Work in Progress: Under Any Circumstances

We started calling Will “Charles Wallace” long before he started showing symptoms. Mom’s always been a big fan of Madeleine L’Engle. I don’t think there’s a shelf in the house without one of her books on it. We have to have at least three Wrinkle in Times. Anyway, he gets these lucid moments sometimes. Like this one time, we were at the La Salette shrine, you know, that Catholic place with the great Christmas lights? And Mom comes running up to me crying, holding Will’s hand, and she says he kneeled down at a crèche and said, “Heal me, Jesus.”

And when Grampa Bill died, we had all been expecting it for a while. He’d been in intensive care down in Mississippi for months, drifting in and out. We didn’t talk about it around Will so he wouldn’t get upset. As far as I know, he didn’t even know his grampa was sick. My dad was there in the hospital room when he went. His heart just stopped beating. Considering everything else that was wrong with his body, this was the best way he could have gone. Well, Mom told Will in the morning that Grampa was dead. Will said, “No he’s not.” Not like he was in denial or anything, he wasn’t crying. He just knew.

Will has pervasive developmental disorder. It’s somewhere between Asperger’s and full-on, not-talking autism. Basically, the diagnosis means, “We can’t really do anything about this kid. Take this book and these pamphlets, and good luck finding out what you’re supposed to do with him. You’ll never know what he wants or how he thinks.” They said he wouldn’t be able to read and wouldn’t speak, even if he could.

He showed them. He could read at four. Full sentences, big words, whole books. Of course, all of them were about Thomas the Tank Engine or dinosaurs, but he could read. And talking? The kid never stops! He’s the most social autistic kid I’ve ever met. Charismatic, too. He wants something, you’ll help him get it and you’ll love doing it. He raised five hundred dollars through Christmas money, birthday presents, and general mooching to buy himself a pug.