gibberish. You carried him back to the car and drove straight to the ER.
* * *
—
“It sounds like you have a child with a behavioral problem,” the doctor said.
They’d done some basic tests, checked his pulse. Meanwhile, Danny slowly came back to normal. No: not normal. He still wasn’t himself. But convincing the doctors of that seemed impossible.
“Will you at least order an EEG?” you asked desperately.
The doctor shook his head. “That really isn’t indicated.”
“Please.” The thought of having to go home and tell Tim that Danny had been diagnosed with—essentially—extreme naughtiness terrified you. Because you knew that, however much he loved Danny and you, he would side with the doctors. In Tim’s world, doctors were scientists, and therefore on the side of Truth. Mothers were emotional, irrational, and therefore on the side of False Intuition. He would smile that smile at you, the one that said, Your lack of logic is so cute. But now it’s time for the grown-ups to make a decision.
“You could think about seeing a child psychologist,” the doctor suggested. “For some tips on parenting.”
Then Danny started growling, deep in his throat.
“It’s moving again,” your son said to you, looking at the ceiling. “Make it stop. Please, make it stop.”
Those were the last coherent sentences he spoke. Two minutes later, he was on the floor, screaming.
* * *
—
The medical process did at least snap into action after that. X-rays, EEGs, MRIs, and an ultrasound were ordered. Nightmare scenario after nightmare scenario was raised, rat-a-tat-tat, as possibilities to be investigated and eliminated. Schizophrenia. Brain abnormalities. Epilepsy. Tumor.
By the time Tim got to the ER, they were hypothesizing Danny might have taken something—found a pill on the floor, say, or down the back of a seat. Over and over you furiously denied such a thing could have happened. But you could see them sneaking glances at you, at your ear studs and tattoo, putting two and two together and making seven.
They did a blood test. You made them do one on you as well, just to prove to them that you weren’t a junkie.
To them, but also to Tim.
For forty-eight hours they ran more tests. Finally, you and Tim were called into a room to speak to a very senior doctor.
“Well, overall the test results are good,” he said, running his finger down a list. He was in his sixties, charming and white-haired. “The EEG is normal, which pretty much rules out epilepsy. All the scans are fine, ditto the blood work. There’s no infection or any sign of toxins. And no tumor that we can detect.”
You heard that word good and fastened on it. Good was positive. Good was great news. Wasn’t it?
It took you a while to work out that good actually meant the opposite. Good results didn’t mean Danny was going to be fine. It just meant their previous theories about what was wrong hadn’t stacked up.
“That really only leaves two possibilities,” the doctor added. “Juvenile psychosis, or Heller’s syndrome.”
At the time, psychosis sounded the scarier of the two. It was only later—after more researching on the internet—that you discovered how wrong you were. Psychosis is temporary, while Heller’s syndrome—otherwise known as childhood disintegrative disorder, or late-onset autism—is a friend for life.
“If, as I suspect, it turns out to be Heller’s,” the doctor said, “please remember, he’s still the same kid now that he was before the diagnosis. Having a label like autism can be hard for parents. But that’s all it is—a label.”
And with that, he sent you away. It was kind of him to try to sweeten the pill. But for all his well-meaning words, he was wrong. Danny wasn’t the same person anymore. The Danny you knew and loved, your little boy, was gone. Autism had stolen him.
TWENTY-ONE
None of us took Mike’s firing very seriously. Tim was always firing people. Often his rage lasted no longer than it took them to clear their desk, by which time he would have gone over and said, “Forget it. I didn’t mean it.”
Mike, though, walked out and didn’t come back. We waited for Tim to call him up and apologize, but it never happened.
It was because they had insulted each other’s wives, we decided. They’d crossed a line. That was what made this argument different.
It was made even more awkward by the fact that Jenny had been sitting right there on the mathematicians’ desk when it happened. We’d all heard what Tim had called her. The chances were, she had, too. But