“You choose,” he said.
He was too embarrassed to say no. It would have been an admission of something, he didn’t quite know what. His failure as a husband, for starters. Or as a man. He felt cornered, caught somewhere in-between, as though these two parts of himself had become mutually exclusive. He resented Rose for making him feel this way, simultaneously alienated and aroused. At war with himself, if not his wife. His fight or flight instincts kicked in again. She seemed to be plotting to trap him, using her body as bait. He wanted more than anything to fly off to Arizona, better yet Afghanistan, with no emotional strings attached to drag him down. But he would have to fight his way out first.
When Rose climbed into bed, he rallied his defenses. It wasn’t the first time they had waged the battle of the sexes in the bedroom. The fires of some of their most passionate encounters had been fanned by conflict, even anger. But there was something almost malicious about it this time. Todd dispensed with preliminaries, to get it over with. Rose was ready for him, instantaneously hot and bothered and spoiling for a fight. Her eagerness to engage his hostility was incredibly seductive. He redoubled his efforts to fend her off. To fend off his feelings for her. To finish it off without falling into the trap.
She didn’t say a word when they were finished. None of the usual endearments and professions of love. They didn’t so much fall asleep as retreat into their respective corners.
He woke up on his own thirty seconds early and shut off the alarm before it sounded. 4:59 a.m. The good old internal clock was still in excellent working order, in spite of the laxities of civilian life. He crept out of bed without waking Rose. Her red teddy reminded him that she was trying to be a good wife. But he no longer knew what that meant any more than he knew how to be a good husband. He was convinced that redeployment was the only thing that could save their marriage.
He padded downstairs and grabbed his dress uniform out of the coat closet. It fit him exactly the way it had fit him ten years ago. There was life in the old man yet. He was dressed and ready to go in seven minutes. There was a mirror on the back of the door, but he didn’t need it. Everything was already spit shined and creased to within an inch of its life. He closed the door and checked his watch. If he left now, he could pick up coffee and a roll on the way to the base. His backpack was next to the front door where he’d left it, but his duffel bag was nowhere to be found. If it wasn’t one thing it was another in this goddamned house. Some of the rage he’d felt the night before began to resurface. There was nowhere to direct it, no one to blame for the missing bag. All he knew was that it was exactly where it was supposed to be last night, and now it was gone.
He started retracing his steps, which seemed ridiculous. It wasn’t like he’d misplaced the bag. He could have sworn he’d left it by the front door last night, next to his pack. When he opened the closet back up, he saw his duffel shoved all the way in the corner where they stashed it between deployments. For the sake of the kids, supposedly. Out of sight out of mind, so they wouldn’t have to face the daily reminder that their father might suddenly disappear overseas again. He unzipped the bag to make sure nothing had been tampered with. Everything was in order. He strapped his pack on his back and shouldered the duffel. The heft of it all made him feel strong. When he got back from Arizona, he meant to ask Rose if she had any idea how on earth his bag ended up back in the closet. Good thing he hadn’t wasted any time looking for it. His wristwatch ran a minute faster than the clock in his pickup. 5:14. If he drove eight miles over the speed limit, he’d still have time to pick up breakfast.
* * *
Sometimes Sasha tries to stop him. Then she doesn’t. He never knows which Sasha will do what. Not being stopped means he can control something. One thing at a time over and over again. Against the wall. On the table over and over and over. There’s too many feelings in too many places. Too much of everything nobody can control. Sasha should try to stop everything, not him. Keep everyone in one place. One thing is something and something is better than everything again and again.
~ VI ~
Rose didn’t know what it was at first. It had been so long since she’d heard the head-banging, she thought someone must be pounding on the front door. Or hammering away on some nearby construction project. Then she remembered what she had tried so hard to forget, the dull, hollow sound of flesh and bone on impact. Its perfect regularity, like a drum beat, was almost more terrible than the sound itself. That anyone could be so methodically self-destructive seemed impossible. Surely the desire to do violence to oneself was an aberration—a deranged outburst—not something systematic like this.
Rose rushed to the playroom. She rarely interrupted Sasha’s sessions with Max. She half expected to find him unattended. Even superwoman Sasha took bathroom breaks now and then. But there she was, sitting not three feet from Max, trying to reason with him.
“Max, stop it. You’ll hurt yourself.”
Sasha scooted her chair closer to his. He was hovering over his seat, stuck somewhere between sitting and standing, an optimum position to leverage his neck and slam his head down on the table.
“Max, you don’t do this anymore. We do other things. Together. Let’s build a bridge.”
Sasha pushed stacks of Legos toward him. They jumped up and down with each impact. Rose called from the doorway, but Sasha waved her off. Then she rushed into the room and grabbed Max’s head. He fought savagely, as though his mother were trying to harm rather than protect him.
“What’s going on here?” Rose tried to speak calmly, but the intensity of her struggle with Max made it difficult not to shout. Sasha was obviously upset but too professional to raise her voice.
“He’s got to learn to control himself,” Sasha said. “We can’t monitor his every move. Every hour of every day.”
“You used to intervene.”
“We’ve moved on to a new phase of therapy.”
“You may have moved on. Max obviously hasn’t.”
“Two steps forward and one step back.”
“You call this progress?”
“You’ve got to trust the process.”
“Nobody believes in Max more than I do, Sasha. But I’m not going to stand by and watch him hurt himself. Just to prove a point.”
Max suddenly went limp. He could be playing possum. Or he could have receded so far away, the rest of the day would be wasted. If asked which was worse, being comatose or banging his head, Rose and Sasha would have strenuously disagreed. Mothers were often the least capable of accepting the inevitable pain of the therapeutic process. Especially a mother like Rose, who felt compelled to protect herself, not Max, from feeling the feelings masked by autism. Ultimately, it was a family, not just an individual, disorder.
When Rose caught her breath, she felt chastened. Not so much because she regretted questioning Sasha’s methods but because she had belied her own belief in the myth of Max’s progress. It was miraculous. He was improving by leaps and bounds. At this rate, he would be off the spectrum in time for second grade.
“I’m not trying to prove a point,” Sasha said.
“I know you’re not. And I’m not trying to butt in.”
“If he does it again, let me try this new approach, okay?”
“Is there a reason?”
“A reason for what?”
“That he has—” Rose stopped herself. The word regressed almost slipped out of her mouth. The fact that it was still there, lodged somewhere in the recesses of her mind, meant that she was still haunted by the specter of negativity. “That he’s banging his head again.”
Sasha seemed to stop herself, too. If she knew the reason, she wasn’t saying. The times she exceeded the scope of her role as Max’s behavioral therapist yielded mixed results. The fact that autism was a family disorder didn’t mean parents were necessarily open to couples therapy. In this case, a single session would have done the trick, if not the mention of a single word. Redeployment. Max may not have had language for it, but the concept was enou
gh to catapult him into paroxysms of head-banging. There didn’t seem to be any other viable explanation for the fact that his recovery was stalled, at best. But pointing this out to Rose wouldn’t make it go away. Neither would all her wishful thinking. Max needed to learn to cope with a full range of emotions, including separation anxiety. The fact that he was responding at all was a sign of emotional development. The next step would be to help him process his feelings more constructively.
“Probably a combination of factors,” Sasha finally said. “Not necessarily all bad. Think of it as growing pains. Max’s response to the fact that his world is getting bigger every day. More complex.”
Now Sasha was speaking a language Rose understood and condoned. Problems were really opportunities, after all. Max had taught her this lesson time and again. If there was a problem at all, it was Rose’s failure of interpretation, not Max’s head-banging.
“I’ll be on the porch if you need anything,” Rose said.
It sounded like a veiled threat. As usual, Rose was being passive-aggressive, speaking a language Sasha understood and condemned. If only she would come right out and say what she meant for once. But this wish, which was based on the assumption that Rose still had access to buried feelings, probably gave her too much credit. Sasha liked to imagine conversations reflecting what was really going on beneath the surface. She still believed in reality, something Rose rejected outright, preferring instead to comfort herself with white lies.
Watch your step, Sasha. You may not be able to monitor Max’s every move, but I can. All the way from the porch.
I’m doing what’s best for him, Rose.
How dare you pretend to know what’s best for my son? I’m his mother.
Therein lies the problem.
Sasha’s favorite professor at the University of Nevada used to tease her for clinging to the concept of reality, a kind of Platonic objectivity hovering above everyone’s emotional experience of a given event. They argued endlessly during office hours, he pontificating from behind his imposing mahogany desk, she perched on the little folding chair reserved for students.
“Feelings are not facts,” Sasha would say to him.
“You sound like a twelve-step program,” Professor Marcus said. He made every effort not to stroke his beard, which he knew full well was a species of stimming. Often as not, the urge was overpowering.
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“Go right ahead. But it won’t get you very far on your final exam.”
She wrote what he wanted to hear on the exam and pursued a different approach entirely in her independent research project. The A she earned in the course meant far less to her than the progress she was making with Max. She hadn’t delayed getting her PhD just because of him—she needed to save some money—but he figured into her calculations. She tried to resist the impulse to get too personally invested. The last thing Max needed was another parent, another emotional entanglement with an adult projecting her expectations onto him rather than letting him find his own way. They all wanted Max to be his best self. But helping him find himself wasn’t the same as inventing him. He already existed in there somewhere, hiding from something they would never really understand.
Increasingly, interacting with Rose felt like competition rather than collaboration. They scarcely spoke the same language anymore. Mindfulness for Sasha meant recognizing conscious and unconscious motivations. The trick was to integrate the two. Mindfulness for Rose meant formulating a conscious intention—a cause—in order to manifest the desired effect. The unconscious was pathologically inflected, a vestige of old, outdated thinking not worthy of the New Age. To the extent that it lingered in the minds of lesser mortals, it was an impediment rather than a source of insight, anathema to the power of positive thinking. Rose pitied Sasha for being mired in negativity, something that still dogged her, too, but for the grace of God. In the face of adversity, it was all too easy to forget that problems were merely an illusion. Fortunately, there were numerous reminders online, if only Sasha would avail herself of them. In the wake of their disagreements, solace was just a click away.
Rose brought her laptop onto the porch and logged on to the Source using her new password: YesYesYes. Tashi encouraged them to update passwords to reflect their spiritual journeys. To date, Rose had chosen MindOverMatter, Perfectibility, NowOrNever, MAXimumPlenitude, and YesYesYes. She couldn’t imagine being any more enlightened than saying yes to everything in the universe. Several of her favorite soul mates—Nirvana, Omega, Libra, and Athena—were in the chat room. They were discussing the phenomenal good fortune of Nirvana’s having recently lost her job.
At first I was devastated. My husband was a wreck.
Men always take things so hard, don’t they?
Too proud to ask for help.
We thought there was no way we could survive on his salary. Especially since our youngest desperately needed braces. His overbite was getting so bad, kids were starting to tease him at school.
Poor little thing.
Bless his heart.
You’ll never guess what happened next.
You got another job offer?
No, silly. I focused on abundance rather than scarcity. Now every time I get a bill in the mail, I just visualize that it’s a check. It’s like a weight has been lifted.
Ask and you shall receive.
Didn’t Jesus say that?
If he did it’s because he was a prosperity prophet.
All religions are one.
Tell that to the Muslims.
Omega! Talk about a bad attitude!
Sorry. It’s just so frustrating. World peace and prosperity are there for the asking. Will we never learn?
Thousands of people join the Source every year, Omega. It’s just a matter of time.
You know what Tashi says. If we build it they will come.
What about your son’s overbite?
I keep visualizing him without it. At this rate, he won’t need braces after all.
Rose felt better already. The healing power of Nirvana’s visualization calmed her fears, which may have manifested Max’s head-banging to begin with. The law of attraction worked both ways, as a magnet for good and for ill. In the best of all possible worlds, Max was already cured. There it was again, a trace of negativity. What we see depends on what we look for. Better to think that he had never been ill at all. Change your thoughts and you change the world.
Then she heard the relentless thumping again, emanating from the playroom. She tried to visualize it as opportunity knocking. When one door closes, another one opens to realms of possibility unimaginable in scope. The important thing was to focus on the open door, not the closed one. But she found that she couldn’t control her thoughts. Dr. Dillard said that Max’s brain was still developing. His head-banging might cause permanent damage. Everything you can imagine is real. How dare she imagine such a thing. It might come true.
Ordinarily the chat room put Rose back on track. Today it wasn’t enough. She typed in a request to communicate directly with Tashi, preferably by phone. The fact that it would be their second session that week meant she was vigilant, not desperate, taking full advantage of her spiritual program. A pop-up window appeared on the horizon of a glorious seascape, requesting Rose’s credit card information.
#5732 4021 6066 7414 Expiration 11/12 Security 762
Orchestral music swelled as the website processed Rose’s payment, almost drowning out the drumming of Max’s head.
Transaction Denied: Insufficient Funds
There must have been some mistake, probably a transposed number or two. The last time Rose checked, their MasterCard had $250 left, enough for several sessions with Tashi. She retyped her information.
#5732 4021 6066 7414 Expiration 11/12 Security 762
Rose clicked on the volume icon while she waited for verification. It was already turned all the way up, and she could still hear Max. She couldn’t imagine how Sasha withstood days like this.
Her therapeutic distance seemed callous, if not sadistic.
Transaction Denied: Insufficient Funds
Rose panicked. She returned to the request menu and clicked on the Urgent option, something she had only done once before when Todd first announced his intention to request redeployment. Another credit card prompt appeared. At the bottom, in fine print, a telephone number promised to address technical difficulties. Her laptop almost fell to the floor as she grabbed her cell phone. An actual person answered immediately. It took a real, as opposed to automated, operator to field questions about money.
“I’m trying to reach Tashi,” Rose said.
“Have you filled out a request?”
“My credit card won’t go through.”
“What seems to be the problem?”
“It says I’ve reached my limit.”
“I’m afraid you’ll have to call your bank.”
“Please help me. I’m desperate.”
The voice, which had been relatively businesslike, assumed a more helpful tone.
“Do you have another card?”
“Will you take a check?”
“Only credit or debit.”
“But Tashi knows me.”
“Of course she does. Try another card.”
“Please. Just tell her it’s me. Rose Barron. I’m sure she’ll make an exception.”
The tone of voice shifted yet again, this time taking on a mellifluous cadence as though channeling Tashi herself.
“Making an exception would just enable you.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Negative thoughts are blocking the flow of money into your life.”
“I’m sure it’s just a computer glitch.”
“Manifesting money is the first step to manifesting everything else. Call back when you’re ready to take the first step.”
The line clicked and celestial Muzak started playing over the phone. The universe had put Rose on hold. She felt like Dorothy repulsed by the Great Oz, a pitiful supplicant pounding on the palace door, echoing the futility of the banging banging banging of Max’s head in the next room. No one was answering. She was dangerously close to suffering the same terrible epiphany that robbed the Emerald City of its luster. In the absence of Tashi’s soothing voice, she could hear Todd’s scathing skepticism. Or was it candor? The yellow brick road was paved with gold, which should have been a dead giveaway. The Source was a business, a source of profit, and Tashi was yet another sham wizard wheeling and dealing behind a makeshift curtain. The great debate between her husband and her guru had finally concluded, yielding a surprising outcome. The year of magical thinking was over.
The Home Front Page 17
