The Art of Adapting (43 page)

Lana gave in and called Abbot. “It's time to discuss the elephant,” she said.

“Scared the hell out of you, didn't I?” he said. “Not my intention.” Lana laughed and felt the bubbles of anxiety dissipate. Really, there were so many things to fear in the world. Love shouldn't be one of them.

“Yes and no. It was exactly what I wanted to hear, the same thing I'd been thinking myself, and yet it just . . .”

“Scared the hell out of you.” He chuckled.

“I guess so. Sorry.”

“No worries. I get it, trust me. I've been single a lot longer than you. I'm a little more ready for this than you are.”

“I want to be ready,” Lana told him.

“I'll wait until you are,” he said. “Don't rush on my account.”

The visit was winding down, the kids bonding nicely with their grandparents, which Lana had wanted. She had to remind herself of this fact as she watched Jack dote on Byron, heard him call Byron “son” repeatedly, while barely acknowledging his actual son, sitting right in the same room sketching his alligators and tadpoles.

Lana handed Matt his melatonin before bed that night, and
Gloria put her hand out to stop Matt from taking it. It was the third time she'd interfered with Matt's medication.

“Enough,” Lana said. She pushed Gloria's hand aside and handed the pill to Matt. “He needs this to sleep.”

“He needs to live and laugh and be happy and silly,” Gloria said. “You're muting the best parts of him with these drugs. You remember how happy he used to be?” Gloria looked from Matt to Jack. “With those dances? You remember how he would make up tap dances with Kleenex boxes on his feet?”

“Mom,” Lana said, shaking her head. “That was Stephen. Mocking Becca's tap class. Matt was only a baby then, not even walking yet. You're thinking of Stephen.”

“I was here with him all day, every day. I know my own child!” Gloria shouted.

“No, you weren't,” Lana said. “You were home with Stephen. But you weren't home with Matt. The Masons watched him for you. Then that church day care. Then the Montessori preschool. Then the YMCA. Then the Eastman Academy. You stuck him in one place after another, anything to avoid caring for him yourself.”

“Okay, Lana,” Jack said, stepping between them. “It was a hard time for all of us.”

But Lana was all warmed up and couldn't back down. “I get it, that you lost a child. I know how hard that must've been. But you had three more kids. And you just quit on us. Both of you. Dad, you worked twelve-hour days, and Mom, you just . . . disappeared. Volunteering and exercising and puking your guts out four times a day to fool the world into thinking you were fine. But you weren't fine. None of us were.”

“You think you're any better?” Gloria asked. “You drug your brother, your daughter's starving herself, your son is already drinking, and you think you're better than me?”

“What?” Lana snapped, turning to face Byron. Byron held up his hands, shook his head.

“Now, now,” Jack said. “This is getting out of hand. Gloria,
you should go get some rest. Hell, we all should. It's just about bedtime, and if we all get a good night's sleep—”

“Start packing,” Lana said to Byron. “We're leaving.”

“Of course you're going to blame me,” Gloria said. “You always do.”

“Stop it!” Abby yelled. “You're upsetting Matt.”

Lana turned, and there was Matt, leaning back against the wall, holding his ears, rocking, coping the only way he knew how. He struck his ears with his fists once, twice. Swung his arms wide to do it again and Byron lunged for him, planted his palms on the wall over Matt's head, his elbows beside Matt's ears, so that Matt's blows landed on Byron's biceps. Matt pummeled harder, fighting to get to his skull through Byron's protective bubble.

“Hey, man,” Byron said, gritting his teeth to fend Matt off. “It's okay. Let's get out of here. We can sketch in the bedroom. We can go outside and see some of those monster bugs.”

Matt swung harder, wilder, struck Byron's shoulders, rib cage, flailing. Byron stood strong, refusing to let a single punch land on Matt's body. Lana tried to step in.

“I got it,” Byron said. “He'll tire out.”

“He's hurting you,” Lana said. “It should be me.”

Matt landed a punch hard near Byron's kidneys and Byron flinched, lost his footing. As he fell, Lana stepped forward, but Abby beat her to the spot. Abby got her arms around Matt, her hands in fists behind his shoulders. Matt's entire body shook, and Abby shook with him, but she didn't let go. She flopped around like a rag doll.

“What about calling Susan?” Abby asked. “Have you told her about the Vizsla? The Rainbow Girl? The picture we took together?”

Matt was tiring out, trying to shake Abby off, but unable to do so. He made a bleating noise as he pivoted his body repeatedly. He tried to face the wall, but Abby's body got in the way. He tried again and again, slamming Abby into the wall.

Lana wedged herself between Abby and Matt, eased Abby's arms from around his neck. Once free, Matt turned and struck
his forehead on the wall. He planted his hands on the wall and drummed his head against it, like he had when he was four. A steady, even rhythm, knocking his brain about in his skull.

“It's okay, Matt. It's over,” Lana said. Matt kept bumping the wall with his head. She put her mouth next to his ear, tried whispering a soothing “Shhhh,” like she had to her kids when they were toddlers winding down from a tantrum. Matt started humming. Lana felt him coming back. “We still need to get you your ice cream. You didn't have it yet, right?”

Matt stopped hitting his head. He still had his forehead against the wall, but he twisted to look at Lana, peering at her sideways. He nodded slowly. “Yes,” he said. “I still need my ice cream. Vanilla. With chocolate sauce.”

“I'll get it,” Becca said.

“No,” Lana said. “I'd like to do it.”

Lana glared at Gloria as she escorted Matt to the kitchen. He so rarely had episodes like this anymore, and this one was small compared to the ones he used to have. Surely she could see the meds were helping to curtail them? Gloria just shook her head at Lana, stubborn to the end.

Matt sat down at the kitchen table and continued rocking, ever so slightly, and humming a tune Lana couldn't place. He had a hard red lump forming on his forehead. She served him and then got herself a heaping bowl as well. To hell with the calories. She sat across from Matt and watched him eat. Each bite seemed to soothe him a little more, until he wasn't rocking at all, just eating steady, perfectly measured bites.

“Their freezer is set too cold,” he said. “The ice cream gets too hard.” He held up the chunk of ice cream on his spoon to show her.

“Maybe they just have too much stuff crammed into the freezer. It doesn't run right when it's too full.”

“I like your ice cream better,” Matt said.

Lana smiled. “Me, too.”

A few minutes later Byron came in, then Abby, then Becca. They all huddled around the too-small table and ate dessert in
silence. Abby had fresh fruit with whipped cream on top. She took one bite, smiled at Lana, and nearly brought Lana to tears.

“I love you,” Lana said to her. “My fierce little girl.” Abby smiled and opened her mouth, baby-bird-style, to show Lana the pulverized food in there. It was something Abby had done as a child: disgusting and adorable at once. Lana covered Abby's mouth, but couldn't help smiling.

Byron was sweaty and disheveled, eating the remainder of the ice cream straight from the container. His muscles were still flexed, the tendons in his neck straining against his skin. Lana rubbed his shoulder. “We'll talk about the drinking later.”

“I don't drink. She misunderstood,” he said to his ice cream. “I swear.”

“Okay. Good. Hey.” Lana shook his tense shoulder until he looked at her. “I love you. And I'm crazy proud of you. The way you jumped in there to protect him.” Byron lowered his shoulders, shoveled a heaping scoop of ice cream into his mouth, opened his mouth Abby-style to show Lana the melting ice cream in there.

“Disgusting,” Lana said, smiling. Byron laughed so hard the ice cream rolled off his tongue and back into the container. He shrugged and scooped it back into his mouth. Everyone at the table groaned.

Lana locked eyes with Becca, who gave her a nod of approval. “You love me best, right?” Becca asked.

Lana snorted. “Despite the fact that your positivity is a royal pain in my ass, I mostly love you, yes,” Lana told her.

Becca laughed. “I do what I can.”

Lana turned to Matt. “I'm sorry I lost my temper, Matt. And—”

“I love you,” Matt said quickly. He looked up and smiled, playful and happy, bright eyes flashing, the episode long gone. “I said it first.”

“You did,” Lana said. It was the first time she'd heard him say those words. She wondered what they meant to him. If he had any idea how much they meant to her.

Jack came in and took in the scene. “Your mother went to bed. She isn't feeling well,” he said.

“Is she okay?” Lana asked. “For real?”

Jack came up behind Lana and stroked her hair. “We all do the best we can with what we've got.” He kissed her head, bade them all good night, and went off to bed.

One by one the rest followed suit until only Lana and Becca were left, loading the ice-cream dishes into the dishwasher.

“I know it's hard, but you have to forgive them,” Becca said.

“The hell I do. That'd be basically telling them it was okay to forget about us.”

Becca leaned against the counter, blocking the dishwasher until Lana met her eyes. “No, it isn't. In my first session, my Reiki healer told me: forgiveness isn't forgetting, it's just saying,
Here, this is yours, and I will no longer carry it
. Think about that.”

Lana sighed and settled at the table. She rested her cheek in her palm, her elbow on the sticky surface. “It is too much to carry.”

“So let it go. Drop the burden of other people's shortcomings. Stop trying to fix them. That's their job. Yours is to take care of you and those kids and be happy.”

Lana rolled her eyes. She loved Becca and her metaphysical spin on everything. And deep down she knew Becca was right. But anger had been Lana's only comfort for all those lonely years in her childhood. In her marriage. “Next you'll be telling me to forgive Graham.” Becca shrugged and Lana shook her head. “Why should I?”

“Ironic that you're so pissed at Dad for working twelve-hour days, putting his job ahead of family, but you married a man who is the exact same way. Until you forgive Mom and Dad, you'll just keep creating the same scenario. I'm having to learn this, too.”

Lana buried her face in her hands. “Why does healing have to be so damn hard? I'm not sure I have it in me.”

“He is able who thinks he is able,” Becca said.

“Is that your Reiki lady, too?”

“Close. Buddha.”

The next morning Lana rose early. She and Becca did yoga out on the mossy lawn, deep-breathing themselves back to center.
When they came in Gloria was up, drinking her coffee. Becca headed for a shower, giving them a moment alone.

“Okay,” Lana said, sitting next to her mother. “I'll mention your concerns to Matt's doctor and see what he has to say. There may be milder meds to consider.”

Gloria took a slow sip of coffee. “No. You're right. He's better on the medication. Those episodes . . . nobody should have to feel that much. If it helps him, even a little, to not go to that scary place anymore . . .”

“Okay. Thank you,” Lana said. “I do talk to his doctor, though. And Matt. We are monitoring the side effects. If the bad ever outweighs the good, we'll take him off the meds in a heartbeat. Nobody's saying they're forever. We're transitioning him from self-medicating with drugs and alcohol to being happy and in control sober. The meds seem to be helping for now. But they're only part of the solution. We're finding ways to help him sleep better, eat healthier, keep his mind busy. He's not all wired and amped up anymore, if you want to call that his ‘sparkle,' but he is happy. It's working.”

Gloria nodded, stirred her coffee, her thoughts clearly elsewhere. “It should've been me,” Gloria said. “To get him sober. To start him on medication. To stop the episodes. What kind of mother can't even keep her own child calm? Make him happy?”

Lana shook her head. “There's a learning curve with Asperger's. You were flying blind. We know so much more about it now than we did when Matt was a kid. You did the best you could with what you had.”

Gloria studied her spoon and shook her head. “You don't really think so. You think I failed him.”

Lana took a deep breath, released it with a sigh, visualized a lifetime's worth of emotions pouring out of her body and draining down through the floor, back into the swampy earth below the condo. “I don't. I'm just pissed. I have decades of pent-up emotions I never expressed and they're all coming out now. I blame Graham.”

“Not me?” Gloria said, batting her eyes playfully. “I thought it was always me.”

“Not always.” Lana smiled. “Look. About Stephen. I'm sorry. I know it was hard for you, but it was also terrifying for me. I was eleven. I was alone. I was sad, scared. Nothing felt safe anymore, like anything could be taken from me without warning. I lost my big brother. My idol. Then I felt like I lost my parents, too. I needed you guys to reassure me that it would all be okay, and . . .” Lana let a few tears fall. She hated crying. Especially in front of her stoic mother. She'd always felt weaker than Gloria: too emotional, too insecure. “But I forgive you. It's time. That child inside me is still hurting, still misses her big brother, still misses the house full of laughter that died along with him. But as a mother, I cannot imagine your pain.” She touched Gloria's hand, surprised at the chill of it on such a warm day, the frailty of her mother's bony fingers, the dryness of her wrinkled skin. “I honestly don't know how you survived it. Losing a child.”