“Oh, honey,” she said, bending over, close to my ear. “I’m so sorry. I forgot. I forgot about—”
Don’t say it, I thought.
“—your dad. Oh, and such an awful way to go, too. And so sudden. You’re right, that was very thoughtless of me. See, I told you I’m not myself.”
She pulled my head back away from her soft self, holding me by both temples. I pulled in enough air for ten breaths.
“Do you forgive me?”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said. Just parroting the words. Not forgiving and not not forgiving. Not even really thinking what that would mean.
“Oh, dear,” she said, without telling me oh dear about what.
She swooped back into the house, slamming the door behind her with a great bang. I looked back at Sophie. She and the dog had folded up into the mirror position again.
I breathed. Even though this wasn’t going to buy us much time.
See, that’s always the thing. While you’re breathing and being all happy that the whole house didn’t come falling down, you know there’s another card drop coming right up. It’s not about gaining much. It’s just about gaining. It’s always about not losing everything in the exact moment you’re in.
I got up and wandered over to the fence, the longish grass feeling funny and tickly between my toes. I was thinking maybe I should offer to cut the grass for Aunt Violet. Make myself as useful as possible.
I stood over Sophie.
“What’s up with this, Sophie?” I asked her. “You don’t even like dogs.”
“Hem,” she said.
Which is really… I don’t know how to say it. A word from Sophie is like…mark this day on your calendar.
“I’ll be damned.”
Then it hit me that this was the quietest, best day I’d had with Sophie in years. Why in God’s name was I trying to talk her out of it?
Whatever “it” was.
My best day lasted until twenty-five after five, and then I had to pay double for the peace and quiet. I happened to know the time because I went into the kitchen to check, because I was thinking it was about time for my mom to be home. I didn’t know if it was good news or bad news that it was taking her so long.
Just as I was coming back out, the dog suddenly stood up. He stayed close to the fence, but he was looking out toward the street. Sophie stood up, too.
I couldn’t hear anything, but I could definitely sense that my vacation was about to be over. I’m not sure how much vacation I’d thought I could expect, or why.
Then I heard a car door slam. It sounded far away. But the dog started wagging that huge, strong tail. He was still right up by the fence, right near Sophie, so his tail slapped the chain links hard on every wag, and the whole fence rang like an out-of-tune bell. Sophie started jumping up and down. Which I thought was interesting. I mean, clearly, she was imitating the dog, so I half expected her to wag her butt around or something. Instead, she jumped up and down like she was all excited, which made me think it was the inside of the dog she was imitating. Which seemed a little bit like knowing what somebody else was feeling, which I think is like what the doctors kept calling empathy. Which I think we all thought was something Sophie couldn’t do.
A minute or so later, the side door opened on the house next door, and a man stood in the open doorway. He seemed shocked to see me. Which was weird in a way, because I was in Aunt Violet’s yard, not his, and I couldn’t figure out why he was looking at me like he’d suddenly found me in his living room. Our eyes locked for a minute, and then I looked away.
He was an old guy. Not old like bent-over old. He was tall and kind of reedy thin, and he looked like he was in good enough shape and all. But his hair was mostly gray, and he had a hint of five o’clock shadow, just enough that I could see his beard would be white if he ever let it grow out. He was wearing a nice gray suit, with a light blue dress shirt and a striped dark blue tie, but it was loosened. The top button of his shirt was undone, and the tie was pulled out. To give him more room to breathe, I guess.
He stared at me for another minute, and then he looked at his dog. He got this puzzled look on his face, and I could tell, just from that look, that it was weird for his dog to still be over by the fence. The dog was slapping his tail against the fence like crazy now, but I could see that wasn’t enough.
“Rigby,” the man said.
He didn’t yell it or even call it out, really. He just said it, like you’d say any word in a sentence.
That broke the spell, and the dog ran to the man and sat in front of him, tail swinging. And he raised his face up almost pretty close to the man’s face, because he was honestly big enough to do that.
And, of course, by this time, Sophie’s siren had gone off.
The guy looked around, but not really at us. I don’t think he’d even noticed Sophie yet. If he had, he didn’t let on. I don’t think he imagined that a sound like that could come out of a small person. Most people don’t. He looked around some more, like he was about to see an ambulance or a fire truck coming up the street. He even looked up, like it might be something overhead, but I have no idea what. Then he looked down, and his eyes locked on Sophie.
Wait.
I could see his face twist up a little. Like he could stand the noise better if it was coming from a what, not a who. People are like that. They figure a machine or a siren doesn’t know any better, can’t help the sound it makes. Once they know it’s Sophie, they want it to stop.
The moment dragged out. Just long enough to make my face feel cold. Then he turned on his heel and went back into the house, Rigby following with his tail still swinging. The door slammed shut.
I got up and went inside the house, leaving Sophie alone for just a minute, to get Aunt Vi ready for what we were all about to go through. It was actually pretty okay to leave Sophie, because she wasn’t going to be doing anything except exactly what she was doing already. For just about… ever.
I found Aunt Vi in bed, a feather pillow over her ears.
I touched her shoulder, and she jumped a mile. Then she sat up straight and looked at me with this look of utter misery on her face, and I felt bad for her. I did. I would have taken Sophie and gone away and left her alone if we had one other place in the world we could go.
I took two earplugs out of my shirt pocket and held them out to her.
“They work,” I said. “Really. Not like there’s no noise at all, but they make it sound so far away, it hardly matters. You have to knead them around in your fingers till they’re soft and then make them back into a bullet and press them in till it seals. You’ll be surprised.”
She took them off my hand and smiled weakly.
“Thank you, darling,” she said.
Then I got up and left, because I pretty much knew she’d be happier alone with her misery. I was that same way, so I understood.
I went back outside and sat on the lounge near Sophie and softened up my own earplugs. I had one in place when the side door of the man’s house opened again, and he looked out. Looked at me. Then at Sophie.
Just when I was wondering how long he could stand there and stare, he walked over to the fence, Rigby wagging at his heels. Sophie’s siren wound down as they got closer to the fence.
He’d changed into a black sweater, but he still had his fancy suit pants on. And shiny black leather shoes.
He stood there looking down on Sophie, who was quiet now. Rigby had come right up to the fence and was sitting with his head stretched out, just inches on the other side of the fence, and Sophie had her hands wrapped in the chain link, her face as close to the dog’s as she could get it.
The man looked at me again, and I looked away. Something about the way he stared. I didn’t like it, and I couldn’t hold it long. There was a harshness to it. Like he expected something and was trying to pull it right out of me.
“She stopped,” he said.
He had the voice I would have expected from him. Sharp-edged. A little hard. Almost cr
itical.
“Yes, sir. She did.”
“Will she stay stopped?”
“Only till you go back in.”
I got up and walked over to the fence, even though I didn’t really want to go closer to him. But I didn’t want Aunt Vi to hear that we were having trouble with one of her neighbors. Already.
I took two more earplugs out of my pocket and held them out toward the fence. “These help a lot,” I said.
He stared at them a long time. Like they were some kind of math equation. Maybe one that was just beyond his skills in math.
“They’re earplugs,” I said, to try to break us through to a new moment.
“I know what they are.”
“You want to know why she’s doing that.”
“You’re getting warmer.”
“She likes your dog.” That just sat in the air for a moment, like nobody knew quite what to do with it. I guess if you didn’t know Sophie, that didn’t answer every question that was hanging around by then. “She’s been sitting with your dog all day, and she got upset because he went in.”
“She,” he said.
“Oh. It’s a girl dog.”
“Yes. She’s female.”
“My sister got upset because she—your dog—went back in the house with you.”
“And she makes that noise whenever she’s upset?”
“Pretty much. Yeah.”
Then he got that look on his face that people always get. Like Sophie ought to know better. Like she ought to do better. And it makes me mad, because they don’t know. They shouldn’t be judging her if they don’t know.
“I don’t suppose your dog could stay out awhile.”
He shot his gaze back up to me, and it burned. It was the same look, but this time for me. Like I should know better. Like I should do better.
“I work hard,” he said. “Every day. And I hate every minute of it. All I want to do at the end of the day is come home and see my dog and watch the evening news in peace and quiet and have something to eat. Is that asking too much?”
“No, sir. I don’t suppose it is.”
It was more than he was going to get, though.
“But she’ll start again the minute I do.”
“Yes, sir. I expect she will.”
“And you can’t stop her.”
“No, sir. Nobody and nothing can stop her.”
“So when does she stop on her own?”
“She can generally go about two hours before she loses her voice. Then all she can do is whisper and squeak for a couple of days. That gives us all a break.”
He looked into my eyes for a minute. Like he was desperate to find the place where I was only joking. Then he looked down at Sophie with this look of total contempt. Like she was the lowest life form on Earth. My face started to burn, and I knew this time I was going to say something. Whether I humiliated myself by crying or not.
Before I could open my mouth to do it, though, he turned to go back in. And Sophie started up shrieking again.
“She’s not a brat,” I said. Nice and loud, so he could hear me over the noise.
But he didn’t hear. He cupped one hand behind his ear to tell me he didn’t. Then he came back to the fence, and Sophie wound down. I could feel it in my gut. Or the lack of it, I guess I should say. Like something nasty had been vibrating around in there, and it felt so good when it stopped.
“What did you say to me?” he asked, which made it much harder to speak my mind.
I did, anyway.
“She’s not a brat.”
“Funny, because she acts like one.”
A few tears leaked out, but I couldn’t let myself care. Well. I couldn’t not care. But I could not stop.
I looked right into his face, tears or no.
“I’m sick and tired of people treating her like we don’t raise her right or something. My mom raised me, and I turned out fine. Sophie’s different. Her brain is different. It’s like a kind of autism. I mean, it’s like autism in most ways, and not like it in other ways. It’s what they call the Autism Spectrum. The doctors still don’t really understand her, but she can’t help it, and we can’t help it, and you don’t know us, so you shouldn’t judge what you don’t know a damn thing about.”
By now, the tears had broken free, and there was no hiding them. I actually felt one slide down my cheek. Which was total humiliation, but what was I supposed to do? I wiped it off hard and fast with the back of my hand.
He just looked at me for a long time. Well. A few seconds. It felt long.
“You’re right,” he said. “Please accept my apology.”
Then he turned to go back in the house. The dog stuck for just a second, close to the fence. Close to Sophie. But then the man turned around and made eye contact with her, and she picked him. Which I guess it was her job to do. I thought it was kind of remarkable that she hadn’t all along.
The siren started up again.
The guy stopped on his side porch and gave me one long, unhappy look over his shoulder. I could see it all drain away—all his hopes for that quiet dinner in front of the news. I could just look at his face and see him get it. That it was never going to happen. That even that simple dream was gone.
I held the earplugs out again.
At first, he just teetered there. Like the whole decision was just too pathetic. But after a time, he came back to the fence to get them. And… this was weird, I thought… the dog just sat there on the steps by the door and waited. Like she was smart enough to know that going over to the fence for just a few seconds might only make things worse.
I reached the two little dark blue bullets through the fence on the tips of my fingers. Dropped them into his waiting hand. He had big hands, but smooth, like he’d never dug a hole or built a fence in his life. Probably he hadn’t. Not in that nice suit.
“Thank you,” he said, kind of shouting to be heard over the siren.
Then he shook his head and walked back inside.
I wasn’t wearing a watch, but I think it was about forty-five very screechy minutes later when the police showed up. I didn’t hear them pull up and park, or knock on the door, or ring the bell, or whatever they did. Of course, I had my earplugs in, and I was still out back with Sophie, who was still keening, and if I was going to hear anything, it was only going to be that. I was daydreaming, and my head was a hundred miles away, but I don’t remember where. Then I saw a movement from the corner of my eye, and it was Aunt Vi coming out into the backyard with two policemen. Well, actually, one policeman and one policewoman.
I sat up very straight, this cold feeling in my gut, and I pulled out the earplugs as fast as I could.
“They got a report about the noise,” Aunt Violet said, yelling to be heard over Sophie’s wail. I’d never seen Aunt Vi—or anybody else, for that matter—look so completely defeated and humiliated. And I’d seen some stuff.
“I’m sorry,” I shouted. Knowing it wasn’t enough, but not having much else in the way of ammunition.
The two cops looked at Sophie and then at each other.
“The neighbor who called it in thought it was an animal in distress,” the man cop yelled out.
Then I got mad, because that damn guy next door knew damn well it wasn’t an animal, and he knew damn well we weren’t abusing her. That was a scummy thing for him to do, I thought.
“You can see we’re not hurting her in any way,” Aunt Violet shouted.
The woman cop yelled, “What did you say her diagnosis was again?”
“A.S.D.,” I said. And then had to repeat it, louder.
“Which is…?”
“Autism Spectrum Disorder.”
“So she’s autistic?”
“Yes, ma’am. More or less. There are a lot of different ways that can go, and she’s one of them. She’s upset because she likes the neighbor’s dog, and he took the dog inside. I was doing my best to keep her happy, I swear.”
The cops looked at each other again. Definitely havi
ng some kind of a conversation with their eyes. I was right there watching, but I couldn’t quite read it. But I didn’t like the feeling.
“There’s nothing you can do to stop her?” the lady cop called.
“No, ma’am. I swear, I would if I could. I’m sorry. She just has to wear herself down.”
Another of those looks.
“Can you at least get her in the house? Give the neighbors that much of a break?”
I cut my eyes over to Aunt Vi. I’d purposely been staying outside with Sophie to give her ears a break. But she flipped her head toward the house. And that was one silent conversation I understood. Get her in, for God’s sake, she was saying.
I stood up straight. Locked down the thoughts in my head. Braced myself.
“Can you… help me? By holding her feet? Otherwise, she’ll kick the—she’ll kick me really hard. She doesn’t mean to hurt me. It’s just the way she’s wired.”
The man cop opened his mouth to say no. He got partway through it. “We’re not supposed—”
“I’ll help,” the woman said.
We stood over Sophie, and I took a deep breath and then just grabbed her up in a bear hug, pinning her arms to her sides. I kept my hands pretty low, toward her waist, in case she tried to bite. The lady cop grabbed her bare ankles, but Sophie pulled them right away again and got me a good shot in the right thigh, and then the lady grabbed on and held tighter this time. Now that she knew what she was up against.
I made a rookie mistake, though. And I of all people should’ve known better. I was holding her up too high, so her head was almost as high as mine, so that if she threw her head back…
Just as I had the thought, she bucked hard, trying to straighten out, and her head came back and hit me, slamming my lower lip against my teeth. Enough to really stun me.
The lady cop’s head came up. “You okay?”
I just gave her this desperate point toward the house with my head, because all I wanted was to get in, so that this could be over. We moved fast across the grass and up the three little concrete steps into the kitchen. Aunt Vi slammed the door behind all of us, and I set Sophie down on the linoleum as gently as I could.
Where We Belong Page 2
