gestures and head movements, the occasional word. As much as I’d love him for him to speak, I’ve chosen not to let it bother me. Still, I know most people would find it odd, and even now, when he must know something is seriously wrong, he doesn’t speak.
It’s as I’m putting his bunny in the backpack, that Dylan breaks. He lets out that single, ongoing high-note shriek that people find so disconcerting.
I turn to him, forcing myself to look into his face even though it hurts—his eyes are wide and panicked. “Dylan…”
He shakes his head and keeps shrieking as he grabs the ear of his bunny.
“Dylan, don’t, you’ll rip it—”
Too late, the bunny’s right ear tears off, and several wads of cotton stuffing fall to the ground gently, like snow. Dylan stops shrieking for a single second as he stares at the terrible destruction we’ve both caused and then he flings himself on the floor.
When Susan comes in, he is banging his head against the floor and we are right back where we were this morning in CVS, and I struggle not to sob out loud.
“Dylan.” I kneel down next to him, knowing not to touch him when he’s like this because he hates that. I have to wait till he’s calmed down, and then he wants the best and biggest cuddle in the world, but will he this time? When will I hug him again, and be able never to let go?
I push the thoughts away as I try to take control of the situation. I won’t grab his arm, either, the way I did this morning. I’m going to show Susan what a gentle, caring, consistent parent I really am.
Except I can’t, because Dylan won’t stop and this is all so awful, and I can’t help but feel he’s right to cry. I want to cry.
In fact, I am crying, tears streaming down my face, my voice too garbled now to get the words out that might comfort him, and of course my reaction just makes everything worse.
“I think,” Susan says in a quiet, firm voice, “it might be better if I take Dylan to his placement now.”
“What?” I stare at her blearily, my face covered in snot and tears, strange hiccuppy sounds coming from me. “No. I need to explain first.”
“I think it’s too late for that, Beth. Sometimes a quick, clean break is easier.”
A quick, clean break? She’s talking about my child. “No,” I say again, but I can barely get the word out because I am crying so hard, and I realize then Susan might be right. I’m no help to Dylan when I’m like this, and I’m too far gone to pull myself together.
Besides, I’m not sure I even want to see where he’s going just yet. Not when I’m like this, so raw and broken and obviously deficient. I don’t want to see the bigger house, the better people he’ll be with. Or, if it’s not like that, if it’s something else, something worse—I can’t bear to see that, either. Not yet.
“Take him,” I manage to choke out. I am gasping and sobbing, my arms wrapped around my waist as if I have to hold myself together. “Just take him.”
Susan moves with such brisk efficiency, I know she’s done this many, many times before. She speaks in a low, firm voice, telling Dylan exactly what she’s doing, as she scoops him up in a secure hold so he can’t kick or hit her.
“The backpacks,” she instructs me, and numbly, still crying, I pick them up. I take the rabbit Dylan has hurled onto the floor and try to put its ear back together, but it’s useless. I stuff some of the wadding back in and then I put it on top of the other stuff in the Cars backpack before zipping it up. I can’t believe I’m doing this. I am now complicit.
I am still weeping as I follow Susan and Dylan out to the car. Susan is speaking to Dylan the whole time, heedless of his shrieks, telling him what she is doing as she opens the back door and buckles him into the booster seat. And, amazingly, as she puts him in the car, Dylan suddenly stops fighting.
I watch in shock as he goes limp and his expression turns vacant, all the fight drained out of him, his body seeming soft and boneless. And although I know it must be easier for Susan, it feels worse than if he kept fighting.