section 14

author's note: here's a thing about writing, sometimes you forget you wrote stuff or planned to write stuff and didn't. then you have to go back and fix these holes. which is all good and well except when you're posting like this. it makes it kind of hard to fix things. if you remember back a few sections Lyle said he would drive Brigitte to group from now on... but that didn't happen last time. oops. this section will fix that. the italic sections are the previous lines before the narrative.

also, I know I said 2500 for this section to make up for missing yesterday, unfortunately my head is about to explode. I don't have school tomorrow though so I shall post twice tomorrow. enjoy!

Even with the ignoring going on I still wasn’t too depressed. I had Wednesday to look forward too. And I had Thursday’s study group with Devyn to look forward to as well.

That night at dinner Andrew was normal. Not like normal-normal, but not-throwing-mashed-potatoes-normal. He sat, he ate, he answered questions to the best of his ability. I liked these kinds of dinners, not the string beans with pork, but when everything was calm. It was like going to a foriegn country and expereincing their culture. I liked these dinners because it was when I was noticed.

“How was school?” Dad asked me.

“School-like. We’re doing this debate project and we each have to take two sides. Our topic is whether legalizing marijauna would have a positive or negative effect on society,” I shurgged. “I took negative and Devyn took positive.” I drew in a deep breath and almost let it out before stopping myself. I thought that perhaps somewhere in my mouth it still smelled like nicotine and that breath might be the tip off to them. So far, they hadn’t noticed anything.

“So that’s who you were with at the library?”

I nodded.

The rest of dinner was silent. It was nice while it lasted. Andrew waved his hand in the sign meaning “all done” and Mom got up with him and directed him in clearing off his plate in the sink and putting it in the dishwasher before sitting back down at the table. “Terrence,” his therapist, “says that we should start having him help around the house. He says it’ll give him something to do and might help with these tantrums,” Mom placed her cloth napikin back in her lap, “Maybe there’s something psychological that needs soothed for him,” she waved her hand absently in the air. To her it meant that she wasn’t sure, to me though it meant that she had no idea what she was talking about. Psychologically soothed? It was Andrew and he was autistic, what exactly needed soothing beyond the neurons going crazy? “Maybe the chores will make him feel more part of this family—” I did chores and I didn’t feel part of the family “—anyway, if you two could just pitch in and walk him through things like dishes and sweeping…” she looked out the window to our backyard, “maybe he can mow the yard.”

“Yes, because Andrew loves loud noises.” Dad had to take him out of the house when Mom vacuumed, there was no way he was going to be able to handle the lawn mower. I had woken up to it at 7 am on Saturday morning plenty of times to know how loud it was.

“Or you can do it,” she suggested.

“I have homework,” I replied. Having homework seemed to cure everything except when she wanted me to help with Andrew, then Andrew took precidence. I picked up my plate and untensils and took them over to the sink, as I cleaned them off I turned towards the table. “So, I’m actually gonna get a ride to group tonight. I know I should have told you earlier, I just got side tracked.”

“With who?” Dad asked putting on the protective Dad costume.

“With Lyle,” I didn’t know his last name, “he lives a few streets over and I’m practically on his way there.”

“Is Lyle a friend?” Dad asked suspiciously. Why was it I could hang out behind the public library, smoke a cigarette and get away with it but when I mentioned riding in a car with a guy I got the ninth degree? It just didn’t compute for me.

“Lyle’s someone in group, Dad. We haven’t added each other on Facebook—”

“What does that mean?” Mom asked. I rolled my eyes at her obliviousness.

“Nothing bad Mom.”

“So you don’t need a ride?” Dad asked, sidetracking me and Mom from an impending dispute.

“Uhm, no. I’ll probably be back around the same time too,” I said while turned around. I wiped my hands with the dish towel on the counter and started walking towards the stairs. I was hoping that just leaving would signal the end of the conversation and they wouldn’t want to ask about why I was showing up almost a good hour after the group meeting got out. No such luck. Dad spoke up, in hard core protective Dad mode.

“Reason?” was all he asked.

“Well,” I drew it out hoping that the few nanoseconds would give me some time to come up with a good lie, but I really had none, “uhm, Lyle and I both like the same yogurt shop—the one you were supposed to take me to,” I gave Dad a pointed look and threw down the guilt trip card on the table, “we stopped there last time and it was good. He paid, so we’re going back tonight to so I can pay him back.” See, parents, you’re raising an honest child… so let her go out. It wasn’t like it was a date. Lyle was a friend, just like Kayla (well, minus the difference in genitalia) was and although the times we went out were few and far between that was mostly their fault for making me take care of Andrew so much.

Speaking of…

“Andrew’s clogging up the toilet again.” I hadn’t said anything, mostly because it amused, but also because I was getting their attention. It was sick.

Tonight was bath night for Andrew and he hated baths. In order to get out of them he would flush the wash rags down the toilet. Of course, wash rags weren’t meant to go down the toilet. It happened at least once a month, the scolding didn’t stop Andrew from doing it again (memory of goldfish?) but the plumbing bills also didn’t stop Mom from, oh I don’t know say, putting the wash rags on a higher shelf so I couldn’t really blame him for not resisting temptation.

Mom made a sound of disgust and shock—really?— and rand off the bathroom.

I looked up at Dad, who looked far older than his actual 42 years. I cut the bolgana. “I’ll be okay, Dad.”

“What kind of projects?” he asked.

I explained a few of them to him quickly, I was sure they weren’t very intresting and that he was just trying to make small talk.

“Gummy worms this time?” Lyle nudged me with his shoulder as he drizzled carmel sauce over his chocolate fro-yo. I tried to hold back a smile but failed, instead I stuck one of the still chewy gummy worms in my mouth and chewed it.

“I’m not adverse to trying new things more than once,” I said with my mouth full.

“It’s not new if you’ve already tried it,” he dolloped a scoop of hot fudge onto my vanilla frozen yogurt. I made a sound of protest but he continued walking down the buffet. Behind the strands of hair blocking his face I could see a smile.

“So,” he asked after I paid for the yogurt and we fell in to the same corner booth as last time, “what do you do in your free time?”

“Uhm,” this wasn’t a question that should have been hard for me to answer, it was pretty straightforward and about as basic as it got, still I stumbled for an answer, “not much. Andrew has a hard time keeping a babysitter so I’m stuck with him a lot—”

“You don’t like you’re brother do you?” he question startled me. I didn’t adore my brother, I didn’t think he was the cutest thing on earth and a majority of the time he irritated the hell out of me… but he wasn’t horrible. He wasn’t a psychopath. I could have been worse off, as brothers went.

“I love my brother,” I answered. I knew that was true.

“That’s not what I asked,” he noticed that I had sidestepped the question and waited for me to answer truthfully.

“I—I—” I lost interest in the yogurt in front of me and set the spoon in the bowl. I bit down on my lips and I felt my throat tighten up, “I— I don’t like that he took the attention away from me.” I held up my hands before he said something. “I don’t mean that in a terribly selfish way… well,” I corrected, “I guess I do. Maybe if I was a better person I could just accept that Andrew requires more attention but for six years I was the center of my parents’ life and then Andrew came along. My parents told me that the baby required more attention and that I was a big girl,” it had been almost ten years but I still remembered the conversation vividly, “but, I didn’t realize that they meant all of the attention. And, I know now that they didn’t know Andrew would require this much attention… but it just hasn’t shifted back in to balance. I love Andrew, I love the way he lines up toy cars along the edge of the carpet and wood floor and how he knows how to push Mom’s buttons just as well as I do. I love how he screams when he goes down the slide, I love how terrified he is of it and yet he goes on it every time we go to the park. I love how he sings Sesame Street songs with his puppets and how he solves puzzles before the contestants on Wheel of Fortune. I love the way he counts his toes every time he takes his shoes off.” I leaned back in the booth, exhausted. “It’s my parents I don’t like,” I realized. “That’s not true,” I quickly corrected again, this train of thought thing wasn’t working out too well, “I don’t like how they handle things. I just wish they could do a better job.”

For the first time I looked up at Lyle. He was staring intently at me, his brown eyes completely focused on me and completely sad. “You don’t think they’re doing the best they can?”

“Their best kind of sucks,” I said honestly. I didn’t doubt that my parents worked hard to keep the family together. The divorce rates among families affected by autism were no secret to me… but it still wasn’t good enough. We might have all lived under the same roof but we were as dysfunctional and screwed up as everyone else.

“I think they’re trying very hard.”

“You don’t even know them. Hell, from what I’ve told you you should be thinking their terrors and calling social services.”

“Every fifteen year old thinks their parents are terrors.”

I crossed my arms in front of my chest. I was angry and I wanted to yell at him, but the public vicinity stopped me from being a totally immature fifteen-year-old. I didn’t need to prove him wrong. “And because you’re sixteen you have all this wisdom?”

He scoffed and looked at me in disbelief. I couldn’t believe I had actually thought he was cool, that he was cute. “No, I think my parents are crazy half the time too. But having Andrew is just as hard on them as it is for you,” it was a suggestion. Something to think about.

I hated admiting it, but maybe he had a point. It had to have been really hard to have six great years with a normal child and then get Andrew. Everything they knew about parenting was probably thrown out the window. Andrew wasn’t parented like I was parented. Things got out of balance with Andrew for everyone. This realization didn’t make up for being ignored and it didn’t make it better or okay and it really didn’t make it understandable but it gave it a reason.

word count: 2,004

total: 17, 475