Unlocked

by Karen Kingsbury

  But he only looked up again, this time at a spot just above her. Kate watched, again curious at Holden’s silence.

  “I think he’s going to like the cards, Aunt Tracy.” She nodded big, her wispy blonde hair bouncing around her face. “I can tell.”

  “Me too.” She didn’t let herself feel discouraged. “Holden, those are the music cards. The ones I’m going to laminate. So they’ll last longer.” She pulled the new cards from the envelope and handed them to Holden. “One hundred and twenty music cards!”

  “Wow… one hundred and twenty is a whole lot of cards! I never had that many cards!” Kate grinned at Holden. “Right, isn’t that great?”

  Holden was interested, Tracy was sure. But nothing about his expression showed it. He ignored her and Kate and the new cards and instead picked up the PECS cards he carried with him everywhere, the ones from his backpack. He sorted through them half a dozen times and after a minute he flashed her a card that read “Thank you.”

  Tracy’s heart soared. Her son had thanked her! He’d been doing this, using the cards to communicate once in while for a few years. It was why his therapists thought he was making such progress. The therapists worked hours on end helping Holden understand what the cards meant, how the pictures matched the words, and how they could be used appropriately. There was no way to tell if Holden actually read the words, or just understood what they meant by sight familiarity. Not while he was so completely non-communicative.

  That’s why moments like this were such a victory —Holden using his PECS cards to thank her.

  She smiled at him. “You’re welcome.” Then she reached slowly for the new music cards and one at a time she held them out to him, explaining their meaning, reading the words at the bottom of each one.

  Kate repeated the words as they went, but eventually she finished her snack and cleared her plate to the sink. Then she pointed to the living room. “I have to read, so I’ll wait out there. For the movie, okay?”

  “Okay, sweetie.” Tracy watched her leave. She was so sweet, so much fun and energy. But Tracy needed time alone with Holden, so this was perfect. She held up a music card, one with musical notes and a heart in the middle. “See this one?”

  He didn’t look. Instead he mixed through the deck he was more familiar with, intent on whichever card was on top of the stack.

  “This one says ‘I love music.’ See? It has music notes and a heart. Hearts stand for love, remember?”

  Holden tapped the table, his eyes fixed on nothing in particular.

  Tracy moved to the next card. This one had music notes and an oversized ear. “This one says ‘I can hear the music.’ “

  Holden blinked at that, and for half a second he looked at the card. But then, just as quickly, he looked away again.

  “That’s okay, Holden. I understand.” She felt tears gather in her eyes, and she fought them back. “You can hear the music. I know you can.” Nothing.

  She went over half the cards in the deck, but by then his snack was gone, which meant she had only a small window of time to get his movie going. She left the music cards on the table. His therapist would help him use them the right way, and in time Holden would work them into his days.

  “Okay, movie time.” She kept her smile in place in case he was watching. Even from his peripheral vision. There was no deciding which movie to watch. It was the same every day. If she tried something new, he would pace the living room, agitated and grunting, or drop down and rattle off thirty push-ups.

  She’d made the DVD years ago on her Mac—a gift from Dan on one of his visits home after a particularly good month at sea. It was a thirty-minute movie of photos and video clips from before Holden’s diagnosis. Back when he was like any other little boy. Before the nine vaccinations he received the week after this third birthday—not that anyone had officially linked vaccinations to autism. Still, Tracy couldn’t help but wonder.

  She walked into the living room where Kate was reading a thin paperback book, her legs sticking straight out as she sat back into the sofa. “Is it movie time?”

  “Yes, honey.” She wondered if Kate would be disappointed when she realized what type of movie it was.

  “Where’s Holden?”

  She smiled. “He’ll be here.”

  The DVD was already in the player, so she hit the power button and turned on the TV. Seconds later the loop at the beginning of the movie was on the screen, the music filling the small room. The song was one Holden used to sing with her as a little boy. Never Be the Same by Christopher Cross.

  The music was melodic and meaningful, the message heart-wrenching.

  The first notes drew Holden from the kitchen to his spot, cross-legged on the floor in front of the TV.

  “Is that where we sit?” Kate hopped down from the sofa and took the spot next to Holden, their knees touching. Holden didn’t acknowledge Kate, but he didn’t move away, either.

  This should be interesting. Tracy studied the two—small Kate, with her abundance of love and buzzing energy, and Holden —quiet and indifferent by all indications. Tracy picked up the remote control and sat in the old recliner. She knew better than to jump to the beginning of the movie. For Holden, the loop was part of the experience. So she let the song play out, let the images run across the screen.

  Holden as an infant, safe in her arms … Dan standing beside them, his hand on her shoulder. Holden as a six-month-old sitting up, grinning at the camera. Holden and Ella Reynolds, eighteen months old, holding hands on the shore of Tybee Island. Holden and Ella dancing on the Reynolds’ kitchen floor.

  “Is that Holden?” Kate looked over her shoulder.

  “Yes. Holden when he was younger.”

  “It looks like him.” She nodded, thoughtful, and turned back to the screen. “My mom has movies of when I was little.”

  Tracy hid her smile and the sorrow that quickly followed. Kate was still little, of course. But already she was decades beyond Holden in her ability to relate to people.

  The song reached the chorus, the part where Holden always started to rock. Not dramatically, but enough that Tracy believed this part of the song really spoke to him. She sang quietly along. “And I’ll never be the same without you here. I’ll live alone. Hide myself behind my tears. And I’ll never be the same without your love …”

  No matter how many days they sat here this way, or how many times she heard this song or watched this movie with him, the tears came. Tracy dabbed at the corners of her eyes. She didn’t want Holden to see her cry, but there was no way around the heartache that came with the home movie.

  They reached the end of the song on the intro loop, and Tracy started the actual movie. This was the hardest part, seeing Holden the way he had been, watching him laugh and sing and look straight in the camera. “Hi, Mommy! See me, Mommy? I’m looking right at you!”

  Kate giggled. “I like you there, Holden. You’re funny!”

  He didn’t respond, but Kate didn’t act offended. She turned her attention to the movie again.

  The Reynolds family was in several of the videos because back then the two families had done everything together. The couples had been friends in high school, the best men and maids of honor for each other’s weddings. They had babies at the same time, and Holden and Ella were together constantly before they could walk or talk.

  Tracy and Suzanne would delight over the friendship between their children, dreaming of the day when they were older. “I can see it now,” Suzanne would say. “Holden will take Ella to her senior prom and five years later they’ll get married.” Her laughter would lend brevity to the prediction. “We’ll arrange the whole thing right now. Deal?”

  Tracy’s laughter would mix in. “Deal.” Neither of them was serious, of course, but the possibility remained. There seemed no reason why the two wouldn’t grow up together, no hint that a senior prom or even a wedding some day was out of the question.

  But in the fall after Holden’s third birthday, he began to slip throug
h their fingers. Week after week he grew quieter, more withdrawn, and the visits with the Reynolds grew more infrequent. After Holden’s diagnosis, Suzanne explained in a teary, awkward way that they weren’t sure it was good for Ella, playing with Holden.

  “He doesn’t talk.” Suzanne’s face looked pained. “He won’t look in her eyes anymore. He … he lines up their toys over and over like he’s in a world all his own. Something’s wrong with him, Tracy. He needs help.”

  She didn’t say she was officially ending their friendship. She didn’t have to. Her husband, Randy, was a baseball player and about that time he was called up to the majors. He played for the Mets for ten years, and when the Reynolds family moved to New York, they lost touch. Four years ago Tracy read that Randy Reynolds had been traded to the Braves, so most likely they were back in the Atlanta area.

  Tracy no longer wondered what they were doing or how life had fared for them. She wouldn’t think of them at all, except that here was Ella —dancing and singing with Holden on the home movie they watched every day. Ella would be a senior in high school now. She wouldn’t know or remember Holden. That part didn’t matter. What mattered was all she represented for Holden today.

  He stared at the movie, never looking away, intent on every detail. Today Ella represented hope and possibility, the chance that someday God might grant them a miracle and Holden would find his way back. That one day he might sing and laugh and hold hands with a friend again.

  Tracy had seen enough. She stood quietly and went to her bedroom. Holden was at a strange place on the autism spectrum, because other than an occasional grunt or cry or humming sound, he was completely non-communicative. Usually kids —even kids on the severe end of the spectrum —developed some language by now. Not Holden… not ever. He had the PECS cards, and that was it. Even so, the day Tracy stopped talking to him would be the day she gave up. And that wasn’t going to happen.

  The cool morning had given way to a hot, humid afternoon, so she slipped into a T-shirt, shorts, and flip-flops. As she did, she caught a look at herself in the mirror. Her long dark hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and her face looked thin and drawn. Back before Holden’s diagnosis, people used to say she looked like Courtney Cox. But not anymore. She looked tired and sad and old. Older than her thirty-nine years, anyway.

  Come on, Tracy … where’s your smile? She lifted the corners of her mouth, but the action didn’t reach her eyes. She returned to the kitchen, walking softly so she didn’t pull Holden or Kate from the movie, and she sat again at the kitchen table. Holden’s therapy was four-thirty to six today, same as always. Kate would bring her book, and they’d read together. Otherwise, everything about her days with Holden were built around a routine. Even during summer—when all-day therapy replaced his school hours. The walk back to the apartment, the snack, the movie, the late-afternoon session.

  All of it the same.

  The schedule was exhausting. She looked out the kitchen window. Never mind that her view was taken up almost entirely by the apartment next door. If she looked up she could see a slice of blue, like God reminding her, I’m still here, daughter. Still watching over you.

  But, God … I’m so tired. I don’t see progress, Father. Sometimes I don’t know how to get through the days.

  My child, you don’t have to fight this battle … Stand firm and see the deliverance I will give you. The battle is mine, not yours.

  Tracy closed her eyes and lifted her chin. The response washed over her like an autumn breeze and she inhaled slowly, deeply. The battle belonged to the Lord. The verse was from 2 Chronicles, something Tracy had read last week in her Bible. She loved when God responded to her this way. She sat a little straighter and a new sense of strength filled her soul.

  From the other room, she could hear Holden’s three-year-old voice singing his favorite song back then. “Yes, Jesus loves me … yes, Jesus loves me … yes, Jesus loves me … the Bible tells me so.”

  Holden loved to sing back then. It was why she indulged him in this daily routine, why she was glad he wanted to watch the home movie so often. The movie fed the music inside him the music she believed was inside him.

  Then she heard something else. Little Kate was singing along, her voice high and clear, the voice of an angel. She stood and returned to the living room. What she saw brought fresh tears to her eyes. Not only was Kate singing, but she’d looped her arm around Holden’s elbow. She was singing along, swaying to the music. And something else—something that took Tracy’s breath.

  Holden wasn’t look at her or singing or smiling. But he was swaying. Holden was swaying with Kate.

  He was allowing physical contact, and he was sharing in her enjoyment of the song. This was something she’d never seen before. Tracy brought her hand to her mouth. God, is this Your plan? That precious Kate would will help crack the door to Holden’s private world? The possibility was something Tracy had never considered. But what she was witnessing was extraordinary.

  She sat down quietly, not wanting to interrupt the moment. As she did, she felt a renewed peace work its way through her bones. No matter how many times they watched the movie or how many hours they spent in therapy, no matter how many months or years, she would never give up on her son. Holden was in there somewhere. When they figured out how to reach the door of the prison that held him, she was pretty sure of one thing: music would be the key.

  But maybe Kate would be part of that process too.

  Four

  OMINOUS BLACK CLOUDS AND A FRENZIED SORT OF LIGHTNING had moved in fast from the west and now the worst storm of the season was crashing in around the SS Wicked Water. Dan Harris braced himself, working with everything he had to pull the shrimp-laden net into the boat, but even as he worked he could tell two troubling things. First, at forty miles from shore they were too far out to get help from another boat if they needed it.

  And second, Captain Charlie was worried.

  “Get the nets up! Tie everything down!” The captain had both hands on the wheel, intent on getting back to shore. He didn’t turn to make sure they heard him over the sound of the wind. He didn’t even glance over his shoulder. His panic changed the tone on the vessel.

  Dan and the crew were a step ahead of him. Cages and cables, bins and barrels, and everything with the possibility of flying off the deck was already tied down or put away. Dan and another deckhand were reeling in the last two nets.

  “We got a catch!” Dan braced himself as the first storm wave hit the ship and washed over the deck.

  “Let it go.” The wind was howling now, and the deckhand’s shouts could barely be heard above the sound. “Forget it!”

  “We can’t.” Dan felt the weight of the net in his forearms and biceps, his shoulders and back. After weeks of poor fishing, the nets held the best take since they’d set out. “Pull harder!”

  Another wave slammed the ship, and the vessel leaned hard to the left. Dan and the deckhand were no match against the force. They washed across the deck and slammed into the other side. “Get up!” he shouted at the deckhand. “Man your position.”

  The deckhand swore at him. Half swimming, half crawling, he headed for the hatch and when the ship rocked back the other way and the water on the deck dissipated, the guy hurried down below. If the ship capsized now —the way thirty ships did each year in these frigid waters—the guys below deck were done for.

  But most deaths on Alaskan fishing boats didn’t come from sinking ships. They came from the waves. Angry, fierce, frothing white waves like the ones tossing the ship around right now. One wave, one lost grip on the ship, and Dan would be swept away—never heard from again. Even in September the sea was too cold for a man to last very long, so if the roiling water didn’t drown a guy, hypothermia would claim him soon enough.

  Dan wiped the salt water from his eyes and squinted across the deck. The nets were still in place—both of them. He could still get the shrimp, and if he saved the catch now there could be a bonus for him. If he didn’t, t
he nets would break off in the next couple minutes and be lost at sea. Broken nets cost a month’s worth of income—money that would come out of the take and result in a lower paycheck for everyone. He clawed at the splintered deck and scrambled to the other side, back to the nets. They were heavy, but he could get them up on deck at least. Then he could tie them down and get below.

  He was breathing hard, his lungs struggling to get a full breath in the violent wind. Another wave towered over the ship, and before it could crash down on top of him, Dan gritted his teeth and gripped the closest two steel rings. The water hit with ferocious force, and Dan heard both nets snap free from the boat. He wanted to breathe, needed to breathe, but the water wouldn’t recede. Panic and certainty consumed him. This was it. They were under water, sinking to the ocean floor. He thought about Tracy and Holden back at home and how they’d take the news of his death. But just when he couldn’t hold his breath another second, the water cleared and he was still alive, still clinging to the steel rings.

  Dear God … You see us here, right? We’re in big trouble, Lord. Please protect us.

  There was no loud answer, no immediate calming of the seas. In fact, the wind screamed louder than before. But Dan saw a picture in his mind: Jesus on the fishing boat with his disciples, the group of them caught in a terrible storm. The disciples terrified, sure they were about to die. And Jesus?

  Jesus was sleeping.

  Dan shook the freezing water from his face and the image disappeared. Bible stories were nice, but right now they needed a miracle. The ship was creaking and groaning from the intensity of the storm, and rain was falling so hard now it was impossible to draw a breath without taking in water.