Chapter Thirteen
Emmet
I had lied a little to Jeremey when I acted like my parents didn’t care if we lived together as boyfriends. It was true, Mom had found The Roosevelt for me, but she was nervous about me living on my own, even assisted. There were other issues too, and they were about finances. It’s not clear whether or not I quality for SSI, which is Supplemental Security Income provided by the government, and health insurance. My mom has always worked for the State of Iowa so they have to pay for me, and until I’m twenty-one they still have to. But once I’m an adult that changes.
Dad pointed out it wouldn’t hurt to have me try living on my own and start the SSI paperwork for me as an adult. Mom said if living on my own didn’t work, I could go home to their house.
I was going to make living on my own work. And I was going to make it work with Jeremey living with me.
The other tricky issue was that my mom was fine about us living together when she thought we were just friends, but now that she knew we were dating, she said she wasn’t sure.
“It’s not that I don’t think you should be boyfriends,” she said when I started to get angry. “It’s different when you’re dating someone, and I’m not yet convinced you fully understand what dating someone means.”
Yes, I did. “It means you take care of them like friends, but you also have sex with them. Duh.”
Mom got still and quiet, which with her means she’s working not to overreact. “Emmet…have you had sex with Jeremey?”
“How could I? The vent in my room means you hear everything, and his room was too messy until the day his mom got upset, and since then I haven’t been with him except at the hospital. You can’t have sex in a hospital. You get arrested.”
She was still nervous about it, though, so we agreed we’d talk about it with Dr. North.
It had been a long time since Mom and I had gone to therapy together, and this time was a lot nicer than the last time, because she wasn’t crying. But I hadn’t stopped talking for four years either, so I suppose that makes sense.
My dad came too, which he’d never done before, and I was glad he did, since he was one hundred percent on my side.
“Here’s how I see it,” Dad said after Mom had told Dr. North the same things she’d told me about how I don’t understand dating. “Emmet is a lot better put together than most nineteen-year-olds I know. I understand Mari’s reservations, but I know my boy. If he’s made up his mind about this, it’s already as good as done. I’d rather he didn’t move in alone, and I know it’s going to be tough for him to room with anyone. The only person I can possibly see working in that scenario is Jeremey. So what if they might fool around? We raised him right. He knows how to be safe. It’s not as if putting them across the hall from one another is going to change anything. Plus I think the Samson kid could use this almost more than Emmet.”
Mom did not care for that. “Doug, you’re entirely missing the point.”
I wasn’t going to let her undo what Dad had said, because I thought it was the best argument anybody had ever made. “You’re missing the point, Mom. You’re being as bad as Gabrielle.” Mom gasped and made an angry face, but I kept talking. “You always tell me it doesn’t matter that I’m autistic, but now you’re telling me that it does. If I were on the mean and wanted to move in with my boyfriend—”
“If you were on the mean and wanted to move in with your boyfriend, I’d still say no.”
Dad held up a hand, which meant we both should be quiet. “Stop it. Both of you. Emmet, you will respect your mother. She’s not trying to keep you from good things. She’s trying to protect you.”
“Jeremey is a good thing.”
“Yes, but that doesn’t mean you have to live with him, and not this second. I still think it could work, but she’s not saying she’s nervous about it because you’re autistic. In fact it’s exactly the opposite. You’re her little boy, and you’re saying you want to grow up right now. She’s nervous for you, and she’s sad for herself.”
Mom started to cry then after all, the cry where she shuts her eyes and puts her hand over her mouth. Dad put his hand on her back and rubbed small circles and said quiet things to her. I watched, wanting to keep arguing because I wanted them to say I could live in The Roosevelt with Jeremey, but I didn’t want Mom to cry.
Dr. North looked over the top of his glasses at me. “Emmet, tell me why you think you and Jeremey should live in The Roosevelt together. Explain why it’s okay even though you’re in a new relationship. Show me you understand why that element is significant.”
I hummed as I stared at the floor, rocking and flapping gently as I thought. I didn’t understand why that element was significant. Well, I did, but not the way my mom thought it was. She made it sound like a problem. To me, the fact that we were boyfriends made this better. It made me uncertain that I understood that and no one else did. It made me worry that maybe I was wrong, maybe this was a bad idea.
But how could it be a bad idea when it felt like the most important thing in the world?
Dr. North’s quiet voice drifted into my thoughts. “We’ve discussed in sessions with Jeremey how important it is to watch our feelings when we’re in a new relationship. You remember the euphoria?”
I frowned. Yes, I did remember. Was he telling me this was euphoria?
Dr. North is so good, sometimes he can read minds. “I’m not telling you I agree with you or your mother, Emmet. I’m pointing out things you should consider, and urging you to make a logical argument to defend your choice to your parents. Also to yourself.”
It helped, knowing he wasn’t judging me. I shut my eyes and concentrated, rocking and flapping gently as I recalled the conversation we’d had a few days ago, Dr. North and Jeremey and me. About how the endorphins released during a new relationship, friendship or romantic, were the same kind of high as heroin. It makes our brains do crazy things, which is where the phrase crazy in love comes from. Dr. North talked about how we had to be cautious about any decisions we make early on in any relationship, because we’re caught up in the high. Was I caught up in the high? Yes, probably. But it didn’t mean my decisions were all bad. It just meant I had to be extra careful.
I thought about living in The Roosevelt, let the euphoria rise inside me, and then I put it in a box and set it aside so I could rationally analyze the situation. It was such a good choice for both of us. We would have assistance but not babysitting. It was real life but with backup. Like the bumpers in bowling. No bad neighbors—or rather, no neighbors who wouldn’t understand autism. Not far from my parents’ house. We could still walk to Wheatsfield. Even the hospital wasn’t far away. Downtown was close, so was the bus. Everything was good.
So why was my mom nervous? Because of Jeremey and me being boyfriends? I didn’t understand how that could be negative. I opened my eyes and told Dr. North this.
Dr. North turned to Mom. “Well, Marietta? Can you be more clear to Emmet why you think his living with Jeremey might be negative?”
“Yes, I can. Their relationship might not work, and then they’re stuck together.”
“If our relationship didn’t work,” I said, “we would stop being boyfriends and just be roommates, or one of us would move out. But it will work. We’ll work on it every day. The same as facial recognition charts. It’s more homework, is all.”
“What if there’s no space for one of you to move out? We can’t buy an extra apartment in case.”
“If that happened, I’d move home and let Jeremey have it. His home isn’t good, but mine is.” I flapped angrily. “But we’re not breaking up. Stop saying we are.”
“I’m not saying you are. I’m saying you might. You can’t know everything will be okay.”
“I know that. Our house might burn down and I’d lose all my things. They’d burn in the fire and cry. You might die, and then I would cry. But I’m not going to live my life worrying about bad things happening, Mom. You shouldn’t either.”
Mom’s shoulders slumped, and Dad grinned. “Like I said. More put together than most nineteen-year-olds.” He rested his elbows on his knees and looked me in the eye. “Kiddo. I believe you can do this. I think, though, you and Jeremey and everybody’s parents need to meet first, have a big fat family meeting. So your mom feels better. Jeremey might need the meeting too.”
I considered this. “It would be okay if we met with Jeremey, but his parents will be awful.”
My dad smiled his John Belushi smile. “That might help your mom even more.”
It took another week, but the meeting got set up, and in the meantime, we started filling out the application for The Roosevelt—me and Jeremey both. My parents usually do this kind of thing, but I helped because that’s part of Bob’s process of making us independent. It was exciting. I got my own checking account, which I’d never had, and a debit card. Bob’s friend Sally, who is one of the social workers who would live at The Roosevelt with us in the downstairs apartment, showed me how to keep track of my balance. It wasn’t hard, but I didn’t like the paper version, so I showed her the online software I found with an app to use on my phone to enter purchases. It was buggy, though, so I made a new one which worked better and gave it to her. She said I was a genius.
I said “thank you” instead of “I know.” It’s rude to tell people you know you’re smart, I guess, which makes no sense, but Althea said I had to just go along with that one.
It’s hard work to be independent. I had to make a budget in a spreadsheet about how much I would spend and where I would spend it, but the problem is I can’t always know what I’ll need in advance. I had to save money in case I needed something extra, but when I used my savings, I had to decide if the something extra was worth it. Managing my money overwhelmed me. It was so much easier to ask Mom if I could buy something. Sally said it would get easier, but I understood now why everyone was so nervous about me being on my own. I was glad they would only be down the street and Dad would watch my checking account carefully.
But the checkbook wasn’t the hard part about being independent at The Roosevelt. The hard part was Mrs. Samson.
It was good my dad suggested the family meeting, because Jeremey was so worried about telling her that even when Dr. North pointed out we’d all be there with him, he was still nervous. Originally Mom had wanted it to be about discussing us living together, but Dr. North said this needed to be Jeremey’s meeting before it was anything else. The therapy session would be Jeremey, me, Dr. North, my mom and dad, Althea, and the Samsons. Mom said Mrs. Samson was going to feel ganged up on, but Dr. North said better she felt uneasy than Jeremey felt cornered.
Mom also said this still wasn’t a for-sure thing, the two of us living together as boyfriends so quickly, but whenever she said that, Dad winked at me, so I kept my mouth shut. When Dad winks, good things are coming.
Mrs. Samson had a pinched face when we all went into the group therapy room at the hospital. Mr. Samson’s face was hard to read with his mustache and eyebrows, but she looked like the angry pictures and the nervous pictures at the same time. I told this to Mom, and she said this emotion was tension.
We sat in a circle on hard chairs, and I worked not to fidget because my rocking and humming upset the Samsons. Absolutely I didn’t flap. I wasn’t sure I could do eye contact, but I would try. I wanted Jeremey to live with me at The Roosevelt more than I wanted anything else in the world.
Dr. North smiled at everyone and sat with open posture. “Good to see you all here. Thank you for coming. I wanted to go over a few things first, to clarify any misconceptions we might have about the meeting. The first rule is that this is Jeremey’s meeting, and everyone here is present at his invitation as he discusses his recovery and the next stage of his life. Everyone here is important to him and part of that process. Is that understood?”
My parents and Althea nodded, and I said yes I did, but Jeremey’s parents only sat stiff and rigid. I think they understood but didn’t like it.
Dr. North gave Jeremey his patient smile. “Whenever you’re ready.”
Jeremey didn’t look ready. His shoulders were hunched, and he took shallow breaths. I sat beside him, so I could see everything clearly. I could hear him breathing hard. He tightened his hands into little balls in his lap, so tight his knuckles were white.
“Take your time,” Dr. North told Jeremey. He also touched Jeremey’s shoulder.
That was the thing about Jeremey. He enjoyed touch, a lot. I worried because I didn’t. I thought, as we sat there, how Jeremey might like it right now if I touched him. Except touch is tricky, and I wasn’t sure how to do it. Dr. North made it look so easy.
Could I do it? Put my hand on Jeremey’s shoulder? It seemed like no big deal, but what was simple when other people did it didn’t work the same for me.
Jeremey let out a hard breath. “I’m going to move out on my own, into my own apartment. With Emmet.”
Mr. and Mrs. Samson both started talking at once in angry voices, and I jerked in my seat. I was surprised and uncomfortable. Jeremey drew back too. I watched him because it was easier than paying attention to his parents. Jeremey looked so scared and nervous. I almost touched him, but then I wondered if it wouldn’t be better to take his hand. That was a more boyfriend thing to do. Except his hand was far away. I wished it were next to me, that we were sitting on the couch and I could sort of sneak over and grab it.
“Please hear Dr. North out,” my mom said, and Mr. Samson got so angry his face was red.
“So you’re behind this? You knew about this crazy plan? Knowing your family, you probably gave him the idea.”
My dad stood up and aimed a finger at Mr. Samson, who stood up too and twitched his mustache so much he looked like an angry walrus. But then Dr. North rose as well. He went between them and held out a hand at each of our fathers.
“Gentlemen. We’re here to have a discussion, not toss out accusations. As for whose idea this is—you may blame me. It is my professional opinion Jeremey would recover better in an independent environment, with monitored responsibilities. I would also like to see him take part-time employment. I have several positions in mind, in fact.”
“He can’t get a job and go to school,” Mrs. Samson said.
“I don’t want to go to school,” Jeremey said, and everyone started yelling.
This kept happening. Jeremey or Dr. North would explain something about what Jeremey was going to do, and his parents would get upset. I understood now why Jeremey was so nervous to tell them. Even with everyone in the room, they got angry. They make me very stressed.
I imagined Jeremey living with that stressed feeling all the time, and I thought maybe this was why he was so depressed and anxious. Though probably it’s more complicated than that.
“What I need you to understand,” Dr. North said finally when everyone had calmed down, “is decisions about his future are Jeremey’s to make, and his alone. I’m giving him my advice on what I think he should do, but he’s making his own judgment calls about his health.”
“So you expect us to pay for whatever he decides is all right?” Mr. Samson asked. His mustache kept twitching. “To pay to let him shack up with this kid he thinks he’s dating?”
“We’ve started disability paperwork for Jeremey, which will mean he’s eligible for SSI funding—”
“Disability?” Mrs. Samson’s face pinched, and Jeremey hunched forward more.
My mom had looked for a while as if she wanted to say something, and now she did. “Gabrielle, I understand about the labeling of your child feeling limiting. I understand more than you can possibly know. But denying it doesn’t change Jeremey’s situation and in fact hurts his chances of getting help and feeling normalized within society.”
Mr. and Mrs. Samson started yelling then, so much that I wanted to make the sign to my mom that I needed to leave. I thought about seeing if Jeremey wanted to leave too, but he couldn’t leave his own therapy session. The yelling made me feel anxious, probably Jeremey too, but I worried if I left, maybe Jeremey and I couldn’t live at The Roosevelt together.
Jeremey didn’t have a phone, but I did. I pulled it out of my pocket, opened Notes and typed, then passed the phone over.
The yelling is bad. I wish we could leave.
He read my note and typed one back. Yes. I’m sorry. You can go if you want.
When he gave me my phone, I added an E before my text and a J before his, and when I replied, I added my initial so it was organized. E: I don’t want to leave unless you leave too.
Jeremey let out a small sigh when he read my comment. J: I don’t think I can. But isn’t the yelling bothering you? It’s hard to tell because you’re so calm. You’re not even humming or rocking.
I wasn’t, and it was stressful not to, with the yelling and having to sit still. E: I’m trying to be good so your parents don’t call me the R word.
That was all I wrote, but Jeremey stared at my text for a long time, like I’d written a whole paragraph. He held my phone tight, not looking up. In the background our parents yelled at each other, and Dr. North used his quiet voice to get them to calm down.
Then Jeremey yelled, “Stop.”
I startled. His voice was loud and angry, and a hum escaped before I could stop it. I rocked a few times too, but I stopped when Jeremey put a hand on my shoulder. It was just the right touch. Okay because it was from him, heavy but not too hard, not so light it made my skin tingly.
“Sorry,” he said, his voice much more gentle. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
I gave one tiny rock, but I didn’t shake off his hand. “There’s a lot of yelling.”
There wasn’t yelling now, though. Everyone was quiet, watching me. I wanted to hum, rock, flap. The more they stared, the more I wanted to relieve the stress, but the Samsons would think I was stupid. Retarded. My grades and scores wouldn’t matter when I was humming and rocking and flapping.
I needed to leave, but I felt I would wreck our chances if I did. Another hum escaped, and a rock.
Jeremey took my hand. He didn’t yell, but he spoke to his parents with a stern voice I hadn’t heard him use before.
“I’m tired of this. I don’t care anymore what you guys think. I’m living on my own. You can pack up my things. Or—get rid of them. I don’t care. It’s bad enough admitting I have mental illness so severe I have to go on disability. But this I don’t have to put up with, everyone yelling and making me and my boyfriend feel like shit.”
His hand tightened on mine. “He is my boyfriend. I don’t know why he wants to live with such a hot mess as me, but I’m glad he does, because he’s the only good thing in my life right now. The thought of being with him at The Roosevelt makes me work harder to get up in the morning. I don’t want to have to stay at the hospital until it opens. I wanted to go home and have a smooth, careful transition. I wanted to tell you about it, but I was so nervous I thought this might be better, having Emmet’s family here too, and Emmet. But you’re embarrassing me and upsetting Emmet, and me. So we’re done. We’re just done. I’ll stay at the hospital or under a bridge before I go home to you.”
The Samsons started yelling, and I couldn’t do it anymore. I let go of Jeremey’s hand and made the sign to my mom that I had to leave or I would melt down. Jeremey wanted to talk to me, wanted me to stay, but I couldn’t. I held back until I left the room, but then I hummed, rocked and flapped as I faced the wall. The halls were quiet, but everything felt loud and sharp in my head.
Mom talked me down. She didn’t touch me, but she stood beside me and spoke quietly, told me how my dad was getting the car and we’d go out a side door to the parking lot. Althea stood on the other side, not saying anything, like a guard. It felt good.
We left through the authorized-personnel-only door, which normally isn’t okay, but my mom is a doctor and doctors can do what they want in hospitals.
At home they wanted me to rest, but I wanted to code. I worked for a long time with my door closed, but eventually Mom knocked.
“I’m fine,” I said.
“I need to talk to you and make sure. Also, you need to eat and drink something. It’s been six hours.”
I glanced at my clock and saw this was true. But I still didn’t want to stop. “I’m almost finished. I’m making a design.”
“Okay. I’ll wait. But I’m coming in.”
I didn’t mind that she came into the room. Mom is good at being quiet. I finished the lines of computer code, then checked them. “I’m going to run it and see if it works or if I made a mistake.”
“Is it okay if I watch?”
“Yes.”
I ran the program. It wasn’t difficult, but it looked complicated because I’d written in a lot of patterns.
“That’s pretty. I like the changing colors. Does it do anything else?”
She was making a joke. My programs always do something else. “The patterns are numerical representations of a comment feed. I assigned people different colors and pattern variations, and how long their responses go determine the length of the pattern’s run. I was going to code for common words, but I decided I didn’t want to bother.”
“What was the comment feed?”
“A thread on Reddit.”
“Oh, honey. You know I hate it when you go there. And today of all days.”
I watched the pattern weave by, let the numbers calm me. I’d set it to go slow enough I could remember the code for each part, could remember how I’d written it. “It was an ugly conversation. I made it pretty.”
“What was the conversation about?”
I watched the code some more. “A post where a parent talked about curing his son’s autism.”
“Emmet.” She put a hand on my shoulder. “Please tell me you didn’t listen to any of it. We’ve discussed this. You’re not broken. You don’t need to be fixed.”
“I’m not the same as everyone else. As anyone else.” The code made swirls now, because it was the part of the thread where people had written lots of short things, and some of the comments had been deleted. I’d made the pattern movement change direction whenever a post was deleted. It changed direction a lot. “Mom, sometimes I think you’re wrong. There is so a normal. There’s a kind of person everyone else can be, and then there’s me.”
She crouched beside me and turned my chair so I faced her, held my face so I had to work to not look her in the eye. Her face was serious, her eyes wet. “Emmet David Washington, you’re beautiful, brilliant and perfect as you are. I don’t ever want you to be normal. I can’t think of anything sadder on this earth than losing you to the pool of lemmings.”
I understood she was making a metaphor, but I was distracted for a minute by the image of an empty swimming pool with lemmings running around the bottom. I couldn’t understand how in the world this would explain anything except that her imagination was really weird.
I shook my head to clear out the lemmings and pushed her hands away. “I don’t want to be special. I want to belong the way other people do.” The fear that had lurked in the back of my mind while I wrote code found its way out. “I messed up the meeting, and now I won’t be able to live with Jeremey. And I want to, Mom. More than anything.”
“You didn’t mess up anything. In fact, I think you gave Jeremey exactly what he needed: someone to protect. He was so nervous until he saw you needed rescuing, and that gave him his courage. You helped him belong. You were better medicine for him than anything Dr. North could prescribe.”
“Really?”
“Really.” She smiled, but she looked sad at the same time. “Your dad is right. This is important for Jeremey, and for you too. Just promise me you’ll be careful. That you’ll practice being a good boyfriend as much as you do learning emotions and conversation prompts.”
“I will.” This was good, but she hadn’t said everything was settled. I worried about what would happen to Jeremey if his parents wouldn’t help him. I hoped Dr. North would get him SSI money. But what if he couldn’t? “Mom, can Jeremey come live with us here if his parents kick him out? I don’t want him to live under a bridge.”
“His parents aren’t going to kick him out, and he won’t live under a bridge. Your dad went over to talk to Mr. Samson. Mrs. Samson got upset and went to her room crying and hasn’t come out all afternoon. I think her husband is ready to listen to a little reason.”
“Mom, if mental illness can run in families, she might be depressed too.”
“She might be.” She rubbed my arms. “Don’t worry about it. It’s all going to work out.”
I hoped she was right. “I wish I could make Mrs. Samson like me. I wish she thought I didn’t need to be fixed.”
“This isn’t about you, hon. This is about her processing what’s going on with Jeremey. She’s only seeing the outside of you, not the inside. She’s only looking at what makes you different and not at what makes you special. She sees safety in normal. But remember normal doesn’t mean right. It means average. Conforming. Why would you want to do that?”
“Because I want to drive a car and have a boyfriend.”
“You have a boyfriend. He called earlier to make sure you were okay and to ask if you were still visiting tomorrow. Remember, too, conforming to the way most people are means giving up a lot of what makes you you. If you conformed, you couldn’t see numbers the way you do. You couldn’t shut the world out with a little rocking and humming. You wouldn’t be you, Emmet. You’d be someone else.”
She was right, I didn’t want to be someone else. But sometimes it was so hard to be me.
Dr. North called in the morning and asked if I could come to a group session with Jeremey in the afternoon. I didn’t want to. I still felt bad about the meeting from the day before, but I did want to see Jeremey, so I said yes. I was glad I went. Jeremey’s smile made his whole face light up when I came into the room, and he hugged me.
“I’m glad you’re okay. I’m sorry for my parents.”
I nodded. I didn’t know what else to do.
“There’s good that came of it, though. My dad came this morning and told me they’d be okay with me moving to The Roosevelt, that they’d help pay what my job couldn’t cover until the SSI comes through. Dr. North still thinks I should move to the residential group home near the hospital first, though, instead of going home until our apartment is ready. My mom is pretty upset, and my dad says it might be best for everyone if we take it slow.”
I couldn’t believe it. I wanted to laugh, be happy, but I felt like if I did that, I’d find out this was a dream.
Jeremey’s smile fell. “Emmet, aren’t you glad?”
I tried to say yes, but I was so frozen. In the end all I could do was hug him. I held him tight, so tight it was almost too much, but I couldn’t stop.
Jeremey kissed my cheek and hugged me too. This time when he kissed my cheek, it was a longer kiss, and it made my skin tingle.
Dr. North wasn’t in the room, and I wanted to kiss Jeremey for real. I turned my head so our mouths met, and we kissed, mouths together, lips moving over lips while the electricity built up in my body. It was the same as being on his bed, the kiss before the hospital, except we were standing up. It was a good kiss, and everything felt right.
I belonged. I wasn’t normal, but I belonged—to Jeremey. We could stay boyfriends, and we’d get to live in The Roosevelt together, just like we wanted.
I smiled against Jeremey’s mouth, and he smiled back.