The Coil (2 page)

Jamie sat himself at the table, waiting patiently and tracing the pattern on the tablecloth with his finger while Simon poured his Lucky Charms into his spaceman cereal bowl. After taking a minute to pick out the rainbows—Jamie didn’t like the rainbows—Simon sat the bowl in front of him. “Eat up,” he ordered, and pulled out a small plastic cup from a cupboard and poured his son some good old-fashioned OJ.

“No bits?” Jamie asked around a mouthful of Lucky Charms.

“No bits. Smooth orange juice.” Simon went back to his now cold toast and sat opposite his son as he scanned the newspaper.

“Fireman saves six from inferno.” Jamie spoke slowly.

Simon lowered the paper, blinking in surprise. “What’s that now?” he asked patiently.

Jamie’s cheeks bulged comically, one hand curled around the spoon lodged between his lips and his pinkie pointing to the back of the paper Simon was reading. Simon turned the paper around, and, sure enough, there was a spread about a local off-duty fireman saving six people from a burning building. He glanced back at his son, pride swelling in his chest. At four years old, he could read and write at the level expected of a child twice his age.

“You’re Daddy’s clever boy, aren’t you?”

Jamie beamed, his small feet in his favorite sneakers that lit up when he ran banging happily against the side of his chair as he nodded. “I’m a clever boy,” he chimed happily.

Simon saw it a second before it happened. Jamie’s hand, still holding the spoon, came down hard on the table, knocking over his orange juice. The juice quickly bled into the tablecloth and spread outward. Simon used his paper to stop the flow and leaped up to grab a small hand towel.

“Whoopsie daisy,” he said airily, not knowing where he’d first heard the expression, but knowing that it usually made Jamie smile. He glanced at Jamie and was dismayed to see big brown eyes filling with tears and his small chin quivering ominously.

“I spilled.”

His voice, so small and upset, got Simon every time. Ignoring the lump forming in his throat, he quickly plastered on a bright smile. “Hey,” he said softly. “Come here.” With his hands already out, showing Jamie that he was going to pick him up, he gently pulled Jamie from his chair and hugged him close, swaying slightly. “It doesn’t matter, not at all.”

“I knocked over the juice.” Jamie hiccupped, winding his arms tightly around his dad’s neck.

Simon rubbed his back soothingly, shushing him gently. He hated that his child suffered like this, that knocking over a cup of juice could disrupt his calm and upset him so much. But this was the way it had always been and would be for a long time. It was a part of Jamie’s condition. It was a mild case, and there were a lot of other children with the disease that fared far worse, but the effects were difficult to deal with nonetheless.

At four years old, Jamie had in fact only begun to speak a year ago. He’d been diagnosed when Simon had been so concerned by Jamie’s seeming disengagement with the rest of the world that he’d taken him to a doctor. It was explained to him that his son’s condition was a brain disorder—a problem in his neural development. The night Jamie was diagnosed, Simon hadn’t slept. He’d sat at his computer until the sun came up, researching, desperately trying to understand why. Why his boy? Hours of surfing and torturing himself led him to the same answers. There was no reason for it; it just…
happened
sometimes.

He was not Jamie’s biological father. Technically, he was his uncle. Legally, he was his guardian. He was devastated when his sister passed away during childbirth. Devastated and angry. Who died of childbirth nowadays, anyway? Apparently it still happened, or it at least still occurred when women like his sister insisted on a home birth with zero drugs and then promptly bled to death. He knew he was being bitter, and that plenty of women who decided to give birth in such a way had healthy babies and lived to see them grow up, but not Carol-Ann. Not his sister. And though he’d been assured it wasn’t the case, he couldn’t help but feel that if she’d been in a hospital, Jamie might not be the way he was.

He’d felt bewildered too, and despite any residual resentment he may feel, he was in no small way honored that she had named him the next of kin for her baby—the biological father remaining a question mark and their mother not even considered—but the responsibility had hit him full-on. He’d been close to his sister, and grieved for her still, but he’d felt ill-equipped to provide for Jamie
before
he’d realized what that would fully entail. After he’d been diagnosed, he’d felt like an absolute fraud, as if child services would be knocking at his door any moment to take Jamie away from him.

They didn’t, of course, and Jamie was legally his son for always. This was something he’d attempted to explain to Jamie a short time ago, and he’d been surprised by the lack of emotion that such a gentle but potentially rocking revelation had gained from the young child. He’d soon come to realize that Jamie had understood, but that he just didn’t care. This was, of course, all a part of his condition, which was nothing more than a pervasive developmental disorder.

There were so many symptoms and different ways Jamie’s impairment could affect a child. Generally, the condition showed itself in two ways. The child’s IQ was either below normal or above normal. Jamie’s was above normal, particularly when it came to numbers. But where he excelled at such a young age academically, he lacked dreadfully in social situations.

Jamie did not have any friends. Not really. There were two other boys and one girl, all with the same ailment of different degrees, whom Jamie’s teacher, Miss Protrakis, had told him Jamie would occasionally, only
occasionally,
speak to. Otherwise, he spoke to his teacher and his dad. Absolutely no one but Daddy was allowed to pick him up, and the number of people Jamie would look in the eye could be counted on two fingers. That was one of Jamie’s biggest challenges, and something that was very difficult for Simon to swallow.

His other symptoms were evident in his inability to initiate a conversation. He would really only speak when spoken to and was otherwise perfectly content to play with his building blocks, utterly oblivious to his surroundings. Except Jamie’s building blocks took on the form of towering skyscrapers in repetitive blue and green blocks. (He didn’t like the reds or yellows, they were far too bright.) And living on the outskirts of downtown San Diego, he’d often pointed out the large buildings and high-rises to his son when they’d go on one of their walks or to the park. He could swear it was the downtown landscape his brilliant son replicated, though that was most likely the proud father in him speaking.

And he was proud.
Damn
proud.

Jamie could repeat every line from
The Hobbit
, and would only have Tolkien read to him at bedtime or he simply would not sleep. His motor skills were slow, hence the plastic bowls and cups. He couldn’t quite grasp another person’s perspective, thus his lack of a reaction upon hearing that Simon was not his biological father. And everything,
everything
was literal.

It was draining. It was so absolutely draining that sometimes he would miss how his life had been before his son was born. But he loved Jamie. He loved him so much that quite often when he held him close, as he was now, all he could do was just breathe him in. He was sure that, if asked, he wouldn’t be quite able to put into words the love he felt for this beautiful little kid, and that was saying something, given his profession.

He rubbed Jamie’s back soothingly, swaying gently. He swallowed hard, hearing Jamie’s voice, interrupted by an intermittent sniff, recite a long list of prime numbers. It was his default for when he was upset. He always went back to the numbers.

“Nineteen, twenty-three, twenty-nine….”

“Shush, now. It’s all right. Everything’s all right.”

“Thirty-seven, forty-one….”

“Do you know where orange juice comes from?”

“From oranges?”

Simon barked out a quiet laugh and pulled his head back slightly so he could catch Jamie’s gaze. “Good guess, but where do oranges come from?”

“Trees. Trees make oxygen.”

“Yes, they do. They also grow oranges.” Jamie was quiet, calmer now, watching his dad. “Do you know how many trees there are in the world?”

“No.”

“There’s
millions
. Millions and millions of trees. And there are millions and millions of oranges.”

“Millions and millions,” Jamie repeated quietly, no longer crying, no longer reciting his numbers.

“So one cup of juice won’t make a difference, all right?” he said quietly. Jamie didn’t react, didn’t answer. He rested his cheek against his dad’s shoulder, blinking slowly as if he were sleepy. And if anything, he appeared mesmerized by his father’s voice, almost soothed by it.

“Daddy’s gonna give ya a big kiss,” Simon said in a silly voice, earning himself a small smile.

Jamie lifted his head from Simon’s shoulder, and giggled when the kiss to his cheek turned into a soft raspberry. Simon was never more grateful than at those moments that Jamie was a high-functioning case for his condition, and that such small, innocent acts of affection were acceptable to him when coming from his father.

“All better?” Simon asked, and with a final smoothing to that adorable cowlick, he set him down. Jamie nodded, pulling his cape close around him.

That cape. Some kids had a blanky; others sucked their thumb. His kid wore a cape. Every day. And it was currently, Simon noticed, stained with spilled orange juice. He grabbed a dishcloth and, without thinking, reached to wipe the damp mess down Jamie’s front, right near the neckline. The reaction was instant.

“No!
Don’t
!”

Simon flinched when Jamie squealed, his little hands immediately covering his own ears. Simon tried his best not to show his frustration and anger at himself for being so thoughtless. It always had to be slow movements with Jamie. He dropped the cloth and immediately began to shush Jamie.

“Jamie! Jamie, Daddy’s sorry. Daddy’s sorry, baby.”

To his utter relief, Jamie stopped his agitated cries, only breathing a little heavily and blinking at his dad. In worst-case scenarios, where Jamie would feel that little stretch beyond agitated, he knew his son would not accept any form of touch, even from his own father, and would be rolling on the floor in an instinctive attempt to calm himself. Only a doctor or parent would know that it was actually an attempt to relax his sympathetic nervous system by applying pressure to large areas of his body (a hug without being hugged). To anyone else it was awkward and difficult to witness. Being a parent, it was at those times that he could only sit back and watch unhappily until Jamie calmed.

“Daddy’s being very silly today, isn’t he? Silly Daddy, huh?” His voice wavered ever so slightly in upset, and he
slowly
reached to tenderly stroke Jamie’s baby soft cheek. “Silly Daddy,” he said softly, soothingly. “There’s juice on your cape. We don’t want that now, do we? I’m going to wipe it off so it’s nice and clean, all right?”

Jamie nodded and watched patiently as Simon knelt close and wiped slowly at the stain. Simon pursed his lips in frustration, knowing that he’d have to wash it when Jamie was asleep, seeing as it was the only time Jamie would take it off, and even then he had to have his dad’s bathrobe draped over his bed in its place.

“Okay, all done. I want you to finish your cereal and brush your teeth. Then we’ll head off to school, okay?”

“Can I play with Gizmo?”

Simon smiled. Jamie loved his hamster. “If there’s time. I want you to finish your cereal first, though.”

Jamie sat back at the table, going back to his Lucky Charms, his sneakers once again banging happily against the chair’s legs as if nothing had happened.

Simon ran his hands over his face and left the kitchen for a second. Out in the hall, he leaned his brow against the wall and fought against the tears he could feel stinging his eyes.

Grapes and juice. And it was only 8:00 a.m. He took a deep breath, pulled his and Jamie’s coats from their hooks, and walked back into the kitchen. Jamie glanced at him, and there was that smile. That small, sweet smile.

God, he loved his son.

I
T
WAS
so difficult to leave Jamie when he was unhappy. That morning’s events had been enough to unsettle him, enough to make him cling to his dad’s hand and hide his face against the side of Simon’s thigh. Simon stood there, feeling helpless, with one hand cradling the back of Jamie’s small head, the other limply holding his backpack.

“Don’t you want to say ‘hi’ to Miss Protrakis?” Simon tried, and received nothing but a shake of Jamie’s head in response. Sarah, the teacher in question, gave him an understanding smile and knelt next to Jamie.

“Hi, Jamie, it’s time for school. Smart boys and girls go to school, don’t they?”

“Yes,” came Jamie’s whispered response.

“You’re a smart boy, aren’t you?”

Simon’s smile was strained when Sarah glanced up at him quickly. God love this woman for being so patient and kind with kids like Jamie.

“Well, how about you give me your hand, we can wave bye to your dad, and then you can show all the other boys and girls how smart you are today in math class, huh?”

Simon bit back a sigh when Jamie shook his head and refused to look up at his teacher.
Sarah stood again, frowning.

“Did something happen this morning to unsettle him?” she asked quietly, and Simon was grateful for the lack of judgment in her words. This woman understood his day-to-day struggles. Nonetheless, Simon fought the wave of guilt he felt, swallowing, and nodded yes as he gently stroked Jamie’s hair. “I forgot to pack his grapes, and we had a little upset when we spilled some juice.” He looked down, trying to get his son’s attention. “Didn’t we, kiddo? But it’s okay. It’s all cleaned up, and we’re ready for school now, aren’t we?”

“There’s millions of oranges,” Jamie replied quietly.

Simon smiled sadly, looking back at the teacher. “I tried to clean his cape, and I startled him.” He swallowed when Sarah nodded in understanding, her expression showing nothing but sympathy and support. “I was stupid and wasn’t thinking—”