Shelter the Sea

by Heidi Cullinan

  Now Darren and I speak to each other regularly, and today I was about to speak to him again. I planned to use chat, and I could have used my phone, but I wanted to use my computer because I like the feel of the keyboard.

  We didn’t use video as neither of us needs faces to talk. When he logged on, I greeted him.

  Hello, Darren, I typed. This is Emmet.

  I rocked while I waited for him to respond. He types slowly because his fingers don’t listen to his brain the same as someone’s on the mean or even as quickly as mine.

  Hello, Emmet. This is Darren. What’s up?

  I had two things to talk to him about now, and I didn’t know which to talk about first. I decided the party was best, because talking about marriage felt complicated.

  We’re having a New Year’s Eve party, and I asked if we could invite you. Tammy will talk to your staff to see if you can come, but I wanted to invite you myself first. We will have games and snacks. I will play Mexican train dominoes with you all night if you want. Staff can help you move the dominoes.

  I realized Stuart might try to play, which made me frustrated.

  It will be a very good game. Also they will have brownies. I said this because Darren doesn’t care for popcorn, but he loves brownies and cake. I would ask my mom to make the brownies if staff didn’t make them.

  I stopped typing and waited for him to reply. The pause was extra long, so I knew Darren was thinking. Eventually, he replied.

  I would like to come, but I probably can’t stay long. The staff at Icarus won’t want to come get me after the shift change. They cut the budget again, but after the state closed all those residential hospitals we’re also overcrowded. I have two roommates right now. They snore and break all my things.

  The Roosevelt was a group home in a way, same as Darren’s, but where I lived was privately funded. Icarus House was publicly funded and didn’t have much money or staff. I visited Jeremey there and I didn’t think it was a good place. Many of the residents are loud and the couches smell bad. Darren doesn’t like it, but he doesn’t have any money, only what disability gives him. My mom says places such as The Roosevelt are rare and precious, and not many people have money enough to pay for a family member to live there. Worse, most people with disability can’t keep regular jobs, if they can have them at all. I make lots of money, enough to pay my way and my boyfriend’s, and I still have some savings left over. But most people here, even high-functioning autistic people, don’t have jobs like mine.

  I wished Darren could live somewhere rare and precious too. I wished he could live down the hall from Jeremey and me.

  Maybe you could stay overnight at The Roosevelt, I typed.

  Where would I sleep?

  A tricky question. You could stay in my room. I could sleep with Jeremey.

  That would be too hard for you. Maybe ask Jeremey if he would let me borrow his room and he could sleep in your room.

  This was almost as difficult for me as giving my room to Darren. We were boyfriends but have two rooms because sometimes I need my own space. Jeremey in my space was okay, but if there was a problem and I needed to be alone, I couldn’t if Darren was using Jeremey’s room. But it was a better idea. Jeremey would sleep on the couch if I needed space. I will ask Jeremey if he will let you borrow his room for one night. Would you be okay in a new place?

  It would be strange, but Icarus House isn’t good either. It will be a strange thing for a bad thing. That’s all.

  His point was logical. I could always count on Darren for logic. Okay. I will ask and text you.

  I hadn’t asked him what he thought about how to propose to Jeremey, but I felt unsure about bringing this up now, so I decided to wait for later and ended our chat. I sat in my rocking chair in the living room, rocking and looking out the window. It was dark outside, so I kept the lights in our apartment low so I could see a train if it went by. None did, though, and soon Jeremey was home.

  He smiled as he gave me a good-evening kiss, and then we made dinner together. We do this every night, usually at six though it was later tonight of course since we’d altered our schedule so Jeremey could talk to David and I could talk to Darren.

  We make our dinner from fresh, not a box. Every Sunday my mom takes us shopping and helps us measure out all the ingredients we’ll need for the whole week. Tonight was vegan macaroni and cheese with broccoli. It uses a cashew cheese sauce my mom makes at home and puts in the fridge for us. All we have to do is boil the pasta, add the sauce and chopped broccoli, and bake it for twenty-five minutes.

  Normally I don’t care to talk while we make meals except to ask Jeremey to pass me something or point out he’s doing something the wrong way, but while our dinner baked I told Jeremey about my conversation with Darren. He agreed it would be good for Darren to come for the whole night, and he also agreed with Darren’s suggestion for a sleeping arrangement.

  “I’d be more than happy to lend him my room for the night. And don’t worry. If you’re overwhelmed after the party and need to be alone, I’ll sleep on the couch.” He hugged his arms closer and rounded his shoulders, and he made a sad face too. “I wish Darren could live at The Roosevelt. He’s right, Icarus is awful. It’s not bad in a dangerous way, but it’s horribly depressing.”

  I remembered how depressed Jeremey had been while he lived there. My mom had said it wasn’t because of Icarus House, just because of depression, but I don’t think Icarus House helped much. I rocked in my chair and hummed. My brain was still thinking about getting married, but now it was thinking about Darren living in The Roosevelt too. An idea was building in my mind, and I’d learned at work sometimes I could help ideas come out if I let out noises. The woman who works across the hall can hear me when I make them, but she says she doesn’t mind because it’s the same as when she’s doing some kind of yoga breathing.

  This idea was tricky, though, and it needed dark and quiet. I looked at the timer. “Jeremey, would you mind watching our dinner and finishing setting the table? I want to go to my closet.”

  Jeremey blinked. “Sure. Is everything okay?”

  “Yes. I would like to think about an idea I have to help Darren.”

  Jeremey made a surprised-happy face. “Oh, great—please, go to your closet. And actually, how about you take whatever time you need? I can turn the oven to warm when it’s done, until you’re ready.”

  I worried leaving it in the oven would make the macaroni crunchy, which I find unpleasant. “Will you please put foil over it first?”

  He said he would, so I went to my closet to see if I could hum enough to let the idea in my head come out and help Darren.

  My bedroom has a closet, but I don’t keep clothes in it. They let me wear whatever feels comfortable at Workiva, and that clothing can go in a dresser drawer. The few nice things that must hang Jeremey lets me keep in his room. The closet in my room is empty, and it doesn’t have shelves or a bar because Bob, David’s dad and the owner of The Roosevelt, took them down for me. My closet is my safe space, full of pillows and blankets and my sensory sack.

  Many autistic persons enjoy sensory sacks, which are composed of Lycra and can stretch or hug close, depending on how you push on the material. Sometimes I like to roll around the bed in mine, but usually I use it in my therapy closet. I wrap it close to my body, curl up in the dark, and shut out all stimuli. I usually hum too, either to calm or to focus.

  Today I climbed in my sack and hummed. Working at Workiva has taught me how to focus. They let me design my office the way I needed it to be and helped me figure out how to make it better. My office is blue because blue means ocean, which is a thing between me and my boyfriend. Oceans are not actually blue. It’s just the reflection of the sky. But I’ve studied metaphor and symbolism, and it’s okay. I can pretend oceans are blue. Especially since I would have had to hire an artist to paint my walls all the colors an ocean actually is, and Workiva is understanding but not that understanding.

  They had a seminar one day ab
out how to have better work habits, and one of the things they talked about was how to respect the flow of ideas. They talked about ideas being feathers, but I don’t think it’s a good metaphor. Ideas are basically mind robots. They’re constructed inside your mind and then move around to build more things. Sometimes they leave your head and go collect information, but usually they stay and whisper while they connect wires and build structures. They’re difficult to hear and to see. But if I hum the right way, sometimes I can tune in to their frequency. I don’t think they use radio waves, but whatever waves they do use, I can hear them better if I hum the right note at the right volume. So I got in my sack and hummed until I could find the ideas whispering about how I could help my friend Darren.

  I have hummed a lot about marrying Jeremey, but feelings do behave like feathers and gum up the idea robots and make a big mess. I have a lot of feelings about marrying Jeremey. Nothing gets done when I think about marrying Jeremey.

  The problem for Darren and his living arrangement, the ideas told me, was Darren didn’t have money. Other people had money, but the people had to be connected to Darren or they wouldn’t give him money. I whispered to the ideas what kinds of connections I knew about—family and friends—but the ideas said friends weren’t the same. Usually friends don’t give that kind of money. It needed to be a lot of money, and friends were usually only willing to give a little money for a short while.

  “But Jeremey is my friend, and I’ll give him money for a long time. Forever.” Unless I died before him, which was troubling. I hummed a different note while I thought about that.

  This made feathers get in the way and the ideas got angry, so I put worrying about dying on an invisible shelf in my closet and went back to humming about ideas to help Darren.

  I didn’t need the ideas to point out it was different to help a boyfriend than it was to help a friend. I would be happy to help Darren, but I didn’t make enough money to help two people and take care of myself. I would if I never went shopping, but I need toothpaste, and I only like Biotene, which is an expensive toothpaste. I could help him some, though.

  There were 58,965 people living in Ames. I didn’t need very many of them to help Darren in order for him to stay at The Roosevelt. I wondered how I could contact them and convince them to share their money.

  I hummed for a long time, but I never solved the problem, and eventually my stomach complained that I needed to get out of my closet and go eat. When I went into the kitchen, it was half an hour after the macaroni should have been done.

  Jeremey got up from the table, putting down his iPad as I came into the kitchen. “I didn’t want the macaroni to get crunchy, so I called your mom, who told me I could put a damp towel under the foil, once the oven was turned to warm, and it worked!”

  I was excited to hear I didn’t have to eat crunchy macaroni and happy Jeremey had taken care of me. He was already a good husband too. I kissed his cheek to let him know, because it’s important to Jeremey to have people hear they appreciate him. “Can we eat now?”

  Jeremey didn’t ask me about my time in the closet while we ate, as I dislike talking during a meal, but when I put my napkin on the table to show I was finished eating, he asked me questions. “How did it go? Did you think of anything to help Darren?”

  “No. The problem is money. He needs a lot of money for a long time to live here. I don’t know how to find this kind of funding.”

  “Right. We could maybe help raise enough money for a short while, but if he couldn’t keep up enough money, he’d have to return to Icarus House. Or somewhere worse.”

  It was a good thing my mom wasn’t in the room. She’d yell about how the governor was selling the poor and disabled down the river. This was another metaphor I will never understand. Who would you pay to send someone down a river, and which river would you use and why, but I do know it means doing bad things to people. I stopped thinking about rivers and governors and focused on the problem of Darren. “He needs a job. He’s smart. There should be a job for him somewhere.”

  “He is very smart. And he’s a very nice man. What are his superpowers, besides camera eyes?”

  Jeremey and I talk about people’s superpowers being the things they’re good at, better than other people. “Darren is good at math. He’s good at finding things on the Internet too. Better than me.”

  “That’s impressive, because you’re amazing at finding things on the Internet.” He leaned back in his chair. “There has to be a job for someone with skills like his. Did Darren go to college?”

  “No. He’s taken a lot of online classes, though, especially the free ones.” I did my best to think of jobs I’d heard of that Darren could do. He works at the library, but it’s only a part-time job and doesn’t pay very much. He wouldn’t ever be able to go to an office like Workiva. He could work remotely, which I could do also but don’t care to because I prefer my workspace. But Darren would need a special driver and a helper to get to his workspace, and then he’d need to stay late in order to get his work done, since he works slowly.

  As I’ve watched my friends search for employment, I’ve come to understand my experience in finding a job at Workiva is highly unusual for someone with disabilities. Or rather, the reason a successful company was willing to give me a high-paying job was due to the desirable skills that come with my disabilities, skills these companies need. Also, the company that hired me is known for working outside the mean in unusual systems and environments. Normally employment for people with disabilities is granted as a favor or out of pity, if it is provided at all, and it is offered in a separate space, with a lower level of pay.

  We aren’t usually allowed to work with people on the mean on an equal level the way I am. Despite my autism, I can, if I apply myself, appear to be like people on the mean. Darren cannot, not once he moves or attempts to speak. Not when he tries to keep up with the pace of people on the mean, despite having skills they can never hope to possess.

  It’s not fair, and it isn’t right, but it’s a problem without an answer inside my sensory sack or any other place I know how to find. I didn’t know how to help Darren.

  “I’ll talk to David about it,” Jeremey said. “But in the meantime, Darren can come to the party, and that will be a good start.”

  I thought so too.

  Jeremey bit the edge of his lip. “I talked to David about The Roosevelt. About whether or not it’s in trouble.” He pushed the napkin under his plate and bit harder on his lip. “He told me it is.”

  I sat up straighter in my chair. “Is it going to close?”

  Jeremey shook his head. “No, but it needs more money, and Bob is running out of ideas on how to get it.”

  I hummed and flapped for a moment. “I’ll spend some time in my sensory sack later and see if I can think of something.” Though it occurred to me I had so many things to think about in my sensory sack now I was going to have trouble working it into my schedule. And as much as I loved Darren and The Roosevelt, I wasn’t giving up the time I saved for taking showers or having sex. Dr. North says self-care is important.

  We did the dishes, and then because it was Monday, we did laundry. We have our own washer and dryer in a tiny room between our bedrooms, and we wash our clothes together. The washer is front load with a glass door, and I like to sit on a pillow in front of it and hum while I watch the clothes spin.

  Tonight while I sat, Jeremey put his head in my lap. It’s a lot of touch, but Jeremey lies still, so it’s a pleasant, heavy pressure. For him it’s important touch, and I enjoy studying him as he lies there. Sometimes when he does this I look at him as much as I look at the washer, my camera eyes seeing both.

  “Emmet?” Jeremey’s voice was soft, almost sad. “I need to tell you something, but I’m afraid to tell you.”

  I stopped paying attention to the washer and put all my attention on Jeremey. I tried to read his face, but it was complicated and impossible. I study flash cards of which facial expressions correspond to which
emotions, but some are too much to put on a card. “Please don’t be afraid to tell me things. I love you.”

  “I know.” Jeremey put his hand on my knee and squeezed. A tear ran out of his eye, over the skinny part of his nose and onto my pants. “I don’t want to say it out loud. It will feel more real if I say it out loud.”

  “Feelings aren’t facts.” This is a thing Dr. North says often. “Also, if it’s true, it won’t be any different if you say it out loud or not.”

  More tears fell, but Jeremey remained still. Too still. My stomach felt queasy, because I knew exactly what was wrong with Jeremey, what he didn’t want to tell me. I hummed and rocked, flapping my hands to send some of the fear away, but it didn’t work. I was still scared.

  “Jeremey, is your depression bad?”

  His expression still wooden, Jeremey nodded.

  I hummed and rocked and flapped more. “Is it bad? Worse than at Christmas?”

  He nodded once more.

  I flapped so much my fingers snapped together. It calmed me, made the buzzing in my ears not so loud. I asked the question I feared the most, the thing I was most afraid of in the whole world. “Jeremey, do you want to kill yourself again?”

  Jeremey was still a long time. I held my breath, watching him with my camera eyes. Finally, he shook his head, and I breathed out.

  “But I can feel it.” Jeremey kept squeezing my knee. I didn’t mind because it was a hard touch, and it reminded me he was there. “It’s not a voice, but when the depression is heavy and I get tired, it’s as if I can see this pond and I know if I went into it, I’d feel peace.”

  “No. You would feel dead.”

  “I know. But when I’m depressed, it’s difficult to remember.” He bit his lip, and more tears came out. “I talk to David about it sometimes. But it’s different for him. His depression isn’t the same as mine.” He let go of my knee and wiped at his tears, but more came as soon as he swept those away. “I feel so lonely all the time. Which is stupi—”