Читать книгу The Sharp End of Life - Dierdre Wolownick - Страница 17

IT TOOK ME DECADES to absorb the fact that I had never been a part of my husband’s life. Little hints were thrown in my path over the years, but no normal person could have understood what they were. Even simple things like saying hello or goodbye were complicated, or even frightening.

By the time Stasia and Alex were about seven and five, I was regularly writing articles for the local newspapers and for magazines, and short stories for whoever would pay me. I worked every school day in my quiet little office, the fourth bedroom of our house, accompanied by occasional distant barking that only highlighted the peace and made it easy to concentrate.

One day, around midafternoon, I was working hard on an article, hoping to finish it that day. I knew I was alone until the kids got out of school.

Suddenly, no warning, I heard a basso profundo at my elbow.

“Any mail?”

My pen flew across the desk as my other hand reached for my heart, which whipped wildly into arrhythmia.

“Charlie! Please don’t do that! You know I’m here alone—you scared the shit out of me!”

“Any mail today? I’m expecting a check.”

“No! God, could you please not do that again?”

He shrugged as he walked away.

The second time was a repeat of the first. And over, and over. For years. He would never let me know when he came into the house. Or left it.

In my European childhood, back in New York, everyone hugged and kissed each time they left or came home. It was a ritual that solidified family, made friends feel welcome. Everyone we knew did it. I’d never given it a thought until it disappeared from my life.

I never learned why Charlie did the things he did, but it wasn’t for lack of trying. I lost track of how many times I stood in front of him, repeating a question over and over. There was nothing wrong with his hearing. So I’d repeat it again. How stupid is hope? How blind? I’d repeat my question until he got angry enough to lash out at me for bothering him. But I’d still have no answer to my simple questions about day-to-day life.

“When are you leaving for your conference?”

“When did they say we can pick up the car?”

Simple things I needed to know to run a household of four people.

Charlie’s silence made me a single parent. But I kept trying. That tenacity would serve me well later, but then it was the kind of blind, mindless repetition with the same predictable, empty result that can lead to insanity.

“Charlie, who’s picking up the kids today?” I tossed over my shoulder as I ran down the hall to help someone dress for preschool.

“Charlie, are you picking up the kids?” I asked again as I raced through the kitchen, throwing together everyone’s food in little bags or boxes. I picked up the crushed cereal bits off the floor. Closed the drawers Alex had used as steps to climb up on the counter. Wiped the juice off the table. Wiped the footprints off the counter. Brushed Stasia’s hair. Straightened the blinds that Alex had left askew on one of his breakneck passes through the kitchen.

“Charlie,” I said as I saw him walk past our blur of activity, “are you picking them up today, or am I?”

Only one sock is fine for some kids, including mine. But not for mom. Down the hall again. I threw some clothes on me, too. My hair could wait.

I couldn’t see Charlie anywhere. He wasn’t in any of the many places that I needed to be to get both kids out the door on time.

“Charlie?”

No answer.

“No, you can’t wear those heavy pants today,” I told Alex when he appeared in his favorite corduroy pants. It was already over ninety degrees, common for September in Sacramento. Off to find another pair.

“Charlie, can you hear me? Are you picking up the kids, or am I?”

Finally, it was time to take them to their respective schools.

I searched the house quickly, one last time.

His car was gone. He had already left for the day. Without a word to anyone.

Each time this happened, a tiny chip of my self was scraped away, like exfoliating granite. Confusion became my permanent state of mind. Why won’t he answer me?! I’d scream inside my head. If only I knew why . . .

Each time this happened, the hardest part was forcing myself to still be mom. To see that he had left without a word, again, and then turn around and be someone else—someone whose heart had not just been ripped out and trampled on. Who didn’t want to scream in frustration and anger. Who loved the two kids waiting for me to take them to school, but who needed the love of someone else even more.

Silence.

I canceled all my appointments and interviews and drove to pick them up at school at the end of the day. When I got there, his car was parked in front of the schoolyard. He was reading.

THE FIRST TIME I considered that Charlie might be suffering from something diagnosable was when my friend Laurie came to our house with her little boy, who was around Alex’s age. I began to notice his odd behavior. He played by himself, not with the other kids. He wouldn’t look directly at anyone, and hardly talked at all.

No matter how many times I tried to engage him, he never replied to me. He spoke to no one but his mother, usually only when he wanted something. It was as if we were all cardboard cutouts in the background of his world. My friend told me how bright and intelligent he was, and about autism and Asperger’s.

Could it be that? A simple illness? Not so simple, though.

In those days, doing research meant a trip to the library with both children in tow. But when we went there, one of our favorite places, I spent my time in the children’s section, reading with them or just keeping an eye on Alex.

I probably could have slipped away and asked the research desk librarian for information. But something always stopped me from going through with it. The possibility that my husband might suffer from something diagnosable, something pathological with a real name, something that was ruining our lives, filled me with even more dread than his sullen silences. I wasn’t ready to accept that.

As long as I didn’t know, there was hope. I had never heard of autism, or any of the other similar disorders, until I’d met my friend’s son. I was sure that Charlie’s parents hadn’t heard of it when he was a child. Even if it was autism, from the little I’d learned from Laurie, there was no cure.

It didn’t matter whether his behavior had a name, really. I still had to live with it.

And both children looked up to their dad, for which I was grateful. Kids should. To them, Charlie was a fun guy, always ready to leave on a trip or adventure. He never insisted on any rules or responsibilities, never made them clean up or do their homework. He was always ready to go play.

But each time I saw my friend’s son—who was on medication, who couldn’t function in mainstream classes, who still would never reply to any of my questions—he reminded me more and more of Charlie.

I tried not to think about what it would mean to live like this the rest of my life.