11.
***
It was a magic show that signaled the beginning of the end of their life in Los Angeles, and the end of Lynette's life with Robbie.
The magic show was the usual thing for a kids' birthday party: a brightly bedecked man with a silly hat who specialized in basic magic tricks that were colorful and guaranteed to captivate a group of two to four year olds.
Actually, that was a joke. Nuclear holocaust in their front yard, complete with mutant invaders, would bore some four year olds. But that was just reality, and Lynette, along with most other mothers, chose to believe that those children really were capable of having a great time at something as mundane as a magic show, even if they didn't know it yet.
Lynette had been invited to the party. Actually, technically, Kevin Angel had been invited. The card had come to him, the invitation asked for him by name, but since little Kevin had yet to speak a word, and since he never played with anyone, Lynette knew full well that either the invite was a mere formality, or the invite was really for her since she was friends with the birthday girl's mother. They had met during a support group for parents with autistic children. Her friend, a beautiful woman in her mid-forties named Doris, had a twelve year old autistic son named Christian, who was not the birthday child; and a four year old daughter named Jenna, who was.
Both children were beautiful in their own ways. In the months since Kevin had been positively diagnosed with autism, Lynette had found out a great deal about the disorder. One of the most surprising things was how great a range of personalities were affected by it. She realized after a few weeks of interacting with other parents of autistic children - and with the children themselves - that she, like many people, had had subconscious prejudices about autistics. Mostly she had thought they were all like Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man: low functioning people who bobbed and weaved back and forth and were well-meaning and likeable after you got to know them, though always something of a chore.
In reality, autistic children had nearly the same vast number of differences from person to person as anyone else did. There were, of course, differences in the level of functioning that different autistic people had. Some were completely incapable of anything but the most rudimentary actions or interactions with other people. Others were very high-functioning, and could even hold down steady jobs, though those jobs tended to involve either special aptitudes, like an ability to instantly calculate mathematical logarithms, or highly repetitive tasks, like database entry.
More than the basic differences in levels of ability, however, she realized that autistic people were just that: people. There were nice ones and not-so-nice ones. There were happy ones and sad ones. There were autistics who brightened a room by walking in, and those who cast a cloud as distinct and palpable as any thunderhead wherever they went. There were autistics who loved Sesame Street, and those who would pitch a fit if they didn't get to watch their favorite crime drama each week. There were even those who - like Kevin - were young enough that they had not yet developed completely, so whose futures were a nearly closed book, with only the barest hints of plot and characterization visible from the cover of the children's present actions.
Christian, Doris' son, was one of the best kids that Lynette had ever met. Like all autistic people, he suffered from an inability to interact socially on the same level as most people his age. But unlike other twelve year olds, who could be self-absorbed and egocentric to the point of being nauseating, Christian seemed to exist only to help others. He might not look at you while he was doing it, but whenever a job needed doing, there would be Christian, quietly helping to clean a room with his mother, or setting out the table settings at a picnic bench, or simply being near the smaller children and calling whenever one of them wandered too close to a street or other source of possible danger.
Doris' daughter, Ashton, was equally beautiful, though she did not suffer from the restrictions - or receive the blessings - of autism. She was a precocious four, a friend to all. Often at the park days hosted by the local FOAC - or Families of Autistic Children - Ashton would see a stranger walking by a block away and would call repeatedly to the person, saying "Hi, Mister," or "Hi, Miss," until the person either wandered out of eyesight or finally turned and returned the greeting. When the latter occurred, Ashton invariably turned to whatever adults were near and reported with large eyes, "That's my new best friend." Then she would laugh and scurry off to play with someone on the monkey bars and within seconds would make a new new best friend, and would do the same thing over and over.
Nor was the little girl acting out or being silly: she truly seemed to believe that everyone was a great person who was not only capable of being a friend, but worth being her best friend.
They were both beautiful children, and their mother was no less wonderful. Often, on days where Kevin would not look at her, would not do anything but stubbornly insist on playing with his cars, or lining up blocks in perfect parallels that stretched all the way across the living room and kitchen, Lynette would call Doris, and the older woman would always be there to commiserate with and comfort her.
"Magic, magic, magic!" shouted the magician. Like many magicians, the man wore a tuxedo. Unlike most, however, his tux was bright yellow, with a cherry cummerbund and a forest green bow tie. He was like a walking Kodak commercial. "Magic, magic, magic time! Come and be amazed! Or at least," he said to the appreciative laughter of the parents, "come and sit down and give Mommy and Daddy a chance to snitch a piece of pizza!"
The children were herded like water droplets until they were all finally sitting in something that approximated a cohesive group. Lynette brought Kevin nearby, though as always he was carrying a few of his toy cars and was much more interested in them than he was in the people around him. At least he had let her and Robbie come to the event, though. Some days he was so determined to be alone that taking him anywhere was an impossibility. On those days of stultifying routine, it would be one long series of stacking, lining, shifting, and ordering, putting everything in the house into appropriate categories until her home resembled some strangely un-valuable room at the Smithsonian. Then when everything had found the place that was perfect, Kevin Angel would go through and start to reorder everything once more, only stopping to go to the bathroom and to eat and sleep.
Today, however, he let them pack him into the car with minimal fuss, and he had been wonderful through the course of the party, playing quietly and seeming, if not to interact with the other children, at least to be enjoying their presence.
The first trick was a simple one: the magician showed the children a long, thin strip of metal. He asked for Ashton, the birthday girl, to name her favorite animal starting with the sound "el." Several children - though not Ashton - shouted out "elephant."
"Fantastic! Splendid! Splendiferous! Fantoobulous!" shouted the banana-tuxed magician, and withdrew a small lighter from his pocket. He passed the lighter under the piece of metal. A moment later it started to curve, and to the children's apparent delight, it formed the outline of - who would have guessed? - an elephant!
The children cheered, and Banana Man nodded graciously.
"For my next trick!" he shouted, "I will need a volunteer!"
Again he called on Ashton. He showed the group of children a small red ball made of foam. "I'm going to make this ball disappear," he shouted, to the yells and cheers of the children at the party. "But I need Ashton's help. And your help, too!" he shouted at the assemblage. He handed the ball to Ashton, and carefully folded her small hand over it so that none of the ball was visible. "I need you to do this," said the magician to Ashton, and demonstrated how she should wave her free hand over the tightly clutched fist with the ball in it. "And you all," he said, looking at the rest of the children. "I need you to yell 'Zimbo, zamboni, big macaroni!'"
"Zimbo zamboni big macaroni!" shouted the children, as well as some of the parents. Lynette shouted as well, enjoying the magician's evident delight in his work. Beside her, she heard Robbie do the same, and then saw him touch Kevin lightly on the shoulder and point at the magician. "Want to see magic, bud?" he asked.
Kevin actually looked up for a moment - a rare thing - then went back to his toy cars.
Lynette couldn't help but feel a little sad. She still hadn't grown to completely accept her son's newfound limits, she knew. She still hoped against hope that he could be like the other children. Not that she didn't love him - she did, she loved him with a fierceness to rival that of any other mother on the planet. But she felt sad that it was likely he was going to miss out on so many fundamental human experiences.
But that was wrong. She put a smile on her face, and like her husband had done, she touched Kevin lightly on the shoulder. It was what passed for a hug with her son. He stopped playing with the cars long enough to touch her hands with his tiny fingers, a swift caress that was so light it could have been administered by the wings of an angelic being, then went back to his cars.
Fiery, fierce pride erupted in her bosom at her son's touch. He might not be like everyone else, she knew, but she also knew that he was going to be - already was - something special. He was hers, her little Kevin Angel, and he was a loving boy and he was her son, and to her those two things were worth any Nobel prize that another child might grow up to earn.
In front of the group, the magician helped Ashton open her tightly clenched fist. The ball was still there. He frowned. "I guess you guys weren't loud enough," he explained with a comically sad face. "Let's try it again."
"ZIMBO ZAMBONI BIG MACARONI!" shouted the children, laughing at the inherently funny sounding words as Ashton waved one hand over the other so hard that Lynette wondered if the girl was going to take flight.
The magician opened the little girl's clenched hand.
The ball was gone.
A cheer went up from the children. The magician raised Ashton's hand triumphantly, as though it had been her who had done the trick. Ashton, a natural performer herself, bowed and then clasped her hands and shook them over her head.
The magician held his hands up to signal for quiet. And though such a thing as true silence was impossible at a four year old's birthday party, the kids quieted enough to hear what he said next.
"And now for the hard part," he said. "I will make the ball...reappear!"
He pulled back his yellow jacket sleeves, exposing thin arms and highlighting his long, dexterous fingers, which he waved over Ashton's head.
Lynette felt something happen. Something that made the hairs on her arm stand on end as though she was passing through the static of an electrical storm and was about to be struck by lightning. She glanced at Robbie to see if he was aware of the feeling, but he seemed to be fully engaged in the show, a grin on his face as big as that of any of the children.
"Zimbo, zamboni, big macaroni!" shouted the magician, and waited.
Nothing happened.
With a look of exaggerated sheepishness, the man shrugged as though to say, "What happened?" Then he snapped his fingers in discovery. "Of course," he said. "To make the ball reappear, I have to say the magic words in reverse!"
Lynette was barely listening. She no longer felt like lightning was about to strike, she felt like it already had, and left her a hollow shell of shattered skin and bone. She reached out and grabbed Robbie's arm, holding it hard enough that he looked at her in instant concern.
"Lynette, what's wrong?" he said.
"Big macaroni, zimbo zamboni!" shouted the magician.
"I don't know," whispered Lynette, barely able to make the words come from her mouth. "I don't know what's wrong."
Then there was sudden silence. The crowd strained as the magician reached forth a hand, put it behind Ashton's little ear, and withdrew...nothing.
The magician's expression changed to one of genuine bewilderment. He casually put a hand in his pocket, then withdrew it while shouting "Big macaroni, zimbo zamboni!"
The electrical feeling swirling around Lynette intensified. She could hardly breathe. Her heart was beating fast as that of a rabbit, and hard enough that she could feel the pulse throughout her body.
"Honey?" said Robbie.
The magician reached forth his hand again, and this time reached behind Ashton's other ear. "I must have grabbed for the wrong ear," he explained in a theater whisper, though even in her distress Lynette felt like she could detect a chord of real doubt in the musical tones of the magician's voice.
He drew forth his hand. Opened it.
There was nothing inside.
And then the screaming started.
Christian started first, but then a few others screamed, and then a few more. Lynette glanced around quickly. Doris was very active in the FOAC, and so there were a good half-dozen autistic children of varying ages at the party. The screams were coming from them. All of them.
And they were all pointing at one thing.
Lynette's son.
She looked down, and even as she did the feeling of electricity in the air dissipated, replaced by another feeling, one just as awful though less strange.
She felt dread.
Now it was Robbie's turn to grab her arm, his big hand clutching at her arm as though she were a life preserver and he was the last person to jump from the Titanic.
"What -" began her husband.
Kevin was sitting there, playing as usual, organizing his cars in perfect lines, first by size, then by shape, then by classification, then by color.
Only this time, he had added two items to his toys.
He was a good forty feet away from the magic show, but somehow, without moving, he had added two new toys to his collection.
Two small red balls.
***