CRISTINA MADE FREDDIE WEAR A HAT BECAUSE of the wind, but he took it off before they got to the park. The day was a little cool, and at least he didn’t take off his jacket, she reasoned, and that was a win. Freddie liked to run around in the dead of winter without gloves or even zipping up his coat. He would be frozen by the time he came inside and no matter how many times Cristina told him otherwise, he would do it again.
They parked near the playground. Freddie got out before Cristina set the brake and dashed off toward the monkey bars. He had a strange, stiff-armed way of running, like a high-speed waddle, that set him apart from other kids even at a distance. There were a few already playing and she saw him approach them right away.
It was good that he wasn’t afraid, but Cristina knew the way it would go. He would ask them to play and then he would insist they play the only game he knew: tag. The first time someone told him he was It, he would give up in frustration. If he was well-behaved, he would just retreat into himself. If not, he would lash out.
Sometimes he would pretend to be inside an elevator and insist the other children stand with him, motionless, inside the invisible car as it went from floor to floor. That never lasted long. He did all the noises, the pings and chimes, and it was clear that the image was crystalline in his mind, but what he saw he could not communicate and even the most tolerant children got bored of it easily.
Cristina found a bench and sat down. There were other mothers here with their kids, some making idle chatter with each other, but Cristina could not be one of them; she had to watch Freddie every minute in case he had a fit of rage, or if he fell and hurt himself. She couldn’t do that and hold a conversation at the same time.
She first knew there was something wrong when Freddie was three years old. He could not speak, or at least he could only say a few words. Evaluation cost a lot of money, but she had a temporary diagnosis of Pervasive Developmental Disorder. That was good enough to get him into a county-provided early-childhood intervention program that expanded his vocabulary, though he was still slow at other things.
They said he was smart and he played imaginatively. He communicated better after two years of intensive work and transitioned into special kindergarten. No one said he had autism, but the older he got, the more Cristina knew.
It was the obsession with elevators and escalators first. Freddie would draw pictures of them and talk about them and that was all he wanted to do. Cristina searched online and saw that children with autism sometimes had very narrow interests and would perseverate on whatever that interest was. In the back of her mind, the evidence file filled up.
After kindergarten he was still affected and the county paid for him to be transferred to a private school specializing in special needs education. When she first visited Cristina was put off by children in wheelchairs who could not sit up or children so severely autistic they barely moved under their own power. This was not her child, this was not where he belonged.
The school worked with him for three years before the diagnosis changed. He had Asperger’s Syndrome, a kind of autism, and though the news was bad Cristina felt vindicated because all the research she’d done was right; she knew her own child best.
They wanted to know the medical history of the parents, but Cristina could only give her side. Freddie’s father did not answer letters or emails and eventually Cristina stopped trying. She suspected he didn’t want to be held responsible for this, the way he hadn’t wanted to be responsible for a child in the first place.
Her attention drifted and she didn’t even realize she was daydreaming until one of the other mothers approached her. “Excuse me,” the woman said. “Excuse me, miss?”
“I’m sorry, what?”
“I wouldn’t bother you, but your son just hit my son twice.”
Cristina stood up sharply. “I’m sorry. My son has autism. I’ll get him right now.”
She saw the expression change on the woman’s face, from concern to repulsion. Autism. As if it were catching. As if it were deadly. “It’s all right. I didn’t know—”
“No, I’ll get him. He needs to say he’s sorry.”
Cristina strode out to the monkey bars. Freddie was at the very top, hugging himself and rocking back and forth. His eyes were puffy with tears that hadn’t yet come.
“Freddie?”
“I don’t like those boys!”
“Freddie, come down here, okay? Mom needs to talk to you.”
Now he cried and Cristina felt herself crumble a little. “I don’t like those boys!”
“Come down from there. Come on, baby.”
Freddie climbed down reluctantly until Cristina was on her knees, holding him. His shoulders hitched and he breathed hot in her ear. “They’re mean to me.”
“I know, but you can’t hit. Now you have to say you’re sorry.”
It took time to cajole him and eventually he took her hand and let her lead him to the bench where the mother sat. She had a boy near her eating cheese crackers from a plastic bag. Again the look.
“Say you’re sorry, Freddie,” Cristina prompted.
Freddie did not look the boy in the eye. “Sorry,” he said.
“Sorry for what?”
“Sorry for hitting.”
“I’m really sorry,” Cristina told the mother.
“It’s all right, really. I didn’t know.”
I didn’t know your son has autism.
“Come on, Freddie, let’s go play somewhere else, just you and me.”
Cristina guided him away and across the spotty grass to a toddler’s playground with swings that had rubber seats with leg holes, a sandbox and a climber that was low to the ground. There was no one around.
“I want to play with my friends,” Freddie said.
“I know, but let’s play over here for a while. Let’s make tunnels in the sand, okay? Or we can play spaceship. See, there’s a steering wheel on the climber.”
Freddie pulled away from her without speaking and mounted the climber. He put his hands on the spinning wheel and spun it, making a machine noise. “It’s like an elevator motor,” he said.
“Yeah, I guess it is,” Cristina said.