November-December, 2001
"Alright, honey, you're gonna go under the donut." The MRI tech told me, then aged six, from behind her window.
"Do you like my doll?!" I waved my Barbie around and squawked, too happily for someone getting their head and abdomen checked to find out why they had been vomiting frequently for the past couple of months.
"Honey, I really need you to stop talking." Her voice was strict, so I shut my mouth.
"There we go. Don't be scared, okay?" She said in a much more tender tone.
I wasn't scared at all. In fact, I was enraptured. The machine looked like something out of CyberChase, one of the TV programs from the golden age of PBS Kids. I imagined myself in the show's universe, bouncing around the electronic jungle of robots and computers and solving math problems with Matt, Inez, Jackie, and Digit - characters who were almost like siblings to me at this point. Ever since my parents had found themselves tiptoeing through a haunted house of psychologists and developmental-behavioral pediatricians for my little brother, I had spent a lot of time by myself in front of the television.
"We're ready. One, two?."
With a soft drone, the machine slowly glided me through the scanner. I closed my eyes, contented with everything; the dark room, the tickle of doll hair nuzzled against my chin, and most of all, an adult who - even if just for five minutes - was making me their first priority.
Since then, every Friday night at our house became "Karen night". Karen was a behaviorist who came to work with my brother, and her regular presence in the house was definitely something to adjust to - especially for me.
On one such Friday, I peered into Ethan's bedroom, and observed Karen slowly feeding him a banana as my parents looked on.
" 'More'." Karen curled her fingertips on both hands and lightly clinked them against each other. She then helped his own hands form the sign, and gave him another bite of the banana.
"Good job." My mom said somewhat sadly, the way she had started saying most of her words.
When Karen finally noticed me, she greeted me with that saccharine voice that many adults unfortunately use with kids.
"Hi, sweetie. Do you want to watch?"
"No."
"No, thank you." My father reminded me sharply, but I buried my face in his shirt.
"Daddy, play with me." I whined. He kissed me on the head.
"Not now, Naomi." He said, not taking his eyes off of my brother.
"When?" I clung on to him, but he pried himself away.
"After this."
Not believing him, I turned around and looked at Karen and Ethan again.
" 'Thank you.' " Karen touched her chin and brought her hand forward out in front of her face. She then took Ethan's hand and had him act out the motion. After losing interest, I went to my thirteen-year-old sister Chiara's room, where she spent most of her time holed up away from the rest of us. She was standing in front of the mirror blending ivory concealer into Orion's belt of pimples on her left cheek.
"Hey, peanut." She held a five-second long grimace and applied the palest, least ostentatious shade of lip gloss possible, careful not to get any on her blue braces.
"You look like a ghost."
"That's the point."
"I don't get it."
"You will someday."
I grabbed her history textbook off of her desk and held it out to her.
"Read to me, Chiara." I pleaded, straining to lift up the book, which was probably a third of my body weight. She put down the makeup and snorted.
"You won't like this book, trust me."
"Yes, I will."
With a slight smirk, Chiara sat down on her bed and pulled me close to her. She opened the textbook and flipped through to a random chapter in the middle.
" 'The tensions that caused the War of 1812 stemmed from the French revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. During this period of chronic unrest between France and Britain - ' "
It turned out I wasn't interested in European history at all. Resigned, I stepped back into Ethan's bedroom, where Ethan was fiddling with a miniature plastic Teletubby - one of his many small toys that he loved dearly and played with in the exact same order every single day - as my parents were listening to Karen speak.
"A lot of children with autism - "
"Speech delay." My mother interrupted her. It had been two weeks since a specialist had officially slapped the "A-word" on my brother, and Mom saw it as a scarlet letter.
Karen opened her mouth to speak, but closed it again and smiled tightly.
".....Right. Children with speech delays - and autism - can eventually learn to speak, and sign language is often a gateway to that."
"When can we expect him to speak?"
"It depends. Many children like this say their first words around age three."
"Ethan is three." My mom exchanged a worried glance with my dad.
Suddenly, I burned with hate. Not for my brother, my parents and sister, or Karen - just a generalized hot resentment for something I couldn't name. With a gleeful smile, I grabbed the Teletubby out of his hands, fast-walked to the bathroom, and tossed it into the toilet. Instantly, Ethan started wailing, and while my dad and Karen tended to him, my mom stormed into the bathroom.
"Why would you do that?" Mom yelled. "Go get it out."
I put my finger on the toilet handle as if it were a loaded gun, looking my mother straight in the eye.
"Don't even think about it." She said in such a way that I actually feared what would happen if I even thought about it, so I stuck my hand in the bowl to fish out the toy.
When Chiara heard the commotion, she stuck her head out of her doorway.
"What happened?"
"You wouldn't know." My mom snapped. "You're always in that room."
Chiara sunk back into her room again, clearly not helping her own case.
"Now you need to wash that." My dad grumbled from the bedroom.
I did as I was told, working soap between my hands into a lather and then smearing it on the small toy. I did feel a little contrite; it hurt to see and hear Ethan cry. But underneath all that, the whole incident gave me a small thrill, and I smiled to myself as I rinsed the Teletubby clean.
The doctor called my mom the next day with the results from my scans. No brain tumor, but severe constipation. The reason? Unknown. The prescription? An enema and and a course of laxatives.
"I don't understand, Paul." My mother shook her head in the hallway outside my bedroom, reading the directions on the back of the suppository's package. She was perplexed, as she always made sure my siblings and I choked down at least one serving of vegetables or whole-grains at dinner.
"They need to run more tests." My father grumbled as he held me down to my bed with his left arm.
"The doctor said this can happen from stress."
"Stress? From what?"
"I don't want to!" I screeched, trying to wriggle loose from my dad's grip. Chiara looked on in amusement.
"The enema of the enema is my friend."
"Chiara, stop." My father grumbled.
"Keep your friends close, and your enemas closer - "
"Chiara, enough!"
My sister shrugged, and was about to slip back into her room, when we heard the sound of metal clattering to the ground from the kitchen - followed by my brother's maniacal giggle.
"Damn it! See what you did?!" Dad shouted at Chiara. "Instead of watching him, you were screwing around up here!"
Chiara's jokey exterior vanished, and she silently made her way downstairs.
"You're doing a good job." My mom, covering up the lie with a sweet tone, gently stroked my hair in a vain attempt to calm me down. "Stay still".
"No!" I howled, arching my back to fight the syringe. Right away, I felt it carefully invading me, stinging my skin with each intrusive nudge. My father gritted his teeth as he held me down, moving his head from left to right to avoid a flailing kids' size-thirteen foot to the face. Through my pain and stubbornness, I felt a twinge of guilt. When people prepare to become parents, they fantasize about soccer practice, apple picking, and cozy storytimes on the couch - not having to force feces out of their child, clean up vomit multiple nights a week, or listen to a behaviorist rattle off all the things they'll probably never be able to do.
Then it came, the cold rush of saltwater that shook me from the inside. With clenched buttocks, I jumped up from the bed and ran to the toilet, eliminating in what seemed like the rat-tat-tat style of a machine gun. Immediately, I felt lighter - though the start-and-stop cramping in my intestines made me queasy.
"Did you go?" My mother called from my room.
"Uh-huh." I called back. Downstairs, I heard my brother begin to cry - despite Chiara's attempts to calm him down - and my parents rushed down to the kitchen. I stayed on the toilet longer than I had to, hugging myself as I listened to the chaos unfold.
At school a few days later, my kindergarten classmates and I sat at our tables listening to our teacher, Mrs. Johnston, explain how to write a letter.
"You can write to anyone you want". She told us, as her aide - Mrs. McLellan - passed out paper and pencils. I had a special preference for her over Mrs. Johnston; unlike the latter, Mrs. McLellan never seemed to get outwardly overwhelmed, and had a quiet warmth about her - a rarity in a sea of adults who, ever since September, seemed to be on edge.
"Can I write to Harry Potter?" Ricky, the class Harry Potter aficionado, put his hands in the praying position. "Please?!"
"Yes, you can write to Harry Potter."
"How about Buzz Lightyear?" Emilia called out from her seat.
"Go for it."
I smirked to myself as the other kids shouted out the book and cartoon characters they wanted to write to - and many of them were vying for the same ones. In an ocean of Harry Potters, Cinderellas, Buzz Lightyears, and Darth Vaders, how would I stand out?
My mind then drifted to the news, which seemed to be on all the time at our house. There was a man whose face was burned into my memory from seeing it so often on television. I knew he had done something terrible, but no one had explained to me exactly what. Anyone who was always on the news would certainly make an interesting pen pal, though. I squeezed my memory for his name?..oh, yes.
"Naomi?" Mrs. Johnston noticed that I was raising my hand. "Who do you want to write to?"
"Osama Bin Laden!" I yelled out. Any chatter in the room immediately died, and everyone's eyes were on me.
"Oooh! She can't do that, Mrs. Johnston!" Emilia exclaimed so loudly that the teacher jumped.
"Who's Osama Bin Ladder?" Ricky asked.
Mrs. McLellan let a titter escape. But Mrs. Johnston, stoic as ever, shook her head.
"Pick someone else, Naomi."
"Yeah, Naomi." Tyler, from the next table over, said. "Nobody likes the boy who crashes planes."
"He wasn't in any of the planes, dumb-head." His seatmate, Noah, chimed in.
"I'm not a dumb-head!"
"Boys! No more." With her eyes squeezed shut, Mrs. Johnston massaged her temples.
"Can I write to Osama Bin Laden?" Emilia asked innocently.
"No! Nobody's writing to that ....man." Mrs. Johnston snapped. We were used to her fits of frustration, but this felt different. The room went silent again, with many kids looking down at their feet. The teacher immediately looked regretful, and took a deep breath.
"If you need help, let me or Mrs. McLellan know."
We all got to work. Mrs. McLellan and Mrs. Johnston paced the floor, looking for anyone who needed some pointers. I myself needed help, as I sat there absentmindedly tapping my pencil against the table. Mrs. McLellan knelt down beside me.
"Are you stuck, Naomi?"
"I don't know who to write to."
"How about Mom or Dad? Or Chiara?"
I shrugged. For me, the question wasn't whether or not I wanted to write to them; it was why they would want to hear anything I'd have to say.
"Don't you have a little brother?"
"He's never talked to me before."
"Buzz Lightyear and Harry Potter have never talked to Emilia or Ricky".
I couldn't argue with that logic. She walked away, and I stared out the window.The meteorologist on Channel 5 had predicted that it would snow that day, which would have at least made the cold weather somewhat enjoyable, but the sky was only full of ominous gray clouds. With that in mind, I got my first sentence down.
"Deer Ethan?.why do wether men never say the rite thing?"
What else could I say? I chewed on my pencil, musing to myself.
"I hop we cun talk togeder sometim."
Then, the words flowed out of me, kindergarten-level spelling be damned. If there was a literary equivalent to what happened when I got my enema, this was it. I drenched the page with questions: would he ever be able to speak? Why couldn't he speak? Why was Mom suddenly so sad, and Dad unable to play with me as often? Why was Chiara always in her room? Yes, Mrs. Johnston was going to read all of it. But I wanted her - in fact, anyone - to see what was on my mind.
When I was almost done writing, I felt like I was being watched. Mrs. McLellan had been standing behind me - for how long, I don't know. When I turned around and caught her trying to discreetly look over my shoulder, she turned away to check another child's work.
"All right, friends." Mrs. Johnston finally said. "Put your letters in the 'finished' or 'unfinished' work box and get ready to go home."
We all obliged. I carefully placed my finished letter into the "Finished Work" box on Mrs. Johnston's desk - both glad to have written it and relieved to have it out of my hands.
I spent the rest of that day at our school's afterschool program, which I attended on Tuesdays and Thursdays.My favorite activity in there was to play on the stage, which - when it wasn't being used for school assemblies and performances - had its curtains open, revealing a large carpeted area that was ready for any children who wanted to build block towers, have Hot Wheels car races, or simply curl up in a beanbag chair to read a book. In a poorly supervised corner behind the curtain, though, were me and two third-graders, Maddie and Caitlin, who had both taken me under their wings at the beginning of the school year. On this Tuesday, we were playing our go-to fantasy game, "Dragon Family".
"I'm the baby dragon." Maddie declared.
"No, you were the baby last time." Caitlin pouted.
"Naomi should be the baby. Right, Naomi?"
I didn't care if I played the baby or not; in fact, I wasn't thinking about the game at all. Afterschool ended at 5:30 each day, and every day around 4:45, I would begin to keep a hawk's eye on the doorway, hoping to see my own father or mother. At least six parents who were not mine walked through the door happily to collect their kids. My imagination tortured me with all kinds of possibilities: maybe my mom's Toyota lost a wheel. Maybe a truck carrying hot fudge to the ice cream shop downtown had turned over and spilled, leaving my dad's Volvo stuck on the road. Whatever had happened, I would surely have to sleep in the cafeteria that night all by myself.
"Maddie." I choked out. "When am I gonna go home?"
"I don't know." Maddie was exasperated, but Caitlin put her hand on my shoulder.
"Don't worry about it." She whispered, in an almost motherly way. "Just play."
Our corner wasn't poorly supervised for long, as we heard adult footsteps shuffling around behind the curtain. Caitlin opened the curtain, revealing Ms. LaForce - one of the after-school teachers - taking out a plastic container of Legos from the shelf.
"Girls, you're not supposed to be - " Her lecture was cut short when she noticed my red, blotchy face.
"Naomi, not again."
"I wanna go home!"
"It's almost five. Everyone will be going home soon."
"What if I don't?"
Mrs. LaForce stopped and looked at me blankly, as if I had said something so ridiculous that her brain needed time to compute it. Her attention was soon drawn to a kid who was about to jump off of a chair, and she ran to him.
The older girls and I went down the mini-staircase from the stage. We parted ways and they went off together, seemingly glad to be free of my blubbering self. I had caught the eye of Mrs. McLellan - who worked at afterschool three days a week - and noticing that I was fixated on the doorway, she came over and took my hand.
"Come play a game with me, Naomi." She coaxed me away from the door, and took me to the games closet in the corner. There, she found the board and stones needed to play mancala, which she knew I enjoyed.
We sat at a nearby table and played the game, dropping the little colored stones out of our fists and into the circular divots in the wooden board. I imagined each group of stones as a family, and each divot a home, which made my eyes water again. Just as I was about to lose the battle against my tears, my dad finally came in at 5:13. Mrs. LaForce was standing there as I ran to him, and Mrs. McLellan followed closely behind.
"See? There's Dad." The former said, a little condescendingly. "I told you."
Sobbing uncontrollably, I glommed onto my father as if I would never see him again.
"This didn't happen at all in preschool". He said to the teachers as he tried to comfort me, looking bewildered. Mrs. LaForce physically waved his concern away.
"It's normal for kindergartners during the first half of the year. I think I remember Chiara having that problem."
"Yeah, for the first week or two." My dad dug a wrinkled tissue - of questionable cleanliness - out of his coat pocket to wipe my nose. "It's almost Christmas."
I could tell from the way he said it that something wasn't right. Something that wasn't "normal for kindergartners". Something that wasn't my fault. I know Mrs. McLellan could tell, too, by the way she was looking at me - not with judgment, but a gentleness that made me feel a little less alien.
Just then, a second-grader - whose name I didn't know - burst into the hallway.
"Mrs. LaForce!" He yelled. "Danny is pretending to be Superman with the chair again!"
Mrs. LaForce rushed back into the cafeteria. Dad and I were just about to leave, when it seemed that Mrs. McLellan had picked up on a little something in the air.
"How's everything?"
My father paused, visibly thinking of what to say.
"Ah?.you know. Kids." His shoulders rose and fell as he let out a sheepish chuckle. "You understand."
"I do." Mrs. McLellan nodded, smiling at him, and then waved at me. "See you tomorrow, Naomi."
I waved back as my father and I walked out the door together, instantly calmed by the thought of seeing her the next day - something I could be as sure of as someone in the cafeteria pretending to be Superman with a chair.
That night, I threw up - as I had done the night before, and the night before that. I hated these episodes - which rudely awakened me from my sleep, lasted for hours, and left my stomach feeling like a hollowed-out pumpkin. No one would wish this on themselves - not consciously, anyway. But it seemed like some evil mastermind in the backyard shed of my awareness was pulling the strings between my brain and gut, figuring out how to get my parents out of bed and by my side - where I knew I wanted them to be.
Ethan would sleep right through everything, but Chiara, the family emetophobe, would hyperventilate under her blanket and turn up her Walkman as loudly as she could, to the point where I could hear sparks of music coming from her headphones. Each time I heaved, I cried into the toilet bowl - not just from nausea or abdominal pain, but because my sister was upset, and my parents - who had already lost a lot of sleep over my brother - were now losing sleep because of me.
By the time I had finally finished, it was already almost dawn. My mother made me a cup of mint tea and sporadically spooned it into my mouth.
"I need to go back to bed, Naomi. Okay?"
"No! Stay here." I whimpered. It wasn't the sickness that I feared, but rather, being by myself.
"All right, I'll be here. Don't worry."
Every so often, I would open my eyes to check if she was still sitting on the little loveseat in my room that was mostly occupied by stuffed animals. True to her word, she stayed, sleeping on the couch. The comfort of her being there was almost enough to outweigh my physical distress, but it was my nectar, and my mind would do anything - including sucking my body dry - to satisfy the craving.
We were back at afterschool again the next day, and this time, I was on the playground. Everyone was running around, burning off their hyperactivity - well, everyone but me, that is. Having not slept much the night before, I had neither the energy nor the desire to do anything but sit alone on the bench and stare sadly at the swarm of keyed-up kids before me. We would soon be going inside, and in anticipation of pick-up time - or, in my mind, not-being-picked-up time - I felt fear crawling through me, like water being slowly absorbed by a paper towel. Just then, Caitlin and Maddie approached the bench.
"Naomi?" Maddie sat down next to me. "Do you want to play house with us?"
"I'm tired."
"How are you tired? You're just sitting there."
"I don't want to play."
"You never want to play. All you do is cry."
"I do not." I protested, though my vision was suddenly blurred and wet.
With a sigh, Maddie stood up from the bench and started walking away - only to turn back.
"Caitlin?"
Caitlin cast a conflicted glance at Maddie, then at me, and then back at Maddie. Finally, she dug into her coat pocket and produced a Happy Meal toy - a plastic replica of the little girl Boo from Monsters, Inc.
"You can hold Boo for now. She always makes me happy."
She put the figurine in my lap and skipped away with Caitlin. There I was, left alone with no one but Boo - until I heard Mrs. McLellan behind me.
"Oh, Naomi." She took a seat next to me on the bench. "What's bothering you?"
"I miss my dad". I blurted out. Nauseating vibrations overtook my insides, and I started crying again.
Mrs. McLellan looked as if she were thinking carefully about what to say. She scooted next to me a little more, while still keeping a teacherly distance.
"I bet your dad is at work right now, saying to himself, 'I can't wait to go home and play with my little girl again.' "
I gave her a look. One that said, "I want whatever you're smoking, 'cause it seems really good". Still, the thought of that, as outlandish as it was, soothed me.
"He might forget me at school."
"I think you might have been forgotten at home."
Tears trickled down my cheeks - and suddenly, I didn't feel nauseous anymore. Ms. LaForce blew her whistle, which was our signal to go inside.
"Come on." Mrs. McLellan helped me to my feet. The other children and teachers had already departed the playground, leaving her and me to walk back together and have each other's undivided attention.
Christmas Eve soon rolled around, and we went out to brunch at a hotel. The hotel was grand, with chandeliers of glass icicles and golden elevators. It was just the kind of place that wasn't specifically targeted to kids, but us kids were excited. Chiara and I were, anyway. If Ethan was excited, he sure had a unique way of showing it.
"Let's go, Ethan." My dad led my brother - who was fussing and dragging his feet - by the arm. Ethan pushed him away and ran towards the restaurant.
"Can you get him, love?" My mom asked Chiara, trying not to sound too desperate. As if on autopilot, my sister chased Ethan and held him in place until we could all catch up.
"You're so good." Mom told my sister, who smiled to herself. If wrangling my brother was the only way for her to hear such a compliment, she would take it.
We were led to our table by a hostess, and then served coffee, juice, and milk by a white-haired waiter who was a parody of a stuffy old man.
"Will we be doing a la carte or the buffet this morning?"
"I want French toast!" I shrieked.
"There's French toast at the buffet." My dad said wearily. He pulled Ethan into his lap and rocked him, which calmed him down long enough for Mom, my sister, and I to get some food from the buffet. When we got back to the table, Dad got up to go - and Ethan zoomed over to follow him.
"Ethan, stop!" Mom barked. "Ethan, look at me!"
Ethan didn't. He ran around, almost knocking down a waiter who was carrying a tray of pancakes. My mother brought him back to the table, where he screamed and kicked. Other diners looked our way, including a little boy from the next table over who was clearly enjoying the spectacle.
"That kid is crazy!" He crowed, until his mother shushed him.
"No, he's not!" I pulled Ethan towards me into a protective embrace. "He's my brother!"
"Can I go?" Chiara nervously looked around for an exit, as she often did when my brother acted out in public.
"Go where?" Mom huffed.
"I don't know. Anywhere else."
"I wanna go, too!" I cried out, not because I was embarrassed, but because the thought of being separated from any family member - even for a short time - struck a pang of fear in me.
With a dismissive brush of my mother's arm, my sister and I were excused from the table. I put my small palm in hers, but when I felt that it was wet with nerves, I shook it away.
"You're so sweaty!" I exclaimed, which turned more heads towards us. Chiara apologetically smiled at everyone, and ushered me out the door.
When we got to the lobby, there was a clown who was painting kids' faces.
"Can I? Can I?" I pointed to the anaconda of a line, jumping up and down. "Please, Chiara?"
Chiara hesitated; normally, this was a Mom or Dad question, and she wasn't used to making such decisions.
"Sure." She finally sighed; whether I returned to the table with a decorated face or not, she'd likely get reprimanded anyway. I ran to the line, where I was preceded by five or six other kids. When it finally got to be my turn, I stepped up to the clown.
"What would you like, beautiful?"
I stopped to think. One little girl was a bunny. One boy was a dragon, and another, a dog. But I had other ideas. What would be the most shocking and provocative?
"A butt." I proclaimed. "A big, fat butt."
The other children in line burst out laughing. Chiara facepalmed.
"I'm so sorry." She mouthed to the clown, who was struggling to keep her composure.
"I don't think I know how to paint that." A laugh threatened to escape the clown's blood-red lips. "Anything else you can think of?"
I wanted to let her know - quite rudely - that I was too old to be fooled by that, but didn't. After taking a few seconds to mull through some other options in my head, I finally picked the perfect one.
"A donut. A big one, on my whole face."
The clown relaxed.
"You got it." With that, she dipped her paintbrush in black paint and carefully swirled it around my cheeks and forehead into a giant "O".
"What kind of toppings do you want on the donut?"
"Purple frosting and rainbow sprinkles."
"Gotcha".
When she was done, she moved her chair back so everyone could take a look. Kids pointed at my face, parents oohed and ahhed. I even heard, "Looks delicious" from someone's father at the back of the line. When I saw my own parents walking - or, should I say, running - into the lobby behind Ethan, I ran right up to them and stared them in the face, waiting for their reaction.
"Nice." My dad said under his breath, trying to keep up with my brother.
"That's so prett - " My mother didn't even get the word out before Ethan charged towards the elevator. I frowned, and in protest, sat on the floor.
"Naomi, come on." Chiara nudged me lightly with her foot, but I was bolted to the carpet. "What are you doing?"
I sat there, refusing to move. Finally, she plucked me from the floor and slung me over her shoulder.
"Bye, donut girl!" Some of them shouted and waved to me, and like a queen, I waved back to them - defeated, but still feeling victorious.
