“Sorry I asked,” Lou said. “Is there any treatment for autism?”
“Not really. There’s a range of behavioral interventions and special-education programs that have some promise but not a lot of evidence-based results. The uncertainty of it all is what’s driving me bananas.”
“How is Laur taking it?”
“In some ways she’s doing better than I, in that she’s taken it on as an intellectual challenge, willing to read everything and anything as the way to deal with it. I’m the opposite. I get almost immediately fed up with the vagueness and wordiness of it all and want to rail against the gods. It’s my surgical personality. But the downside for Laurie is her feeling of guilt. She keeps beating herself up about not having taken a maternity leave sooner, thinking that all the weird chemicals we’re exposed to around here could have played a role.”
“Has that been proven to cause it?”
“No, of course not,” Jack said.
“Then she shouldn’t blame herself,” Lou pointed out.
“Yeah, well, you tell her that,” Jack said. “I’ve been saying the same thing until I’m blue in the face. Besides, I have my own struggles with guilt.”
“How can it be your fault?”
“I’m a total jinx on kids,” Jack said. “You know my daughters from my first marriage were killed in a plane crash, but did you know they were on the plane to begin with because they were on the way back from visiting me when I was training in Chicago? And look at JJ. The poor kid had neuroblastoma as a baby. I wouldn’t want to be my kid.”
“I never thought of you as superstitious,” Lou said.
“I didn’t, either,” Jack said. “But it’s hard to argue with the facts.”
“Talking about JJ, how is he doing?”
“Terrific,” Jack said. “He’s the bright light in all this.”
“How old is he now?”
“Eight and a half,” Jack said. “He’s in the third grade. No sign of a recurrence of his tumor, and you should see him dribble a basketball. The kid’s a natural.”
“Does he get along with Emma?”
“He does. He has the patience of a saint despite Emma’s retrogression. I wish Laurie’s mother, Dorothy, was half as cooperative and understanding.”
“What’s with Laur’s mother? Is she making things worse?”
“Inestimably worse. If it weren’t for her having invited herself to move in during this trying time, I might not be such a wreck. And it’s not just me. She’s driving our live-in nanny just as crazy. You remember Caitlin O’Connell, don’t you? We were lucky to find her after JJ’s kidnapping.”
“That, I’ll never forget. Seems like yesterday.”
“Well, she confided in me that she’s thinking of moving out if Dorothy stays. I’ve tried to talk to Laurie about it, but Laurie has always had trouble dealing with her parents, her father especially, but her mother, too.”
“What’s the mother doing that’s so bad?”
“She’s the one who’s been critical of Laurie not taking a maternity leave as soon as she knew she was pregnant, and she won’t drop it. Plus, she’s a conspiracy theorist of sorts and continues to insist that Laurie and I are to blame for letting Emma get the MMR vaccine.”
“Wait a minute,” Lou said. “Now, that’s something I have heard about. Don’t they think the MMR vaccine causes autism? Did I read that someplace?”
“That was years ago, when there was a medical-journal article that said so,” Jack snapped. “But the study was totally disproved as bogus, and the medical journal that published the article retracted it. Simply put:Vaccines in general and MMR in particular do not cause autism, period, end of story.”
“Okay, okay,” Lou said soothingly. “I didn’t know.”
“Well, sorry to jump on you,” Jack said. “But Dorothy’s attitude about this drives me up the wall. And to think she’s been married to a doctor for most of her life but prefers to listen to her paranoid, conspiracy-minded bridge friends. And, worst of all, she will not shut up about it. Nor will she shut up about autism and neuroblastoma not being in the Montgomery family, meaning both have to be from my family. Well, as far as I know, neither have been in my family, either. Anyway, I’m being driven to distraction. I even asked Warren if I could sleep on his couch.” Warren was one of the neighborhood basketball players with whom Jack had become fast friends.
“I’m sorry about all this, my friend,” Lou said. “Do you want me to try to talk with Laur and see if I can help?”
“I appreciate your heart being in the right place,” Jack said. “But I think you bringing it up will only make things worse. As I said, Laurie has trouble dealing with her parents. It’s just going to have to play itself out—provided Caitlin doesn’t act on her threat, because there is no way Dorothy can take care of Emma on her own. As for me, I have to find something here at work to occupy my mind. I had to do the same when JJ got sick. Luckily, back then I got all steamed up about the dangers of alternative medicine with the chiropractor who killed a young woman with a stupid neck adjustment. I need something like that now.”
