‘Thank God,’ he began. He gently manoeuvred her hair to one side and planted a gentle kiss on her cheek. Emilia pushed herself backwards.
‘What are you doing?’ she demanded. His muddled expression suggested it wasn’t the response he had been expecting.
‘I … I’m sorry,’ he said and edged away.
‘Who are you?’ Emilia asked.
‘Do you not remember me?’
‘Would I be asking if I did?’
‘I’m Ted,’ he said and offered Emilia a nervous smile. ‘I’m your husband.’
Chapter 10
BRUNO, EXETER
The room was so silent; it was as if no world existed beyond theirs. Bruno lost all concept of time and wished they could remain in their own private universe for ever.
He couldn’t lift his gaze from his son, who was sitting on the floor in the centre of the dimly lit room. He could just about make out Louie’s eyes, wide-open and hypnotised by the twinkling lights as they danced across the ceiling and walls. Louie’s mouth formed an ‘o’ shape, indicating that he was calm and relaxed. His father, however, was the opposite.
Bruno was grateful for the gloom, unwilling to display emotion even if it was in front of a boy who didn’t recognise it in others. He slipped into the corridor outside, just as the family’s support worker approached, flanked by a younger trainee.
‘Good morning,’ began Cally. ‘We were just coming to check on you guys.’ She instinctively picked up on his upset and asked her student to keep an eye on Louie in the sensory area as she led Bruno away. Inside a staff classroom, a whiteboard fixed to the wall read ‘Coping with Autism Tantrums’ and associated words like ‘meltdown’ and ‘self-harm’. Bruno was experienced in them all.
‘You think you’ve failed him, don’t you?’ she asked.
Bruno nodded.
‘I promise you, every parent feels the same when they walk through our doors.’
‘I told myself that no matter how hard it gets, I’d never give up on my son. I wouldn’t abandon him. But that’s just what I’m doing.’
‘You’re not, though. You are putting his needs above your own. Your circumstances mean you’re unable to look after him but it doesn’t mean you’re abandoning him. This is Exeter’s best facility for young people on the autistic spectrum. Louie will be cared for and supervised twenty-four hours a day by staff who’ve spent their careers training to help kids like him. He will thrive here, I promise you.’
‘But what happens when the money runs out? You know I can only afford six months of care.’
‘Let’s worry about that further down the line when we need to. Now, shall we take him to his living quarters and settle him in properly?’
Returning to where he’d left Louie, Bruno placed an arm around his shoulder and encouraged him out of the room and into one of a dozen modules that made up the centre. Two other under-eighteens would be sharing Louie’s living quarters alongside three live-in carers working round-the-clock shifts. At twelve years of age, Louie was the youngest resident but with the most needs.
They entered the bedroom, Louie first and then his father. Louie would be sleeping in here alone, but cameras and motion sensors would monitor him at night, alerting the staff to any problems. As he was non-verbal, a standard-issue monitor had also been inserted under the surface of his wrist to measure health issues that he couldn’t communicate. Bruno had already laid out Louie’s clothes and toys in strategic positions around the room so they were instantly recognisable to help with his transition. Hisfavourite toy, a stuffed green Tyrannosaurus rex, was sitting upright on his pillow.
Bruno and Cally watched carefully as Louie tried to make sense of why all his possessions were now here and no longer at home. And when he began tapping the side of his head with his fingertips, his father recognised it as a sign of agitation. He removed his phone from his bag and passed it to Louie to play with. It was a useful calming tool that often stemmed outbursts of negative emotions.
‘Leaving him alone for a few minutes each day over the last few weeks means he’s used to spending time here,’ Cally assured Bruno. ‘When you feel ready, I’ll see you back in the lounge.’
Bruno watched quietly as Louie worked his way around the phone with more skill than his father. He appeared to be playing some kind of complex word and shape puzzle that looked too advanced for someone who’d yet to reach his teens. But Louie had a habit of surprising his dad.
‘What are you doing, mate?’ he asked, peering over his son’s shoulder. Bruno began recognising hidden patterns and numbers but Louie was way ahead of him, slotting them all together. Bruno’s synaesthesia, known as Personification, was the most common; it enabled him to give human-like personalities to numbers, letters and days of the week. He would never know if it had been inherited by Louie. But Bruno assumed that it had and that it was much more powerful, enabling him to solve puzzles like this and others with lightning speed.
Louie looked at his father and showed him the completed puzzle, before directing his attention towards a box of Lego under the window. He frequently lost himself for hours in the world of colourful building blocks. It was Bruno’s cue to leave. He only wished that his boy could say goodbye.
Bruno perched on the edge of the single bed, surveying his own room. To his left was a kitchenette, comprising only anoven, a sink and three cupboards. Ahead was a sofa-bed, a television, a wardrobe and a chest of drawers. The room’s pitiful square footage could have fitted inside the lounge of his and Zoe’s family home. Outside and across the corridor was a bathroom he shared with the owners of the Thai restaurant below. It was a world away from all he loved.
His home and most of its contents had been sold or auctioned to repay his mortgage arrears, for legal bills and for Louie’s private care home. His wife and son were gone along with Bruno’s determination and hope for a brighter future. The only plus in a world of minuses was that for now, Louie was receiving the best help money could buy.
Bruno had taken very little with him from the house he had been forced to leave. Family photographs had been stored in the Cloud, to be played on a loop and on a digital frame in Louie’s room. Bruno, however, wanted no such reminders of Zoe around him. He didn’t believe the accusations that made her sound like a predator prowling her office corridors, harassing colleagues and promising promotions in return for sex. But at the very least, she’d had an affair. Now when he thought about her, an image of her having sex with the man she died with obliterated fifteen years of marriage. He would never forgive her.
