Unlocked

  None of them had ever watched a perfectly healthy, normal child slip into some other world. How were they supposed to handle it? Suzanne turned a few more pages until she came to a close-up of Holden and Ella. He was vibrantly alive and completely with them back then, perfect eye contact, direct interaction. Of course Suzanne asked questions when the child started to change. The loss was devastating, and all Suzanne could think, all she was consumed by every time they were together after Holden’s change, was one crippling question. What if it happened to Ella?

  It wasn’t contagious, Suzanne understood that. But what if Ella tried to mimic Holden’s behavior, or what if it was something in the air in the Harris house? The thought seemed ridiculous now, but it hadn’t back then. If Holden Harris could withdraw into his own world, and leave only the shell of his body behind, then it could happen to any child.

  The trouble was Tracy started taking the questions personally. Suzanne could feel the change, but she couldn’t stop asking, couldn’t stop being drawn to Holden and the dramatic change in him. One of the last times they were together, Suzanne and Tracy had been sitting on the sofa in Tracy’s living room, silent, sipping coffee and watching the kids. At that time, Tracy was having Holden tested, but no diagnosis had been made.

  Ella had a baby doll in her arms and she was talking to it, singing to it, and rocking it, chattering away in her little-girl voice. It took a few minutes to understand what Ella was saying, what she was pretending. But then they watched her set the doll down and walk over to Holden.

  Holden, who was her very best friend, the one close enough to be her twin brother.

  “Ho’den,” that’s what Ella called him back then. It was always so sweet the way she dropped the l whenever she said his name. Before he withdrew, Holden would know Ella’s voice and the way she said his name and he would run to her. Wherever he was he would run.

  But that day he was lining up his toy Hot Wheels cars near the living room window, his face pointed outward. Holden must’ve had three buckets of Hot Wheels cars. As Ella walked up, he didn’t turn to her or look at her or acknowledge her the way he always had.

  “Ho’den!” Ella touched his shoulder, desperate for him to turn around. “Play with me, Ho’den.”

  Nothing. No response. Holden didn’t see anything but the cars in the box, or the car in his hand, for that matter. Meticulously, almost trancelike, he reached for another car and added it to the long line. Bumper to bumper in the wildest, uncanny pattern. Green car, red car, blue car, yellow car, truck … green car, red car, blue car, yellow car, truck … green car —

  The sameness of his pattern was astonishing. Ella watched him for a few seconds then she laughed, but it sounded more like a cry, like she would do anything to get him to join her. The way he used to.

  “Why doesn’t he talk to her?” Suzanne couldn’t understand. Holden’s hearing worked. He loved Ella … but he was ignoring her. She turned to Tracy. “Have you tried forcing him to respond? I mean, maybe this is a late case of the Terrible Twos. You know, like he’s trying to exert his independence.”

  Suzanne remembered her words and she winced at the way they sounded replayed this many years later. But again, what could she possibly have known or understood about autism. Holden did seem rebellious or defiant, like if one of them had walked up and turned him around and ordered him to respond, then maybe he might’ve obeyed.

  But whatever Suzanne’s tone had been that day, however her words must’ve come across, Tracy did not take them well. Her expression iced over and her eyes flashed with an anger and intensity Suzanne hadn’t seen before. “It’s not like that.” She stared at Holden, and her look softened. After a minute, her eyes grew watery. “He’s not acting up. It’s in his brain … something’s changing in his brain.”

  Awkwardness stood between them, so big and wide and tall neither of them could see around it so they turned their attention back to the kids, drawn to the tragedy playing out the way people are drawn to stare at car wrecks.

  “Ho’den, can’t you hear me?” Ella looked like she might cry, and Suzanne’s heart broke for her daughter. “Play with me!”

  That time when he didn’t turn around, when he completely ignored her attempts, she went back to her baby doll. What she did next reduced both women to tears. Ella cradled the doll close to her face and gradually her joy returned.

  “Hi, Ho’den, it’s me, Ella!” Her sing-song voice was bright again. “Ho’den, let’s sing a song, okay?” She rocked the baby doll a little, as if the baby were answering her. “Okay, this one. Ready?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “Jesus loves me, this I know … for the Bible tells me so … Little ones to Him belong …”

  Tracy and Suzanne watched in silence, tears sliding down their faces. What could they say? Ella had been rejected by Holden, so she’d found a different friend. Her baby doll might not talk or sing along, but at least it looked at her.

  The memory passed. Suzanne had learned more about autism since then. Obviously it wouldn’t have been possible to order Holden to talk or to scold him out of his withdrawn behavior. She wasn’t sure if that was the last time she and Tracy spent time with the kids, but it was one of them. She stared at the photo of Holden and Ella again, stared so long and hard that she almost believed she could will her way back to that moment.

  To a time before Holden left them.

  The truth was when they lost Holden, they had all lost. Of course their conversations and visits were bound to feel different and strained. It was impossible to sit on the sofa sipping coffee and laughing when their children were suffering a few feet away.

  But she could’ve been more sensitive about how Tracy was feeling. Instead Suzanne was consumed with Ella’s sadness, Ella’s loss … how the situation with Holden was affecting her daughter. But had she ever just hugged Tracy and grieved with her? Suzanne couldn’t remember a single time. There was an air of sadness between them always after Holden started changing. Like everyone else, Suzanne was constantly sorry. But maybe she was more sorry for herself and her daughter than for what Tracy was going through.

  With no understanding of autism, Suzanne really had thought Holden was just being disobedient or sick … something correctable. She remembered another question she’d asked Tracy that day. “Is he cutting teeth, maybe?” She had tried to sound hopeful, because if that was it, Holden could be back to normal in a day or so.

  Tracy didn’t say a word for a few seconds, just looked at her with an emptiness Suzanne didn’t recognize. “It’s not his teeth.” “I’m just saying … some kids get moody when they’re cutting

  teeth.”

  When the visit ended that day, she and Tracy exchanged no loud argument or accusations—but there was a sense about their friendship. It was over. For weeks their times together played out like that, with Suzanne occasionally asking when Holden was going to get better. In the years since, Suzanne would sometimes replay those conversations and wish for an apology from Tracy. No one knew much about autism back then, and Suzanne wasn’t the only one who believed Holden’s changes were merely a stage. Even Tracy’s husband had felt that way. Tracy was the only one who believed Holden needed expert care or medical intervention. Even after the diagnosis, Suzanne and the guys still believed they could coax Holden back.

  Only Tracy grasped the truth about her son. Tracy, who was forced to handle the loss on her own.

  The reality dragged like fingernails across the chalkboard of her heart. Suzanne could’ve been a better friend—less concerned with her own anxiety, less worried about Ella’s loss. More supportive. But once the diagnosis came, there were other reasons the friendship between her and Tracy never recovered. They would be together and Ella would say something darling or accomplish some wonderful feat like turning a somersault, and the celebration would feel stilted and forced. How could Suzanne be excited about Ella’s milestones when Holden was regressing?

  Whether it was Suzanne’s insensitivity or Tracy’s defensive spirit, th
e awkwardness and tension between them buried their friendship one layer at a time. During the month-long spring training that year, Ella’s sadness over losing Holden seemed to lessen. She still talked about him, and her baby doll kept the name Holden. But a week after they returned home they connected with a few baseball families—all of whom had young kids. One of them had a little girl Ella’s age. The void in their lives was filled and time moved them swiftly downstream from everything about the Harris family.

  Suzanne missed Tracy, of course. But she missed the old Tracy, the old Holden, the old way of spending time together before … before Holden changed. With every passing week the idea of calling Tracy seemed more overwhelming, and as the weeks became months, and the months became years, the friendship died.

  A friendship that was supposed to last forever.

  Suzanne turned the pages of the photo album and stopped at one final picture—a photo of her and Tracy taken at the county fair the summer before Holden’s change. They wore silly tall green hats and big orange plastic sunglasses and purple feather boas. Their husbands had won the costumes throwing baseballs at a wooden board.

  “Princesses Forever,” the caption read.

  Suzanne could still feel the hot, humid sunshine on their faces that day, smell the heavy popcorn oil and hear the carnival barkers urging them to step right up. If there was a way back to that time, she would’ve taken it. And when Holden started to leave them, she would’ve been more sensitive. Suzanne wanted to cry, wanted to break down right here in the office while the kids were still sleeping and sob over the price they’d all paid when Holden slipped through their fingers.

  This was a moment when tears should’ve come freely because the losses had done nothing but pile up after that. First Holden and Ella, then the time their families spent together, … the funloving friendship between their husbands, and a million happy moments like the one in the photograph. They had lost all of it, and finally … they had lost their faith. And it was that loss, Suzanne was sure now, that led to the next set of changes. Randy’s distance, his lack of commitment to their family, her obsession with her looks, and the poor connection they had with their children. Her self-loathing and her inability to feel.

  The answers to her questions all seemed clear now. The break with the Harris family had started a chain reaction she was helpless to change. There was no way to go back and undo the damage.

  Suzanne began to shake a little. So much was lost along the way, she should’ve been weeping. That was the greatest problem, the one that made her sick to her stomach. Her life was falling apart, but even still her Botoxed eyes were dry.

  Nothing but wires and clockwork.

  TRACY DIDN’T ALWAYS TAKE HOLDEN TO CHURCH. HE LOVED the music, but sometimes—if the pastor got too excited or raised his voice a little louder than usual, or if too many people opened their bulletin at the same time—Holden would start to rock. And if his surroundings didn’t quiet down quickly, he would find his way from the pew to the floor and start doing push-ups. The congregation was kind, the sort of church family that checked in on Tracy once in a while and kept Holden on their prayer chain. But there was a limit to the sort of distractions that could happen during Sunday service.

  And Holden was often a distraction.

  This Sunday, though, Holden woke up happy and humming. Yes, that was the newest change Tracy had seen in her wonderful son. He was humming. So far she’d heard him hum the theme from Beauty and the Beast and the song “Home” from the show. She didn’t have to wonder at the source of Holden’s improvements. It was the spring musical. More than that, it was Ella.

  “I think we’ll go to church today, Holden.” She told him the news while she made herself a cup of coffee.

  Holden sat at the kitchen table eating toaster waffles and sorting through his PECS cards. He still didn’t respond with words, but more often now he did respond. His fork was steady in his hand as he took another bite.

  She watched, willing him to answer in some way. Please, God … I know Holden hears me … I want to take my son to church, Lord … please. “Holden … did you hear me, honey?”

  Holden set his fork down and nodded a few times, his eyes locked on the deck of cards. Quickly, almost panicky, he began moving through the cards lightning fast in search of what he wanted to say.

  Tracy moved closer and took the seat beside him. “I’m here, Holden. I know you’re trying to talk to me.” She put her hand ever so softly on his shoulder. When he didn’t flinch, she silently rejoiced. How many years had she longed for this simple moment, the chance to touch her son without the instant rejection of feeling him pull away?

  Finally Holden seemed to find the card he was looking for. Without making eye contact, he handed it to her.

  The card made Tracy’s heart do a stutter beat. It was like she’d always thought. Holden could understand so much more than anyone thought. He had to understand, because of the message on the card. The illustration showed a young woman. And the words simply said “The Girl.”

  The card didn’t represent Tracy, she was sure of that. The dawning happened immediately, as soon as she looked at the card. Tenderness and clarity filled Tracy’s heart. “Ella? Is that who you mean? You’d like Ella to go to church with us?”

  Holden still stared at his plate, but he smiled just enough to notice. Then he hummed a little and opened his mouth and sang.

  Tracy blinked, her head spinning. The line he sang was from Beauty and the Beast, a line about being scared and not quite ready to move on. If she hadn’t been sitting down she would’ve fallen over. Holden understood exactly what he was asking. He wanted Ella Reynolds to go with them to church, but more than that he understood how the situation could feel a little awkward, how their nerves were bound to be somewhat jumbled.

  Tracy felt a little nervous. Ella might not want to spend time with Holden outside school, and the disappointment might halt his progress. But she didn’t want to keep her son waiting. “Okay.” She stood and walked across the kitchen to her cell phone. “I can call her. Maybe Ella can meet us there.”

  Still no eye contact, but Holden nodded. He definitely nodded.

  “All right, then.” Tracy fought against her pounding heart. What if Ella’s mother answered the phone? Or what if Suzanne got angry that Tracy was inviting her daughter to church?

  I can do this … I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength. It was another verse, another truth she clung to daily. Praying for streams in the desert, believing God would get her through even on the driest desert days when the sand scorched her feet.

  She and Ella had talked a few times on the phone—times when Ella had to share something Holden had done, or when she had an idea about how to help Holden open up more. At first his therapists didn’t believe the changes were anything more than anomalies in his behavior. Quirks that didn’t add up to anything significant. After all, he’d always loved music. The idea that he would enjoy rehearsals wasn’t that new or advanced for Holden.

  But when he started singing, his therapists and teachers and doctors all took notice. This didn’t happen with all kids on the autism spectrum. It didn’t happen with most. But like the rarest key in the rustiest lock, miraculously something was getting through and opening Holden’s mind. Tracy had no doubt that the key was music, and Ella alone held it in her hands.

  She tapped out the girl’s number and waited. Please, God … let her answer … Let her be willing … Don’t let it be awkward … please, God.

  Ella answered almost immediately. “Hello?” She sounded pleasant, but tired.

  “Oh, honey, I’m sorry.” Tracy couldn’t make her get out of bed on a Sunday. “I had an idea, but not if you’re sleeping. I didn’t mean to —”

  “No, Mrs. Harris, I’m awake. Really.” Her energy picked up some. “What’s going on?”

  Tracy shot a look at Holden. He was rocking a little, his eyes glued to his uneaten waffle. “Well,” She closed her eyes. There was no turning
back now. “Holden and I are going to church. We wondered … Actually, he wondered if you’d like to join us?”

  Holden stopped rocking and lifted his head, his gaze straight ahead.

  “Really?” She laughed, but it was clearly a show of joy, an extension of the smile that must’ve filled her face. “Holden wants me to go?”

  “He does.” She explained the story, about the PECS card and how he nodded when she asked him if he wanted her to call Ella. “It starts in an hour.”

  “I’d love to go.” She sounded as happy and delightful as she had when she was little.

  Tracy told her where the church was and the best way to get there from Fulton High—which was near Ella’s house. “So … we’ll see you there?”

  Holden’s smile crept a little higher on his face.

  “Definitely.” She paused. “Thanks for calling. That means a lot—that Holden wants me there.”

  “It’s like you said. God is doing something big in Holden’s

  life.”

  “Actually,” she hesitated, her voice more emotional than before. “He’s doing something big in both our lives.”

  As the call ended, Tracy heard Holden humming again. She turned and smiled at him. If only she could take him in her arms and hug him, celebrate with him the thrill of knowing he could ask a friend to church. The hug wasn’t going to happen, but as she stood there Holden began to sing. This time the song was the same one Holden and Ella had sung so often back before. The song that rang through their home every afternoon. His voice was a little older now, but there was so much sameness, Tracy had to lean against the kitchen counter to catch her breath. Holden didn’t notice. He kept staring at his eggs and rocking and singing the same sweet words over and over and over again.

  “Jesus loves me, this I know … for the Bible tells me so … Little ones to Him belong … they are weak, but He is strong!”

  Twenty-One

  THE BREAKTHROUGH HAPPENED AT CHURCH.

  Ella had showered and dressed in a hurry and stopped only briefly in the kitchen to tell her mother where she was headed.