At last

I reckon R wasn’t even a year old yet when I first noticed something was… not exactly wrong, but different. He didn’t seem to be responding to his name the way he should do. His powers of concentration on favourite toys and pretty sparkly things were preternaturally strong. The far-away look in his wide-set, marine blue eyes, which only rarely look at you, put me in mind of fairy child changelings, creatures from other worlds with half a mind to go back there as soon as they can book the next flight.

When R was about 11-months-old, a friend of a friend came over with her little boy A. The two kids were only three weeks apart in age, but little A was already talking, feeding himself, and on the verge of walking, and R wasn’t even close. They develop at different rates, the other mother reassured me. She’s not just a schoolteacher and therefore understands kids but she’s also a better mother, I thought to myself. Maybe R is a bit thick I thought. Maybe he has Asperger’s or autism, I said aloud. Nonsense, said A’s perfect schoolteacher mother. I’ve seen autistic kids and he’s nothing like one of them. I put the thought to bed for another few months.

T would have no truck with the concept anyway. They just develop at different rates, he said, echoing our GP, the health visitor, his parents, my parents, and everyone else who met or knew of R. And look at how good he is at using a walker, T pointed out. Little A was terrified of the thing, and R can do three-point turns in it already!

So here we are, nearly two years later, and we finally have an official piece of paper with NHS letterhead and everything that says yes, R has an Autistic Spectrum Disorder. I have an overwhelming urge to shout “I told you!” at someone, but the words taste like ash in my mouth.

I feel strangely desolate about getting the diagnosis. We knew it was coming. We urged them to get on with it. I thought I, perhaps more than T or anyone else, was psychologically prepared for it. When Dr L finally said it, after Dr M had finished going through the ADOS assessment’s findings, I felt nothing but relief at first. And then minutes later I was crying and asking them if they could reassure me again (because I already knew the answer) that it wasn’t because I’d not taken good enough care of myself when he was in the womb. I admit it – I smoked some cigarettes, I drank some wine, I went to film festivals and got myself incredibly stressed. No, she reassured me. It’s not my fault. But if still feels like it is.

T, on the other hand, seemed to take it all in his stride. I think he went through the grieving more thoroughly last year, when the realization that R probably had some kind of autism drove T to give up drink for good so he could deal with it better. The other night T said he’s glad now that the next time someone says, Are you sure? He’s still very young, i.e. please don’t tell me there’s something wrong with your child because I don’t know how to handle the pity for you and I don’t want to know it, he can say, yes, we are sure now.