Chapter 4

I took a year-long hiatus from work before easing back into my design business, but this time I used my graphic design skills as an interior designer. I started by providing clients with custom sewing for their homes, then quickly found myself in the middle of small remodel projects—a place where I could still keep my hands on all aspects of a design job. I thrived in my new role, but again, my home life was beginning to fray around the edges. In the end, Jon and I made a compromise: I would scale back my client base even more, and he would step in as needed, coming home from work a little early, or taking the kids for long weekend outings so I could work. It worked beautifully, until we began to frequent the emergency room with Andrew’s escalating fevers.

Hannah found me in my studio one afternoon, straddling six yards of upholstery fabric while coaxing it inch by inch through my sewing machine.

“Andrew needs you, Mama,” she called from the doorway.

“For what?”

I knew better than to question her, but I was eager to finish my project. I focused on long gathering threads, trimming them to the edge of the seam.

“He’s feeling slow,” she spoke in my ear.

Hannah reached for my hand, tugging me down the back stairs and out into the yard where they were playing. Although she was only in Kindergarten, her radar was highly tuned to her brother, and despite my continual protests, she had assumed the role of her brother’s keeper.

Andrew was sitting in a half-made fort in the back yard, pulling a sword fern crown onto his head when I arrived. Rust-colored pollen spores sprinkled his nose and covered his jacket.

“What’s up?” I asked.

He pulled a light saber from the back of his shorts and pointed it at Hannah.

“Hannah! Why do you always run to Mom?”

I looked at my daughter.

“Andrew is sick,” she said, shrugging her shoulders.

“Am not!”

Andrew poked the light saber at her face. Hannah grabbed it and ran. Usually, Andrew would have taken off after her, but this time, he just stood there, watching her leave.

“I feel funny,” he admitted.

“Funny how?”

“Just woozy.”

I knew what that meant. We’d been doing this over and over for months now. Andrew would be perfectly fine, then within an hour, or even less, he would begin to experience phantom pain. First, it was a pinprick in his mouth, like he had eaten something sharp that poked his skin. Within an hour, he would become weak as the fever rushed through his body. And then came the pain—the real pain that twisted in his gut, leaving him doubled over and breathless. I knew from experience that by the time Jon got home from work, Andrew would have tiny sores in his mouth and we would be well into one of his five, six, or seven-day fever episodes.

I called my client to say my sewing wouldn’t be delivered for another week and sat Andrew in the downstairs playroom with a Gatorade and two Tylenol. The plan was to get him to drink as much fluid and electrolytes as we could before the fever burned it out of him. Hannah sat next to her brother playing a game of tease-the-cat with a laser pen. Charlie, our obese orange tabby cat lurched at the red dot while occasionally bumping into walls—another distraction that would buy us some time.

Somehow, Hannah had known this insidious monster was coming again. To this day, I don’t know how she knew what was happening inside her brother before the rest of us were even aware. The only thing I knew for sure was the monster visited on a regular basis. At one point, I began a dedicated calendar and notebook just for Andrew’s fevers. What I discovered was the fevers came precisely every twenty-eight days—like a menstrual cycle—and they always peaked at 105 degrees. I also noted that the pattern never varied. It always started with a twinge in the mouth, followed by fever, pain, and nausea. During the worst episodes, when the pain became unbearable, we were admitted to the hospital.

That night we did avoid it, but on the next month and the month after that, we stayed for days while they hydrated Andrew and gave him his first taste of IV narcotics. During one visit, when we were asked to recount his health history yet again, I told the emergency room doctor about my discovery. He told me it was most likely a coincidence. It felt like a slap to the face, and I retreated with a burning sense of anger.

Between episodes, when Andrew sprang from bed looking like any other healthy third-grade boy, we left the house in search of adventure. One Sunday morning, Jon announced we were going on a family drive. A collective groan came from the breakfast table—we all knew this meant hours in the car running errands.

“The only stop is the feed store to pick up some grass seed,” Jon told us on the way to town. “Then you kids can choose where we go.”

His announcement did little to quiet the grumbling.

As soon as Jon put the car in park, both kids scrambled out the back seat, following a crowd into DeYoung’s Feed Store for their annual Chick Fest.

“There are bins and bins of peeping colorful fluff balls!” Hannah shouted to the entire store.

“What are they called, Dad?” Andrew asked, looking through the chicken wire into the box.

A kind-faced man walked over to us, wearing a green apron with a sticker that said, “Hi! My name is Tony.”

“These are baby chickens, about two days old. People call them ‘chicks’ when they are little babies.”

Hannah wriggled out of Jon’s grasp and started hopping up and down. Andrew stood mesmerized. Even with the pressing crowd, the buzz of heat lamps and noisy cheeps coming from hundreds of birds, he stayed positively still, breathless in anticipation. Of what, I didn’t know.

I nudged Jon. “Look.”

Andrew was pointing to a bin of chicks on the far side of the room. “What are those? The ones with the black stripes around their eyes?” he asked Tony.

“Those are Araucanas. They lay the most beautiful blue eggs.”

Andrew stared at a photo of a full-grown hen clipped to the top of the bin. “I would like one of those.”

I moved towards Andrew just as Jon reached out an arm, blocking my path. “Wait,” he said with his eyes.

Tony and Andrew leaned into the bin, Andrew pointing and gesturing. He emerged a moment later, both hands cupped like a bowl around a tiny chick. Then he walked straight over to us, announcing, “She is my new friend. I’d like to bring her home with me.”

I pressed a hand to my mouth, astonished he’d spoken so clearly. Although he chatted and conversed as much as most eight-year-olds, he rarely spoke to us directly. More often, his gaze was fixed on the far side of the room, his words a riddle for us to solve.

Hannah went ballistic in Jon’s arms. “I want one, too!”

I gave Jon the let’s-get-out-of-here-quick signal, and when he didn’t respond, I left to wait in the car.

Twenty minutes later, Jon arrived with both kids and a flimsy peeping box the size of a Happy Meal. Tony trailed behind, pushing a wooden cart overflowing with all of the necessary accoutrements needed to sustain life for baby chicks.

I glared at Jon, who shrugged. “What was I supposed to do?”

“We got six tiny peepers!!” Hannah shouted as soon as we pulled away.

Andrew was silent in the back seat, grinning, with the box clutched in his arms. I stared straight ahead, wondering why we were adding more things to be taken care of. Two kids, two dogs, a cat, and now a half dozen chickens? My plate was already overloaded with responsibilities, and I had no idea what it would take to raise a small brood of hens.

“What did that cost?” I asked Jon, referring to the trunk load of equipment.

“The peepers were only ninety-nine cents each,” he said, grinning at the road.

I snorted, choking on my laughter.

That night, the kids and I huddled on Jon’s workbench in the garage staring into a cardboard box full of peepers. The lamp’s orangey glow illuminated Andrew and Hannah’s round, happy faces—my springtime pumpkins. Our little corner was a cozy place to be on a late spring evening and I was enjoying myself, despite my lingering irritation at Jon’s purchase. I couldn’t imagine where we would put six full-grown hens.

“What are you going to name them?” I asked.

“Mine is called Buttercup, because she is yellow,” Hannah chirped.

Her nose was pressed to the mesh lid Jon had rigged up to fit across the top—a wise suggestion from Tony, since it was clear they were close to fluttering out.

“Well, hello there, Buttercup!” I said.

Hannah smiled and scrambled into my lap smelling of freshly washed hair and strawberries. How could I be angry about Jon’s purchase? I knew most parents would pay anything to see their kids this blissfully happy.

“What about you, Andrew?”

He reached his hand into the box, pulling out the splotchy black and brown chick. “She is Frightful,” he said.

I stared at him, unclear what he meant. From past experience, I knew there was something more to this odd choice of name. I wanted him to tell me more.

“Who is frightful?” I asked, careful to keep my tone neutral.

“She’s the falcon!” Hannah piped in, “…from Grandpa’s book.” She slid off my lap and disappeared into the house.

“Why do you call her Frightful?” I asked Andrew again.

He ran a finger across a fragile, three-toed foot, whispering something to the opening between his palms. His gesture was as intimate as a kiss.

“Because she told me that was her name.”

This was turning into another one of our circular conversations that left me confused and a little anxious. I tried another tact. “Are you scared, Andrew?”

A pink hue colored his cheeks and he raised the tiny chick to my face, blocking his own from view.

“Her name is Frightful. She will be brave for me,” he replied.

Hannah zoomed back into the garage, waving a tattered paperback book.

“This is it! Grandpa’s book about the falcon!”

I took it from her and studied the cover: My Side of the Mountain, by Jean Craighead George. Sure enough, it pictured a falcon perched in a tree behind a young boy. Its feathers looked a little like the picture of a full-grown Araucana hen, but I still didn’t understand the reason for the deep connection he already felt for the chick.

I showed the book to Andrew. “Is this why you named your chick Frightful?”

“Frightful will save me,” he replied.

From what!? I wanted to scream. What are you trying to tell me? What don’t I understand? I felt a trickle of sweat run down my neck as the anxiety of years of confusion overcame me in that single moment.

“It’s a good story, Mama,” Hannah said, sensing my angst.

Through a blur of tears, I concentrated on the book, scanning the blurb on the back cover. Bits and pieces of the story filtered through my mind, snippets I caught while Jon’s father read the story in our living room. I recalled a boy rescuing a baby falcon who fell from her nest, naming her Frightful, and teaching her to hunt. I remembered the falcon becoming his best friend, keeping watch over him, protecting him from harm. I also remembered the boy was alone, lost in the mountains, feeling like no one in the world understood him. Did Andrew feel this way? Was he living in a place so lonely…so frightful…that he felt the world couldn’t possibly understand?

Andrew touched the end of the chick’s beak with a finger. Then he peeped. She peeped back and jumped out of his hand, landing on the workbench. Maybe she knew the answer? I stared at my son, confused and heartbroken, wishing I could draw him in to my arms and tell him everything would be okay. But I wasn’t sure it would be.

Both kids scrambled to get ready for school the next morning, eager to hold the chicks before the bus rounded the corner. After they left, I cleaned the box, scooping wet shavings from the water dish.

“Why did you choose him?” I asked the mottled chick.

Frightful walked around on my hand, ignoring my question.

“I know you chose him just as much as he chose you. Was it because you knew he needed you?”

She refused to answer—not even a peep. I felt foolish talking to a bird. What did I think it would say? Was I secretly hoping for answers to an eight-year-long list of questions? Her featherless wings stretched and flapped as she dive-bombed toward the cardboard box, landing right in the middle of a sleeping pile of yellow fluff. Under the heat lamp, her black and brown puff was a cool spot in a ring of golden fire. Frightful tucked her black beak under a naked wing and slept. There was something about the scene that made me pause. She was different, like Andrew was different, but something else tugged at the back of my mind, something I couldn’t quite grasp. It was clear she had somehow performed a mind-meld on my autistic son, but what I didn’t know was that she had crawled into his heart and set up camp. And now she was speaking to his soul.