by Leanne Davis
She doesn’t talk right. I know that. She looks at me and smiles and engages with me and my parents and Devon… but yeah, it’s not the same as other kids do. She seems to be mimicking real life. I’ve noticed she lacks imagination. She doesn’t ever pretend to do or be something, not even with other kids. She prefers to play alongside them. She loves trains… whether we see them passing our house or parked on the tracks.
My stomach knots. What if she isn’t neurotypical? What will that mean for her? Her life? What will I do?
Panic starts chewing away on my gut. It’s one thing to learn as a kid about my father, a man who was everything to me. He never acted “abnormal” with me so his diagnosis didn’t have any meaning or power. But the precious, beautiful daughter of mine, the one whose care and potential is all on me, what might it mean now? What if it isn’t like my dad’s case? What if it’s a…
Images flood me. I’m starting to hyperventilate. The doctor is writing on a tablet.
“Here’s a number to follow up with. I highly encourage it. She’s going to be okay, whatever it is or isn’t, Damion. I’ll send the nurse in. Do you have any other questions? I’m sure you do, but any I can help you with right now?”
I must still seem normal and okay. My breathing must still be regular and my voice still modulated. While my head spins, and my gut twist, I somehow manage to conduct my behavior around the doctor and nurses as if I’m fine. I pretend to be engaged and not completely freaking out inside but I’m scared. So scared.
Dayshia cries as the needles deliver their immunizations. I hate this part. The big Band-Aids on her legs as huge tears stream down her face. Sitting there so calm and clueless, blinking at the nurse and needles, not expecting the pain I’m allowing her to receive. I grip her and hold back tears every time myself.
What if her life is about to become like that? What if by getting her tested, I find out things that could hurt her instead of protect her? I can’t stand the thought.
Finally, she’s calm. I carry her by rote to the car and strap her in, setting my hand on top of her head for a long, extended moment. “I love you, Dayshia,” I whisper. She’s fingering the Band-Aid on her right leg and doesn’t glance up. She’s oblivious to me feeling like my heart is pouring out of my eyes at her.
I drive to my parents’ house. I don’t know what else to do.
I carry her in my arms. Mom and Dad are just coming home from visiting my grandparents who recently entered an elderly care facility. They glance up when I walk in. My face must show my shock, concern and fear.
“What’s wrong?” Mom asks automatically.
“The well check pediatrician advised me to have her tested for autism.”
They both glance at each other and then at me. Dad nods. “That’s probably good.”
Mom’s eyes tear up. “Oh, Damion. Honey.”
Mom takes Dayshia from my arms and cuddles her. Dad just shrugs. “You should talk to Grandma Hathai. I’m sure she could tell you all about it.” There is no sign of surprise or guilt from my dad. He doesn’t waste his time on emotions when there’s no answer. No point in it, really. I know that. Still, for once, I can’t respond. I need a moment. A day. A chance to process it. This is something. Whether Dad wants to admit it or not, it’s not good news. Maybe other parents can take it with a smile and jump for joy, but I can’t. Not this time. I feel almost angry at Dad. I want to blame him as if it’s his fault. If it turns out to be autism, my life and her life are flipped on their heads. I won’t know what it means. What therapies should be employed, what differences, shall we kindly say, she will have. She might be like my dad and only have a mild difference of communication and interaction, but be totally functional. It’s something I value and cherish in him. But there are other symptoms that trip and skip through my brain. I’m so fearful she’s like those images… Which is bastardly on my end. But that’s what rushes through me.
“Can you guys watch her? I just need a moment. I’d like to go tell Kaeja and Devon. You know?”
“Sure, sweetie. Take whatever time you need.” Mom’s eyes are filled with care and sympathy. I’m sure she’ll explain what my dad might see as irrational behavior while I’m gone. When I come back, he’ll “get” me more. He is often right on his observations of me and Mom and Devon, but he doesn’t always help the situation when he can’t connect fully to our emotions. Until he learns what the appropriate emotion is, and then he does. He learns and grows.
But I have no patience for it right now.
All that Dayshia might need is mushrooming exponentially in my mind. Exhaustion burdens my shoulders. Like I didn’t have enough before this? I hate the thought. The guilt wrenches my gut. Damn, I should not be like this.
I leave Dayshia with a kiss and drive… nowhere. I park on one of the pull-offs for the Columbia River and stare out. Doing nothing. Thinking nothing.
Damn it. What more could go wrong? What now? Why? Why me?
I hate the thought, but am I still paying for the mistakes of my youth? I know it’s not noble or politically correct, but the thought of facing this all alone makes my shoulders sag and my heart collapse. I feel exhausted. So tired of change and the need to adjust when things in my life are not how I foresaw, planned or dreamed they might be. I know I have no control or right to expect things to improve, but I still do. I’ve watched my life morph and pivot on several occasions throughout my twenties. Sometimes I deserved the consequences, good or bad. Bad as in losing my twin brother’s love and affection as well as his presence in my life. Good as in gaining a family in Ireena and Dayshia. Bad as in losing all of that unexpectedly one day when my young wife drops dead of an unforeseen and unknown heart condition.
I slump forward over the steering wheel, resting my forehead on the damn thing. I close my eyes tightly against the images of the past five years and feel an almost overwhelming and crazy desire to start laughing. How can I continue to take one step forward and three giant leaps backwards? I’m spinning and running on a treadmill to nowhere.
I know it won’t last always. I know I’m over-reacting to this. I know I’m prejudging and whining, but maybe it’s just the last straw. I really don’t know why, but I feel overwhelmed to the point I can’t handle my life another minute. I try. I try so hard to keep my shit together and do my job, raising my daughter, providing all the standards of a decent life, and yet it feels like I always end up right here. Exactly right back here. A failure. Always a fucking failure.
I’m always redefining what I know. Re-adjusting. And guilty because I’m not sure I can or want to do it again.
I hear the whiny-assed complaining in my voice. But I can’t seem to process the newest change to my life and dreams. Yet, who can I discuss it with? Theses terrible thoughts that fill my head. They are wrong to have. I know that. The very thing I no longer want to be, and what the last several years have been about. Making a life in which I’m not a piece of shit. My first reaction to my daughter’s suspected condition might not be exactly what I pictured or dreamed or hoped… And here I sit in a car, hitting the steering wheel with my fist, my stomach in knots and fighting the urge to hit the fucking window out?
Anger fills me up. I don’t want to cry. I don’t want to scream. I want to hurt something. Hit something. Break something. Yet, what good is that?
I watch the sun setting. Its brilliant colors in the sky, are reflected over the water. What if I don’t have it in me? What will I do? I can’t even picture myself being successful at it. I just don’t know.
The terrible guilty thoughts niggle like an earthworm into my brain. A worm I cut in two that keeps morphing, regrowing and wiggling around… Why can’t Dayshia just be normal?
I wince at how terrible my thoughts are. What is normal? No one guaranteed that. Special needs. My daughter. No matter how I try to deny it, I know deep down in my innermost thoughts and gut, as soon as Dad said it, he was right. Dayshia is autistic. Dayshia is just like my dad. But what we don’t know is how that transl
ates in her, or how it will affect her. How high- functioning she will be. And that’s what I fear most. What if she isn’t high-functioning? Can I handle it?
God gave her to me as the responsible adult and parent to help her? I laugh bitterly. What was HE thinking? If this was the final plan, HE should have struck me dead, not Ireena. I lean over the steering wheel.
I just want to stay in denial. I don’t want it to be so I try to pretend I don’t see what’s clearly written in my gut. My dad’s words ring true. I ignored them. I waited to go to a well child check, and even then, I don’t mention my concerns. It makes my stomach churn to realize I was willing to let it go another year if my pediatrician, the woman who has been with Dayshia and me and Ireena from the start, hadn’t spoken up. That’s so brave. What am I? Tired of being the opposite, a coward. But here I am.
I jump when there’s suddenly a knock on the passenger side window. Lifting my head, I turn to find a woman peering in. She knocks and points at the locks. Dumbfounded at her presence, I unlock the door.
Kaeja. What in the living hell?
“What are you doing here? How’d you know I was here? I didn’t even know I was coming here,” I scold her as she flops into the passenger seat.
She turns to face me. “Devon and you share the friends and family app on your phones. Your mom called to tell you in light of today’s upsetting news, go ahead and stay with me and they’ll keep Dayshia for the night. Since you were supposed to be with me, I had no idea what she was talking about; and you can imagine how perplexed I was. I played along, not wanting to look as clueless as I always seem to be about your life and your daughter. But since they consider me your girlfriend, most assume I know, right? That you’d come to me with whatever happened today? I called Devon and without any fuss or muss, he told me where your phone showed you were.”
I stare at her, my mouth open. Failure. Guilt. They slam into me again. I can’t even be in a healthy relationship. All I do is wrong. I desire to do better and make it right with Kaeja but it keeps falling apart. Maybe I’m incapable and that’s why my wife and I got together the way we did. Maybe I am a streak of trouble and everyone decent should stay away from me.
I simply shake my head, grab the handle to my door and jump out. I can’t breathe. I’m claustrophobic sitting there surrounded by my failures and guilt, worried that my daughter might not live the life I always assumed she could or would. And I hate myself for reacting that way.
I walk towards the river along the paved path, my hands inside my leather jacket and wishing for… What? To be alone? But isolation is what I hate and detest most and only Kaeja makes me feel not alone. But she’s right; I haven’t dealt properly with anything between us. I seem incapable of it.
She follows. I hear her footsteps behind me. “Goddamn it, Damion. What the hell are you doing? Where are you going? You can’t even face me?”
I stop dead and turn around. “I can’t in that stupid car where I can’t breathe and my heart’s ready to pound out of my chest and my head is about to explode. I’m sorry. I do everything wrong. But didn’t you already know that? You, of all people, witnessed my epic escapades with Ireena. Why would you think I could do better or be better?”
“So it’s my fault you’re an asshole?” She sets her hand on her hip and her eyebrows spring upwards.
Her obvious anger is justified and her point so well made. “No. I’m just a fucking idiot. You deserve better and I’m not sure I know how to be better. I did tell my mom I was going to see you. But I couldn’t tell you what I was thinking.”
She’s glaring at me. The light breeze teases her curls forward and they spring over her forehead. Impatiently, she pushes them off. “You couldn’t tell me? What can you tell me? Our next vacation date? Is that all you want out of me? A fun fuck-buddy when you need to get away from the trials and tribulations of your real life? The life you won’t fucking share with me no matter how much I ask for it, or demand it, or beg you? I can’t keep doing this, Damion. If you don’t want me, then just say so. Sex was great. I also get some things about your past, great. But us? As a couple? Just tell the goddamned truth for once, instead of what you think people want to hear from you.” She’s breathing hard now, and her voice rises the longer she talks. Still, it’s not even close to a yell or a scream. There’s not even a nagging tone. She never has that kind of tone in her voice. Not like Ireena. Oh, the epic screaming she could do.
“None of that is what this is. What happened today isn’t about you and me; it’s about Dayshia.”
“Who is part of you and me. Normal, everyday life or big, epic occurrences are the stuff you rely on your significant other for. Hell. You try and keep me in a glass jar, setting me on a shelf away from the desk of your ‘real’ life. You’re supposed to confide in me, and talk to me.”
“I… I didn’t know. Okay? Ireena wasn’t like that.”
“Ireena isn’t here. How could you think anything you did with her is the automatic default for what you do with me? I was her best friend, not her twin sister or her doppelganger. I’m me. If you can’t figure out who I am, or how you should treat me, we have no chance.”
She starts to turn. Acid churns my stomach and climbs up my throat. I don’t want her to leave. Her points are valid, now that she’s said them, but I honestly didn’t know. I rub my temple, and the pounding there compounds the beating of my heart. I grab her arm. “Kaeja, wait! Don’t leave. Don’t go. Don’t… give up on me yet.”
Lord, I’m pathetic. I’m so desperate. She is the only positive thing I’ve ever wanted or needed in my life. I just don’t know what to do with that.
She turns and her eyebrows rise. “Why? Why shouldn’t I?”
Fuck. What do I do? Tell her the truth? My pathetic reality? They’re only words, and not the action she needs from me. I suck in a breath and say quietly, “Because I love you. I love you and even though it’s hard and wonderful, it makes me think I never truly loved Ireena. Not like I should have. Not like this. Not like I love you.”
Her expression switches from anger, disgust and disbelief, to surprise and possibly joy. But a weariness remains in her eyes, which is far more powerful than any glimpse of joy or hope. “Damion, you don’t have to do this. If you’re not ready for the kind of relationship I want, just saying you love me while continuing the same pattern doesn’t fix it.”
I step towards her. Her hand rests on her thigh, and I take her palm in mine. “I want to fix it. The way I am. I don’t do it on purpose, and it’s so obvious when you point it out, but when I’m alone, I don’t get it. At least it doesn’t feel like this. Now that you say it, I see it. And I’m not just saying that. I love you. I’ve never felt this kind of love for another person before. Being in love. The chemistry we share. The easy way we get each other. It’s crazy and hard and wonderful… and then guilt sets in because I know I didn’t feel like this before.”
Her breathing escalates and she shakes her head. “It’s not a contest. You don’t have to go back and compare what you felt before to how you feel now. It’s different. Since we are completely different women who have completely individual relationships with you, right?”
It’s hard to resist the half-smile I have as my gaze scans over her. “See? You even know how to make that and us seem okay so I’m not crazy or full of guilt.”
“As far as I can tell, your guilt is the only thing keeping us apart. Do you want to talk to me? Or do you just like to have fun with me and tell me all the good things you feel? After the horror, sadness and tragedy of Ireena’s untimely death, it must be a relief to you. But it isn’t enough. Not for me. I could love you, Damion. But I can’t say so yet because I am too confused.”
I nod towards the bench near us. “What if we sit down? I’ll tell you what drove me here.”
She glances over and nods as she flops down onto it. I sit beside her and turn to face her.
“Dayshia might be… no, she probably is autistic.”
Her eyes round
and her mouth drops open. “Oh… oh… shit. That isn’t what I expected. I assumed it was… I guess, I don’t know, something about Ireena or some new thing about the café… oh, my God. Damion… I had no idea. What happened?”
I shift forward and stare out at the twilight and the river. “Did you know my dad has Asperger’s? Technically, it’s called high-functioning autism, and he’s on the spectrum for it.”
She gasps. “No, I didn’t know.”
I shrug. “It honestly never seemed like anything to me growing up. He was who he was and an awesome dad to me. I think people might have noticed some unusual things about him, but I never did. He was quiet always. He only spoke when he had something to say unless he was directly asked something. He’s analytical and I sometimes had to give him crap just to get him to relax or smile or see that I was kidding around. He has a broad sense of humor, but he’s also capable of taking information without reacting to it or letting his emotions get in the way. It wasn’t a negative thing in my life or Devon’s. It’s not something I even think about; that’s why I never say much about it. When I came back from our vacation to pick up Dayshia, my dad asked to speak with me. He noticed something about her behavior and interactions that reminded him of what his family members used to say he was like. I was flummoxed. Totally in denial. No. I refused to give it voice, you know? I should have told you. I know that now. But I was so afraid to say anything. I did, however, get the well child check a little early. I couldn’t admit why, not even to myself. Her pediatrician recommended she be evaluated for autism. I knew then. There are too many clues and cues from different sources.”
“And so you dropped her off with your parents and came here to get your head together?” Her tone is softer this time.
I nod. “I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m dazed and feeling things I can’t put into words.”