Sue’s gentle voice broke into my thoughts.
“I’m leaving now, Andrew. I’ll see you in the morning. Think about what we should read next. Maybe some Harry Potter?”
I listened as she gathered her things, dreading the hours I would be alone with Andrew until Jon came home from work. When I heard her footsteps in the hallway, I ventured out of my cave only to knock my head on the corner of Jon’s desk. I waited for her to leave before taking her spot in the chair next to Andrew, where I stared at my son for a long time, feeling terrified and helpless. Flipping through a stack of books on the windowsill, I wondered how Sue did it. What magic did she have that drew Andrew back from wherever he was? She even seemed to take away his pain, or at least make him forget about it for a little while.
I thought about all the specialists Jon and I had taken him to over the years, and still we had no answers. Our son was desperately ill. Besides Sue, his only friend on this earth was a chicken named Frightful. As I sat there for what felt like eternity, Frightful continued her flowerpot vigil. She occasionally flicked a beady bird-eye in my direction as if to say, “DO something!”
Crawling onto the floor, I squeezed next to Andrew’s frail body on the little twin bed—my desperate attempt to protect him from the darkness creeping into the room. He was dead still, his breath barely a whisper on my bare arm. A sudden wave of anxiety assaulted me, penetrating deep into my bones, making me feel as if my whole body was freezing over. I squeezed Andrew hard in terror.
Frightful shrieked and flew at the window.
“Kuh-kuh-kuh-kuh-KACK!!”
Do SOMETHING!!
Startled, I reached for the phone in my pocket and dialed Jon at work. “You have to come home. NOW!”
Chapter 1
My son was kicked out of preschool because he kicked a visiting clown in the balls. His teacher called me at work and suggested we find another school that would better suit his needs. It would have been really funny except for the fact that this wasn’t the first time we’d been asked to find a more suitable place for our son.
“He’s non-compliant,” his teacher said over the phone after sharing all the gory details about my child taking down a clown with one swift kick. “Andrew won’t sit in circle-time with the other students, and he’s always wandering around the room. He covers his ears when I try to talk to him and…well, I just can’t have that.”
“What do you expect a three-year-old boy to do? Maybe he doesn’t like clowns?” I asked. I was secretly impressed with Andrew—I hated clowns, too.
I heard an exaggerated exhale on the other end of the line. “You need to get him right now. And by the way, I think he might be coming down with something.”
At the time, I was working as an art director in a rapidly exploding dot.com company in downtown Seattle. It was fast-paced and I loved it, although I was putting in long hours each week. Without asking to leave, I waved my keys at my boss and skipped down the stairs, hoping to beat the rush hour traffic across Lake Washington. When I arrived at the school, Andrew stood rigid in the foyer with his coat zipped and his backpack at his feet. He clutched his plastic dinosaur, T-Rex, to his chest like he expected someone to wrestle him for it.
His teacher waited for me to be within earshot before saying, “Here’s your balloon, Andrew. It’s a puppy.”
She handed him a pale blue twisty balloon of a wiener dog. Andrew dropped it on the floor and tore across the parking lot to our van. I said a curt goodbye and followed him, wanting to get out of there just as badly as he did. When I strapped him in the car seat, I noticed his lip had a tiny blister on it that wasn’t there in the morning.
“Does it hurt?” I asked.
He shook his head.
During the twenty-minute drive home, I studied Andrew in the rearview mirror. He was staring out the window, wide-eyed and unblinking, while rubbing a thumb across the bumpy hide of the plastic dinosaur. I noticed his usual shimmery red hair was stuck in sweaty points around the edge of his face and that his cheeks had taken on a deep shade of pink. Maybe he was getting sick? Was that why he was so upset by the clown? I couldn’t figure him out. He was so different from his baby sister Hannah, who at three months was already cooing and babbling with us like she had too many things to say and not enough time to say them. Andrew wasn’t talking yet. But Jon and I had become so adept at reading his body language and gestures that it didn’t seem to be a problem.
“Sorry about the clown, buddy,” I said into the rearview mirror. “We don’t have to go back.”
Andrew raised T-Rex up to his face and pecked its oversized head at the back of my seat. I smiled back, knowing both he and T-Rex agreed.
We drove the rest of the way in silence while I thought about the difference between my job as a designer and my job as a mother. Mothering required just as much creative energy as my art director position, but ten times as much emotional energy. Being a mom meant that nothing was ever perfect, nothing was ever complete. There were no rewards for a job well done, no kudos wrapped up in a fat paycheck from a happy client. No, this new job of mine was most positively imperfect.
So I tried to be the perfect parent, enrolling Andrew in the Mommy & Me socialization classes that were popular in the mid-nineties: Baby Gymboree, KinderMusic, and special readings at the library. Unfortunately for me, the giant colorful parachute in the gym terrified him, the music hurt his ears, and although he loved stories, the library was too crowded. Jon and I were living in the era of Beanie Babies, Playmobil, Pokemon, and Barney the Dinosaur. A time when our home was a rubble of Legos and Little Tykes construction equipment, yet all Andrew wanted was a velveteen bear named Ben, and a green plastic T-Rex dinosaur.
During this time I made frequent trips to the pediatrician, where my growing list of questions was never quite answered. Questions like: Is it normal for babies to get sick all the time? Shouldn’t he be walking by now? Why doesn’t he talk yet? He won’t look at me. Am I doing something wrong? Through all this, I became a germophobe, one of those psycho overprotective mothers who never let their children out of their sight without a packet of antibacterial wipes. I had become the kind of parent I loathed. I wondered, was that person still me?
Turning up the hill towards our home on the east side of Seattle, more memories with Andrew passed through my mind. There were sweet memories of lazy summer afternoons at Puget Sound, dragging long ropes of kelp across the sand, shrieks of laughter and gap-toothed smiles from a three-year-old scrambling down the beach after gulls, and Sunday drives to the mountains just to stomp our feet in the snow.
I also remembered Andrew in the pediatrician’s office—fevered, frustrated, and angry. I pictured the doctor moving his stiff limbs one by one, like a doll. I listened as he chattered, cooed, and tickled Andrew. I watched as Andrew stared, unblinking at a fixed object across the room. Through all this, a seed of doubt was planted in the back of my mind. I wondered if I had done something wrong.
“Did you know we were asked to find another preschool?” I told the pediatrician one afternoon during a well-baby check.
“I’m really sorry,” he said with a genuine look of concern.
Tears pricked at the back of my eyes. He was a kind man and had always been honest when answering my questions, even when he was just as puzzled as I was.
“You’re doing a great job, you know. But I think it’s clear we both have some questions.”
His comment made me uneasy. After three years of questioning, I wasn’t sure I wanted the answers anymore. It’s absurd, I know, but I’d found something comforting, something reassuring even, in remaining naive.
In the end, the pediatrician scribbled a name and phone number on a slip of paper. “I’d like Andrew to visit this neurologist. I think he can provide some answers.”
That night, I asked Jon what he thought of the doctor’s observations—his concerns about Andrew’s lack of responsiveness, stiff joints, and delayed speech. He shrugged and reached out to draw me in an emb
race while reminding me that Andrew was only three.
“And don’t forget,” he said. “Andrew does smile and laugh, and he does talk to us—just not with words yet.”
Two months later, I walked into the neurologist’s office, took one look at him, and considered backing out the door. He was a short, rectangular man with thick, heavy-lidded eyes that made him look like he hadn’t slept in years, and his oversized ears refused to be hidden by an overgrown haircut. His mouth had forgotten how to smile, and by the expression on his face, it was clear he was painfully bored with his job.
He motioned for us to sit, so I placed Andrew on the exam table and waited. He said nothing to me, nor did he engage with Andrew, yet I noticed he was keenly aware of the way my son sat on the examination table—straight backed, with arms and legs rigidly poking out in front of him.
The neurologist paced the room while tapping on his watch face. Every so often he would stop, glance at the time, then pace again. I could only imagine what Andrew was thinking. Did he sense the doctor’s disinterest like I did?
“Aren’t you going to examine him?” I asked after we’d been sitting there for fifteen minutes.
He responded by asking me a few questions about my health history, my pregnancy, and the delivery while continuing to watch Andrew. During the hour-long appointment, he never directly touched him, and at no time did Andrew look at or acknowledge the doctor’s presence.
“Ok. We’re finished now,” he said at the end of our allotted time.
“But what do you think?” I asked, desperate for a quick and easy answer.
He was halfway out the door before he said, “I’ll have my secretary send you my notes in a few weeks.”
I was shocked, and sure he had made all sorts of wrongful assumptions about my lack of parenting skills. Without a word, I pulled T-Rex from my purse and tucked him under Andrew’s arm before snuggling him to my hip and walking through the door.
That neurologist visit was weeks ago, and now, here I was driving home in the middle of the day after my son had been kicked out of preschool—the last in a series of concerning things that I couldn’t explain or fix. I wondered if maybe I was doing a terrible job at this mothering thing.
As I pulled in the driveway, I glanced back at Andrew in his car seat. He waved T-Rex at me this time, and I smiled. “Hey Andrew! Clowns suck, don’t they?” I said.
His eyes widened and he let out a giggle before dropping T-Rex to the floor.
Chapter 2
After the clown incident, Jon and I decided to keep Andrew home for a while. Between two grandmothers and a neighbor, we had four days a week covered and I was able to convince my boss that I could work from home on the fifth day.
We also applied for, and joined, a twenty-six week parenting class for ‘spirited children’ at the University of Washington. I figured it would teach us everything we needed to know about raising a kid like Andrew. I was in serious need of an ego boost after becoming keenly aware of how different Andrew was from his peers. All the young mothers I knew used T. Berry Brazelton’s book, Touchpoints, as a biblical reference on child rearing. I devoured it and quickly realized we had failed all of the touch points.
On the first day of class we were separated into two groups: Parent Training and Child Play. Andrew was lured into a room with a colorful mat full of non-noisemaking toys, six kids, and a bowl of goldfish crackers. Jon and I were led to a small conference room with six pairs of curious, eager, and uncomfortable parents. I sat next to another young mom with a yellow pad and pen in my lap, ready to absorb and master the information that would solve all my problems. Jon was only marginally on board with my harebrained idea, so when he sat next to another irritated dad, they quickly struck up a conversation on the likelihood of the Seattle Mariners making it to the World Series.
“Listen to what your child is saying,” the instructor said as she began the first class.
The mother next to me rolled her eyes and slumped down into her chair. “Yeah, but he doesn’t talk, so that won’t do me much good.”
I snorted, agreeing with her. Andrew didn’t talk either. I was doing my best to be the perfect mom, but the truth was, I was terrified and more than a little frustrated. There were so many things I didn’t understand. When I asked him to look me in the eye, he would turn red in the face and look away. When I wanted to hold his hand, he’d twist his fingers and slide out from my embrace. When I encouraged him to join other kids in play, he buried his head underneath my jacket, or simply walked away. I wanted him to be normal. I wanted him to fit in, and I was sure I was doing something wrong.
As the weeks progressed, I learned about the other preschoolers in our parenting class. One was a musician, his little hands tapping out a sophisticated rhythm on upturned pans from the kitchen set. His parents said he played at their piano every day, but they didn’t know why. Another boy wore a construction paper hat and carried a plastic airplane above his head. He ran around the room flapping his free hand so he could fly. His parents said his grandpa was a pilot. My son wore a cape every day. I never thought much about it.
One morning, halfway through our twenty-six-week class, Andrew and I walked to the mailbox while six-month-old Hannah napped. Andrew trotted ahead of me with his superhero cape billowing behind him while towing a red plastic wagon filled with his worldly treasures. On top of the jumble of treasures lay Ben, a little blue bear with embroidered eyes, pink velveteen cheeks, and a felt smiley-faced mouth. He was loved flat. Flat from being laid on, chewed on, rubbed, and hugged until his fabric frayed and the stuffing leaked out. Ben’s shell went with us everywhere, to all the scary places like the grocery store, the park, and the pediatrician’s office. Under Ben was T-Rex, a pirate named Joe, a giant sixteen-piece dinosaur puzzle, and a little red plastic lawn mower, for which I had a passing enmity.
The weekend before, after a tug-of-war that ended in tears and shrieks of frustration, I had given up and allowed Andrew to bring the mower to my parent’s house for lunch. My mother had thought his idea brilliant, and had set it a place at the table. When we left, she invited the lawn mower to dine again. All hail Mom.
When we reached the mailbox, I playfully scooped Andrew under my right arm, sausage-style. “You do it like this,” I said, showing him how to pull the mail out and slide it into his arms.
He clenched his hands into a ball and screwed his eyes shut against my lighthearted play. Pieces of junk mail and a single fat envelope fell to the ground, scattering at our feet. I saw the letter was from the neurologist, and my heart lurched. I wasn’t sure I wanted to read it just yet, so I stuffed it in the wagon and we walked back home.
Hannah was still napping an hour later when I pulled a batch of cookies from the oven. I spied T-Rex’s head grazing the edge of the kitchen counter, his plastic neck bouncing awkwardly towards the sink. T-Rex stopped to gaze at chocolate chip cookies cooling on a rack—a painted lizard-eye studying the good eats.
“Wanna cookie?” I asked Andrew.
T-Rex nodded. I noticed he was missing the rest of his body—scaly plastic legs, a distended belly and an oversized tail. I suspected it was buried in a sea of toys at the far side of the room.
I lifted a warm cookie with a spatula. “How about this one?”
Andrew nodded, dropping the lizard’s head and reaching his hands out in a yes please.
“You like it?” I asked as he bit into the warm cookie.
Andrew trotted out the front door without uttering a word. When Hannah and I caught up with him later, he was in the front yard picking the neighbor’s raspberries that draped over our side of the fence. I sat Hannah down in my lap and watched him shove berries in his mouth, one after the other, without pausing to chew. For some reason, I couldn’t shake the feeling of anxiety that always plagued me, even on relatively calm days like today.
Andrew started to cough.
“That’s enough berries, Andrew,” I said as he rammed two more into his mouth.
A
s I led him away from the fence, he exploded in a fit of anger, shoving me with his red-stained hands before beginning to howl. I stood in my front yard feeling helpless, having no way of knowing what really set him off. I wanted to tell him that everything was okay, and that I understood. But I didn’t, not really. I didn’t know why I couldn’t make him happy, and I didn’t know why he kept getting sick.
Out of desperation and exhaustion, I called my friend Diana. Diana was a speech pathologist and had been noticing his lack of speech, although she never directly said anything to me. Instead, I felt her eyes on him every time we were together.
“He’s just so angry,” I admitted to her after witnessing Andrew chuck his lunch off the side of his high chair for the third time. “I don’t know what’s wrong. Would you please come over?”
When I opened the door twenty minutes later, I was greeted by her infectious grin. “I have an idea,” she said, walking straight into my kitchen.
Andrew was bellowing in his high chair, covered in soggy Cheerios. T-Rex lay on the floor in a sticky milk-bath.
“You have any peanut butter?” she asked absently.
I pointed to the bread drawer. Diana came back with a jar of creamy Jif and stood in front of Andrew. He wailed in protest just as she reached into his mouth with a finger full of peanut butter. The crying stopped. Eyes wide in shock, he snorted, then tried pushing the sticky paste from the roof of his mouth with his tongue.
“Laahh, lah, maah ma, paah pa.” Diana exaggerated the sounds just inches from his face. He frowned, looking from Diana, to me, and back again. Intrigued, he poked a wet finger at Diana’s mouth. Diana ran to my freezer and foraged for another treat.
She held up popsicles for each of them. “Andrew! Do you like grape?”
Andrew took the popsicle and they both began again. Diana twirled the cold popsicle inside her mouth.
“Mmm…mmm. Isn’t this pop yummy?”
The Chicken Who Saved Us Page 2