How to Say I Love You Out Loud (19 page)

He shrugs dismissively and opens his door to climb inside. “Later.”

And then he’s gone.

Alex is done with me.

He’s made his point and spoken his mind. For the rest of the week, he doesn’t seem to be changing it, either. He doesn’t talk to me and goes out of his way to avoid me, or at
least that’s how it seems. He’s super busy, anyway—the playground opens on Saturday—and he’s got plenty to occupy his mind besides me and my utter stupidity. Then
he’s absent on Friday, making last-minute preparations at the playground.

When I see Leighton at practice, I consider the irony. Despite the vast differences between us, we both ended up in the same boat—without Alex.

But I had a choice. He gave me one. If she hadn’t just threatened me . . . if I’d been prepared to hear him say the words out loud . . . if I could have, just for once, been brave. .
. .

Not that it matters now. Alex is done with me. My paralysis cost me everything.

Between the Phillip elopement incident on Monday, my fight with Erin on Tuesday, my numerous confrontations with Leighton, and the parking lot blowup with Alex, I am completely worn out by
Thursday. I finish out the week in a fog, limping across the finish line to Friday. I only half concentrate in class and barely talk.

At least Erin is speaking to me again, but just barely. Her eyes remain cold, our exchanges are formal, and I still don’t know what will come of our friendship.

I pass on Tanu’s invitation to ride along with her and Erin to the away football game. A car ride with Erin doesn’t sound like a whole lot of fun. And I don’t even want to
think about how it would feel to sit in the stands and watch Alex on the field.

It would hurt to look at him. It hurts to even think about him right now.

Everything Alex said was true. Even more than it hurts to think about Alex, it hurts to think about myself—what I’ve let slip away because I’m too weak, too scared. Because I
don’t want to hurt any more than I have to.

As I drive home on Friday, something startling occurs to me. Nobody has made a big deal about Phillip being my brother. Maybe Leighton didn’t spread the news too far, either because Alex
chastised her about it or because the breakup stole her attention.

But it’s obvious some people know, and that word is slowly getting around school, because a few of my classmates have approached me about it. Their joint reaction is largely underwhelming.
Mostly they just ask me some basic questions and then change the subject. A few even express compassion—“That must be really hard.” No one is treating me any different, though. It
doesn’t feel like elementary school all over again. Maybe that’s because it isn’t.

I’m starting to feel stupid.

Really
stupid.

I’m not sure why things are so much different now than they were when Phillip and I were younger. Maybe the autism awareness movement, all those ribbons with the colorful puzzle pieces,
has been more effective in promoting understanding than I give it credit for. Perhaps everyone’s a little more mature, or the kids at my new school are different from the kids at my old
school. Perhaps everyone is just too busy with their own lives to be all that concerned with mine. Maybe I’m the only one with the hyperfocus on Phillip.

Maybe not all of us are stuck back in third grade.

But I never considered that it could be like this, that the only person who’d make such a big deal about Phillip being my brother would be . . .
me.

This realization nags at me, leaving me more exhausted than ever. I’m having trouble looking at myself in the mirror.

So when my mom mentions that her college roommate and husband are staying in downtown Philly for business, I do something nice instead. I offer to stay home with Phillip so my parents can enjoy
a meal out and catch up with old friends.

My mom brushes off her evident surprise, which quickly turns into elation. She seems reinvigorated as she dashes out the door thirty minutes later, wearing makeup
and
perfume, her hair
down. I remember how my mom’s week started out with a phone call that her youngest child had nearly run into traffic. She’s much happier now and full of optimism about a new school
placement that sounds like it’s going to come through.

It cheers me up to see her happy and I smile at the knowledge that my actions can make
someone
happy these days. Otherwise . . . all around . . . I seem to be failing at that.

Phillip’s easy to babysit. I can whip up Annie’s rice pasta and cheese with one hand tied behind my back, since it’s one of the only things he ever eats. I order a pizza for
myself, and we eat side by side on the couch.

I tug on the wire of his gaming system. “Turn off Nintendo, Phillip. Pick a movie?” I encourage him.

He scans the shelves. “
Scoundrels.
”

He’s referring to
Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.
We’ve watched it a hundred times. “
Three Amigos
?” I suggest.

Phillip has this weird affinity for Steve Martin, whose antics he seems to find absolutely hilarious.

“
Scoundrels
!”

I’m not going to win this one, so I stand up and retrieve the disc. “Okay, Phillip. You win.
Scoundrels
it is.”

“I’ve got culture coming out of my ass.” He recites from the film, his inflection spot-on.

I bend over to insert the DVD, hiding my face so he doesn’t see I’m laughing. I’m supposed to discourage his cursing, but sometimes it’s pretty damn funny.

I sit back down beside him, paper plate on my lap, and listen to the familiar musical opening of the movie. At one point about an hour later, when Steve Martin’s character’s
wheelchair rolls into a pool, Phillip looks over at me while laughing. He keeps eye contact for nearly fifteen seconds and it’s possible to believe we’re actually laughing together
rather than just in the same space.

Phillip shuts off the movie at eight thirty, right in the middle of a scene. “Good night. Sleep tight. Don’t let the bedbugs bite.” Our mom used to say it every night when we
were little, and Phillip’s held on to the rhyme. He heads upstairs without looking at me again or waiting for a response. He always goes to bed early, a combined result of his medication
regimen and just how tiring it is being Phillip.

Then it’s really quiet in our house and I riffle through our DVD collection, looking for something that might interest me. Most of our collection’s devoted to Phillip—way too
many Steve Martin comedies, SpongeBob collections, and his expansive collection of cartoons and video games. After the week I’ve had, I don’t want anything romantic
or
sad
either.

As I flip through the discs, a case falls off the shelf. It’s thinner than the rest, homemade. I turn it over to read the label.

Five excited words leap off the case, written in black Sharpie, all caps.

HE SPEAKS—PHILLIP, AGE FOUR!!!!!

There is something momentous captured in the title, in the surplus of exclamation points, and I slide the disc into the player and wait for it to load.

A moment later, a grainy shot of our old dining room comes into view, making me instantly nostalgic as I take in the scratched wooden table and the autumn table runner adorned with turkeys and
pumpkins, which didn’t make the move to our new house.

There is Phillip, scrawny as ever, seated atop both a pillow and a prickly plastic therapy cushion to help sustain his focus and help him reach the table. My mom is seated to his left, looking
much younger than she does now, yet older at the same time, thanks to the outdated hairstyle captured on film.

There is a pained look on her face, because as the video opens, Phillip has both hands over his ears, his eyes are clenched shut, and he is screaming. It is high-pitched and repetitive, like a
siren. Yet my mom’s lips remain pinched in determination between quiet prompts to my brother.

The scene brings back memories of Phillip’s early intervention services, how he was forced to endure speech therapy four times a week. The therapist would come to our house and I was
bribed with cheddar popcorn and extra time in front of the Disney Channel to stay out of the way so that my mom was free to observe the therapist’s techniques and any progress Phillip might
demonstrate. Typically, there wasn’t any.

Sometimes I watched my mom as she watched like a hawk, taking copious notes so that she was later able to replicate the therapy sessions and the demands included within. After the therapist
left, and after we ate dinner, she would pick up where they left off, working tirelessly, even as Phillip fought her every step of the way.

Phillip had never wanted to talk to any of us. It took us over three years to realize he was even capable of producing speech, when he finally started screaming the word “no!” about
anything and everything, hands locked firmly over his ears.

Somehow his single-word protest translated into some sort of victory for my mother, and the language interventions became more intensive.

The twenty-minute video is painful to watch, because for every step forward, it’s two steps back.

My mother gently taps the laminated picture symbol on the table before them. It bears an image of Polly-O string cheese, Phillip’s dietary staple at the time. “Phillip wants . . .
,” she prompts.

“Noooooooooooo!” he screams, then begins shrieking again and slides off his seat like a limp noodle.

My mom appears unfazed. “First chair, then cheese,” she says, once, twice, three times, always calm, until Phillip manages to collect himself and returns to the table. He is rewarded
with a tiny piece of cheese, but the real prize, the whole stick, remains beside my mother.

She holds it up and taps the picture again. “Phillip wants . . .”

He doesn’t scream this time but begins pounding his temples with his fists. He hits himself hard, likely producing red marks, but if my mom is upset, she doesn’t let it show. She
slowly pries his fingers open and spreads them on the table. “Soft hands,” she says calmly, “then cheese.”

When Phillip keeps his hands away from his head, he is given another small piece of cheese.

This goes on for another fifteen minutes as Phillip tries to escape the demand of saying a single word with every trick in his arsenal. My mom never gives up, shaping every small, acceptable
behavior along the way—soft hands, bottom in seat, eyes on me.

Finally, she gives the prompt one more time and taps the picture. “Phillip wants . . .”

“Cheese.”

The word comes out clearly and easily. As a frustrated observer eleven years later, someone who knows my brother very well, I still can’t help wondering why he didn’t save everyone
the trouble and just say the damn word in the first place, if he knew how.

In the video, my mother is visibly stunned. She looks toward my father, behind the camera, in surprise. Her face breaks into a wide smile as she asks him, “Did you get it? Please
God
, tell me you’re still filming.”

Obviously, there were many takes when Phillip had
not
produced the word “cheese.”

“I got it.” I hear my dad’s voice. “Now give him his cheese!”

“Oh, right!” My mom laughs, still giddy, and hands Phillip the entire stick of cheese.

“Cheese,” he says happily, removing the plastic and licking the stick up and down. “Cheese. Cheese.”

I shake my head as the camera is turned off and the screen turns to static.

There’s only one video, but there could have been thousands like it. Every single word, skill, and milestone was earned upon a battlefield. My mom and dad fought for every
single
skill Phillip mastered. The battles took years, and the victories were conceded eons after they should have been.

As I put the DVD in the case and slide it carefully back onto the shelf, I think about where I fit in the context of these battles. I was left alone, a lot, in the application of their concept
of fairness. There’s no denying this—I just saw the proof of it on the screen—and somewhere deep down, I can still detect the roots of resentment.

On the other hand, I’m well aware of another video that exists, and it’s probably stored upstairs in my big box of accomplishments. In it, I’m almost a year younger than
Phillip was in the video I just suffered through. I’m a precocious three-year-old, dressed in a satiny teal-blue skirt with purple mermaid fins, belting out “Part of Your World”
from
The Little Mermaid.
I sing it a capella, word for word, never missing a beat. I sing it with ease.

Someone had cared enough to videotape it. Someone had been watching, likely applauding, likely assuring me that, yes, one day I’d end up playing Ariel on Broadway. Phillip had just
received his diagnosis around that time, but someone still made time for Disney princess dress-up and videotaped my performance.

Being left alone for thirty minutes at a time isn’t the exact same thing as being neglected. The scales may have never been tipped in my favor, but I guess they weren’t perpetually
out of balance, either.