Nancy followed the others into the club, taking in the colourful surroundings as she did. It was very bright and busy, and she didn’t have to look at Jack to know that his little heart would be racing. Toys were strewn about all over the floor and the volume levels were loud. Nancy had no idea how these women worked in it every day. She could almost feel the clock ticking, waiting for a reaction from Jack. She had that awful sick feeling in her stomach, the feeling when you just know something is coming and the anticipation of waiting for it makes you feel queasy. She had the urge to turn around and march out of there with Jack, but her head was screaming at her to just try. How was Jack ever going to move forward if she kept stifling him and wrapping him in cotton wool? How was he ever going to learn to cope if she always managed situations for him? She needed to let him at least try these things, but she really struggled with the knowledge that she felt like she knew it would end badly anyway. She didn’t know what the answer was, what the right thing to do was. She tried to not let the angst show on her face and turned to Jack, plastering on a smile.
‘Isn’t this lovely, look at all the toys to play with!’ His little face looked terrified and pale, and she could see the little white marks on his knuckles as he clutched the iPad to his chest, headphones still on but she knew there was no sound – it was just the comfort of the pressure on his ears.
Harriet came over to where Nancy and Jack were standing, a huge smile spread across her face as she adjusted her sunglasses on her head. ‘Right, Tommy’s in the baby room and Isla has run off already to draw her goat – you ready?’
Nancy looked back to Jack and then to her friend. ‘I’m not sure Jack is going to stay.’ She couldn’t shake off the unease but equally, Harriet was the one paying for her holiday and she felt pressured to make sure Harriet had a good time – and her ideal day didn’t involve having Jack tag along with them.
‘What?’ Harriet knelt down to Jack’s level. ‘What’s up, little man? Don’t you want to play with all these amazing toys?’
Jack shook his head.
‘You’ll make some friends and have such a good time.’
Nancy knew how wrong this statement was. The reality was, Jack wouldn’t be playing with these children. He would, most probably, be sitting with his iPad, stressed, counting the minutes until Nancy returned. He would hate the other children screaming and shouting, he would feel out of place and he would struggle with communicating with the staff, too. The more she thought about it, the more ludicrous this seemed, and Nancy was surprised that she had even entertained the idea of kids’ club for Jack. Jack was different, she knew that, and it was times like this that she found herself overwhelmed with feelings of helplessness and sadness. As his mother, she so desperately wanted to make it all better and take away the sad feelings for him, but she couldn’t. As a parent, that felt devastating. If she truly thought about it, she knew deep down that Jack wouldn’t cope here. Now she just needed to work out a way of telling Hari without letting her down.
‘You can do some painting or play some games and Mummy and I will be back in a few hours.’
Jack noticeably tensed up and grabbed onto Nancy’s skirt, gripping it hard enough that his knuckles returned to their white colour. Nancy crouched down as Harriet stood.
‘Do you not want to try, sweetheart?’ The words had no conviction; she had already known they were leaving. She said the words to show Hari she was trying, to lessen the blow of potentially ruining her idea of a perfect afternoon without the children.
‘It’s too noisy – I don’t like it.’
He looked like he was going to cry and Nancy’s heart broke. Whilst she was getting used to the fact that he now had an autism diagnosis, sometimes it was still really hard to accept that he was different to other children. Harriet’s children had strolled straight in without a care in the world – she had it so easy. Nancy had to second guess everything. She could never just leave anything to chance, she always needed a plan B (and often a plan C and D too). When Jack was born she’d prided herself on taking to motherhood really well but then as the years went on, her parenting technique suffered, and she went into survival mode. Some weeks were better than others and now that Jack was seven, there were certain elements that they had under control and Nancy was proud of herself for getting to that stage with these parts of his personality – but they still had a long way to go. Pete leaving was the spanner in the works that she just didn’t need. She was determined to show him that she was doing fine without him, but it was hard, and she struggled, a lot. Every day was a new learning curve for her and Jack and she quite often went from feeling like an amazing mother who managed to gain little victories with Jack, to feeling inadequate, unprepared and a failure.
She stood up. ‘Looks like we have company today then.’ She didn’t miss the flicker of disappointment on her friend’s face and it was like a punch to the stomach. What was she supposed to do? Jack was always going to come first in anything Nancy did but she really resented this when it affected those around her. And this happened more often than people thought. She had lost friends in the past because she wasn’t able to stick to play dates or when she did go, it ended in disaster. It started by those around her giving her space when Jack was uneasy and ended with her just not being invited out at all anymore. She still occasionally spoke to these mums, but they weren’t her friends and they never included her in their get-togethers. Now here she was again, potentially messing up another friendship. She had known Harriet so long, she didn’t think she was so fickle as to let this affect their friendship, but the disappointed flicker in her friend’s eyes was enough to make Nancy feel really shit. Her life was led by Jack and his behaviour and even though she knew he couldn’t help it, it was a tough pill to swallow.
Harriet quickly covered her disappointment and replied, ‘No worries. Let’s go.’
The girls made their way back to the entrance and as they exited through the doors, the smiling lady caught them.
‘Oh, are you not staying with us, little man?’
Jack hid further into Nancy’s skirt. ‘He’s not feeling very confident today, so I think we’ll try again another day.’ She smiled and tried to continue walking but the woman crouched down to his level.
‘We have lots of games and toys to play with and all the ladies are very lovely – you’ll have a great time.’
Jack’s hands becoming increasingly whiter as he gripped Nancy’s skirt. He had started to rock slightly too. It wasn’t noticeable enough for anyone else to spot it, but Nancy knew he was incredibly anxious right now. She needed to get him away from this situation to a place where he could relax. She reached into her bags to retrieve his Calm Cards. A while back Nancy and Jack had spent an afternoon finding pictures of all Jack’s favourite things and they’d printed them off and laminated them, so that whenever he was feeling anxious, he could take some time out to look at his cards and get into a better headspace. So far, they had been a hit. He had pictures of him and Nancy, pictures of buildings he had visited and landmarks from all over the world. Jack loved architecture so looking at structural pictures was calming for him. She rummaged around in her bag and after a moment felt the disappointment settle as she realised she must’ve left them up in the room. She cursed herself – she never usually went anywhere without them. The tension was building and she could feel her temples pulsating.
‘I think it’s probably best if we try another day.’
But the woman just wasn’t giving up.
‘I know, why don’t you give it a try for just an hour and then if you don’t like it, we can call Mummy? How’s that sound?’ And then she did the one thing she shouldn’t have done.
She took his headphones off.