Beneath a Cerulean Sky

Two young men stand in the parking lot. They open the back of a U-Haul and begin to unload a table. Their ease with one another pinches my spirit.

Autism’s papercuts. They never quite disappear. Even as, at twenty, my own son rounds the corner into young adulthood. I still feel the sting all the same.

I turn to him. Jack. Jack-attack. Jack-a-boo.

The boy who shaped and re-shaped who I am. Who I will be.

Here, in this moment, we are only mother and son.

Gone are the days of homework ripped to shreds, of running away in the parking lot, of screaming when static came on the radio.

Gone is the first year in his college program - the frantic phone calls, the meetings with staff, the vibrating worry beneath my ribcage that perhaps with was the wrong decision.

Today I am just a mother, helping her son move into his first apartment.

Beneath a cerulean sky, we carry lamps, towels, his waffle maker.

Out of the corner of a box, I see the soft pink ears of a stuffed rabbit. Bunny. His comfort item since he was an infant. I remember placing it in his crib. I swallow a lump in my throat.

Mother.

Son.

For so long, I couldn’t find him.

I couldn’t find him through the haze of anxiety, of OCD, of autism.

Today, he stands before me. Not healed – never healed -  but calm.

He shifts a box on his hip.

An apartment of his own.

Connected still to a supportive program, yes. Supported and, as we say, scaffolded. For it is likely he will never move about the world without a safety net of some kind.

Yet something in his face tells me he won’t come home again.

He’ll visit. He’ll stay for a few days. I’ll buy his special cookies and we’ll go to the places in town he loves, but he’ll be a tourist amongst the us.

I pull another box out of the trunk. I look up to the sky. I think of sandcastles, of jellybeans, of babies wrapped in blue.

Who am I, without him?

Crime is on the rise, in this city where he sleeps.

People ask for money from the sidewalk.

Every day, news of a shooting, a mugging.

What am I doing, letting my younger-than-his-years son live here?

I don’t know the answer. I only know installing him back in his childhood bedroom would break his heart. Like an old sweater, he has outgrown it.

Carefully, I broach the subject. I ask him how he would react if he is approached. I encourage him to walk tall, head high, shoulders back. I don’t know if this advice is enough.

This is not a game.

He has no armor.

It is beautiful.

It is terrifying.

My son.

He is every mistake I have ever made.

Please, keep him safe.

Keep him safe.

This is the mantra I murmur when I wake at night, while I wash dishes, every time I pass his empty bedroom.

Eventually, all of the boxes are moved. We stand awkwardly together in the parking lot. The U-Haul has long been emptied. The two young men have disappeared.

I get in my car. I pull away.

In the rearview mirror, his silhouette is smaller and smaller.

He waves.

I put on my blinker.

I turn onto the street.

I cover my mouth.

I think of his words.

“Mom. A home of my very own.”