“It’s okay, let it go. Come and eat.”

“Warren, it’s you and me, after dinner.” Cate went to the table, pulled out a chair, and picked up the small container. White rice fell out in a solid block, reminding her of the sand molds she used to make down the shore with Warren. They’d pack dark, wet sand in a blue plastic castle and turn it over. He’d been creeped out by the filmy-shelled sand crabs that would burrow away, and frankly, so was Cate. It seemed so long ago, but it was only last year.

“I’m wondering if I should go tonight.” Gina broke up her rice with the side of her fork, eyeing Warren.

“Go to the Acme, my godchild needs food. Should I work with him or let it go tonight?”

“Work with him with the mirror, but just a little.” Gina shook her head. “I hate to give up even one night, or he’ll fall further behind.”

“Go and don’t worry about it.”

“Thanks.” Gina brightened and dug in for another forkful. “Hey, I might even take a shower before I leave. Lately, even the produce is looking at me funny. Also I could crash my cart into somebody single.”

Cate smiled. “So what happened today? Why’d he have a tantrum?”

“I tried to do floor time after the doc.” Gina popped open her Diet Coke and poured it into her glass, where it fizzed against the ice. “We were working on All About Me in the activity book.”

“That’s where you went wrong.” Cate scooped goopy yellow curry onto her rice. “You shoulda stuck with Faces and Places.”

“I know, right? I love Faces and Places!”

“All About Me is a ballbuster.”

“Only thing worse is You and Me.”

“You and Me will kill you.”

Gina burst into laughter. “If I were better at You and Me, I wouldn’t be divorced.”

They both laughed again, though it wasn’t true. Not every marriage survives a child with autism. When the doctors finally diagnosed Warren, Gina quit her job as an insurance lawyer and dedicated herself to finding the best early intervention programs. Her husband, Mike, had edged away and finally opted out of the marriage, though he sent support checks big enough to cover most expenses. Cate had set up a trust fund for Warren, contributing yearly. She’d tell Gina about it someday, if the girl ever stopped talking.

“So what’s going on in the outside world, Cate? How was your weekend? Did you do anything?”

“No. Just worked.”

“Hear anything from the old firm?”

“No, they don’t call. It would be inappropriate.”

“So who do you play with?”

“You.”

Gina didn’t smile. “What about that stockbroker, Graham What’s-his-name? Is he still calling?”

“I see him tomorrow night.”

“Yay!” Gina clapped, then stopped abruptly, her brown eyes wide. “Wait, is this the third date? It’s time for third-date sex! Woohooo!”

“Slow down, girl.” Cate hid her discomfort. She’d never admit to Gina what she did on the side. She barely admitted it to herself.

“You know the rules. You have to.” Gina leaned over her plate, her dinner forgotten. “How’m I gonna live vicariously if you have such a boring life? You’re a judge, not a nun. Maybe you got confused? The black robes are too matchy?”

Cate smiled. Everybody should have at least one girlfriend who can make her laugh. “Enough about me. Tell me about the bitchy speech therapist,” she said, because she knew Gina needed to talk, and they were off.

Later, while Gina was upstairs getting ready to go, Cate sat at the kitchen chair next to Warren and a watery Diet Coke, its ice melted to slivers. The kitchen lights were dimmed, and Mozart played in the background. Warren remained focused on the window, and Cate followed his gaze, confounded.

Outside, under the security light, the branches of a bare tree moved in the wind, in a stiff, jittery way. Kids with autism saw details and patterns that people without it couldn’t see, so she squinted and tried to see them the way Warren did. Spidery black lines coated with yellow light moved back and forth, then the black lines disappeared into complete darkness. Autistic brains saw everything, but normal brains didn’t see things if they didn’t expect to see them, in a phenomenon called inattentive blindness. There’d even been an experiment where airplane pilots had failed to see a jet on the runway, because they didn’t expect it to be there.

He’s got to come back to us. To his mother. To me.

Cate picked up a medium-sized round mirror rimmed with cheery red felt and tilted it at Warren so that it captured his face. “Warren. You’re Warren,” she said. In the reflection, the child’s mouth tilted down at the one corner, though his gaze stayed at the window. She pointed to his reflection anyway. “Warren.” Then she tilted the mirror to herself, so he could see her reflection. She pointed to her face in the mirror. “Karen.”

What?

“Cate.” Cate blinked and pointed again. She must be tired. Carol. Sandra. Emily. Halley. “Cate.” Then she tilted the mirror to the boy and pointed again. “Warren.”

Warren stirred in the high chair and began to move his head, side to side.

“It’s okay,” Cate said in a calm voice. What was bothering him? Maybe too much pointing. Autistic kids don’t point, and he was just learning how to point in school. She set the mirror down gently. Sudden noises wouldn’t help. “We won’t do this anymore, if you don’t want to.”

Warren shook his head, side to side.

“Warren, it’s okay, we’ll stop now, it’s okay,” Cate soothed, but singsong wasn’t working. She wanted to kick herself. “It’s okay, Warren,” she said, but he started shaking his head faster, then swinging his small arms, jostling the high chair. The chair banged against the kitchen table, and Cate’s glass tipped over with a loud clunk, spilling Diet Coke and sending ice skidding across the table.

“Ahhh!” Warren burst into screaming, shaking his head back and forth so violently that he rocked the high chair, almost toppling it. Cate leapt up and grabbed him under his arms so he didn’t fall, but he was strapped into the high chair and went ballistic. Cate managed to unlatch him and scoop him shrieking into her arms, kicking his feet, writhing back and forth. Cate tried to remember her training. Kids with autism are calmed by tight squeezing. She hugged him tightly, and he kicked against her stomach with his baby sneakers but she didn’t let go.

“Cate!” Gina rushed into the kitchen in a towel, her expression stricken and her wet hair plastered to her shoulders. “Do you need-”

“No, I got it, it’s okay, Warren, it’s okay, it’s Cate and it’s okay,” Cate said over and over, squeezing him. Gina stood at their side, her hand covering her mouth, her tears silent. The child stopped screaming and his kicking finally lessened, then ceased as his tense body loosened in her arms. “It’s all right, Warren, it’s gone now, I love you, Warren,” Cate kept repeating, and Warren went finally limp in her arms.

Gina signaled in time that he had fallen asleep, but Cate didn’t let him go. He felt so good in her arms, permitting her embrace only in slumber, and Gina understood, because she nodded to Cate to go upstairs to put him down. And when they were finished, Cate picked up her purse, slipped back into her sheepskin, and closed the town house door.

Grateful, and heartbroken, to leave.

Afterwards Cate found herself driving the long way home, knowing she was in some vague state of denial. She piloted the white Mercedes through Roxborough, a working-class neighborhood on the way home, a brick labyrinth of row houses with green plastic awnings, heaped now with crusty snow and trimmed with sooty icicles. She felt oddly comfortable here; it was a lot like her hometown, and she kept seeing her own past.

She drove by an old Catholic grade school, its windows covered with construction-paper snowflakes. She had gone to an elementary school like that, St. Ignatius, and remembered making snowflakes, folding the paper into thick eighths, cutting the corners with useless safety scissors, then unfolding the creation in a schoolgirl’s suspense. She’d been either disappointed to discover cut holes that were bigger than they were supposed to be, or happily surprised when a humongous star burst at the center of the snowflake. She didn’t know why she remembered it, now.