“Mind if I take a look?” I ask, and he kicks back from the desk, his eyes still on the paper in front of him. I turn it, just enough to read the words. It’s a family tree, and it’s asking him to draw pictures of his mother, father, and friends. Max has only one small stick figure in each—the same drawing over and over. Shit!
He pulls himself in and starts to draw backgrounds and scenes in each box, coloring carefully. They all look kind of the same, just different colors, and I’ve never felt sadder seeing something than I do right now.
“Can I help…maybe give you some ideas, Max?” I swallow hard. I don’t know how this works—I don’t know if Max is the kind of kid you can give ideas to. I know he’s good at asking questions.
“Claire says I have to make sure everything is colored, and work on this until 7:15 p.m.,” he says, continuing to color, his hand moving more quickly now. I just stand behind him, rubbing my hand over my neck, trying to find a way to talk to him, to fill in those goddamned empty boxes.
“Okay, well, what if you fill in one of those boxes with me?” I say, hoping like hell he doesn’t just rip the paper in half at my lame suggestion. When he doesn’t protest, I keep going. “I mean…you and I…we’re friends, right? So, if you draw me next to you, that’s one more box done.”
He seems to like my idea as he reaches for a blue crayon and adds a tall stick figure next to his. “Why am I blue?” I ask, a little curious.
“You wear jeans a lot,” he says, and it makes me laugh. Everything Max says is slow, but he never seems to have any problem talking. And he’s funnier than people give him credit for.
“You’re right. I do wear jeans a lot. Blue is the perfect color,” I say. “Now, how about your mom in that box? What color is she?”
When Max picks up the pink, I don’t even question it. It’s perfect—fragile, feminine but bold, just like his mother. He’s busy working on the mother’s box while I’m staring at the father’s one—suddenly stuck, and wanting to punch something. I should probably call downstairs for backup, but I feel like this would just hurt Avery, and open up a wound that so far she’s been good at ignoring.
Then an idea strikes me. “Everyone in the house has a box except your grandpa. How about we give him that one? He’s a dad—he’s even a grand dad, so it’s like he fits the question in two ways.”
I hold my breath the entire time Max finishes coloring Avery’s box; when he reaches over for a brown color and starts to draw Ray without even saying anything to me, I almost pass out from the lack of oxygen. The clock says 7:12 p. m., and I’ve never been so happy to see a deadline approaching.
“Three more minutes, Max, and you’re done. I’m going to go do my homework now, okay?” I say, and Max just keeps coloring, silently.
I back out of the room, and turn to head to mine, only to see Avery’s back flat against the wall, her fingertips over her lips and a single wet stream down her cheek. I don’t know what to say, so I just pull her into my arms and hold her, letting her quiver silently for the next three minutes. When she hears the timer go off on Max’s desk, she backs away and mouths, “Thank you,” to me. I pull her head forward to my lips to kiss the top before heading into my room and shutting the door behind me.
That was exhausting—a different kind of exhausting. I don’t know if I did the right thing, and I don’t know how Avery has lived this. It’s not Max’s autism—it’s the enormous hole Adam left behind and Max’s autism. How do you explain to any kid that their parent, one-half of who they are, just couldn’t hack it? I know my mom never really explained it to me.
I can hear the water running, and cabinets opening in the hall, so I know Avery’s getting Max ready for bed. I’m completely amazed by her. Nothing is easy, everything is so f**king hard—it makes me feel foolish for thinking I have ever deserved anything at all.
When the water stops, I decide to spend a little time on the guitar to clear my head. Maybe part of me is hoping Avery will hear it and follow it into my room. Yeah, that’s exactly what I’m hoping.
I don’t really like the Beatles. I know everyone says you’re supposed to, and I appreciate some of the risks they took, but they just have never really been my fit. I’m more of a blues lover, and gritty classic rock like the Stones. But for whatever reason, all my fingers can seem to play tonight is “Blackbird” by the Beatles. That song has always made me think of Avery; it’s kind of where I got the nickname Birdie. I must play it six or seven times before she finally cracks open my door and slides down to sit against the frame, her knees barely covered by the long T-shirt she has stretched over them.