Another Night, Another Day by Sarah Rayner Read Free Book Online Page A

I wasn’t disciplining him enough, or Glenn to tell me Callum was just particularly boisterous. And if
we’d known sooner, then maybe Glenn’s distress would have been less profound. He’d have had less time believing Callum was perfect, less time to romanticize his blue-eyed boy,
less time to make him the vessel of his hopes and dreams.
    As it was, Callum was two and a half when they’d got diagnosis; soon after he started nursery, denial proved no longer possible. Until then Abby hadn’t been sure if he was simply
slow to learn, but his first fortnight wasn’t even over before the teacher had taken her on one side. ‘He plays in a corner by himself an awful lot,’ she’d said, voice full
of concern. ‘He avoids eye contact with me – in fact with everyone. And if I point at something – a bird or a dog – he has no interest in it.’
    So Abby had returned to the doctor – who had been one of those reasoning that Callum was fine – and insisted on being referred to a consultant paediatrician, and at last, after a
barrage of tests and hours of being observed by developmental specialists, they’d gained clarification: autism.
    For Abby, diagnosis was vindication. Right from the start, when she’d had difficulty breastfeeding, she’d felt it was something she’d been doing wrong. So his changing from a
relatively calm and placid baby to a child who was resistant to being touched wasn’t because I repulse him, she’d realized. And when I tried to socialize with the NCT group and Callum
had found being with so many other kids overwhelming and thrown toy bricks which had hit a little girl, that wasn’t my fault, either. No – these were all symptoms of autism, she
discovered, and she could forgive herself, to some degree at least. But for Glenn it was different – diagnosis shattered his vision of fatherhood, his future.
    A few days after they’d got the news, the two of them sat down to talk it through. Glenn, a computer technician by profession, had spent many hours trawling the Internet, yet instead of
tracking down support groups or websites offering insights, he seemed to find nothing useful anywhere.
    ‘Looks like there will be loads of places we won’t be able to take him – social settings he won’t be able to handle and people he won’t relate to,’ he’d
said.
    Unlike her husband, Abby was relieved and grateful. ‘But it means we can get help; we’ve a path we can follow.’
    Yet Glenn had continued on his gloomy trajectory. ‘Sounds as if he won’t form relationships. He’ll never get married or hold down a job.’
    ‘How do you know? He’s only two, for goodness sake.’
    ‘I think it’s best we’re realistic.’
    With hindsight Abby has more understanding of what Glenn was doing then; he was removing his rose-tinted spectacles so he could see the future with realism. But at the time it felt like he was
determined to squash her optimism.
    ‘So what if all of the fast-track immediate-gratification culture of the twenty-first century isn’t open to him? Is that really such a loss? And maybe he won’t get married; he
might not understand how bank accounts work either, or buses, or shops. I agree it’s a shame, but it’s the hand he drew, and at least we know what the reason is. I think what we choose
to believe about his options will make a big difference. If we make him feel he’s not good enough the way he is, then it might well compound his behaviour.’
    ‘Well, he’s shown no signs of learning to speak so far. And even if he does, apparently he won’t begin to understand the subtleties of language. How are you going to feel about
that?’
    Of
course
I want to be able to communicate with my child, Abby had thought. What mother doesn’t? How cruel to hone in on that. She’d gulped and declared, ‘I’ll
work round it.’
    And she had: gradually Abby had come to understand that the simplest metaphors and slang were beyond Callum’s understanding, and