“No, you won’t—?the one thing you’re good at is being a brother.”
“That’s the only thing?” He gives me a wounded look. “I thought I was a fantastic boyfriend.”
“Eh, you’re okay,” I say with a shrug.
One night Ron says to me, “You’ve been looking for a job, right? How about you come work for me?”
“Doing what?”
“Receptionist—?filling in for your mother when she’s picking up Ivy. You could come right after school and stay until we’re done at six. It would make things a lot less stressful for both your mom and me.”
I need the money, and nothing else has panned out, and Mom loves the idea—?although I can’t tell whether it’s because she wants me to bond with Ron or because it frees up her afternoons (maybe it’s both), so I agree to give it a try.
It’s an easy job. I’m really just answering the phone and giving people forms to fill out, then entering the information online. It’s boring, but I can usually get most of my homework done while I’m there, which means I can hang with David after dinner—?he has tons of free time now that Ethan’s gone.
Things do turn exciting one afternoon, when a patient comes bursting out of the exam room, claiming Ron damaged his shoulder and threatening to sue.
Ron follows him out. He looks pretty unhappy, but he keeps his voice calm as he says that he stands behind the treatment and expects to be paid for his services.
“My lawyer will be in touch!” the guy snarls. He hurls himself out the office door, slamming it behind him.
He’s the last patient of the day. As Ron drives us home, I ask him whether he thinks the guy will actually sue. “Probably not,” he says wearily. “He just doesn’t want me to go after him for the money he owes me. He’s been coming for months without paying his bill, and today I pushed him about it. That’s when his shoulder suddenly started hurting.”
“Will you sue him, then?”
“It’s not worth it. Too expensive. Too exhausting.”
“So he’ll get away without paying you? That sucks.”
“Yep,” he says. “But what are you going to do?” And when we get home and he pours himself a big glass of wine, for once I don’t judge him. I even fill a small bowl with salted almonds and bring them over to him. I know he likes them with his wine.
Forty-One
AFTER DAVID AND I visit Ethan at school a bunch of times, Ivy asks if she can go with us. David isn’t sure at first—?he thinks it might make Ethan sad—?but a few weeks later, Ethan proudly declares that he and Julia are officially boyfriend and girlfriend, so we agree it’s probably safe to let Ivy come. Ethan seems to like the idea when we float it out to him.
I wonder how the school monitors physical relationships—?whether they let Julia and Ethan be alone together. I have no idea, but at least this time it’s not my problem.
When Ivy greets Ethan, he ostentatiously puts his arm around Julia’s shoulders before saying hi back. Ivy gazes at them impassively.
She’s not twenty-one for a few more weeks, so we can’t take Ethan off campus, but we have fun playing Ping-Pong and video games in the community room. Ivy’s a little shy around the other students, but she doesn’t seem anxious—?or at least no more anxious than usual.
We’ve gotten pretty close to Sammy on our visits—?the more I know him, the more I like him—?and I’ve told him a lot about Ivy. He tries to get her to join some of the group activities, but she clings close to my side and shakes her head.
On the way home, I ask her what she thought of the school.
“I don’t like Ping-Pong,” she says. “The ball always goes on the floor and I have to get it.”
“But did you like the way the students live together? How they get to be on their own?”
“I don’t know. It’s not like being at home.”
“Yeah, it’s more like being at college.”
She’s quiet for a while and then she says, “I like home.”
So I don’t know what will happen, whether Ivy will ever want to leave the safety of our room and her bed and the family TV. Ethan’s thriving away from home, but he was always more of an adventurer than she was, and his stepmother wanted him out of their house, whereas Mom likes having Ivy around and says she can’t bear the thought of ever having an empty nest.
I keep trying to get Ivy to do more things out in the world. I sign us both up for a ceramics class in Santa Monica, and she seems to like going with me. Neither of us is about to win any art awards, but we have fun making our ugly, useless vases.
I still want Ivy to find someone to love who’ll love her back. There’s such a yearning, eager heart inside of her. I know that now. We just need to find a young, gay woman with autism who likes to eat frozen yogurt and watch TV.
Maybe that’s not the easiest thing to find, but it’s not the Holy Grail either, is it?
It’s actually Ivy herself who makes a breakthrough in the search. She joins a Facebook group for young adults with autism and comments on someone’s status—?something about how SVU is better than the original Law & Order. A girl named Audrey agrees with her but says CSI is better than either. The two of them start rapidly commenting back and forth on the thread, and then friend each other so they can message privately, and pretty soon Ivy is talking a lot about how “Audrey thinks this” and “Audrey says that,” and it’s pretty clear that Audrey has become her guru.
I ask Ivy if Audrey’s gay, and she says she doesn’t know and should she ask? I tell her maybe to wait a little while longer. I don’t want her to lose the friendship, which is real, even if it’s online. Audrey doesn’t live too far—?Fresno—?so I figure one of these days when we’re visiting Ethan, we’ll drive the extra distance and give Ivy a chance to meet her in real life. I’ve offered, but Ivy says she’s not ready yet.