“Tell me everything,” he says as he chews on the end of a piece.
“She seems more scared than anything else. She’s super jumpy. Mason is too. She’s not sleeping, and it’s been almost a week since the incident. That’s not good.” Genevieve reminded me of the parents I worked with back when I did volunteer counseling in high schools after school shootings. Her PTSD ruled the room. Same as theirs. She shook from the inside. Her back was damp with sweat when I touched it. Her eyes skirted the room like any minute someone might break through the door even though we were tucked in a police station. “Honestly, I’m fascinated by this case and honored to be asked to help, but I’m not sure you need a pediatric psychologist. You might be better off hiring a trauma psychologist.”
He shakes his head, chewing intently. “We need you. You’re the person.”
This is so far out of my comfort zone. I know kids’ brains. The neurological parts that make them tick. All the ways that neurons function together, and the unique ways they go awry. I can spot early warning signs in babies that most other experts miss. Everyone always assumes I got into working with autism because of Harper, but it’s because of the work I’d done before she was born that alerted me something was off when she was only a few months old. But trauma? Like this? It’s way out of my league.
Detective Layne interrupts my worrying with his voice. “Your number one focus is Mason, just like ours. If she likes you and she trusts you, then she’ll let you get close to him. That’s what you have to remember. What were your initial impressions of him?”
“He’s a big kid.” I blurt the first thing that pops into my mind. You can’t tell that from any of his pictures on the news. All they have are old school photos.
Detective Layne chuckles. “Big is right. Our boy is six foot one and still growing.”
Mason isn’t skinny big. His body fills out his tall frame. He’s fourteen but could easily pass for eighteen. Other than when I startled him, he spent the entire time hunched over and hugging himself while he rocked rhythmically in his chair. He moved his head like there was a beat coming from the red headphones on his ears, but there wasn’t any music playing in their speakers. They’re there to drown out the sound of the world when it gets too loud. “I didn’t have a chance to interact with him. He mostly just sat quietly while Genevieve and I talked. She talked almost nonstop until you showed up.”
“What’d she talk about?” he asks.
“She was all over the place.” The conversation was so odd. Her moods changed quickly, flitting from one extreme to the next. Her personality shifted along with her moods. At times, she seemed to really like me, but in the next instant, she’d grow suspicious or upset for no reason. Like when she asked me about my background the way she did.
I was talking about Harper’s school when she interrupted me midsentence to ask, “Did Detective Layne say you were the best of the best?”
I blushed since I thought she meant it as a compliment, and I don’t take them well. I looked at the ground while I answered, “He did.”
She wrinkled her forehead. “Have you heard of Dr. Lee Winslow?”
I nodded. Of course I’d heard of Dr. Winslow. Nearly every parent who has a kid with ASD knows who she is, since she’s been on the front lines of autism research since the beginning. She’s written over twenty books and given TED Talks all over the country on topics ranging from diet and nutrition to managing tantrums and practicing self-care. Oprah even had her on once. I don’t agree with everything she says, but our views are closely aligned on the important things.
“Dr. Lee Winslow”—Genevieve nodded her head with approval—“now, she’s the best of the best.” She locked eyes with me while she said it and refused to look away even after she was finished, like a dog trying to establish some weird form of dominance. “Was she unavailable?”
“I guess so.” I forced a smile and looked away, trying to hide my embarrassment.
A few beats of awkward silence stretched between us, and it was a few more seconds before she suddenly threw her arms around me and squealed, “Oh well, I’m glad I got you anyways!”
Her dramatic moods are understandable given everything she’s going through and what she’s been through before. I googled everything I could find on her last night. I watched the news clips from after her husband, John, died six years ago. She looked completely wrecked. It’s been less than that since my husband left me, so I know what it’s like to have the ground fall out from underneath you, when you’re suddenly faced with raising a child with unique challenges on your own. The level of responsibility is almost crippling.
I felt it strong when Davis walked out on me and Harper three years ago. We’d been together since my first year of graduate school at Tulane. I fell in love with his sleepy blue eyes and his lips, which were always turned up in a half grin, by our third date. He was a good southern boy raised on cornbread and biscuits whose family had roots three states deep, so there was no way I was getting him out of the South. At least that’s what I thought. Until the day he left and never came back. He said he didn’t want to live where he’d known everyone since kindergarten. I felt like I’d gotten thrown off a cliff. I never saw it coming. Probably the same way Genevieve felt when her husband dropped dead at the dinner table while they were having a glass of wine.