Love Anthony (37 page)

I
t’s early in the day, and the sun feels soothing on Olivia’s back as she walks along the water’s edge on Fat Ladies Beach. It’s a clear morning, no fog, and only a gentle wind. The sky is a pure, soft blue, and the air smells clean. Yesterday, when the sky was crowded with heavy, gray clouds, and the wind was fierce, kite surfers in black wet suits were all over this beach, riding parallel to the shore, playing on the choppy waves. Today, the thrill-seeking kite surfers have stayed home, replaced by the dog walkers. Olivia has already nodded hello and good-morning to at least a dozen people and their pets. So much activity on Fat Ladies Beach is unusual for April. But this weekend, it’s to be expected. This weekend is Daffodil Festival weekend.

She feels done walking, but she won’t leave until she finds one more. With her jeans rolled up to her calves and her shoes hanging from her peace fingers, she strolls barefoot on the smooth, packed sand, wet and cold from a recent high tide, a trail of her own sunken footprints following her. She walks with her head down, her eyes focused on the golden grains of sand in front of her. The beach is washed clean. It’s mostly fine
sand, only a few broken clamshells scattered here and there. She persists.

As she knew she would, she finds one, only partially exposed above the sand, white and glistening in the sunlight. She picks it up, then squats by the lip of the ocean, waiting for it to come and lick her rock clean. She beholds it in the palm of her hand. White and round and smooth. Anthony would love it. She smiles. She’s ready to go now.

Back in her neighborhood, she walks in the middle of the road, taking notice of all the daffodils, bright, unexpected explosions of jubilant color, like three million yellow phoenixes rising above the ashen gray. Life returns. It’s been unseasonably warm this year, and the daffodils bloomed two weeks early. They’re everywhere. They’re beautiful.

There are cars in many of the driveways now, windows open in many of the houses. As she walks, she hears a lawn mower nearby and someone hammering in the distance. She smells mulch and paint. Spring is here.

She stops in front of Beth’s house. The driveway is empty. They’re probably already out in ’Sconset. She said they’d be tailgating today. Two Adirondack chairs sit side by side on the front lawn, bright and slick white, freshly painted. Olivia smiles. She checks her watch. She won’t have time to say goodbye to Beth before leaving, but she’ll see her again soon.

Before turning to go home, she walks to check her mailbox one last time. She opens the door. No mail. Good.

She makes her way back to her cottage, a home that she and David bought for their future. It was a lovely and romantic plan, but it wasn’t meant to be. For someone else maybe. She stands in the street before her house, its gray cedar shingles and white trim, the farmer’s porch, the stone walkway. The
FOR SALE
sign staked in the front lawn by the edge of the road shines brightly, reflecting the sunlight. She sighs. For someone else.

She’s already packed. She shipped most everything yesterday,
and the rest is in the Jeep. Her load is actually lighter today than it was just over a year ago. There’s no need to go back inside.

Before getting into her Jeep, she sits on the grass in the sun, already much higher in the sky than it was on the beach, and admires her daffodils. She planted a dozen more this year, so now there are eighteen. Eighteen happy yellow and white flowers, dancing in the gentle breeze, celebrating Daffodil Day.

The promise of a new beginning.

And they celebrate the day today above a bed of white stones, spread evenly over the earth around them. A rock garden and eighteen daffodils. The perfect home for Anthony’s rocks.

She thinks about tossing the rock she found this morning, still in her hand, onto the pile but changes her mind. Instead, she chooses two more from the ground and holds all three in her hand. There. Three rocks. That’s all she needs.

She picks a single daffodil, inhales its buttery-sweet fragrance, and tucks it into her hair over her right ear. Then she gets into her Jeep, takes one last look at her cottage, her daffodils, and Anthony’s rocks, and drives away.

THE HIGH-SPEED FERRY
to Hyannis isn’t crowded, and she has her pick of window seats. People aren’t leaving Nantucket today. They’re here to see the daffodils. Olivia has seen enough. The ferry engine rumbles, and they begin to move.

She leaves her bag at her seat and walks up the stairs and outside to the back of the ferry. As the ferry approaches Brant Point Lighthouse, she pulls a penny from her pocket and tosses it into the ocean, a tradition symbolizing a promise to return to the island. She’ll be back. She’ll be back to visit Beth and Jimmy.

She’s standing at the railing, facing backward, as more and
more ocean separates her from this tiny island. She watches the boats in the harbor, the two church steeples, the buildings in Town, and the gray houses dotting the shoreline shrink smaller and smaller. And soon, Nantucket is gone.

The ferry picks up speed. Olivia returns to her seat inside, facing forward. She’s going back to work, back to Taylor Krepps, but as a fiction editor this time. She’s ready and excited. Her first book will be the one she brought to Louise herself, the debut novel by Elizabeth Ellis. She can’t wait for its publication, to see it in the bookstores, to hold it in her hands, to feel the cover and the weight of it.

She opens her bag and pulls out a thick stack of paper. Beth’s manuscript. She holds it in her lap. This is why she came to Nantucket. For this. Her answer. Her peace.

As the ferry takes her back to the mainland, she flips to the last few pages and smiles as she rereads her favorite part, savoring each word, listening with her spirit to the beautiful sound of Anthony’s voice.

CHAPTER 41

EPILOGUE

Dear Mom,

You already possess the answers to your questions. You already hold them in your heart. But your mind still resists. I understand that sometimes we need reassurance, to hear the words. A two-way conversation.

I wasn’t here to do the things you dreamed and even feared I’d do before I was born. I wasn’t here to play Little League, go to the prom, go to college, go to war, become a doctor or a lawyer or a mathematician (I would’ve been great at that one). I wasn’t here to grow to be an old man, to be married, to have children and grandchildren. All that has been done or will be done.

And I wasn’t here to help others understand immunology, gastroenterology, genetics, or neuroscience. I wasn’t here to solve the riddle of autism. Those answers are for another time.

I came here to simply be, and autism was the vehicle of my being. Although my short life was difficult at times, I found great joy in being Anthony. Autism made it difficult
to connect with you and Dad and other people through things like eye contact and conversation and your activities. But I wasn’t interested in connecting in those ways, so I felt no deprivation in this. I connected in other ways, through the song of your voices, the energy of your emotions, the comfort in being near you, and sometimes, in moments I treasured, through sharing the experience of something I loved—the blue sky, my rocks, the Three Pigs story.

And you, Mom. I loved you. You’ve asked if I felt and understood that you loved me. Of course I did. And you know this. I loved your love because it kept me safe and happy and wanted, and it existed beyond words and hugs and eyes.

This brings me to the other reason I was here. I was here for you, Mom. I was here to teach you about love.

Most people love with a guarded heart, only if certain things happen or don’t happen, only to a point. If the person we love hurts us, betrays us, abandons us, disappoints us, if the person becomes hard to love, we often stop loving. We protect our delicate hearts. We close off, retreat, withhold, disconnect, and withdraw. We might even hate.

Most people love conditionally. Most people are never asked to love with a whole and open heart. They only love partway. They get by.

Autism was my gift to you. My autism didn’t let me hug and kiss you, it didn’t allow me to look into your eyes, it didn’t let me say aloud the words you so desperately wanted to hear with your ears. But you loved me anyway.

You’re thinking,
Of course I did. Anyone would have.
This isn’t true. Loving me with a full and accepting heart, loving all of me, required you to grow. Despite your heartache and disappointment, your fears and frustration
and sorrow, despite all I couldn’t show you in return, you loved me.

You loved me unconditionally.

You haven’t experienced this kind of love with Dad or your parents or your sister or anyone else before. But now, you know what unconditional love is. I know my death has hurt you, and you’ve needed time alone to heal. You’re ready now. You’ll still miss me. I miss you, too. But you’re ready.

Take what you’ve learned and love someone again. Find someone to love and love without condition.

This is why we’re all here.

Love,

Anthony

AUTHOR’S NOTE

As of the writing of this story, the neuroanatomical, neurochemical, and neurophysiological underpinnings of autism are poorly understood. While I look forward to the day, hopefully in the near future, when scientists have identified the causes, elucidating the neuroscience of autism wasn’t the goal or within the scope of this novel.

About a third of children with autism also have epilepsy. For most of these children, seizures can be well managed with medication. However, managing the proper dosing and effectiveness of any medication with children who are nonverbal is particularly challenging.

Boy with autism
or
autistic boy
? The specific use of language can powerfully influence how we perceive and treat people. I have read and understand the arguments for both choices here.

Boy with autism
—the focus is on the person. The boy is a person first, not defined by and only by autism. On the other hand,
boy with autism
can be perceived to treat autism like a disease, like describing a person with Alzheimer’s or a person with cancer. It can be perceived as something negative, a malady to cure.

Autistic boy
—the argument for this language asserts that autism is a trait to be accepted. It is part of the person, like being brown-eyed or blond.

Seeing the merits of both sides, I consciously used both ways of referring to autism in this book, as they are used in today’s culture, aware of this ongoing discussion, respectful of both opinions.

When I began writing this novel in 2010, the incidence of autism in the United States was 1 in 110 children. A report released by the CDC in March 2012 states that the rate has risen to 1 in 88.

This is a fictional story about a boy on the autism spectrum. Over and over, I read and heard this statement from parents and professionals:

“If you’ve met one child with autism, you’ve met one child with autism.”

Anthony, the fictional boy in this novel, is one child with autism. While he cannot possibly represent all autistic people, I hope that through the story of Anthony and his mother readers will gain an insight and sensitivity that can be extended to every person with autism.

After talking with parents, physicians, and therapists and reading as much as I could about autism for the past two years, here’s what I’ve come to believe:

The spectrum is long and wide, and we’re all on it. Once you believe this, it becomes easy to see how we’re all connected.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS