,” before I could say yes or no he kissed me and I let him. Then I slipped out of his grasp and grabbed the door handle. He grinned at me and my heart started to thump so I turned the handle quickly and hurried out of his room. He walked after me to the door and I opened it and looked around his living room. There were two guys on the couch playing video games but they were not looking at the screen. They were both staring at me.
“Um, bye” I said. “Thanks Chris for that information.”
“Anytime” he smiled.
I slipped out of the door and shut it behind me. The crickets chirped and my heart pounded just as loud. I hurried through his yard then started to jog down the street to my house and stopped at my front door. I listened. I didn’t hear snoring. I stood outside for a few minutes until I started to get a chill from the breeze blowing on my sweat. Then I reached to get my key out of my pocket. It wasn’t there. I checked my other pocket. Not there either. I turned and looked back down the street. Perhaps it fell out of my pocket when I was jogging. Suddenly the door opened and Chris was standing there.
“What are you dong out here?” he said. “I heard someone out here. I thought you were in bed.” He had a baseball bat in his hand.
“I went for a walk.”
“Why are you just standing out here?”
“Look at the sky” I said. “It is beautiful.” We looked up and the clouds had a silver lining from the moon behind them. The trees were black silhouettes against the glowing clouds.”
“Are you coming in now?” he said.
“OK.” I walked inside and wondered if I smelled like Jake’s cologne. “I am going to take a shower” I said and hurried off to the bathroom. Why did I let him kiss me again? OK, that was the last time. Never again. And when I saw him tomorrow, it was going to be strictly plutonic.
What a crazy Satruday…beach fun then I saw Jake out at a club.
We (Chris, Zoe and I) went to the beach, fun! I noticed a couple of weird things though. There was another little girl that looked like she was Zoe’s age and I saw her tell her mommy that she needed to go potty. It was very strange to see. There is no way that Zoe would ever tell me she needed to go potty. We are so far from that skill.
I also noticed that when we were walking on the beach I had to pull Zoe along with her hand, or even her wrist. But the other little girl walked right next to her mommy and they looked at each other and even chatted a bit.
It worried me. I haven’t been worrying about autism but I feel like I am starting to see some potential problems…and it squeezes my heart, so I try not to think about it.
So, I decided to try out some dance therapy that night and get rid of the anxiety that was threatening to creep back up on me. Lisa was “totally in”. So Chris said he didn’t mind staying home with Zoe as long as I put her to bed before I went out.
It was a perfect night. The dance floor of the club is outdoors and the moon was high. When I looked up at it in the dark blue sky I could see the lines of lanterns strung from the dance floor to the bar.
Jake was there. I hadn’t seen him since I’d gathered up my clothes and scurried out his door last monday morning so it was a bit of a shock to see him. I didn’t even know where we stood. So much had happened that week with Zoe’s autism diagnosis that I didn’t even know if I ever wanted to talk to him ever again…or if I would be completely offended if he blew me off.
I’ll tell you tomorrow what happened at the club, but before I go, check out what Zoe and I wore to the beach:
After the autism evaluation Zoe and I went to Addie’s Attic for a little speech therapy shopping therapy and I got her these cute outfits.
