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“It’s not you I’m worried about,” Luke said, his eyes briefly meeting mine in the rearview mirror. “It’s the crazies who stalk me. It’s not that hard to find out where I live and I don’t like to think of you all alone at night.”
“We have the best security system in the world,” I said. “And what could Grandma do if someone attacked us? Lecture them to death about the dangers of gluten?”
“We’ll just both feel better knowing she’s there with you,” he said.
I gave up. If they were in agreement, I wouldn’t win this one.
My birthday was a couple of weeks later. I turned down my mother’s offer to throw me a party in favor of a visit to a day spa in Malibu with Heather. We asked for a “couples massage” so we could be in the same room, and we giggled a lot whenever we glanced over at each other.
On our drive home, we stopped to get coffee at a Starbucks right off the Pacific Coast Highway. I glanced around the room as we got in line. “Oh my God! There’s Aaron!”
“I want to meet him!” Heather said, squinting in the direction I was pointing. “Is that him in the red shirt? Who’s he with?”
“His stepmother. Hold on—don’t lose our place in line. I’ll bring him over.”
Aaron and Crystal were sitting at a small table near a window. I called out to them and Aaron jumped to his feet and came ru
“What are you doing here?” he asked. “Are you following me?”
“Of course I am.”
“Next time, show up sooner.” He lowered his voice. “The she-wolf dragged me out on the pretense of needing caffeine. Turned out what she really wanted was to ream me out for being too messy to live with.”
“Are you?”
He shrugged. “I’m not unmessy. But it’s not like she cleans—we have people who do that for her. She just likes to yell at me.”
I squeezed his arm consolingly. “I want you to meet my friend,” I said, but Crystal beckoned to me so I went to greet her first. We exchanged an air kiss and I asked after Mia. She said, “She’s fine,” then abruptly stood up. “It’s getting late, Aaron. I have yoga in an hour. We have to leave now.” She headed toward the door. Aaron rolled his eyes at me behind her back and followed her to the exit.
I rejoined Heather in the line.
“Why didn’t you bring him over?” she asked plaintively.
“I was going to, but his stepmother said they had to leave. I promise you’ll meet him soon.”
“He looked really cute.”
“He’s even better up close.”
That week, the speech therapist told Mom that Jacob’s language delay and some of his behaviors “could potentially be consistent with a diagnosis of an autism spectrum disorder.” Mom had taken notes at the appointment, and she carefully read that last bit out loud for me and Luke that night, so she could get the wording right.
Luke said, “‘Consistent with’? What does that even mean?”
“It means he’s autistic,” Mom said.
“She didn’t say that!” He sounded a
“I think it means he could be autistic. But not that he definitely is.”
“Right,” Luke said. “This woman who sees him for less than two hours a week said there’s a possibility that he has a disorder that would just happen to significantly increase the number of hours we pay her each week—”
“She’s not like that,” Mom said. “And she admitted she’s not a diagnostician.”
“Which means she really doesn’t know what she’s talking about.” Luke shook his head. “All I see is a kid who’s just like his dad—I was shy and hated talking to strangers when I was little. That’s all that’s going on here.” He got to his feet. “You take a toddler who marches to his own drummer, and people go and slap a label on him. It’s ridiculous.”
“We can’t just ignore this,” Mom said. “A developmental pediatrician could give us a definite diagnosis.”
Luke shrugged irritably. “You really want to start hauling a two-year-old around to u
“He’s almost three.”
“Jacob’s fine,” he said. “Why can’t a kid just be a little bit different anymore? Jesus!” He took a deep breath. “I need to get some work done. I’ll be in my studio.” He left the room.
I stared after him. Luke didn’t get mad often. He once told me he’d had a bad temper as a kid, but playing music always calmed him down. The only time I could remember him getting really angry at me was when I was thirteen and called my mother a . . . well, best to forget that one. He told me I had hurt her and disappointed him and even though he never once raised his voice, I burst into tears. He was the guy who always smiled at me, and his frown was like the sun going away.
But he was clearly pissed off right now. I turned to my mother, who was still staring at the doorway, even though Luke was gone. There was a line etched between her eyebrows I’d never noticed before. I put my hand on hers. “Don’t worry,” I said. “I bet Luke’s right and the therapist doesn’t know what she’s talking about.”
She pulled her hand away. “So you don’t support me either?”
“Of course I support you. I just agree with Luke that doctors like to scare people. Seriously, Mom, you should see how many kids in my class supposedly have ADHD and get tons of extra time on tests. It’s insane. Heather told me her mom was convinced she had dyslexia because it took her like a month longer than the other kids to learn to read back in kindergarten. And at least five kids in my grade claim to have Asperger’s but they’re totally normal. People are out of control these days.”
“I know. But still . . .” She shook her head. “Something feels wrong to me.”
“He just needs to start talking more. Then you’ll feel better. It’s good you’re doing the speech therapy. That’s enough for now.”
She nodded wearily.
I texted Luke on the way to my room.
Please don’t be mad at Mom.
He replied quickly. Don’t worry. I’m not. I just needed a little time to myself.
Write a song for me. I always said that to him when he was in the studio composing.
And he wrote back the same answer he always did: Every song I write’s for you, little girl.
He was a good stepfather.
A week or so after that, I got my SAT scores and there was general rejoicing throughout the household.
Mom came into my room that night and said, “I really am so proud of you, Ellie.” She sat down on the edge of my bed, where I’d been reading, and I drew my knees up to make room for her.
“I’m just relieved I don’t have to take them again.”
She glanced sideways at me. “I did a little research. With these scores, you’d have a good shot at getting into an Ivy.”
“I don’t want to go to an Ivy. I want to go to Elton College. Remember when I toured it last year and came back and said it was exactly what I wanted? Remember that?”
“I know, but . . .” She leaned back on her hands. “When I was a kid, I heard about Yale and Princeton and Harvard and thought people who went to those places were like a different species. And now I have this daughter who could probably get in. And we can actually afford it—”
“But it’s your dream,” I said. “Not mine.”
“I can’t help wanting big things for you. You’re so brilliant, Ellie. I don’t think I appreciated how easily things came to you until all of this happened with Jacob and I see him struggling just to . . .” Her voice sank to a whisper. “Just to talk.”
“Jakie’s going to be okay,” I said. “Me, I’m not so sure about.”
“My kids,” she said, like those two words were a sentence all by themselves.
sixteen
I didn’t hear from Heather that night, which seemed like a bad sign. Since my scores were good, I couldn’t text her to ask how hers were—there are rules about these things. I knew I’d hear from her sooner or later, anyway.