Overheard in a Dream

“Yes, that’s a horse,” James replied.

“Whirrrr, whirrrr.” Conor stood the small plastic animal up on the table. He reached into the basket and drew out another animal. “Elephant?”

“Yes, that’s an elephant.”

“Whirrrr, whirrrr. Pig?” he said, taking out the next animal.

Conor didn’t look over as he did this. He didn’t encourage the slightest amount of eye contact. James was interpreting Conor’s behaviour as an attempt to interact, but it may not have been. If James wasn’t fast enough responding, Conor would quickly move on to the next animal. It could be simply the self-referencing play so typical of autistic children.

The next animal out of the basket was one that James himself wasn’t all that sure about. A wildebeest or something else equally odd to be in a child’s play set. Conor looked at it and perplexity pinched his features. “Cow?” he asked and his high-pitched tone betrayed a genuine question.

“You’ve found a cow,” James replied, reflecting back Conor’s words to indicate he was listening. Whatever the creature was, it was undeniably cow-like so James was comfortable with calling it a cow.

“Ehhh,” the boy muttered under his breath. “Ehhh-ehhh-ehhh-ehhh!” Then his fingers abruptly splayed wide and the plastic animal clattered to the table top as if it had become too hot to hold. Snatching up the stuffed cat, Conor clutched it tightly. “Ehhh-ehhh-ehhh-ehhh! Ehhh-ehhh-ehhh-ehhh!”

James could see the boy was becoming agitated. “Ehhh-ehhh-ehhh-ehhh,” he kept repeating, like an engine that refused to catch. He started to tremble. His pale skin and colourless hair gave him a naked vulnerability that made James think of newly hatched birds, owlets and eaglets, almost grotesque in their nakedness.

“You didn’t like it when I said that,” James ventured. “Are you worried that it may not be a cow?”

“Ehhh-ehhh-ehhh-ehhh.”

“You want to know precisely what that animal is. You don’t like not knowing,” he interpreted.

“Ehhh-ehhh-ehhh-ehhh! Ehhh-ehhh-ehhh-ehhh!” Conor sputtered frantically. Bringing up the stuffed cat, he pressed it over his eyes. “Meow? Meow?”

James picked up the plastic animal and examined it. “Perhaps it’s a wildebeest. Or a yak. No, I don’t think it’s a yak. They have lots of hair. Perhaps it’s an auroch. That’s a kind of wild cow.”

Without warning Conor took the cat by its hind leg and swung it like a weapon in a broad arc that cleared the table entirely. All the plastic animals went flying, as did James’s notebook. Making a shrill, piercing noise that caused the inner parts of James’s ears to vibrate, Connor screamed. His complexion went from white to red to a deep blotched colour like clotted blood in milk. He slid off the chair onto the floor and pressed the cat over his eyes.

Emotional upset was an expected part of play therapy and as long as the child was not hurting himself in any way, James found the best response was to remain in his chair, calm and composed, to show things were still in control and then endeavour to put words to the child’s inarticulate distress.

“You’re feeling very frightened,” he said quietly as Conor lay on the floor and howled. “You feel so scared you want to scream and cry.”

His words seemed to upset Conor more, because the boy began to shriek even louder.

“In here, it’s all right to scream, if that’s what you need to do,” James said. “No one will be angry. No one will be upset. It’s safe to cry in here. Nothing bad will happen.”

Minutes ticked by. Still Conor thrashed and shrieked. Temper? James wondered. He didn’t think so. There hadn’t been any precipitating event that he could discern. Panic? Just plain terror at a world full of things the boy didn’t know? Or frustration, perhaps, at his wordlessness?

Conor grew hoarse. Pulling himself into a foetal position, knees up, head down, arms around his legs, the stuffed cat tucked in against his heart, Conor at last fell into hiccupping silence.

Several more minutes passed with James still sitting quietly at the table and the boy curled up on the floor. Then finally Conor struggled slowly to his feet. Carefully he checked the status of his four strings and adjusted them at his waist, then he looked over at James, staring him straight in the eye. Tears were still wet over his cheeks and snot ran onto his upper lip. In an unexpectedly normal, boy-like gesture, Conor raised his free arm and wiped his nose on his sleeve.

“Here,” James said, getting a box of tissues. “Would you like one of these?”

Suspiciously, Conor regarded the box.

James pulled out a tissue and lay it on the table near where Conor was standing.

For a long moment Conor simply regarded it, his brow furrowing as if it were a mysterious object. Then he reached out for it. With great care he began to smooth the tissue out flat on the tabletop, a difficult task given that he was still clutching the stuffed cat against him with the other hand.

“York?” Conor said unexpectedly. Reaching down on the floor, he picked up the small plastic cow-like animal. He examined it carefully. “Yes,” he whispered. “Yes, the cat says yes.” He nodded. “York.”

“You mean ‘auroch’?” James ventured.

“Yeah,” the boy responded in his typical high-pitched singsong voice. He didn’t lift his head to acknowledge James had spoken. “York. Ee-york.”

“Aur-och,” James murmured.

“Oar-ock. Auroch. Yes. The cat says yes. An auroch. A wild cow.” The words were spoken very deliberately, as if they took effort. He set the plastic animal on the table. “The cat knows.”

James felt excited. They had communicated. In his mind’s eye he saw himself as one of those scientists who operated the big satellite dishes that listened for signs of alien life in outer space, that were alert for the slightest variant crackle that might indicate conscious intelligence. You heard it and that was enough to go on, to keep up the belief it existed. The slightest crackle, the smallest sign.

Chapter Four

From the moment James saw Mikey emerging from the skyway wearing only his underpants, he knew things weren’t getting off on the right foot. Becky came mincing along behind in that way she had when she found her brother totally disgusting. Then she saw James and virtually bowled Mikey over in her excitement to reach him. “Daddy!” she cried and threw herself into his arms.

James scooped his eight-year-old daughter up into a bear hug.

“Guess what?” she said gleefully. “Mikey threw up. That’s how come he’s got no clothes on. Look. He got throw-up on my dress.”

“Hey, Michael, buddy, what happened to you? Too many yummy airplane meals?” James endeavoured to lift both children at once which made them squeal.

“He had too many M&Ms,” Becky replied. “Because Mum bought the bag for both of us, but then I went to the bathroom and Mikey pigged down practically all of them while I was gone. So it’s his own fault. I don’t feel sorry for him.”

“You should, you little monster,” James said playfully and smooched her on the nose. “He’s your brother, no matter what.” Then he whisked Mikey up in his arms again. “I bet you threw up polka dots, huh, if it was M&Ms?” Mikey giggled. “Your mum should know better than to give you a whole bag of candy.”

“I’ve got a surprise for you,” James said, as he collected their bags and headed for the car.

“What is it?” Becky asked as they left the terminal building.

“Just wait and see. Out here. In the car park.”

“A pony?” Becky asked hopefully.

James laughed and ruffled her hair. “No, silly, I wouldn’t come to pick you up riding a pony, would I?”

“Uncle Joey says everybody rides horses out here.”

“No, look at Daddy’s cool car!” James pointed to the copper-coloured ’71 Ford Mustang convertible. “Isn’t that beautiful?”

Sandy had kept the Range Rover because it was a safe car for the kids. James drove out to South Dakota in a clapped-out Ford Taurus his brother Jack had picked up off eBay. Buying the convertible with its over-sized, futuristic bonnet and powerful Boss 429 engine was James’s first acknowledgement that his old life was over.

Becky wasn’t quite so impressed. “It’s just a car,” she said with disappointment.

“It’s a classic car.”

“It’s an old car,” she replied disdainfully. “It’s a cool car. For cool people. Like us, huh, Mike? What do you think? Does your dad drive a cool car or what?”

“Yeah, I like it,” he said and ran his hand along the fender.

Becky peered through the window as James put the suitcase in the boot. “The back seat’s really little. I don’t see how you get in. There’s no back doors.”

“Here. You open the front door, then press the lever down on the back of the front seat and tip it forward, like this.”

“It’s kind of stinky in here. Like somebody smoked.”

“That was a long time ago, so don’t worry about it. Just get in. You too, Mike. And fasten your seat belts.”

“Where’s your other car?” she asked. “The real one.”

“If you mean the Jeep, that one isn’t actually mine. It belongs to Uncle Lars. Usually when you visit, we trade. He takes this car, because yes, you’re right, there isn’t really lots of room for getting in and out. But Uncle Lars is hunting elk this weekend, so he needed to use the Jeep himself because it has four-wheel drive. Anyway, this car’s way nicer. You’ll see. If the weather stays nice, I’ll put the top down. You’ll love it then.”

“Daddy?” Mikey asked. “Is Uncle Lars our real uncle?”

“He’s not an uncle by blood. Uncle Lars is my partner in the practice. But he and Aunt Betty are Daddy’s good friends and they always remember you in nice ways, so we make them honorary members of the family.”

“Yeah, we got another uncle like that,” Mikey replied. “His name’s Uncle Joey.”

“Yes, the guy who thinks we all ride horses out here. So who’s he?”

“Well, basically he’s Mum’s boyfriend,” Becky replied.

“Then he’s not your uncle,” James muttered irritably.

“Mum said we should call him that. Probably just ’cause like with you and Uncle Lars, he’s her good friend,” Becky said.

“Uncle Jack’s your uncle back there. He’s your real uncle. And I’m your real dad.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Yes, well, be sure to remember it.”

James missed the kids so much that it had become easy to want the visits to be perfect, to cram in all the treats and fun he missed sharing with them on a day-to-day basis. Anyway, a little spoiling never hurt.

Their new family tradition had become a trip to Toys ’R’ Us for a shopping spree on the day Mikey and Becky arrived. It always started with James playfully exclaiming that because they were not with him all the time, he “didn’t have enough toys at his house” and they needed to “get something to play with” while they were there. This always generated squeals of excitement and a pleasurable orgy of toy shopping.

Before going to Toys ’R’ Us, James first stopped off at the house to take the suitcase inside. It was at that point Mikey vomited all over the kitchen floor.

“I wonder if he’s got stomach flu,” Becky said.

“Let’s hope not,” James replied as he filled a bucket with water and disinfectant.

“Let’s hope I don’t get it,” Becky said. It sounded like a threat.

Mikey wasn’t well at all. Clutching a plastic dishpan, he lay down on the couch in front of the TV.

Becky, tired from the long journey and miserably disappointed at this turn of events, started to moan. She didn’t like what Mikey was watching on TV. She didn’t want to be around him because he was sick. There weren’t any good DVDs to watch. The clothes in her suitcase were all wrinkled. She’d forgotten to pack her hairbrush. Most of all, however, she moaned about not going to Toys ’R’ Us. She wanted to go. Now! Desperately. Please couldn’t they go? Why couldn’t Mikey just walk around for a little while?

James gently explained that Mikey was too sick at the moment to be taken out.

Becky wasn’t in the mood to be understanding, wailing what was the point of coming all this way when there was no trip to Toys ’R’ Us?

“I hope there are other reasons for coming besides toys,” James said, feeling a bit hurt.

“This is the worst visit in the world,” she exclaimed, adding “I wish I was home” as she stomped off.

Things went from bad to worse overnight. Mikey continued to vomit, and James was up and down all night comforting him. He came out bleary-eyed into the kitchen to find Becky spooning sugar into her Coco Pops.

“Hey, not the whole bowl,” he said

“I wish you had a parrot, Dad,” Becky replied brightly.

“A parrot?”

“Uncle Joey’s got a parrot. His name is Harry and he can say 23 words. I wish you had one, so I could talk to it.”

“I don’t have one because parrots really shouldn’t be kept in captivity. They’re too intelligent. They need lots of stimulation. It’s cruel to keep them as pets.”

“Guess what else Uncle Joey has?” she said. “A house out on Long Island right on the beach. He’s going to take me and Mikey and Mum out there on the weekends when it’s summer.”

“Lucky you,” James replied.

“Know what he got me? That Barbie horse that I’ve been wanting so bad.”

“Becky, I got you the Barbie horse.”

“No, not that one. That’s the old kind. Uncle Joey got me the one that has legs you can bend so that you can pose it like it’s really walking. And guess what else? He got me the carriage that goes with it too and I didn’t even ask for it.”

“What’s Joey do to afford all this loot? Rob banks?”

Becky laughed. “No, silly. He’s a lawyer.”

“Pretty much the same thing.”

Mid-afternoon and Mikey was still vomiting, so James packed up Becky, Mikey and the dishpan into the Mustang and headed for the walk-in clinic.

During the interminable wait to see a doctor, Mikey staged a sufficient recovery to want a Coke out of the vending machine. It took two hours, a blood test and most of James’s patience to learn that Mikey had “just one of those things kids get”. Mikey sipped the rest of his Coke and looked generally pleased with himself.

“If Mikey’s feeling better, can we go to Toys ’R’ Us now?” Becky asked.

“That’s clear on the other side of town and it’s practically dinnertime. I think what we really need is a decent meal.”

“I want to go to McDonald’s. They have a playground.”

“No, we need something healthy. What about that Italian deli that does take-out? We could pick up some of their lasagna and take it home. You loved that last time, remember? You can help me pick out a salad.”

By the time they got to the deli, Mikey wasn’t feeling so hot any more. He didn’t want to go in and smell food.

“Okay, look, here’s what we do,” James said. “I’m going to park here by the window where I can see you the whole time. Becks and I are going to pop in and get our food, and we’ll be right back. You lock the door while we’re gone. We’ll be just in there.”

The deli was unexpectedly busy. James wasn’t focusing on anything other than getting through the mob of people to place his order, so he jumped at the tap on his shoulder and someone saying hello. He turned.

There in the other queue stood Laura Deighton.

“Mummy, look at this,” a small voice called. “Can we get some of these?”

“Bring it here so I can see it, Morgana,” Laura said.

James looked over. Morgana? Conor’s sister? He gaped in astonishment. She was everything Conor was not: a sturdy, athletic child with enormous brown eyes and a tangle of loose, dark curls bouncing down over her shoulders. When she caught James staring, she met him with a bold gaze and broke into a cherubic smile. Yin and yang. That was the first thought to cross James’s mind.

“Is this your daughter?” Laura asked, looking down at Becky. “What a pretty little girl.”

“Yes. Yes, this is Becky. My son’s out in the car. He’s not feeling very well.”

“Sorry to hear that,” Laura said.

“We’ve just popped in to get some decent food so he doesn’t have to smell us cooking,” James said wryly.

“We’ve come in for goodies,” Laura replied. “Alan has Conor tonight, so we’re having a girls’ night out.”

James looked down again at Morgana, who was clutching a bag of amaretti biscuits. She was an astonishingly beautiful child with her vibrant eyes, curly hair and little bow mouth, like one of those idealized children painted on heirloom plates to commemorate a golden era that had never really existed. Beside her, Conor would appear as pale and insubstantial as a ghost.

Becky, ever the social butterfly, was delighted by this unexpected opportunity to make friends. With smiley openness she said hello to Morgana, asked how old she was and within moments the girls had wandered off together to look at displays of cookies on the adjacent shelves while James and Laura waited in the queues.

“It’s great to see you. How are you doing?” Laura said brightly, as though they were old friends.

This took James by surprise because over the weeks he had been seeing Conor, Laura had made herself remarkably scarce. So scarce, in fact, that James had had the distinct feeling she was avoiding him. And while she had agreed to the family therapy format which meant she would have at least three individual sessions herself with James as part of Conor’s treatment, Laura had made no arrangements to follow through on this. As a consequence, James built up an image of her as reclusive, anxious and, most likely, tongue-tied. Now, however, he found her quite the contrary: friendly, relaxed and genuinely interested in the children. She commiserated with James about Mikey’s sickness and his experiences at the walk-in clinic.

James glanced around to see where the two girls had gone.

“They seem to be enjoying each other,” Laura said.

James smiled. “It’ll be the highlight of Becky’s day. She always misses her friends terribly when she’s here.” He craned to see over the low shelves. “Oh good heavens. Hold on a second. They’ve gone out to my car.”

James started for the door but at just that moment the two girls burst back in. “Hey, Daddy!” Becky cried. “Guess what! Mikey’s thrown up everywhere!”

“Shush, shush, not such a loud voice,” James said, catching her by the shoulder.

“He missed the dishpan! It’s all over your car.”

“Oh geez,” James said. “Listen, go tell the man at the counter we can’t wait for the lasagna. Tell him sorry.”

Laura materialized beside him. “Let me help you.” She pulled napkins out of the holder on one of the small tables. “Morgana, you and Becky go in the restroom and bring us some paper towels.”

Becky hadn’t been exaggerating. Mikey had vomited over his clothes, across the console, the gear shift and onto the adjacent seat.

“Hey, fella, you okay?” James asked, reaching in to ruffle his son’s hair, which was just about the only part of him free from vomit.

“Sorry, Daddy,” Mikey whimpered.

“Accidents happen. As long as you’re okay.” Standing in the brisk October dusk, James felt bleak at the prospect of trying to clean up Mikey and the car with a handful of deli napkins.

Laura put a hand on his arm. “Why don’t we just mop things up enough for you to take Mikey home? Becky can come in my car and I’ll follow you. That would be easiest.”

James knew it was a bad idea. As he drove home, he tried to reassure himself that letting Laura do this was not breaking the rules. It was so important that he not make any mistakes this time around. Good boundaries with clients did not include any kind of personal relationships with them. But then he was in a genuinely bad situation. She was simply helping him, like any decent person would. Besides … if he was honest with himself, James had to admit she intrigued him. She wore her fame, her accomplishments so lightly they were almost illusory, as if they were nothing more than stories themselves, and yet there was something also illusory about Laura, the way she could be so friendly, so concerned and willing to help with Mikey and yet eluded James’s efforts to get her in to talk about her own son.

Chapter Five

When they arrived at the apartment, the two girls bounded off together, Becky chattering excitedly about a toy horse she wanted to show Morgana. Laura lifted Mikey out of the car and took him inside while James went in search of cleaning supplies and a rag out of the box at the back of the garage. By the time he came into the apartment, Laura had run a bath and was washing Mikey, as if it were the most natural thing to enter a strange house and bathe a child she’d never met before.

James took over from there. With Mikey finally clean and tucked into bed, he came back into the living room to find Laura, hands sunk deep into the pockets of her jeans, scanning the bookshelves. Embarrassment shot through him. While he owned most of her books, they were all in his office, because the only point of buying them had been so people at work could see he owned them. The novels on these shelves were the sort he actually read – Terry Pratchett, Tom Clancy, Stephen King – relaxing, unpretentious storytelling that you could leave on the back of the toilet or risk dropping in the bath.

“That’s my fun reading,” he said sheepishly.

She smiled enigmatically.

“I do have yours,” he added quickly. “But they’re at the office at the moment. I’m always switching back and forth.”

Her smile eased into a grin and she glanced over. “So does that mean you’ve actually read any of them?”

James felt his cheeks redden. There was an uncomfortable pause and then he admitted, “I wish I could say yes. I intend to. It’s just been very busy since moving out here.”

“At least you’re honest.”

Desperate to move the conversation away from his embarrassing lack of intellectual reading, James said, “Would you like a cup of coffee? Then we can try to pull the girls apart.”

Laura followed him into the kitchen. Hands still deep in her pockets she strolled around the room, studying the kitchen with the same care as she had his bookshelf. The way she circled the room, inspecting everything, reminded James of Conor.

That brought to mind the fact that Laura had not yet mentioned her son. Normally parents he met outside the office pounced on him, anxious to ask how things were going, to tell of their child’s progress or get some free advice. James was grateful, of course, that she hadn’t done any of these things, since it would have been inappropriate to discuss a case outside the privacy of the office, but it was still curious that she never mentioned Conor at all, even casually.

Taking the coffee to the table, James sat down. “I’ve been hoping to see you in the office,” he said.

Laura ignored his comment. She lifted the coffee and sipped it. “Mmmm. Good coffee. Tastes like New York coffee.”

“Can I get Dulcie to give you a call this week and make an appointment?” James asked.

Laura’s brow drew down as she looked into the mug of steaming liquid. A silence developed and several moments slipped by with no response. “I’ve got to admit, I’m not really into that concept,” she said at last.

“Which concept is this?”

“Therapy.”

“Why?” James asked.

Setting the mug down on the table, Laura leaned forward on her forearms and stared into it as if some answer were in there. Finally she smiled at him. “Because everyone’s reality is different.”

That was an unexpected answer. James cocked an eyebrow.

“Therapy, the way I see it, trades on the assumption that ‘normal’ exists and that my perceptions, whatever they might be, should be brought into line with it,” she said. “Whereas I think there is no ‘real world’ out there. No absolute reality. Everything is subjective. So why should I accept what you tell me is reality?”

“That’s an interesting take,” James said. “I get the impression you’re worried your perspective will be overridden or judged as not as good or acceptable as other perspectives. Perhaps you think that a therapist might get in there and try to change perceptions you don’t feel are wrong.” He smiled at her. “But that’s not quite what therapy is. It’s simply about fixing things that don’t work. Just as if your car stopped working. You’d take it to a garage and let a mechanic repair it. You wouldn’t expect him to do stuff you hadn’t wanted done or to customize the car to his liking and not give it back to you. You’d expect him simply to find out what’s wrong and repair it so that you can enjoy your car again. Same here, except that I work with people, not cars. Your relationship with Conor has stopped working. So you’ve brought Conor to see if I can fix that. And because relationships always involve more than one person, I need to see everyone involved to do my job properly. I’m not going to make anyone think or do anything they don’t want to. I’m just going to try and fix what’s broken.”