The Home Front

by Margaret Vandenburg

  Todd monitored Farley’s missions much more closely than anyone else’s on the squad. For over a month he had been tasked with surveilling the same compound, which was either a hotel or a terrorist cell or both. He had gotten to know the proprietors, an old couple whose grandchildren visited on weekends. Their routines had become his routines. The old guy snuck cigarettes out behind his work shed. His wife was always prowling around trying to catch him in the act. When she went to bed he smoked brazenly on the porch with their customers, mostly middle-aged men traveling alone, either businessmen or al Qaeda operatives or both.

  Todd watched Farley watching everyone’s every move in and out of the hotel. He developed a certain fondness for the couple, whose volatility spiced up many a dull day in the trailer. They were always throwing up their hands or storming off in a huff. Todd could tell from their body language that their fights aroused them. An hour later, all was miraculously forgiven. No wonder guys like Farley disappeared down the rabbit hole. It was one thing to bomb total strangers, quite another to waste the familiar faces of an elderly couple still very much in love. Judging from his expression, Farley was oblivious to the domestic drama unfolding on his screens. But the way he white-knuckled his joystick told a different story. He gripped it like a man dangling over a precipice only he could see. Letting go required a grasp of another reality, the actual life he no longer lived outside the trailer.

  Farley was the first to arrive every morning and the last to leave. He lingered at his station even after a relief pilot took his place at the controls, still mesmerized by his monitors. The rest of the squad was halfway home by the time he finally wandered out to the parking lot. Nobody carpooled even though they all drove the same arrow-straight highway through the desert. They needed the time alone to decompress. Almost every single day, they commuted thousands of miles from the greater Middle East to Las Vegas, a distance Farley was too traumatized to travel. He was always in either Afghanistan or Pakistan, depending on the mission. And the mission was never ending.

  * * *

  Rose dragged a lawn chair out into the middle of the yard. She studied the position of the sun, trying to gauge what the Source called the daily equinox. The idea was to sit facing the precise place the solar arc would peak that afternoon, to maximize her receptivity. As with everything, it was reciprocal. The more energy she absorbed, the more she would emit, giving Tashi the cosmic connection she needed to conduct a productive session. Unlike old-fashioned psychics, who relied on face-to-face contact, Tashi had access to the energetic equivalent of Verizon wireless. As long as initiates aligned their solar quadrants, she could hear them loud and clear.

  When Rose made the appointment, the website manifested a long list of instructions. A great deal could be accomplished during her complimentary five-minute phone conversation, provided telekinetic channels were wide open. Rose kicked off her sandals and dug her toes into the grass. She took off her sweater to expose her skin to the elements. She started meditating with eyes wide open, orienting outward rather than inward to erase the boundary between herself and the world. The goal was to launch her astral body before she even picked up the phone. Since everything happened for a reason, nothing was left to chance. She waited until the third ring. The number three embodied a union of body, mind, and spirit in the circle of eternity where past, present, and future coalesced in the now.

  “Rose Barron?”

  “Speaking.”

  “Please hold.”

  Rose was deeply disappointed. Though she had only recently discovered the Source, she had been waiting for this moment for what seemed like a lifetime. The prospect of hearing Tashi’s voice on the phone had sustained her over the course of a particularly difficult weekend. Maureen had sprained her ankle practicing for cheerleader tryouts. Todd was outraged that grade schools even had cheerleaders, let alone the fact that his daughter thought she was old enough to join the squad. His response was disproportionate, a clear indication that something he wasn’t at liberty to discuss was bugging him at work. Then there was Max, who seemed to regress even further on days when his father was home. Every chance she got, Rose slipped into the study to log on to the website. She hadn’t realized how desperately she needed refuge, a place where everything wrong was made right by the mere sound of Tashi’s voice. The moment of truth had finally arrived, and an automated operator had put her on hold. Panpipes serenaded her as she waited yet another lifetime before the epiphany of Tashi herself.

  “Rose?”

  “Tashi?”

  “I would introduce myself, but I feel like we’re already old friends.”

  “I can barely hear you,” Rose said.

  Tashi’s voice seemed a million miles away. In spite of Rose’s efforts to live in the here and now, she almost wished she were back online so she could turn up the volume. The extent to which the Source relied on technology seemed to undermine its spiritual credibility. Then Tashi performed her first miracle.

  “Turn ever so slightly toward the sun,” Tashi said. “You’re off-kilter.”

  Rose shifted in her chair.

  “Not that way. To the left.”

  Rose moved an inch or two the other way.

  “There,” Tashi said. “Now we’re perfectly aligned.”

  Her voice came through crystal clear. It seemed to emanate not from Rose’s cell phone but from some place deep within. Words scarcely seemed necessary. The timbre of the voice was what mattered, vibrating at a frequency that made Rose listen as she had never listened before, to herself as well as to Tashi. So this was cosmic consciousness, she thought, and the idea traveled like a seismic wave rippling through the oceanic depths of a universal mind.

  “Breathe,” the voice said.

  Rose inhaled into her solar plexus, the way the online yoga tutorial had taught her to breathe. She kept the phone receiver as close as possible to her mouth so Tashi could hear the air passing in and out. Psychics claimed they could read palms and tea leaves, not to mention varicose vein patterns and even moles, especially ones with hairs growing from their roots. Tashi specialized in deciphering the far more eloquent language of what she called cosmic winds, which blew with each breath, cleansing the body of toxins and the soul of secret fears.

  “Don’t worry,” Tashi said.

  “About what?”

  “About anything. Let go of fear and doubt and regrets.”

  “I’m trying.”

  “No need to try. Just relax and breathe.”

  Tashi breathed with her as precious seconds ticked by. Rose tried not to think of time and space and the $79.99 package deal, including a complimentary five-minute conversation consisting primarily of breathing. There would be hell to pay if Todd found the charge on their monthly statement. Good thing he was too busy at work to find time to pay the bills.

  “I understand your concern,” Tashi said. “But thinking negative thoughts will manifest negative outcomes.”

  Had she been thinking negative thoughts? Tashi seemed more aware of what was streaming through Rose’s mind than she was. It occurred to her that she seldom paid close attention to the random clutter of ideas between her ears. Rather than harnessing their energy, she stumbled through life almost entirely unconscious of the power of consciousness. She tried to reorient her thoughts, which seemed hopelessly trivial, if not negative. At the very least, she tried to avoid dwelling on the $79.99.

  “I can hear him trying to comfort you,” the voice said.

  “Him?”

  “Your son.”

  “Did you read my profile online?”

  “Why bother? Your energy is telling me everything I need to know. Can you feel the current connecting us?”

  Rose felt nothing beyond an overwhelming urge to lie about feeling nothing. A lot of good it would do since Tashi would probably intuit the lie anyway. Rose closed her eyes to concentrate and then opened them again. She was supposed to orient herself outward, not inward. She tried harder, focusing her attention on the telepathic
vibrations of the voice itself. Then she remembered that this, too, was a mistake. Cosmic connections relied on relinquishing rather than exercising will power. She tried to stop trying altogether, something problem solvers always found counterintuitive. Rather than forcing what couldn’t be forced, she needed to let go.

  “I’m sorry. I’m fairly new at this—”

  “No need to be sorry, Rose. Everything is as it should be in the universe.”

  “What about Max?”

  “Especially Max. That’s what he’s trying to tell you. Worrying about him is blocking your ability to hear him.”

  “What’s he saying?” Rose asked.

  “If you listen carefully, you can hear him too.”

  Rose listened. She heard the wind in her lungs and in the trees, strumming a distant chime. She heard a car alarm, honking incessantly. A lawn mower, possibly a weed whacker, coughed and sputtered. A siren wailed louder and louder, drowning out everything else until it passed. She blamed the siren for her inability to hear Max. The cacophony of the material world was deafening.

  “What do you hear?” Tashi asked.

  “Sirens. A car alarm.”

  “You’re stuck on a temporal plane. Max is communicating on a much higher level.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Your son is a shaman, Rose.”

  “How do you know?”

  “He’s speaking a universal language, channeling the energy of our time.”

  Of course. All the pieces, which had been scattered by Max’s diagnosis, fell into place. Prior to discovering the Source, Rose would have been hard-pressed to define the word shaman, let alone apply it to her very own son. Over the past week, she had learned dozens of words that completely altered the way she interpreted the world. Monism. Mandala. Chakra. Bodhisattva. In retrospect, the paucity of her spiritual vocabulary was shocking. She scarcely had language to describe the transcendental beauty of the natural world, let alone Max’s transcendent nature. His diagnosis was equally impoverished. Autism. The word was intrinsically pathological, a self-fulfilling prophecy that hindered rather than helped her son express his full potential.

  “You mean he’s gifted, not sick.”

  “Seers are often misunderstood.”

  “I knew it!” Rose said.

  “Of course you did. You’re his mother.”

  Rose started crying for the first time since Max’s diagnosis. She hadn’t dared to let her guard down before, for fear of falling apart. Now she felt protected enough to acknowledge the tremendous burden she felt as the parent of a child with autism. Medical science had stopped blaming mothers exclusively, but the history of the disease still referenced Bettelheim’s infamous refrigerator theory. Starved for attention by frigid mothers, children withdrew in self-defense. It didn’t help that Max was more sensitive to her touch than anyone else’s, as though maternal intimacy were threatening rather than comforting. His claustrophobia made sense now. He was more, not less, in touch with her. He was more in tune rather than out of touch with the world.

  “Everyone will try to cure him,” Tashi continued. “You must fight with all your strength as a mother to make sure he is never cured of his visions. Facilitate rather than censor them. Learn to speak his language so he feels free to speak ours. Unless someone else intuits the message, it will be lost. And so will he.”

  “How can I help him?”

  “It’s the other way around, Rose. Max can help you.”

  “Not if I can’t hear what he’s saying.”

  “Listen again. What do you hear?”

  “Another ambulance. There’s too much going on. I can’t hear a thing.”

  “You’re hearing what he’s channeling. The message itself.”

  “What does it mean?”

  “You said it yourself, Rose. There’s way too much going on way too fast. Too much noise. Too many toxins. Too many screens bombarding us with too many images. X-rays, radio waves, microwaves. Waves of anxiety masked with too many pills and potions. Max is manifesting how we all feel deep down, alternately overstimulated and numb in self-defense.”

  “I thought you said he wasn’t sick.”

  “He isn’t. Illness is an illusion.”

  “Then why is he in so much distress?”

  “Because he feels like no one is listening to him.”

  “It’s not fair. He’s just a little boy.”

  “The universe never gives us more than we can handle, Rose. The fact that Max was chosen to carry the message led you to the Source, didn’t it? This is the first step of a journey that will teach you both to live without being distracted by all that white noise. Max is your guide. Once his message has been fully integrated into your spiritual practice, his mission will be complete. He will be free to live a normal life.”

  A bell started tolling in the distance. At first Rose thought the sound came from the Catholic church down the block. Then she realized the bell was signaling the end of their consultation. Five minutes had utterly changed the way she experienced the world. Imagine what ten minutes could accomplish! She cradled her cell phone in both hands, trying to hold on to their connection as the chimes receded into cyberspace, carrying Tashi’s voice along with them. Even before they signed off, Rose felt abandoned. Bereft. Tashi must have sensed her distress.

  “Don’t worry, Rose. I’m not going anywhere. The Source is always with you. Just listen.”

  In the abstract, Rose felt certain this was true. But she couldn’t wait to call again, to hear Tashi talking directly to her. There was something clarifying about the voice itself. Like chanting, the medium was the message, a soothing, healing wedding of mind and spirit. Rose had already exhausted the perks of her introductory package. Additional calls would cost $75, a paltry sum in comparison with the wealth of knowledge Tashi had to offer. If Todd noticed the charges on their credit card, she’d just tell him the truth. The Source was an integral part of Max’s treatment, quite possibly the key to his recovery.

  * * *

  The living room works best. But it’s out there. His bedroom is smaller. In here nobody interrupts him. Nobody tells him to stop or he’ll hurt himself. It hurts when they stop him.

  He never hurts himself. Even when he falls and hits his head. He’s too dizzy to feel anything. In his bedroom he can’t get dizzy enough. He can’t go fast enough long enough. It’s too small. He keeps smashing into things.

  He waits until Daddy goes to work. The living room works best when Mommy is on her cell phone. Nobody interrupts him. He spins, his arms spread wide, his head thrown back, until everything goes blank. Blankness blankets him.

  * * *

  Every Monday morning, what Sasha called the principal players met to discuss Max’s progress. She used this term to reinforce the idea that Rose and Todd were equal partners in managing his treatment. For the first few months, Sasha did most of the talking. Even though she was considerably younger, they deferred to her professional authority. She tried to assure them that Max would respond as well, if not better, to their therapeutic interventions. Autism didn’t alter the fact that he was their son. Todd in particular was skeptical. Max seemed to shrink from his parents most of all, as though family members were more menacing than any other human threat, an intimate invasion of the territory he defended with the ferocity of a wounded animal.

  Maureen usually sat in on the first few minutes of their weekly meetings. She alone seemed oblivious to the tragedy that had befallen the family. The fact that she accepted Max’s behavior at face value was instructive. Parents tended to blame themselves for things kids took for granted. As far as Maureen was concerned, Max was first and foremost an annoying little brother. Guilt never compelled her to overdetermine the cause or effects of his condition, which she routinely used to advantage. The fact that Max demanded so much attention left Maureen free to do her own thing. When she wanted to pull focus, she just flaunted her normalcy. No matter what she did, she was, by default, the good child. In classic firstbor
n fashion, she was fond of her brother to the extent that he confirmed her position at the top of the pecking order.

  The principal players convened around the kitchen table. Informality helped foster the idea that there was nothing extraordinary about discussing the frequency of Max’s violent outbursts, or the duration of his catatonic regressions. It was just another Monday morning in the Barron household. Max was still in bed, avoiding the rigors of therapy for as long as possible. On weekends, when Sasha wasn’t around, he was the first one up. He liked to watch the early morning sunlight advance across the living room floor, a drama that engaged his attention for hours. But he knew that Sasha was more likely to find him there. Gone were the days when he used to wander into the playroom on his own. The minute her car drove up, he disappeared down the rabbit hole in his bedroom. It took them up to an hour to coax him out.

  Todd and Maureen ate breakfast while they talked. The school bus stopped on the corner at 8:10, and Todd had to be on the road by 8:20 to get to work on time. Sasha always asked how the family had fared in her absence over the weekend. As time went on, their responses differed drastically, revealing more about themselves than Max. Strictly speaking, Sasha was a behavioral therapist, not a family counselor. But her training had included several classes on domestic dynamics, which could jeopardize Max’s recovery. Children on the spectrum elicited a spectrum of reactions from parents working through their own psychological baggage. If she could discover the cause of their tangled web of emotions, she might begin to unravel it.