Love In Darkness

by E. M. Tippetts

  At one, he pauses to read. “Autism can prevent someone from learning to speak?”

  “If it’s severe enough.”

  “Over one percent of the population has this?”

  “In one form or another.”

  “Who else in town has it?”

  I have to think a moment. Because I’ve worked as a respite care provider, I do know a lot of people’s disabilities, but it’s not appropriate for me to blab about them. Families deserve privacy and have the right to decide for themselves who should know about their medical issues. However, there is one family who has always been very open about their son’s disability and told me, time and again, to send any parents with questions about the disorder to them. “Kevin Rawls,” I say.

  “He had autism?”

  “Still has it.”

  “That was autism…” Now Officer Li goes tense, and he looks at me with an expression that could be dread. “You don’t know what happened?”

  I’m not sure how to answer that.

  “Oh, man… Yeah. You would’ve known Kevin. Of course you would. You used to take care of him sometimes, didn’t you? Nobody told you? They didn’t call you up or send you a letter?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Kevin… ah… he’s gone. He was killed.”

  With those three words comes a rush of sickening certainty about what happened. While it’s possible that he got hit by a car or had a heart attack, Officer Li’s expression is all wrong for that. See, the thing about Kevin Rawls was that his autism was so severe that he didn’t talk and couldn’t endure the least variation in his routine. He threw tantrums at the drop of a hat which, given he was a forty year old man who stood six foot four, meant he was dangerous. It’s one thing for a toddler to lose it and thrash around. It’s something else entirely when it’s an adult. That guy put more bruises on me than anyone and nearly broke my arm on a couple of occasions. One advantage of working with him, though, was that I got very good at safety holds. I had to, or else I’d’ve been beaten to a pulp.

  So I can guess what ended Kevin’s life. He tried the patience of everyone who knew him, including his saintly, longsuffering parents. When I looked after him, I never got mad because I understood that he was the one who truly suffered. He spent his whole life trapped in a world that was too loud, too bright, and made no sense. He understood very little of what was said to him, which meant that he lived a terrifying, disjointed existence. If it were me, I’d throw constant tantrums too. His parents called me “a godsend” and “the only person we can trust.” Before I started to look after him, they’d gone almost thirty years without an evening out, just the two of them. I knew with icy cold certainty that once I’d left, they’d have tried to find a replacement for me.

  “Who killed him?” I ask.

  “His parents put him in that special home in Sequoia Ridge. He was there for a trial period. Just a couple of days.”

  Many group homes are spectacular facilities run by staff who are patient and well trained. Having said that, the wages usually aren’t high, and being screamed at, punched in the face, and having to clean fecal matter out of carpets is not exactly a dream job. A lot of care workers handle it about as well as anyone would, and quite a few handle it worse.

  I get to my feet and rub my face with my hands. Mikey remains oblivious and lines the river rocks up along the edge of the coffee table. “The workers beat him up?” I say.

  Officer Li nods.

  “How bad?” An image of Kevin surfaces up in my mind. He had graying blond hair, hazel eyes, and a round face that was usually smushed up in a grimace. He’d howl so loud that people would have to cover their ears and his mood would change without warning. One minute he’d be watching gulls flying overhead, and the next he’d lunge at you and shriek with wordless fury. Still, there were moments when he was calm, when he’d relax, and you could see that he wasn’t a bad looking guy. If his mind were different, he’d probably be happily married, dandling a kid or two on his knee. He was human, just like the rest of us.

  “Ahm… yeah,” whispers Officer Li. “I got called in for backup because the cop on the scene just couldn’t deal.”

  “What happened?” I press.

  “I guess he threw a fit of some kind and one of the workers snapped, grabbed a fire extinguisher, and beat him with it. He wasn’t dead when I got there, Kevin wasn’t.” The cop pauses and shuts his eyes. “When I found out later that he did die, I was relieved for him. It was bad. I still get nightmares about it.”

  I feel like someone’s wrapped a leather strap around my chest and cinched it up too tight for me to breathe.

  “Alex, look,” says Officer Li. “I know what you’re thinking, that this is your fault somehow and don’t do that to yourself. I get it now, okay?” He gestures at his son. “You did a lot of work with people who have special needs and you must’ve been real good at it. You practically grew up on the job, but Kevin wasn’t your responsibility. The person at fault is the guy who grabbed the fire extinguisher and beat an unarmed man with it, and I did put that guy away. He’s in jail for second degree murder. The defense went for manslaughter but I told the jury in detail everything I saw that night. His parents talked about how sweet Kevin could be. Justice was done, okay? I know it doesn’t bring Kevin back but…” He shakes his head. “At the time I pitied his parents and thought I could never do what they did. I’m still not sure I can.”

  At that I glare at him. How dare he say that in front of his own kid?

  He raises his hands as if warding off a blow and gets to his feet. “Yeah, well. Listen. It’s been a rough couple of years and I’ve figured a few things out. For example…” He drops his gaze to the floor for a moment, then looks me in the eye. “You’re a better man than I. Better than most. I deserve to be out of a job after how I treated you and your mom, but today I come by and what do you do? You help me.” He flicks something away from his eye that I realize is another tear. “So, thanks, all right? And if there’s anything I can ever do for you, just let me know.”

  Even if I weren’t socially awkward and on the brink of mentally ill, I think I’d find this conversation difficult to navigate. Fortunately Officer Li doesn’t drag it out. He puts a business card down on the coffee table, gathers his son in his arms, and heads for the front door. I go to let him out and, with a curt nod, he’s gone.

  I wonder if the Rawls are still around. Will I run into them in the street? What do I say to them? Do they hate me for leaving?

  “Alex?” Hiroko’s voice cuts across my fretful thoughts much the same way her diminutive figure cuts through the living room. “Did you eat lunch?”

  “Yes,” I lie.

  “Come. Eat.” Hiroko’s smile always wrinkles her nose, which is turned up, what we would have called a “pug nose” in elementary school. Her hair is cropped short and she usually wears yoga pants and shirts that allow her to move. My guess is she used to work with someone who required a lot of physical intervention. I know she’s got a black belt in aikido, because she’s the one who taught me how to lock Kevin’s joints so that I could subdue him with one hand without hurting him.

  “So did you know about Kevin Rawls?” I ask.

  That smile dissipates. “Yes.” She goes into the kitchen, rests her elbows on the counter, and looks me in the eye. “Who told you?”

  “Officer Li was here.”

  “Why?”

  “I didn’t do anything.”

  She laughs, as if to say she knows this is true. I’m nowhere near as interesting as I was as a teenager. “Why was he here?”

  So I tell her about his visit and Mikey.

  “I didn’t hear their voices,” she says.

  “They were here. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t a delusion.”

  “Didn’t mean to imply it was. He told you about Kevin, which a delusion wouldn’t do.”

  “So was anyone ever going to tell me?”

  “I wasn’t hiding it on purpose. It h
appened quite a while ago and I didn’t think to fill you in, so I’m sorry. The group home got shut down and the whole company went under. Now if people want services, they have to contract for them privately. Which your aunt already arranged with me.”

  “Are the Rawls still in town?”

  “They moved. I don’t know where. I think the whole situation was just too much and they had to turn over a new leaf. Are you going to eat?”

  “No, I’ve got something I’ve gotta go do.”

  “Just eat something, all right? Please.”

  I don’t want to, but I oblige her long enough to eat some rice and steamed veggies, and then I’m out the front door and on my way to Madison’s house. As I walk, I rehearse what I’m going to say, or in other words, to draw a blank. I have no idea what to say. I just know that I owe her a visit and need to show that I’m trying.

  The town of Pelican Bluffs is bisected by Main Street, which is actually called Wilkstone Road, but I don’t call it that. Wilkstone is my middle name. My dad was a Wilkstone until he married my mother and chose to become a Katsumoto. No one in town knows my relationship to the town’s founder, my grandfather.

  On my side of Main Street are the bluffside properties, the big mansions with the views and such. On the far side are things like the high school, the cemetery, and a little subdivision of four streets of low income housing, owned and rented out by the Wilkstone Foundation. This is where Madison grew up and continues to live because in the randomness of life, she got born to a poor woman and I to a wealthy family.

  The contrast in lifestyles is apparent the moment I cross Main Street. The houses along these side streets are rundown and ramshackle with patches in their stucco, cracks in their walls, broken television antennas, cars up on blocks, and junked out appliances in the yards. The neighborhood is tucked away in the redwood forest, though, with pines jutting up to the sky that five off the scent of evergreen and tree sap. If our life situations went by what we deserved, I’d live here. I match these houses with my patched together life.

  I make it to the corner of Madison’s street and the first thing I notice is that their door is painted deep purple and there are big flower urns lining the walkway up to the house, which is neatly maintained and even cute. A windchime dangles from the eaves by the front door and the address is displayed on brightly painted tiles hung on the side of the house. Even the beat up van and another, even more beat up sports car, look economical and not cheap and junky next to this house.

  As I walk up the flagstones, I smooth my hair back and brace for a fight with John, who’ll no doubt tell me off the moment he sees me coming. Before I reach the front door, though, it jerks open to reveal Madison, wearing jeans and an oversized shirt decorated with tie-dye.

  For a moment, I can’t even breathe. Stunning doesn’t even begin to describe her. Her long blond hair is now fuller and frames her face with soft waves. She’s a little curvier than she was when I saw her last, and her face fuller, with a soft pink flush to the cheeks. Those blue eyes are the color of a mountain lake.

  “Alex?” There’s a note of surprise in her voice. I’m home two weeks later than I should be. John clearly didn’t deign to tell her I’m around. I wonder how he even knew, whether he was in contact with the bishop, or if he just spotted me being driven home.

  I step up to the welcome mat and put my hands in my pockets. There are so many things I owe it to her to say, but what comes out is, “I had a psychotic… episode.”

  Her mouth drops open and I watch the full effect of the words sink in. Her expression shifts first to surprise, and then compassion. “When?”

  “Coincidentally, the day I got your last letter. Which still isn’t an excuse for not writing back, but-”

  “No, it is. It’s a pretty good one. So how are you?”

  “Right now I’m fine. You’re the only one who knows about this besides people on my mission, my family, and Hiroko.”

  “Alex, oh my gosh.”

  I take a good, long look at the girl I love, except she’s all woman now. The very idea of building a life with her is so ridiculous, it might as well have been a dream. I try to convince myself that it would never have worked out. “Look,” I say, “what you said in your last letter, I wish I could say it back. I wish we could be together, but we can’t, and I’m sorry.”

  Those eyes widen. “Why not?”

  “Because I care about you too much to put you through all this. I’m going to lose my mind. A year from now, I’ll probably be sorting Happy Meal toys and arguing with invisible people who run the universe. You deserve better.”

  “But-”

  “Okay, I know what you’re going to say. You’re going to say that you don’t mind and you want to be there for me and that means everything, but the answer is no.” It hurts, physically, to say the word. “The thing is, I know you already feel bad for me and the worse I get, the more you’ll try to take care of me and I know how that goes, okay? It would destroy your life. Ten years from now, you’d be visiting me in an institution while I don’t even recognize you anymore, and that’s just not right. You deserve someone who can love you and be there for you, not a headcase to look after. I really am sorry.”

  This is, hands down, the most painful experience I’ve ever had, and I’ve been stabbed twice and had my own mother scream in terror at the sight of me.

  At least Madison isn’t the sort to cry. She’s tough as nails, despite her sweet demeanor. All she does is look me over as if I’m speaking Japanese and just staring hard enough will allow her to understand.

  Footsteps sound against the tiles behind her and John steps into view. “Alex, hey. I didn’t know.”

  Madison looks confused for a moment, then turns to face him. “You’ve already talked to him?”

  “Look, I-”

  “Did you tell him to get lost? To leave me alone?”

  “You know that-”

  “Seriously? You’ve got problems.” She shoves past him and disappears back into the house. I know she’s more hurt than angry and I want to go after her, put my arms around her, and tell her that no matter what, I’ll always love her.

  John looks at me and shrugs. “I’m sorry. I had no idea.”

  “Just… make sure she’s all right, okay?”

  “Might be a while before she’ll even speak to me.”

  “Tell her that I called you to try to discuss how to break this to her, and that’s how it is we ended up talking. You started to chew me out before I could explain or… whatever.” I shrug.

  “You make a habit of lying to her?”

  “No. You’re welcome.” I turn my back on him.

  “Alex,” he calls after me.

  I stop, turn, and raise an eyebrow.

  “Thank you. For doing the right thing.”

  I don’t respond to that. I just leave.

  When I get home, my mother meets me at the door and hands me a Happy Meal toy. “Garbage,” she says. “Throw it away outside.”

  She’s had a fascination with these toys ever since I was young enough to eat Happy Meals. Back then she’d always take the toy out before giving me the box, and I let her when most kids would kick up a fuss, because I understood that this is how my mother was. Some of the nicer employees at fast food chains would give her additional toys, which she’d assemble, examine, and then sort according to some system I never understood. Even her therapists admitted that was an unusual behavior, and none of us could ever discern what was behind it, what it was about the toys that was significant to her or why she had to have each new toy when it came out, only to pass judgment on it and then throw it away. There’s one, though, that she’s always kept. It’s a little plastic pocketwatch that she has on her at all times and values above anything else. I always knew when she was suicidal, because only then would she try to give it away.

  My mother will now serve as a constant reminder of why I have to let the love of my life go. Madison can’t live like this. I go back outside, throw
the toy away, go in, and head up to my room, where I change to sweats. Then I go for a good long run along the bluffs, the wind off the ocean whipping my hair and plastering my shirt to my side. I run as if I could leave my feelings behind, if only I could go fast enough. At least I run long enough that by the time I get home, Madison has already come and gone, leaving behind a note that says she wants to talk.

  Note in hand, I get down on my knees and pray for the strength to endure this. I need to be able to resist her, or else I’ll drag her into a nightmare worse than all the stupid pranks Kailie Beale ever pulled.

  Once I finish my prayer, I hurt so much, I’m trembling. I climb under the covers of my bed and will the rest of the world and this entire situation to disappear.

  I let myself sleep in the next morning. I’ve got a lot of jet lag to get rid of and a whole lot of reality to flee from. When I finally do get up, I have a pounding headache from the stress of it all, and Hiroko tells me to check the voicemail on the house phone, so I do.

  “Alex,” says a male voice, “it’s Josh Rosenblum. I hear you’re back in town. Listen, we could really use some help with Rachel. We used another respite care provider, but it wasn’t a good situation. We’re willing to pay whatever your rates are these days. Give us a call?”

  Beep.

  “Alex! It’s Greg Beale. Listen, we’ve got a guest coming to the Pelican Bluffs Inn in about a month who’s got a wheelchair bound daughter. I thought of you immediately. I know you just got back in town and I hope I caught you before you get booked up. We’ll pay time and a half what you used to charge. Call me.”

  Beep.

  “Brother Katsumoto? It’s Phil Liang. Listen, we need someone to take Charlotte next Wednesday, and we’re desperate. I heard you were back from your mission. Is there any chance you can help us out? Let us know.”

  Beep.

  “Alex, it’s Ellie. I’ll be by later on today after I take care of some things at the office. Welcome home.” That would be Aunt Ellie, or Great Aunt Ellie, technically. My grandfather’s little sister.