by Larry Center
“Sure, it is. But let me tell you something. If you think you’re going to just pop this guy in as my replacement and . . . and . . . live happily ever after with our son in tow, you better think again. There is a research grant from Weller right this minute and the truth is—”
“Research grant?” Cheryl snorted. “For those chimps of yours? Look. If you want the truth, here’s the truth for you.” Her face flushed with color as she stabbed my chest with her finger.
But before she said anything further, for some reason, we both looked down at Tommy at exactly the same time. Tommy. Our shared responsibility, no matter how much we disagreed. He was continuing to murmur and hum to himself, oblivious to the emotional depth charges we were slinging at each other over his head. Suddenly, he spun around and kicked a foot out, then spoke some nonsense words to Monk. I distinctly heard him say the word, “chimpies.”
Cheryl continued. She lowered her voice as she looked in my eyes. “My attorney and I are going to totally prove that Acorn’s in Tommy’s best interest and that this chimp business of yours is just one plain piece of pure one hundred percent bullshit. I’m going to do what’s best for Tommy. This is all for Tommy and nothing else. That monkey business is laughable. Any judge will see that.”
“Then be prepared for some ass-kicking evidence.”
She narrowed her eyes at me. Tommy continued whirling around, still seemingly oblivious—or was he? He squeezed Monkey to his chest and cuddled it, wrapping his arms around it. “Ouuuu . . .”
“What I want to know is,” I said, “which came first, Cher, the chicken or the egg?”
She stiffened and blinked rapidly. “What? What are you talking about?” She wiped away some hair off her face.
“Which was it? Acorn, then Wade? Or Wade, then Acorn? Tell me the truth.”
“Jesus.” She sighed and rolled her eyes at me. “You’re more of a fool than I thought.” Cheryl frowned. And then I couldn’t help it. Even in the midst of our all-out anger, even as our emotional guns aimed and fired, I found my eyes roving to that angular scar on her right eyebrow; a childhood injury; she’d fallen off a swing and bumped her head there. I used to kiss that sweet place and pretend I could heal it; this, of course, was in our romantic era, pre-apocalyptic. A different time and place. God! “Look, Chris.” Her angry voice ripped me back into the present. “Here’s the truth. I found Acorn entirely on my own, months before I got serious with Wade, okay? The school’s amazing. It’s just complete coincidence that Wade’s moving to Houston. Actually, he was originally going to work in Austin. But he made some adjustments so that we could be together. There’s no way I would just up and take Tommy if I didn’t think it was for his own good. You know that, right? You know what kind of mother I am.” Her eyes fixed on my face.
I did know, of course, and sighed. She was right. She was Tommy’s fiercest advocate. The one who did so much more research than me, and who knew all the statistics, who knew practically everything about autism, the one who’d spent countless hours staying up with him at night, training him to use the bathroom over and over again, who took care of his Activities of Daily Living, teaching him for hours the nuances of “hello-goodbye,” trying various behavioral programs with him, the one who’d practically knocked down educators in hallways to make sure Tommy received the right classes and therapies.
I had to admit it. I believed her. I knew Cheryl too well. She would never just chase a man. She was too strong of a woman for that. And Tommy was her life.
“Okay, I believe you. I’m sorry. You’re right.”
And then, crazy as it was, I realized that I still loved her in some unexplainably, unforgettable way. From the first time I laid eyes on her at a party in Santa Barbara, where we’d literally bumped into each other and she’d spilled wine on my shirt, right up to now. But I hated her as well in a way, hated her for the turmoil she was causing in my life.
Basically, I couldn’t make up my heart.
“Okay, apology accepted,” she said.
“When are you due?” I asked., feeling flummoxed. Still, I had to know.
“Six months. It’s a girl.”
“Well, I guess I should say it,” turning on a brief smile, “congratulations.”
“Thank you. Now, let’s just go back and talk to your dad and smile and pretend all’s well with the world,” she said.
I had no choice but to agree. “Fine.”
“Fiiiine, fine, fiiiine, fine . . .” Tommy mimicked.
We both looked down at him, and then our eyes met, collided this time. Sadness seized me, gripping me with emotional pain.
Houston, we have a problem.
Chapter 12
Two days later. The aroma of fresh-brewed coffee. The Marina Café. 2:30 p.m. Espresso machines huffing out cloudbursts of steam, and the smell of freshly baked chocolate-chip cookies filling the air. That smell drove me back in time to the cookies my mother used to bake.
It was just another paradisiacal blue-sky day in San Diego, “Plymouth Rock of the West,” as it’s called, a place well chosen by Spanish settlers long ago.
But dark clouds rolled all over my mind. Cheryl was now pregnant by Wade Dudley—of all people!—and threatening to take Tommy with her when they moved to Houston. I just couldn’t let that happen. I had to fight. There was no other way. I had to stand up for what I knew in my fatherly bones was the right thing.
It all still blew me away—elephant-sized problems, impossible to get my arms around.
I was sitting at a two-person table near a window that held a sweeping view of the bay, a pair of teens next to me staring at their phones and drinking huge frappuccinos. When Rachel stepped through the door of the coffee shop, I waved to her.
She wasn’t wearing her lab coat and the professional, scientist persona had vanished. Instead of being tied back, her blonde hair was down around her shoulders. She was in a blue blouse, jeans, and heels. She struck me as head-over-heels attractive.
We were meeting to go over the data the scientists at Weller had amassed. At first, we’d planned on me going out to Weller, but when she said she was going to be in this part of town, we decided on this location for convenience.
“Thanks for coming,” I said, standing and shaking her hand. “I’ve been waiting for this moment for what’s felt like an eternity.”
“Sure. Of course. Not a problem.” She pointed to the computer she was carrying. “I have all the information right here so that you can give it to your attorney.”
After ordering—me, a mint mocha and Rachel, chai tea, and we would share a chocolate-chip cookie—we returned to our seats at the table, our chairs facing across each other. Sailboats and windsurfers rode the waters outside while Tom Petty poured from the speakers. Cheryl’s favorite, “I Won’t Back Down.”
Did that not sum her up? But couldn’t that serve as my theme song as well?
The espresso machines continued huffing in the background as a baby wailed from the opposite side of the room.
Rachel turned on her computer, waited for it to load, then opened up the files. “Look at this, Chris,” she said. She took a bite of her half of the cookie. I scooted my chair around the table, closer to her, and she angled the computer screen my way so we could both view it. Colorful graphs and data points flashed on the screen. “Following chimp therapy for four weeks,” she said, “Tommy has shown thirteen percent improvement in linguistic syntax at the core level. His fluency has yielded big improvement, phonemically and syntactically. We even caught him using strong inflection when talking to Obo, which indicates improved emotional intent.
“When we combine the signs and movements in slow-motion shots, the communication session with Albert, and the improvement in his vocal patterns every time he’s with the chimps, I would have to say we have an extremely compelling case here. He’s definitely improving in his expressive language skills while interacting with the chimpanzees.”
This was good, really good, and a heady sense of weightles
sness rose inside me. But a new problem quickly dragged me down: Two weeks ago, Beaman had convinced the judge to issue an injunction that served to block Tommy from seeing the chimps further until a final decision in the court had been made.
“But is it proof?” I asked. I sipped on my mocha and downed a piece of the cookie. I felt the sugar rush kick in.
“I’d say it is,” Rachel said thoughtfully. She took a sip of her drink. “We’re doing an analysis of his speech levels at Hillwood to compare, too. We talked to a speech pathologist who worked for the school and got his records. But overall, it looks pretty solid. Dr. Dunn will testify as an expert witness regarding Tommy’s improvements. He’s already talked to your lawyer. Wait a minute. I almost forgot. Check this out.”
As I took another drink, she quickly clicked on an icon on the screen marked stat. Seconds later, a different program flashed on the screen. “We use this program called Word-Flash with the chimps,” she said, “but I think we can adapt it for Tommy, too. It’s a statistical program that tracks sign language behaviors in terms of duration, complexity, and frequency.”
“Cool,” I said. “It looks impressive.”
She nodded. “It provides rigorous details.” She paged through the application, which allowed for all kinds of data inputs and calculations, far beyond my understanding. “We can chart word frequency and intermittency, and we can track the chimps’ behaviors too, and any effort they make to communicate with him. We can also input all the other data we’ve accumulated into this application.”
She entered some hypothetical figures to show me how the program worked.
“This is great,” I said. “Really detailed. Total quantification.”
“Exactly.” Rachel nibbled on her cookie, then leaned back in her chair. “I thought you’d like it.”
“I love it. Can you put all of this on a flash drive for me so that I can give it to my attorney?”
“Already done.” Rachel smiled as she reached into her purse. “Here. Ready to go.” She handed me the drive. “I’ll also ask Mark if he wants me to download everything to his email. It’s an awful lot of data, so I’ll check with him first.”
“Great. I’ll be anxious to hear what he has to say.”
Finishing my coffee, I gazed out at the harbor. A huge cruise ship passed by in the distance, sun sparkling on its bow.
“Are you worried?” she asked. I felt her eyes lingering on me, trying to read me.
I sighed. My gut roiled all of a sudden, rippling waters within. “Of course, I'm worried. How could I not be?”
“It’ll work out.” She smiled and her eyes shone brightly. I wondered if all of this was merely a science project to her, another day at the office, or was she getting involved on a level deeper than that. Her tone of voice was sympathetic. “You’ll see. It has to work out.”
“God, I hope so. This whole thing—Weller, the chimps. You don’t understand how much this all means to me.” My hands suddenly grew slick. “I can’t tell you how grateful I am that Weller opened its doors to us and has been so receptive. It’s meant the world to me and Tommy. I want to thank you for that.”
I’d received the check for the first twenty-thousand dollars—split between me and Cheryl—payment for the first three months, more to follow after future visits, and that had helped immensely as well. Filled up my financial gas tank. Weller had come through as promised. The money was a godsend.
“This is important work,” Rachel said, growing serious. “Primatologically speaking, it’s major. Rekulak can’t stop talking about your son. If you win the hearing—which I’m sure you will—he’s even talking about inviting you and Tommy to Africa to let Tommy interact with the chimps on a sanctuary. This would really give Tommy a chance to explore his intuitive abilities, don’t you think?”
“Absolutely. That would be amazing!”
Rachel gripped her hands firmly around her cup of chai. She had lovely hands, a pianist’s hands, long and slender. Then she put her computer away and for a moment, we both sat in silence, just staring out the window toward the blue water.
“So, how in the world did you become a primatologist?” I asked. “It’s almost as odd as being a voice-over actor.”
She smiled. “My father was a vet,” she said, “and so I used to hang around his office and help out. I loved being around the animals he treated. Dad had connections at the local zoo in St. Louis, and once I was old enough, I started volunteering there. When I took care of the chimps, I couldn’t get enough of them. I was completely hooked. They’re the most amazing creatures on the planet as far as I’m concerned.”
“You know, I’m coming to think that myself.”
She nodded. “Most people don’t realize it, but studying chimpanzees is like going back in time and looking at ourselves in our earliest stages of development. It really is. Anyway, after graduate school, I lived in Africa, observing chimps in their natural habitats. Best years of my life, actually.” Her eyes lit up.
“I’m sure.” I leaned back in my seat. “Tell me more,” I said.
“You can’t imagine the peace, Chris.” I watched as her blue eyes softened. “The Gombe rainforest in Africa is like nothing else in the world. And when you live and work there long enough, just being in that environment and breathing it in, something happens to you. It changes you, takes hold of you. You see and hear differently, and you feel differently, too. We’d have bonfires on the shore of the lake at night and baboons would come right up to us, eyes alert, so wild, but tamed by their interaction with the many scientists who’d come before. It’s frightening and fascinating at the same time.”
“Wow. It sounds awesome.” I was entranced.
“One thing I learned was that all these cities we’ve grown up in, you know?—the air-conditioned houses, cars, the smell of exhaust and the traffic noise? We just don’t realize how much all of that changes us, takes us away from who we really are—the natural human beings we’re designed to be.
“But when you’re in the rainforest and if you stay there long enough, you find yourself getting stripped down to a much more basic mentality. And that’s when it’s so much easier to take one moment at a time. You live more easily, more simply. You even see more clearly. It’s like you finally go from black-and-white to seeing in real living color.”
I was enthralled. “It sounds amazing. It really does.”
“All I can say is that, when you immerse yourself in the rainforest, the air, the water, the life force around you,” she spoke slowly now, her eyes sparkling, “this new self emerges inside you and you learn to somehow expand that self outward into the world. You become part of your surroundings in a way you never could in concrete-and-steel America.”
Her words heightened my senses. I was totally aware of the sound of a passing car outside, the feel of my cotton shirt against my skin, the cadence as well as the content of her speech. The cacophony of background noise in the coffee shop seemed to fade away.
“And that’s why I think chimps are so much more advanced than we know,” she said, taking a long breath.
“How so?”
“Because in their natural environment, in the rainforest, they experience what I’m talking about all the time. They understand this kind of clarity naturally. They’re geniuses in being in the moment. And this awareness goes well beyond language. It’s about seeing and hearing and feeling the whole of things, not just the parts. Language slices up nature into sections and divisions, it categorizes, but when you let go of seeing the world through the lens of language, you’re left with nature as it is, as a whole.” She shook her head. “Yes, chimps have language as well. But their brains don’t allow their language patterns to overwhelm their sense patterns, their ability to be in the now and to soak up what’s going on around them. To immerse into the whole.”
“Fascinating. That’s what Tommy was talking about too, I think.”
“Yes. Exactly.” She leaned forward. “He doesn’t even need to go to the rainfor
est. His brain is wired in such a way that when he’s around the chimps, his heightened activity in the prefrontal cortex allows his awareness to supercharge. This is the story of all savants.”
“So, a deficiency in one area of the brain allows for a super-ability in another area,” I said.
“Right.”
“What if chimps could teach us about this other way of seeing and hearing?” I asked. “What if we could learn from the chimps about the importance of the moment without having to go all the way to the rain forest? What would they impart to us? And what if Tommy could help lead the way?”
“I know,” she said, putting a hand on her chin. “I’ve thought the same thing myself. That’s what’s so exciting. Jane Goodall once said that if she could look at the world through the eyes of a chimp, even one such minute would be worth a lifetime of research.”
“Wow. Interesting.”
She finished off her drink. The background music in the cafe changed to a mellow rock hit from the seventies.
“Actually, I may be going back to Africa soon,” she said, her voice turning brighter.
“What? Really? When?” I was taken aback by this sudden news and squirmed in my seat.
“I’m involved in research sponsored by National Geographic. And if the funding comes through, I could be leaving fairly soon.” She grinned. “I’d give anything to get back to Gombe.”
“And you’d abandon your Weller chimps?”
“For this, yes. Of course.” She laughed. “It would only be eighteen months to two years. Weller would find a replacement for me while I’m gone.”
I was surprised that it was such an easy choice for her. “But what about managing Tommy?”
She looked away. Things turned awkward all of a sudden. “We’ll find the perfect person,” she said finally. “I promise.”
The perfect person? I wasn’t so sure. “But Tommy’s glommed onto you. Remember how he took hold of your hand that first day? You’re the one he wants to see. You seem to make him comfortable. You have a way with him.”