Authors: RJ Scott
“The Hayes family was always good with secrets,” Riley deadpanned. He stopped himself. Charlotte didn’t need the offhand summaries; she and Riley needed to get this sorted. “No, I didn’t tell her. What was the point? She was so happy. She was pregnant with Annabelle, and my brother hadn’t entirely ruined her back then.”
“Will you tell her now?”
Riley considered the kind of secrets that sat inside his family, including the big one that hung over them all like a blade waiting to fall. He tried to never think about it, never talk about it, but still, what Lisa had done was something that would be part of his life forever.
“No,” he said. “No point. Jeff is dead, and Lisa is doing well with the kids.”
“And you?”
“Me?”
“Will you forgive me?”
Riley paused. He tried not to think about his anger at finding out she was working at Hayes. He attempted not to focus on the graphic images in his head, then he lied, because it seemed like the right thing to do. “Easily.”
“Thank you, Riley.” She exhaled noisily, then her expression changed. “I’m clean now,” she began with earnest conviction. “That day, when you saw me, what I was doing, it was the first day of admitting what I was becoming. I’m not saying it was easy, and from that day I was done with it all, but I’ve made my amends where I need to. In case you were worried, I have a sponsor, and it’s been six years, three months, and eleven days now. I said Jim could talk to her if he needed to. He said he didn’t.”
“Dad speaks highly of you.”
“You were lucky, Riley,” she began. “You turned out to have a real father who actually cared. I remember the day that we heard Gerald wasn’t your real father. All Josiah could say was that he’d known Gerald would never have a fag for a son. That made me laugh, given he has me as a daughter. My girlfriend, Meg, is a teacher. He hates the fact I have a girlfriend, and you know what? I don’t give a rat’s ass what he thinks anymore.”
The unsure, worried woman who had walked into the map room had become something very different, more like the confident woman she’d been in the boardroom. She was smiling as she talked about Meg. Riley realized one thing: she was happy, he was happy, and Jeff should be left in the past where he belonged, along with all the shitty memories.
“I think we’re done with Jeff.” Riley voiced his summary out loud. He stood and extended a hand, helping her to her feet.
She brushed down her skirt and straightened her blouse and jacket. Then she hugged Riley, pulled him tight close, her head only coming to the middle of his chest though she wore heels. He hesitated for a moment, then hugged her back.
When they separated, she had the flush of embarrassment on her face. “Thank you,” she said.
Riley had never realized that confronting something from his and Jeff’s less than stellar past would prove to be cathartic. “No, thank you.”
She left the room, and Jim came in as soon as she’d gone. He came to stand next to Riley.
“Saw you leave with her. Is everything okay?”
“Yeah,” Riley said. Impulsively, he hugged Jim. “Thank goodness you’re my dad,” he muttered into Jim’s neck.
Jim tightened his hold back. “Thank goodness you’re my son.”
When they separated, they were grinning like idiots, but didn’t say anything more about it.
“You remember the day you found me in here? When I’d been given the marry-for-love ultimatum?”
“I remember. I never thought it would turn out the way it did.”
Riley smiled to himself. “Me neither. Glad it did, though.”
CHAPTER SIX
Jack finished his coffee and pushed the mug to one side. Riley had finished his a long while before. He’d almost inhaled his breakfast and was fidgeting in the chair. They’d decided to get breakfast near the venue for this autism early intervention meeting, and had a great vantage point for watching people arrive at the building. Jack had shaved and worn his best jeans and a crisp white shirt; he’d left his Stetson at home. Riley wore a suit, but this was Riley’s armor. He was quiet as well. Add that together and you had a nervous Riley.
“Spill,” Jack instructed.
Riley looked at him with surprise written on his face. “What?”
“What’s got your panties in a bunch?” Jack leaned across the table and grasped Riley’s hand. “This meeting will be okay. We’ll learn loads, and be better daddies for it.”
Riley smiled. “I know. I’m not thinking about the meeting, actually. Only, y’know, the inevitable questions and shit when people find out who we are. Maybe we should have hired someone to talk to us.”
Jack sighed. This was still the first thing Riley thought of whenever they did something. That his money could protect the family.
“Sometimes we need to get out there and handle everything thrown at us.”
“I know.”
“What are we teaching our kids if we avoid anything that can hurt us?”
Riley squeezed Jack’s hand. “I think I’m nervous,” he admitted.
There it was, the admission Jack had been looking for. “Because we might find out we’re doing everything wrong? That we might come to the realization that we are completely the wrong parents to have adopted a boy with autism?”
Riley’s eyes widened. “You feel the same way?”
Jack shook his head. “No, but I know how your mind works. Let me ask you something. Do you love Max?”
“Of course I do.”
Jack stood from the table. “There you go then. Worries dealt with.”
Riley laid cash on the check along with a healthy tip, and stood. “Sometimes I hate that you’re always right.”
Jack pressed a quick kiss to his lips. “No, you don’t.”
Together they crossed the street to the Hanover Institute, and stopped at reception to gather name badges and paperwork. They were to go to room twenty-three on the fourth floor and took the stairs instead of the crowded elevator. The Hanover Institute was a center of excellence for mental health, and it was a busy place.
Jack hesitated at the door of room twenty-three, then decided that knocking was probably not what he needed to be doing. He pushed the door open and saw plenty of empty chairs. Maybe five or six people were in the room, and Jack nodded at them before taking a seat in the back row. Riley sat next to him. He counted the seats—eighteen—looked at the front to a desk with a projector set up and a pile of scarlet folders. The door opened a few more times, and by ten o’clock there were more couples, singles, and in one case an extended family including a grandmother, who spread themselves out on the chairs.
The leader of the meeting was Sybil Franklin, according to slide one of twenty-nine on the overhead.
Slide one of twenty-nine. Kill me now.
She was short, with steel gray hair and glasses, wearing a sensible suit and sensible shoes, both in a functional shade of dark brown. In fact, she looked like every school principal that Jack had ever had the misfortune to meet, and he shifted uncomfortably in his chair. This time it was Riley who placed a hand on his knee to calm
him
down. The irony.
“Good morning, my name is Sybil, and welcome to Autism 101.” She paused as she let that sink in. A couple of the people in the room, Riley included, looked confused. “I know you have signed up for an early-intervention seminar, but what that is, under its fancy title, is basically Autism 101, or what I like to call Autism for Beginners.”
Jack nodded as she explained. Okay, that made sense. They’d lived with Max for a while now, and all their knowledge of the A-word was from research on the internet and through books. Oh, and talking to Max’s foster parents, and by the practical, hands-on experience of what worked and what didn’t.
She continued. “I think we’ll get the introductions out of the way first. I’ve worked with ASD for twenty-five years now. My grandson has autism, and so I can speak both professionally and from the heart.”
She pressed a hand to her chest, and bit by bit Jack’s apprehension was disappearing. She wasn’t standing there spouting at them; it seemed like she
knew
.
“I thought it might be a good idea to get each of you to introduce yourself. Tell us a bit about yourselves and your child, and what you hope to get from today. We’ll start this end.”
She pointed to the other end to Jack, who at first sighed with relief, then realized with a sinking stomach that meant he’d be speaking before Riley.
Is it too late to swap seats?
The introductions were pretty straightforward. Jack and Riley were to go last, so they got to hear the full range of answers. Different ages for the children, different backgrounds for the families, one adoption, a couple with siblings who were
neurotypical
, which was a new word for Jack. He read into the word that the autistic child had siblings who weren’t autistic. Everyone kept things short and it was finally his turn. Without conscious thought, he grasped Riley’s hand.
“Hi everyone,” he began. “My name is Jack. Our son is Max, he’s five, and we adopted him.” He didn’t mention the fact that actually Riley was the official adoptee—no point in adding that into the mix. “He has three siblings: an older sister, and a younger sister and brother who’re twins. They’re one. Oh, and his big sister is a teenager.” His mind went blank. There was other stuff he should be saying, but all eyes were on him, and there was muttering in the room, and Riley was way better than him at things like this. As if Riley knew how Jack was feeling, he took over.
“Hi, I’m Riley Campbell-Hayes. Like my husband said, Max is our son, one of four, and he has autism. We live on a ranch, and he loves horses. His interaction with them is a joy to watch. Jack here also runs a riding school for children with complex needs where they can work with the horses and learn independence and individual awareness.” Riley’s voice dripped with pride, and Jack tried to ignore the whispers to the left of them from the family with the conviction their son would be healed through prayer. He sensed this wasn’t going to go down well with them. “We adopted Max and our primary concerns are managing his emotions and knowing how to handle his meltdowns. We are very lucky, Max has a sensory room where he has his own space, but as the twins get older, we need to know how to connect with Max in a useful positive way so that he’s happy.”
Riley stopped talking and sat back in his seat. Jack couldn’t have been prouder of him in the way he’d explained so precisely what they wanted out of this. Give Jack a room of people wanting to talk horses, and he’d be able to talk for Texas, but anything else and his usually well-hidden shy part pushed to the front. Jack called it not wanting to look stupid; Riley called it cute.
“Okay, so, thank you everyone for that,” Sybil said with a smile. She started the presentation and began to talk.
“Can someone tell me any of the trigger points that cause a meltdown?”
This was the first question to the audience, and Jack waited for someone to speak. No one did at first, everyone probably nervous to be the first person to talk, waiting for someone else to go first, but not Riley. Nope, he was clearly happy to fill the space with the first answer.
“We find Max has meltdowns when we ask him to do something. We’re trying to encourage him to put his dish in the sink after breakfast, or to brush his teeth before bed. He’s stubborn and he’ll be playing or something, and he freaks out. I can’t think of another word for what it’s like, sorry.”
Sybil nodded. “Freaking out is as good a description as any, Mr. Campbell-Hayes—”
“Riley, please.”
“Can I ask you a question, Riley?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Do you like reading?”
“I do. Not fiction so much as environmental reports, that kind of thing.”
“And when you’re reading these reports, when you get so deep into it that you’re losing yourself in the pages, what happens when you get interrupted?”
“In what way?”
“Talk me through how you feel. I mean
really
feel.”
Riley frowned and glanced at Jack, who nodded imperceptibly in the best encouraging way he could. A person interrupted Riley at the peril of Riley’s patented irritable grumpy face.
“I get irritable, annoyed even, because I lose track.”
“Do you ever roll on the ground and scream and shout when this happens?”
“No,” Riley said. He added a little laugh, but Jack put two and two together and realized where Sybil was going with this.
Sybil perched on the edge of the desk. “Imagine all those thoughts that are going on in your head. The way you consider the contents of what you are reading. Imagine all those thoughts like tendrils coming from your head. They become complicated and twisted and there are so many of them. Now imagine someone interrupts you, and all those thoughts have to be pulled back in quickly. You’ll lose some of them, and they might hurt to lose. Not only that, but you have new thoughts that you have to process as you are still handling the old ones. Imagine the chaos in your head. This is what causes the irritability, but it’s okay, you can handle it. You’re a grown man with the capacity to switch thoughts. You can rationalize your irritability and get over it quickly. Now think about your son, Max, isn’t it?”
“Yes. Max.”
“Imagine the tendrils hurt to withdraw, that his brain actually identifies switching thoughts as pain, and he has to deal with that. Then he has to handle clearing down what he was thinking about to begin to concentrate on the new sensory input. No wonder he’s suddenly in the middle of a meltdown.”
Riley sat back in his chair, and Jack knew he had understood exactly, as Jack had. From the chatting in the room, it seemed like Sybil’s explanation had hit a chord with the rest as well.
“So you’re saying we shouldn’t interrupt him? But that’s not practical, is it?”
Sybil shook her head. “Goodness me, no, but use schedules to encourage him to understand when you want him to do a chore, or warn him in a quiet time. You may find you can forestall some of the drama.”
“Okay.”
“Drawing a social story of sorts will help. This is all covered in the pack. Use simple images to explain things that will be happening.” She turned to the large whiteboard and drew a very simple plate, a toothbrush and a moon. “Give times when you will do things.” She pointed to the plate. “Like the times you eat, and how you eat. By that, I mean you reinforce your rules, like sitting in the seat and staying on task. Once you have a story to explain what you want to happen, and a time planned to stick to, then you may find your child will feel more at ease. It’s important to underline the routine in any child with autism.”