An Ordinary Life

Chapter Nine

"But he was alright though, wasn't he? I mean, they fixed it, he's okay now? If not, I can afford the best doctors anywhere in the world. Anything he needs,"

I nod and then shake my head. "They were able to close it, thank god. They performed the surgery when he was three days old. Told me he would be fine. That he would grow and progress like other children. But he didn't. Yes, physically he was fine but I knew almost right away that something was wrong. I just couldn't put my finger on it. People thought I was crazy, after what happened, looking for things that weren't there. He screamed constantly. Not cried but screamed. Morning till night. The doctors said he was colicky, that he would grow out of it. Take your baby home and enjoy him, they told me. I started thinking that maybe it was just me. I was a rotten mother. I didn't know what I was doing. He wouldn't look me in the eyes, had little interest in nursing. Right from the start he hated to be held, like my touch burned him. By the time he was two years old I knew it was autism, even before the doctor mentioned that it might be a possibility. That's when I stopped trying to contact you."

"But why stop then?"

I hear him get up, the drag of his feet on the thick carpet. A sound that makes me picture little electric sparks snapping in the air between us. Before I know it, he's sitting beside me. Close. I can feel his heat like a furnace and I can still recall what it felt like to be consumed by it.

How can I face him? Now that I know that all my assumptions couldn't have been more wrong about him.

"It's not like it mattered," I say, trying to cover up. Trying to draw blood to mask my own regret. "You never would have seen the letters anyway. Right?"

"But you couldn't have known that. Why were you so totally comfortable with throwing away all possibilities?"

I get up, move quickly away. But there is nowhere to run when the pain you carry is scored inside your every cell, every atom. Still, I have to put distance between us. I want to lash out at him, make him feel all the pain I have been holding onto for all these years. Alone. "You were famous. Living a life I couldn't even begin to fathom. I didn't think you cared. I didn't think we mattered to you. Hell, after a while I started thinking that there never were any possibilities to begin with." I turn my blazing eyes on him, feeling crazy and dangerous with all these pent up emotions finally flying free and I can see the hurt in his eyes but it doesn't matter at this point. "I didn't think you would want him, okay? A broken child. A son who could never be normal. Someone like you."

He starts to laugh and shake his head and I seethe, not understanding his reaction.

"You really think I'm normal? You might very well be the first person to have called me that."

I take a deep breath, tears stinging my eyes and I snap, full of spite and nails. "You know what I mean," I just didn't want him to be hurt. I didn't know." I say it as if it's his fault. His doing. You made me do this. But it's not even true is it? He didn't know. I was waiting all this time and he didn't even have a fucking clue. "I didn't know you cared."

"What gave you the right to assume that I didn't? You didn't want to be hurt. This is more about you than it is him, admit it," he says, and I'm beginning to see that he's right . "You didn't want to risk that rejection." He gets up off the bed and storms towards me. "Maybe you're the one who is ashamed of him. I for one could never be ashamed of our son. No matter what. Certainly not for this." He turns away then in a righteous fury, as if the sight of me sickens him and I can't blame him at all. I sicken me right now. The lead ball in my stomach threatening to pull me through the floor.

"You never planned to tell me about him," he accuses. "If it wasn't for your brother, I would have never known. Jesus, you must think I'm a real bastard."