Owen didn’t like playing the Wyatt card, but he found himself doing it more and more these days. His mother wondered why he’d been so out of touch? Oh, you know, things with Wyatt have been a little rough lately. His boss needed his expense report? Wyatt’s not sleeping again, Lucy and I are taking turns with him at night, I guess I’ve gotten a little backed up on things. Wyatt had become his get-out-of-jail-free card, his all-purpose excuse, his reason why.
But really, it wasn’t Wyatt. Not lately, not the way it used to be. Wyatt was doing better. It was hard to put a finger on just what exactly was going on with his son. It wasn’t simply compliance, although that was part of it. He put up less of a fight doing the ordinary tasks of life. Getting dressed, putting his shoes on, climbing in and out of the car, brushing his teeth, going to bed. They had reinstituted the visual schedule at home, and that was probably part of it. Wyatt liked to know what was next, so Owen and Lucy Velcroed small laminated PECS cards with simple pictures and phrases—Get dressed, Eat snack, Play game, Ride in car—down a long grid, with the day carved into manageable half-hour units.
But then, the other day, Wyatt stole Blake’s canned peaches. Blake had gone to the bathroom during snack time, and Wyatt grabbed them and ate them! This from a kid who’d consumed nothing but bananas, banana yogurt, crunchy peanut butter on saltine crackers, applesauce, and Cheerios for his entire life. And suddenly, out of the blue, he’s stealing peaches! Canned peaches were now in the mix! And it was starting to feel like, well, a succession of things like that, things like canned peaches and animal crackers, eye contact and actually playing with other kids, actually playing, like kids do, letting the game change and going with it instead of rigidly sticking to a Wyatt-made plan.
“Can I make a skirt for you?” Susan asked Owen. “I got a bunch from the Salvation Army store and I’m altering them so they’ll fit.”
“A skirt? For me?” said Owen. “That would be a no.”
“Owen.”
“I love you, Susan, but no.”
The pain started on his drive home, a low throbbing at the base of his spine, and by the time he pulled into the driveway, Owen could barely get out of the car.
“I have to lie down,” he said to Lucy. “My back went out.”
He dropped the car keys in the basket filled with shoes and crumpled to the floor in front of the staircase, still in his jacket and ancient beat-up wingtips.
“Can you make it to the couch?” she asked. “I’m trying to clean up in here.”
“I can’t move, Lucy. I’m in incredible pain. Can you bring me three Advil?”
“If I can find some.”
The stress of almost killing Izzy was somatizing at a rapid rate. It had shot past his lower back and was starting to radiate out through his limbs. He couldn’t turn his head without just about screaming.
“How long do you think this is going to last?” Lucy asked after she brought him the pills. She was standing up by his right shoulder, looking down at him, while he sipped water out of the side of his mouth and tried to swallow the Advil.
“I have no idea. It’s never been this bad before. Never, ever, not even in this ballpark.”
“Did you do something to yourself?”
“What do you mean?”
Lucy folded her arms across her chest and asked, “Did you physically exert yourself in some unusual way?”
“It started when I was in the car,” said Owen. “My lower back seized up, and then pain started shooting down my legs. I’m lucky I made it home without driving into a ditch.”
“I have French tonight,” said Lucy.
Owen groaned.
“Do you think that’s going to be a problem?”
“I don’t know, Lucy. I can’t move my body.”
“I really don’t want to miss class tonight,” said Lucy. “We have a big test.”
“I can’t lift my arms, Lucy. I don’t know what to tell you,” said Owen.
“Should I call a sitter?”
“If I still feel like this, I’d really appreciate it if you’d stay home.”
*
Lucy was not happy. She didn’t want to stay home with Owen and his bad back. She wanted to see Ben. She needed to see Ben. She’d been looking forward to it all week.
She took Wyatt outside and zipped him up in the trampoline and left Owen alone and moaning on the kitchen floor.
“The African black mamba can sink its fangs into a grown man’s face!” Wyatt yelled as he bounced around on the trampoline. He careened hard into the net and lost his footing.
“Are you okay, sweetie?”
“Yes,” said Wyatt. He got back on his feet and started bouncing again. “The African black mamba can sink its fangs into a grown man’s face!”
I can’t come today, Lucy texted.
How come? Ben texted back.
Owen did something to his back. He doesn’t want me to leave. I’m really sorry.
Could we talk, do you think?
On the phone?
Yes. If you can.
Lucy looked down at her phone. Why shouldn’t she and Ben talk on the phone? That wasn’t against the rules. They hadn’t done it before, but there was no reason not to, at least none that Lucy could come up with at the moment.
I’ll call you when I get Wyatt to bed. It’ll be a while, Lucy texted.
I’ll be here.
“Mama! Mama! I have something to tell you!”
Lucy looked up. Wyatt was jumping with stiff legs in the center of the trampoline.
“The African black mamba can sink its fangs into a grown man’s face!” Wyatt said again.
“Where’d you learn that?”
“Siri showed me,” said Wyatt.
“What? Why?”
“Siri showed me videos of snakes attacking humans!”
“I don’t think those are good videos to watch, sweetie. They might be too scary.”
“They’re super-scary,” said Wyatt.
He started to bounce-walk in a big circle, landing on the balls of his feet. The autism walk, Lucy thought for the millionth time.
“Heels down, Wyatt.”
“They’re super-duper scary!”
*
Owen found himself watching Lucy out of the side of his right eye, from his spot on the kitchen floor, while she started making dinner for Wyatt. She was clearly angry about missing French. She banged a few pots and pans around to make her point, but Owen didn’t see how he had any choice. I can’t lift my arms, he wanted to say to her yet again. It’s not my fault I have a bad back.
Lucy was wearing workout pants, but tighter than the ones he was used to seeing her in; they looked like pants a person might actually do yoga in. From his angle on the floor, he thought her ankles were appealing, fragile and girlish. She looked good, he thought. She looked like she hadn’t looked in years, sort of shiny and new. And, was it possible…was she actually wearing lipstick?
There was a time, a few years back, when Owen and Lucy had had what they forever would refer to as the Lipstick Fight.
The Lipstick Fight went like this:
Over dinner one night, when Wyatt was a toddler, Owen casually suggested it would be nice if Lucy put on some lipstick before he came home from work. He was using lipstick as sort of a signifier, but it was the thing he thought of when he thought of a woman putting some care and attention into her physical appearance.