11 Berry
Berry
We’ve just finished yet another dinner that Harrison cooked for us. I’m at the sink scrubbing burned tomato sauce off the
bottom of a stockpot when Phil comes up behind me and wraps an arm around my waist.
I tense up, which I immediately regret, but it’s too late. He already felt it.
“You’re still mad?” He has the gall to sound surprised as he withdraws his arm and takes a step back.
“I’m not mad. I’m upset,” I answer without turning around. The sky has begun to darken, and I can see a portion of his reflection
in the window above the sink. I watch as he crosses his arms against his chest. The t-shirt he’s wearing is fitted, and I
notice he looks like he’s lost a little weight. Not in a concerning way, but in a dropping-those-last-ten-pounds kind of way.
“I can’t just forget every argument,” I tell him, now scouring the pan with more aggression.
“I need to actually talk things out in order to move on. Saying, ‘Oh, it’s been a few hours since we attacked each other, so we’re fine now’—that doesn’t work for me.
You don’t want to talk about your mom, you don’t want to talk about new therapies for Leo.
We don’t solve issues by ignoring them, Phil. That’s never been us.”
“But don’t the swim lessons kind of resolve everything about the therapist?” he asks. “Leo’s out doing a group activity, just
like you wanted. He’s being social, supervising other kids. If that won’t teach him a few things about how to interact properly,
I don’t know what will.”
I slam down the faucet and spin to face him. Water from the sponge in my hand splatters to the wood floor. “You’re missing
the whole point!”
He doesn’t respond, just looks down at the wet spot and uses his socked foot to wipe at it.
His disregard only makes me angrier, so I keep going.
“None of those other kids are his age, and neither is the teacher. And even if they were, he’s done plenty of group activities
in the past and has never been able to connect with peers. The swimming doesn’t change anything.” What I don’t add is that
my current mood isn’t just about the social skills coach. All these months of letting Phil “process” on his own have left
me with little patience for how he’s been acting more recently. It was one thing when he’d take calls from his newly widowed
dad in another room so they could speak in private, but something new has been going on. I can feel it in my bones, and I
don’t like where my thoughts are heading. Even this morning, when his cell phone rang, his eyes darted right to me before
he silenced the call.
On top of the evasiveness at home, suddenly he’s traveling for work.
He says he and his partner, Dean, are thinking about acquiring a few smaller medical supply outfits, and they have important meetings requiring them to show up in person, but I’m not convinced.
Not by a long shot, buddy. The charges for that travel, the hotels, meals—they’re all company expenses on the company card.
I can’t even check that stuff to verify if what he’s telling me is true.
Maybe it’s a blessing in disguise, because so help me, I don’t know what I’d do if I found out he was stepping out on me.
It’s mind-boggling to me why this is happening now, when we’ve been married nearly thirty years, and when we’ve already made
it through what should have been the hardest years of our marriage.
“I need to know what else is going on here,” I demand.
And that’s when I see it. That look that passes over his face. Maybe I’ve been too quick to jump to the wrong conclusions.
He’s going to fess up, and whatever’s going on, it must be something we can work through together.
But the look fades in an instant, and he squares his shoulders.
“I don’t know what you’re getting at. I just figured we felt the same way about the swimming and there was no reason to call
Martina for a referral,” he says.
Martina is the therapist Leo started seeing when he was diagnosed with depression. She’s given Leo some tips for interacting
with others, but she’s mostly focused on providing him a safe space to explore and process his feelings. It’s not the same
as having a social skills coach, who would teach him specific behaviors or give him exercises and actions to try out in the
real world. Leo needs the whole kit and caboodle.
“Well, clearly, I don’t feel the same way.” I turn back to the sink as Harrison and Leo come up from the basement.
“I can’t take any more Crimson Skies,” Harrison tells us, talking about an Xbox game Leo loves, something with simulated aerial battles in an alternate reality. “I just keep losing to the pro.” He points a thumb at Leo.
“Better you than me,” Phil says lightly. “I cannot get a handle on that targeting system.”
“Yeah,” Leo says. “Dad is very, very bad at the game.”
Phil just chuckles as he looks at Leo with clear affection. It makes me want to throw my sponge at him, the way he can still
find space in his heart for them but not me. Not that I’d ever want him to pull away from the guys. They should never have
to feel the cool breeze of Phil’s gradual retreat. I’m tempted to wave my arms in front of his face and shout, “Hey! Remember
me? The wife you used to adore?”
“We’re going to watch the game,” Harrison says, pulling my focus back to the moment.
“It’s lovely of you to stay and watch with your brother, but—”
Harrison cuts me off. “Mom, I want to stay. Could you please give it a rest? It’s not like my friends are all out partying
without me. It’s a Tuesday, and they have jobs just like I do.”
“But you could be meeting a girl. Sorry, a young woman.” I know I sound like a broken record, but we don’t need Harrison to
stick around tonight.
“Yeah, you should go on a date,” Leo says. “I got asked on a date, and I ran away and everybody laughed, and then I had to
get picked up from school.” Leo has perseverated on the incident with Sienna and the junior prom for the many weeks that have
elapsed since that day. Before any of us can say anything conciliatory, he adds, “You should ask McKenna on a date.”
“Ooh, McKenna . . .” Phil says in a singsong voice. “It does sound like that girl is going places. Right, bud?” He glances
at Leo.
“Yes.” Leo nods sagely. “She goes to places like Hollyhock and Meadowbrook, and probably many other places too.”
Before I can explain to Leo what Phil meant by the metaphor, Harrison says, “Guys, stop. I haven’t even met her.” His neck
is flushing as he adds, “I just thought she looked cute in her picture. It’s nothing. I think lots of girls are cute. Sorry,
young women.” He curls his lip at me good-naturedly. “Come on, Leo,” he says, turning toward the family room. “The Yankees
wait for no man.”
When the familiar sounds of a ball game begin to fill the air, I bring my eyes back to Phil’s. He runs his hand through his
curls, making a mess of them before he plants both hands on his hips and waits for whatever I’m going to say.
“I don’t want to argue anymore, Phil. I just want to get our son the help he needs. You know as well as I do that he understands
the ways he’s different from other people all too well. The antidepressants aren’t enough anymore, not on their own. We have
to give him the other tools he needs to succeed.”
A sudden whoop carries in from the family room, Harrison cheering about something good in the game on TV.
“Why do you think Harrison is here all the time instead of living his own life?” I ask, glancing toward the family room. “He
sees it too, and he’s doing everything he can to help his brother. But sometimes we have to call in reinforcements. Just because
Leo is smart and can communicate his needs when he’s in an environment where he’s comfortable doesn’t mean he’s fully equipped.
He’s going to be an adult soon, wanting to live on his own one day. We need to prepare him for that, and we can’t do it alone.
There are resources out there, and we should be using them.”
“So you want to shell out hundreds of dollars a week to have someone teach him about body language?”
“It’s not just body language, and you know it,” I bite back. “He wants friends his age. Especially with Sebastian moving away.
For that to happen, he needs to build his confidence, and you know that’ll only happen with the right kind of practice. Yes,
he’s made great strides since the early years when he could only attend specialized school, but he still doesn’t understand
tone of voice or nuanced facial expressions. His conversational skills need work, never mind navigating social situations
when his tics come out. You want me to run down the whole list?”
“You know what I think?” Phil steps closer to me. “I think Leo’s made so much progress over the past couple years that you’re
starting to worry he’s not going to need you, that you won’t be essential in his life anymore. Maybe you need to take a long,
hard look at who this is really about.”
I gasp at the cruelty of his words. After so many years of banding together when Leo was younger, it’s hard to believe the
disconnect is coming now, when our complex child is almost an adult. We’ve made it through years of meltdowns and tantrums,
the delayed potty training, delayed speech, mental health issues, being judged and abandoned by adult friends, and our own
feelings of guilt each time our child struggled. Yet now, now, when Leo has finally settled into mainstream classes at a public high school, when he’s holding down a job, and when we can
list on one hand the skills he needs to develop before he could potentially live on his own, this is when our relationship
seems to be falling apart.