Chapter 2

 

Friday

 

Over breakfast in the kitchen the next morning, Abby said to Ned, “I woke up this morning thinking about what Ellie said yesterday.”

Ned, across the table, had to take a moment to pull his attention away from the newspaper. “What was that?”

“About the new boy in her class, the one she was telling me about.”

“Oh, right. What about him?”

“A lot of things, I guess. Up front, I’m happy that Ellie didn’t make fun of him. I bet it’s all too common that children her age bully anybody who’s strange or different.”

Ned sat back in his chair and focused on her. “I thought the schools were into sensitivity training, anti-bullying, and all that.”

“I hate to admit it, but I really don’t know much about the local school systems. Not that I’ve had any reason to, until I started seeing Ellie regularly and she started talking about what goes on at her school. Does Leslie volunteer at the school, like for the PTA or anything?”

“I doubt it—she’s pretty busy with work, and then dealing with the kids after she gets home.”

“I’m sure she is, but how much does she know about her daughter’s environment? Sorry—I don’t mean to criticize her, and I know she works hard and takes good care of the kids. But school districts can vary a lot. And there must be regulations about bullying at the state level as well.”

“Abby, where are you going with this?”

“I’m not really sure. I’m just tossing ideas out. The new boy shows up a couple of months after the school year starts, and it’s clear he’s, well, different. But Ellie seemed to feel some sort of connection to him, and I’m not sure how to react to that.”

“So you’re worried because this new kid seemed to respond to Ellie’s touch?”

“In part. But that’s not the whole picture. Listen, do you have time to talk about this now? Are you supposed to be at work or somewhere?”

“Well, yes, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have time to listen to what’s bothering you,” he said, smiling.

“I haven’t even finished thinking it through yet,” Abby told him, returning his smile. “I’m guessing he’s autistic, but it could be something else. I want to do some research of my own. But I do want to have a serious discussion about it with you.”

“I’m all for that. But why the sudden interest?” Ned asked.

“Something that Ellie said about this boy, I think. She told me that when she accidentally touched him, she could tell that he was inside, but it was like he was trapped and couldn’t get out.”

“Abby, don’t take this the wrong way, but are you suddenly thinking about this because you’re interested in autism or because you miss teaching, being around kids?”

“Maybe both. You know it was Brad’s idea that I should do something more, well, what he called professional, which translated into something he could brag about, and which paid better. But I liked working with kids, and that was before I even knew about this psychic stuff.” She made air quotes. “Now it’s even more relevant. Children are so open to new things, and they haven’t stifled their reactions because nobody believes them. At least, I hope not. And, yes, you and I have been talking about what I can do with myself over the long term, something that uses my brain as well as my, well, psychic abilities.”

“Are you thinking of going back to teaching?”

“I haven’t thought that far. I have no idea what the qualifications are here, or if my credentials from Pennsylvania would transfer. And I’m not qualified to be a counselor—I’d need more child psychology training, I’m guessing. And if I tried to volunteer at a school, people might wonder why, since I don’t have any children in the school system. Look, like I said, I’ve only just started thinking about this, but it seems like this opportunity has just dropped into my lap—”

“You mean, a special-needs kid with some sort of psychic connection?” Ned interrupted.

“Exactly. I’m not talking about him in particular, although I’d like to learn more about his background, even see if he’s related somehow. But the whole idea of communicating with children is appealing to me, and autistic children could benefit from anything I learn. Maybe. Right now I don’t know enough to say—and it could scare them as easily as helping them. Most autistic kids already have a lot to deal with, without me poking into their heads.”

Ned didn’t respond immediately, but seemed to be turning the idea over in his head. Finally he said, “Abby, I agree that it could be worth looking into, and you’re more than qualified. But look at the problems we’ve had finding adults who share our connection thing, and approaching them without scaring them off. How on earth do you visualize finding children? It must be hard enough for parents to deal with having an autistic child, without trying to tell them that this psychic person they don’t even know, who has no children, thinks maybe she can communicate with them better than their parents can.”

“Ned, I know that, and I know it’s a problem. But I still think it’s worth exploring. And now that most of the renovations to the house are done, except for the outside ones that will have to wait until spring, I’ve got time on my hands. All I want to do now is do some research, see what the current thinking is. Maybe find out what support the schools offer to special-needs children. I wish I could meet this boy, but I don’t know if there’s any way to make that happen without setting off all sorts of alarms. I don’t suppose you’d recommend talking to Leslie about it?”

Ned shook his head quickly. “No, I think she’s got enough on her plate. Although she might have some information on museum trips for special-needs children. But tread lightly.”

“Of course I will.” Abby had known Leslie for well over a year now, first as an employer, then as the angry mother who didn’t want to be told that her daughter shared an ability with Abby that she couldn’t begin to understand. They’d made some tentative progress, as Leslie had come to realize that Ellie deserved to understand for herself what she was feeling or sensing or seeing, but Leslie and Abby’s relationship was still fragile, and Abby didn’t want to disrupt things. And she truly wanted to keep the lines of communication open with Ellie, for all their sakes.

Ned stood up quickly and deposited his breakfast plate and mug in the sink. “I’m sorry to leave all this dangling, and I promise we can talk about it later, but I do have to get to work now.”

Abby stood up as well. “I understand. And it’s not like I have anything concrete in mind—I’m just kicking around ideas. Sometimes it helps to talk about them out loud. I’m going to poke around online today and see what I can learn.”

“Sound like a good idea. We can talk over dinner tonight.” He came around the table and kissed her gingerly—not for lack of enthusiasm, but because a more serious kiss usually resulted in more than they had time for at the moment. “See you sixish, okay?”

“I’ll be here. Love you!” she called out to his retreating back. After his car had pulled out of the driveway, Abby devoted three minutes to cleaning up what little breakfast mess there was, then wandered aimlessly into the dining room. The room doubled as her work space, which she preferred to converting one of the bedrooms upstairs into an office. Downstairs she had the whole dining room table to spread out her computer and her notes and her books, and plenty of space to walk around or admire the view out the windows when she was working through an idea. Not that she fancied herself a writer, but there had been so many changes since she’d discovered she had an ability she had never known existed, and she had to record them just to keep them in order.

How many dead people had she seen since she’d met Ned? No, “dead people” sounded disrespectful. They were, for want of a better word, spirits of departed people, who seemed to be related to her by blood. She had spent a lot of her research time working out her family tree, because she kept running into these family spirits in unexpected places. It wasn’t precisely “seeing” them, because it usually required touching something that they had touched, even a long time ago, to trigger her awareness of them. Even that was evolving. But now that she had come to know and accept this unexpected ability, she was more open to it, and she was beginning to see and feel more of them.

Ned shared the ability, although he hadn’t pursued it in his own life until he had encountered her—and then he’d concealed it from her for a time, just to see what she would find for herself. She was still angry about that, about him treating her like a science experiment rather than a person who in the beginning had been kind of overwhelmed by the whole thing. She had managed to forgive him. Ellie shared the same ability because she was Ned’s biological child with Leslie, whose husband had proved to be sterile. Leslie had gotten a bit more than she had bargained for when she had asked Ned to be a donor, but to be fair, he hadn’t known what it was, much less that it could be passed on to his offspring.

Abby had learned that her mother shared a bit of it, but muted because she’d ignored it for most of her life. Abby had also run into a few other people who possessed it, but it was difficult to come out and ask them, and other people were usually reluctant to talk about what they thought they’d only imagined. She and Ned wanted to do more structured research into what they shared, and Ned had the funds and access to the appropriate equipment to do it, but the problem continued to be finding subjects. Even when she did stumble over someone who she thought would be a good candidate—like Ellie’s new classmate—it was difficult to approach them or enlist them.

It was a mess. She knew too much now to walk away from it all, but not enough to figure out what to do, without being labeled as crazy. Maybe working with kids would be a good entry, but she didn’t want to go back to school to build up her résumé and then find a job and cherry-pick the “psychic” kids and ignore the others—that simply wouldn’t be fair.

She gave herself a mental shake. She had found one more potential candidate the day before. She had guessed that he fell somewhere on the autism spectrum, from what Ellie had told her, but she should try to confirm that. And she definitely needed to find out more about autism, a topic that had gained increasing exposure even in the few years since she’d left teaching. Maybe she remembered things wrong, so she believed she should start with the current thinking about it.

Once she was online, she quickly got sidetracked by looking up Massachusetts laws regarding special education. What she found in a search was mildly reassuring: it seemed likely that the boy, now in third or fourth grade, had to have been officially evaluated sometime earlier, or he wouldn’t have been enrolled in Ellie’s school. Of course, that could have been in another state, where standards could have been different. No way was she going to check every state—she’d just wait and ask Ellie where he had been in school before. Of course, Abby had no idea how many students with special needs there were in Ellie’s school, or school district, or even the state, but there did seem to be jobs available in her area. However, as she had feared, she would need more training to even think about applying for such jobs. She shoved that idea on a mental back shelf, to be examined later. Back to her research.

Even as she paged through articles, Abby found herself wondering: even if Danny was to some degree autistic, would any kind of psychic ability be seen as a disability or an advantage? Or was that a question that no school district would be willing to touch with a ten-foot pole? One-on-one counseling might be more useful for a child, to teach him or her to use that ability to understand other people and to deal with them effectively, which might counterbalance the effects of the autism. Right, Abby—you can hang out a shingle, but what would it say? Learn how to hear other people thinking?

After a while she realized she’d missed lunch, and while she’d collected a lot of information, she hadn’t found much that was useful in this case. She really, really needed to talk to Danny, even touch him—sure, that would thrill his parents and the school. Maybe Ellie had been wrong and misinterpreted what she had felt. Or maybe it was a different kind of energy she felt in him that wasn’t the one they had. Maybe she’d just hit her funny bone and the tingle was purely physical—and one-sided.

And Ellie was not her child, and did not live with her. How could she hope to get together with Danny? She had no standing here. She couldn’t begin to explain it to Leslie, and she couldn’t go to the school and wander around hoping to bump into the kid—literally—to confirm what Ellie had felt. As far as she knew, nobody was allowed to just wander into the school, even a parent.

She scrounged some leftovers from the fridge and contemplated what fixings she had to work with for dinner, without finding any inspiration. But she didn’t feel like going out to eat either, although no doubt Ned would volunteer that option. After lunch, she pottered around the house, ran some laundry, and looked out the back windows at the cemetery that lay behind the house, hoping a deceased relative would provide inspiration. No such luck, though she’d seen them there before. By late afternoon she gave up and decided to chop anything edible she could find and make some kind of soup. Maybe with some bread or muffins. At least it would keep her busy.

 

• • •

 

Ned came home on time, and after changing into his grubby jeans, he sat at the kitchen table and listened as Abby outlined her tale of woe for the day, even while spooning up soup. Finally Abby ran out of steam. “I didn’t expect this to be easy, but I was hoping for some wedge that would get me closer to the boy, maybe even his parents. But there’s no way I can see to play any role at the school.”

“If I can interrupt your pity party, I have an idea,” Ned said calmly.

“Fine. I’ve run out for the day.”

“It’s almost the end of the fall term, right? And there may be some year-end awards ceremony or something—I’m no more plugged in to the school calendar than you are. But say there is, or if there isn’t one, let’s create one. I can create a something-or-other award, a special gift from a local company—that would be mine—to each and every student at the school. Maybe some kind of cool science gadget. The thing is, they’d have to come up and take it directly from me and shake my hand.”

“Which means you’d have to touch each one! Wow. But wouldn’t that cost money?”

“Abby, I have money. Besides, it would be good advertising for the company. No electronics, though. And no judging, no reward at the end. Just a gift, from me to the kids at the school. Think that would work?”

Abby nodded enthusiastically. “I like it. Of course, you’ll have to sell it to the school administration, maybe even the school board. Maybe you’d have to sweeten the pot, like giving some office equipment or something. But I’m sure you can work it out somehow. When would you do this?”

“If I remember the calendar right, it’s less than a month before the holiday break. Maybe in a few weeks? That would give me time to meet with all the relevant people.”

Abby sat back, feeling more relaxed than she had since breakfast. “Ned, I love the way your mind works. And a lot more, too. Maybe I can be your Vanna White and hand the kids their prizes, after you’ve shaken their hands—that would give us a confirmation if you feel something.”

“Might help. But it’s a good start, isn’t it?”

“That it is. Let’s put it in the To Be Considered pile. Want dessert?”

“Dessert dessert, or something else?”

“Both.”