The Day Grace Found Us.

Between waking and sleep, it’s like pushing a button on a computer; there is a moment where everything is still, loading, turning on. Then, in the next, it’s just all there, I’m awake and running. Everything is the same, every day, like a program; my only goal is to execute life and interact with the world. Nothing I do changes what happens, or at least I don’t think it does. It doesn’t matter. Today is no different.

The bright tinkling of bells from my phone wakes me up at 6:00 am. I can’t afford to hit the snooze today, it’s Monday. The family needs breakfast, something quick, but not cereal again, maybe eggs with toast? That will work. I slip into the shower to rinse off the night’s sweat, and the heat from the shower relaxes my muscles, as I squeeze a generous dollop of citrus body wash onto the neon pink scrub. I huff the acidic scent in an attempt to energize my brain. It never works, even though it claims that citrus essential oils will wake you up and energize you. I wonder yet again if it works for others? Maybe I’ll look it up later.

Keep it simple today, it’s only Monday, yoga pants and a Tee, basic make-up. Hair up in a messy bun, and I’m done. It’s time to wake up, John, but first pop in a coffee pod and have his coffee ready. Can’t have him up on the wrong side of the bed. Next, the kids, Mathew and Alice. Alice has speech and occupational therapy today, so need to make sure Matt has a to go bag packed. Even at 11 he can’t sit still to save his life. Unless of course he has his nose tucked into his phone.

Matt can dress himself, but Alice will need some coaching, or she will wear her pink tee and tutu for the hundredth day in a row. Reminds me, laundry today, or she won’t have her tee to wear, even one day this week. That’s a meltdown I would like to avoid. Maybe I could go online and just order a bunch of the same pink tee, that way she could wear what she wanted, and it would at least be clean. If I did that, I wonder if I should just go whole hog and get the tutu and leggings as well? A chuckle escapes my lips, and I shake my head. John would never let me spend the money, even if I got it on a discount. Plus, he never liked the idea of Alice wearing the tutu and shirt. I can practically see the eye roll and frown he would wear every time he saw it.

“Didn’t we buy her new clothes? Doesn’t she have something more appropriate to go out in?” he would say, or something along those lines… He is right, always. Of course, he never has to fight with her to wear something more appropriate to go out in. It seems when he does get her dressed on the weekends, all he has to do is open the drawers and magically an outfit appears on her body. There is no screaming and crying, there is no tiny fists flailing, hitting the same sore spot over and over again. No shrill “Tutu, tutu!” drilled directly into the ear. It doesn’t take him long at all, but for some reason, he just doesn’t have the time to put up with it on the weekdays. He has to rush to work. I wonder if he’ll even want breakfast this morning. It wouldn’t hurt to ask, right?

“Honey, can you dress Alice this morning? I want to make breakfast for everyone.” I ask, no hesitation, pretty clear actually. He’ll get something out of it, maybe he’ll say yes.

Not looking up from where he is concentrating on buttoning up his shirt, “No, I don’t have time. Just feed them cereal or something. I’ll get coffee on the way to the office.” Oh, of course, why did I even bother asking? Although the coffee thing is new. I guess I’ll drink it; those coffee pods aren’t always the cheapest things, and I hate the idea of wasting a ‘good’ cup of coffee. I’ll end up drinking it cold, more likely than not. Sighing, I turn towards Alice’s room. Time to wake the monster.

Record time: 5 minutes. Even better, no crying or hitting this morning. The trade-off? Now she is running full tilt down the hallway, flapping her hands close to her face, vocalizing at the top of her lungs. I wouldn’t call it screaming; she just doesn’t have the volume control, so everything is top volume. If she was quite, I think I would worry. No words this morning, just a jubilant “Aah, Aah.”

My face lights up. Would they cart me off to the psych ward if I ran down the halls, yelling nonsense at the top of my lungs? I give off an indulgent chuckle instead of testing that thought. Mathew bolts out of his room, seeming to time his exit with Alice rushing past his door.

“Hey, no running, Alice! Dad won’t like it!” Matt states, certain that the little girl will listen to him. I don’t know why, but she doesn’t seem to listen to anyone else. Then my face falls, he does have a point. John won’t like it, but he won’t yell at or hit his little angel.

No, he swoops in and picks Alice up, bounces her a couple of times, getting a few giggles from the girl. As I step closer to get to the kitchen, John looks at me. He doesn’t quite scowl, no, that would mar his face. His eyes, though, disappointment shoots out like lasers straight towards me.

“How hard was that, really?” he scoffs lowly. Then he gently shoves Alice into my arms, as he brushes past to the front door.

“John, I—” the words die. Don’t bother, don’t fight it. I know the unspoken rule. He’s right, always. Plus, would he even listen if I told him, for the umpteenth time, that the doctor told me no lifting over 50 pounds? Herniated disc, getting old sucks. The twinge in my back agrees, as I quickly put Alice down. I keep a hold of her hand as I sit her at the kitchen table. I take a quick look at my phone. Yep, just enough time for a bowl of cereal. At least I can add a few strawberries and bananas to the top. Well, Alice doesn’t like them touching her cereal. She’ll eat it dry anyway, with her milk in a sippy cup.

Without being told, Mathew gets the cereal boxes down from the pantry. When did he get to be so tall? He pulls out a bowl for himself and looks over his shoulder at me.

“Sure, I’ll take a bowl too, kiddo,” a brief smile at his helpfulness. Quickly, while Alice is still sitting in her chair, I cross to the fridge. I keep an eye on her as I grab the strawberries from their place.

“Can I have blueberries instead?” Such a polite boy. Why not? I look in the fridge to see if we even have blueberries, and sure enough, we do. I don’t think we have even used them yet. I hope they are still good.

“Rinse them off before eating them.” I put the strawberries back, and grab the blueberries and the milk. I hand the blueberries to Matt and take a quick look at Alice. Still sitting, amazing. I quickly peel a banana and break it up into chunks, placing it on Alice’s table mat. Then I open the box of Cheerios and pour a small heap onto the mat near, but not touching the bananas. I haven’t even gotten her sippy cup yet. The second the box is out of her way, she fists the cereal in both hands, brings it near her forehead, and opens her hands. The cereal rains down and bounces across the table. Some of it lands on the floor, some of it across the table near Matt’s bowl, none of it in her mouth. Well, she won’t be eating Cheerios today. She goes to repeat her experiment on gravity. I quickly sweep the remaining Cheerios into my hands and throw them in the garbage. I turn to pour her some milk when I hear Matt say with disgust,

“Eew, no Alice!”

I quickly turn back. Alice has taken her banana chunks and squeezed them into a puree. She is about to smear them into her hair and on her forehead. I grab a nearby towel, swoop in to wipe her hands down, barely catching her in time to stop the banana from being added to her hair regimen. I wonder, is a banana good for one’s hair? I’ll have to look it up later.

“Ok, Alice, Pediasure it is.”

Down the hill, just across the street. Not really that far away, there is a park. Typical park, short green grass, benches spaced out for sitting near the walking path, and a small playground. Nothing really catches my eye as I barely notice if there are people out and about. Then I see the tree. Silver green leaves that twist in the breeze. It stands tall against the grey background of the sky. It grabs my eyes and holds me. I don’t know why. The next few moments seem to happen in slow motion.

I don’t remember what Mathew was doing, climbing the jungle gym, maybe playing tag. I do remember a group of boys darting about like minnows. Running and screaming through the playground. I remember looking down at my phone, my eye catching a notification. I don’t think it was more than a few seconds, but when I looked up, I realized that I had lost sight of Alice. I didn’t panic at first. Often, she would sit just out of sight to play in, or rather, eat the sand in the little patches of dirt that were scattered around the playground. I was glad that the idea of sandboxes fell out of style. I would have never gotten her out of the sand, and as the saying goes, ‘you are what you eat’. She is my little sand baby.

I circled the playground two or three times. No sign of her signature pink shirt. I started to ask the kids if they had seen a little girl with straight brown hair, pink clothes, and pink Puma tennis shoes. None of the kids seemed to recall her. Then, under the slide, I saw two tiny pink pumas. Damn, she took off her shoes! I crouched down to grab the shoes, of course, knocking my head against the slide on my way back up. I called for Mathew and grabbed his shoulders as soon as he was close.

“We need to find your sister. She ran off, and she isn’t wearing her shoes.” I tell him, while scanning the playground again. I hold on to Mathew for dear life. I don’t know why I didn’t let him look for Alice, but I dragged him along as I started asking the adults standing around the playground. Waving her shoes at people as I describe what she looked like, what she was wearing. Explaining that she was Autistic and non-verbal. I widened my search, going farther from the playground. Calling out her name, which was pointless, because when had she ever responded to her name? I might have had more luck screaming, “No, don’t do that!” as that was the phrase I seemed to say the most around her.

Then Matt pulled on my arm. “Look, I think she’s over there!” I looked out to where he was pointing. Next to the large green silver tree was a little girl all in pink, and a crouched down figure in a purple tank top and olive green Capri’s. Yes! Oh thank God! If I could have flew, I don’t think I would have gotten there any faster. The person sitting next to her was a young woman with dark chocolate skin. The thing that caught my attention was her grass green eyes. So unreal looking to me, but the thing that surprised me the most was the smile that lit them up. She was smiling at my little girl, and Alice was smiling the biggest smile back. I stopped and took it all in. I wanted to savor the moment, like wine, one sip at a time. Mathew slipped from my grasp and stormed up to stand next to Alice.

“This is my sister, Alice. Who are you?” he demanded.

“Well, hello. I’m Grace.” She looked up at me, and I stood there flabbergasted. That smile was on me 100%. It didn’t dim at all when she looked up at me. Grace didn’t seem to waste a moment on judgment, but had decided on the spot that we would be friends.

“This maybe crazy, but I think your mom could use a little pick me up. What about you, do you guys need a snack?” Grace grinned and winked at Mathew. Mathew grinned back, then looked at me. I didn’t know what to do, so I just shrugged and said, “Sure”.

We went down the road, to the local coffee shop. The kids got cake pops, I got a small coffee, Grace got iced coffee. Then Grace paid for it. I realized I hadn’t even thanked her yet for stopping Alice, and here she was buying us drinks and snacks! I felt there must be some catch to this. Was she going to ask us for some money, kill us, hold us for ransom? People just weren’t this nice.

As we were leaving the coffee shop, Grace stopped me. Here it is, she is going to ask for something.

“My brother has Autism. He would run off all the time, when he was younger.” Then the smile was back in her eyes. “Here is my number, I’m more than willing to help anytime.” She handed me a card, waved bye to Matt and Alice. Then she just simply walked off. It was an odd encounter, but I felt good about it. So, much so I had a grin on my face all the way back to my front door. I floated in, ready to end the day on a high note.

John was sitting in the kitchen. The only light on was the small yellow bulb that hung above the sink. We usually used it more for a night light, if we got up to get something in the middle of the night. Maybe John thought it would lend a dramatic flare to his brooding. Since the only sign that he was upset was his wooden face and his arms tightly crossed on his chest. I choose to ignore it. I flipped on the main kitchen light and threw my things down on the table. I kept my grin on my face.

I told Matt, that he and Alice could watch TV, while I cooked dinner. Really, I just knew that any moment John would either explode or just pontificate on why he was wronged. I already knew, we were a little late getting back. Dinner wasn’t cooked and ready for when he got home. Maybe I should have called him letting him know, but I honestly was so taken aback by Grace, that I didn’t even think about calling him.

I would make something easy but crowd pleasing for dinner. I know, chicken with broccoli and rice. As I started to pull everything out of the fridge and freezer, I started talking to fill the silence.

“The craziest thing happened to us while we were at the park today.” No response. I just kept going. “Alice did a runner, with no shoes, and this lady named, Grace…”

“Alice did a runner? Really, Haley? No phone call, your late, and all you can say is Alice did a runner? What were you even doing, that she got away from you? You’re her parent you know she is special, and can’t take care of herself!” When did he get in my face? He is so close that his spit caught me on the cheek. I wipe my face, and take a step back.

“John, It’s not a big deal. I mean it was scary at first, but as I was saying, Grace had stopped Alice for us…”

John stepped in again. His mouth open to continue his tirade. I frowned, and without thinking pushed him back. I don’t know why, but him being so close irritated something in me. I understood him being upset, I did. Yet, I felt that he was being over the top. I didn’t usually act out. I mean John was always right. He wasn’t even necessarily wrong this time either. His face hardened and he grabbed at my shoulders. He shook me, rattling my teeth.

“What is wrong with you?” He spat. I pulled away from his grasp, and pushed him away from me again.

“There is nothing wrong with me. I’m trying to tell you everything worked out! Stop, and listen for once.”

If possible, he face hardened even more. Out of no where, his hand cracked across my face. We both stood still in the sudden silence. Tears started to burn my eyes, but didn’t fall. He didn’t soften, but instead grabbed his coat and keys. He shoved past me and down the hallway. I didn’t turn, and I didn’t try to stop him. Even in silence, he proved himself right. As the front door closed, I turned back to the counter, and started to cook dinner. I knew better. He is right, always, and nothing I did changed that.