Me:
5
KIT
If you had saidI’d be looking forward to attending a fourteen-year-old girl’s birthday party, I would have laughed in your face. But Stevie McAvoy was special. She understood my son better than most adults and never acted like he needed to be more or less than what he was.
Speaking of Reed, he’d been gearing up to go to Stevie’s party with me, and it’ve been the first time he met her family and friends. Unfortunately, he’d accidentally ripped his Totoro backpack yesterday, and this morning he dropped his iPad, cracking the screen. Having two of his critical adaptive tools go down so close together was not great.
I’d hoped he had time to work through it in time for the party, especially since Cynthia had sewn a patch into the backpack, but when she opened the door, I could tell by the press of her lips it wasn’t going to happen.
“He hasn’t come out of his room,” she said, running her hand through her hair.
That gesture carried a bittersweet sort of weight with it, mostly because it was Cyn’s unselfconscious gestures that I’d fallen in love with. More recently, though, I was beginning to feel neutral about our story, even philosophical.
Returning from my mental wanderings, I removed my hat. “Do we need to get him a new iPad?”
Brandy, Cynthia’s wife, shook her head. “It’s a simple screen repair. I already took it to the guy in Wimberley Square, and he’ll have it ready by tomorrow.”
“Oh, thank you,” I said, genuinely grateful for how seriously she took his need for communication and for having the proper tools. Brandy had always been that way, but it was easy to overlook, so I tried to remember to show her how much I appreciated it. “He has the app on his phone, right?”
Their exchanged looks were an entire conversation.
“Something wrong?”
Cynthia’s jaw tightened. “He’s insisting the app doesn’t look the same or have his favorite pre-saves, and he hates it.”
“Want me to go in and talk to him?”
“If you think it’ll help,” she said, gesturing toward his room.
This was why I’d hesitated to give my blessing for him to move into the barn apartment. On one hand, he was having an entire meltdown about a temporary situation, but on the other, he had taken himself to his room to process through it on his own. And maybe his mom didn’t need to be there every time he had to work on something difficult. It certainly weighed on her, more than it did me because he lived here full time.
I walked back to his room and stood in his open doorway. “Reed? How’re you doing, buddy?”
Need my iPad, he signed, curling in on himself as he rocked back and forth.iPad, iPad, iPad.
“Brandy is getting that for you as quickly as she can. You’ll have it by tomorrow, promise.”
I definitely shouldn’t have made that promise, because any number of things could delay it, but sometimes you made promises in the moment.
iPad, iPad, iPad.
“Can you talk to me about why you don’t want to use the app on the phone?”
He rocked violently as he let loose a flurry of hand gestures I could barely keep up with.
Small. Wrong feeling. Not the same. Different colors. No saved phrases. Doesn’t have my voice. Want my iPad back.
“Okay, son. I hear you. We’re getting the iPad back to you as quickly as we can, but you know what I’m about to say.”
No. No meltdown protocol.
I signed back,Yes.Meltdown protocol.
Not fair.
You came in here, that’s good, I assured him, then switched back to talking.“But if you can’t initiate the actual meltdown protocol, how are we supposed to trust you with your own apartment?”
