Three Weeks With My Brother (33 page)

“He’s not even two yet,” he said. “Just give him a little time.”

In July, I started the process of soliciting literary agents; I sent out twenty-five query letters and the first agent to respond, Theresa Park, was willing to work with me on the novel; the next twenty-four would all end up passing on the project. By October 1995, the novel was as ready as it would ever be.

Aside from worries about my dad and the move, the year had been quiet until then. My sister had gone through yet another negative CAT scan—she was tested every three months—and my brother was doing well in real estate. My dad, if struggling in his personal life, was apparently functioning smoothly in his professional life. For a short while, it almost seemed as if things were normal; looking back, I now realize it was simply a lull before the storm broke full force.

While both my agent and I had high hopes about how the novel would be received, hopes were one thing, and reality was another. In my heart, I knew that I’d be pleased if I secured enough of an advance to pay off the credit card bills, or perhaps buy a decent car for my wife. Anything would have helped; I was living a typically middle-class lifestyle with the same budget concerns as everyone else in our neighborhood; the mortgage on my house was $125,000.

The novel, entitled
The Notebook
, was sent to publishers on a Thursday and Friday; on Monday, I listened to a message that my agent had left on my voice mail at work, one that asked me to call. It was a little before noon, and I was getting ready for a luncheon at one of the doctors’ offices. I’d brought all the food, set everything up, and was waiting for the doctors to finish with their morning patients so I could tell them about the effectiveness of Lederle’s antibiotics and antihypertensives.

Using the office phone, I dialed my agent, and she came straight to the point.

“You have an offer from Warner Books,” she said. She sounded a little breathless on the phone.

“And?”

“Warner Books would like to offer you one million dollars for the book,” she said.

I blinked, pressing the phone hard to my ear. Thinking I had heard her wrong, I asked her to repeat what she’d said. She did, and it was all I could do to sit in the chair without falling to the floor.

In one fell swoop, less than two months before my thirtieth birthday, I realized that I’d just become a millionaire.

How was I supposed to react in a situation like that? I had no idea, nor did Cathy. I can say, however, that even though I’d had my agent repeat the number not twice, but
three
times, I still believed I’d somehow been mistaken in what I’d heard. A few minutes later, however, my agent and I spoke again, and she informed me that the deal had closed.

I immediately called Cat, but she wasn’t in. Nor was Micah when I tried to reach him—he happened to be out of town. Or Dana. Or my dad. None of them were home, and with the news of the sale still bubbling inside me, the doctors finally began arriving at the luncheon. Despite the earth-shaking news I’d just received, I somehow forced myself to talk to them about pharmaceuticals.

Later, when I finally reached Cat, she was flabbergasted. In excited moments, my wife’s New Hampshire accent becomes pronounced.

“No suh!” she screamed. “No suh!”

“Yes suh!” I shouted in response.

Even my dad, when I told him the news, seemed genuinely excited for me; after speaking to him, I spent much of the evening on the phone, talking to various relatives. Micah was almost the last person I talked to that day, and he was silent for a long moment after I finally told him the news.

“You’re kidding,” he finally said.

“It’s unreal, isn’t it?”

“A million dollars? For a book that
you
wrote?”

“Can you believe it?”

“Not right this moment, but give me a second.” He breathed into the phone. “This is . . . unbelievable . . .” he murmured, before pausing again.

As close as we were, we weren’t completely immune to sibling rivalry. Ever since we’d graduated, Micah had always been more successful in his various careers than I’d been. It had always made sense to both of us; he was the older brother, and—aside from school and track—had been more successful in everything. He was happy for me, but I also knew that part of him wished he’d been the one with the news.

Yet Micah was able to put all that aside, and his next words meant more to me than anything anyone else had said to me.

“I’m proud of you, little brother. You done good.”

“Thanks, Micah.”

“Now, there’s just one thing left.”

“What’s that?”

“You have to help me figure out how to make
my
million. You made yours, so now I guess I have to do it, too.”

Though the money seemed dizzying, I decided to keep my job as a pharmaceutical rep. I didn’t know how well the book would do once it was released, nor did I know whether I would be able to write a second one. Cat and I viewed our windfall in much the same way we would have viewed a winning lottery ticket. Other than the purchase of a used Ford Explorer, the clearing of our credit card debt, and a new wedding ring for Cat, we spent none of the windfall. Our years in poverty had left us both extremely cautious. The money, we’d decided, would go to three areas: our mortgage, funds for the kids’ college educations, and retirement.

Still, the months of November and December were thrilling. So much was new—book clubs and foreign rights sales, a film sale to New Line Cinema, even the editing process—and every day, there was something new, something exciting, to share with Cat.

Yet aside from those conversations, our lives went on as normal. Thanksgiving came and went; Christmas came and went. Dana’s CAT scan was clear again—making it three years—and she called me on our birthday to sing to me. Dad, we learned, was still seeing his girlfriend, and seemed to get along well with her.

In January 1996, Miles was four and a half and Ryan two years younger when we brought Miles to the doctor to prep him for the tonsil surgery he was supposed to undergo the next day. While the doctor talked to Miles, Ryan stood quietly between my wife and me. The consultation didn’t take long. When the doctor turned to engage Ryan in conversation, Ryan said nothing.

This didn’t surprise either Cat or me. Ryan still hadn’t learned to talk, we explained, and the doctor simply nodded. Right before we were to leave, however, the doctor asked us if he could visit with Ryan alone for a few minutes.

“Sure,” we said, thinking nothing of it. We figured the doctor would give him a lollipop, or show him some of the gadgets in the office.

Strangely, however, the doctor’s door remained shut for almost ten minutes. When he finally brought Ryan out of the office, we couldn’t help but notice the concerned expression on his face.

“What’s up?” I asked. I knew the doctor well; I’d been calling on his office for months as a pharmaceutical rep and considered him a good friend.

“I just spent some time with Ryan, going over a few things . . .”

He paused, drawing a long breath. He glanced down at Ryan, then back at us again.

“I think,” he said slowly, “Ryan may be autistic.”

I think Ryan may be autistic
.

All Cat and I could do was stare at him. My stomach knotted up and all of a sudden I could barely breathe. The blood drained from Cat’s cheeks, and the room closed in around us. Ryan stood by our side, his expression glazed and unfocused. We knew he couldn’t talk—we’d even grown concerned enough to talk to his pediatrician—but we’d convinced ourselves that it wasn’t anything serious.
He’ll grow out of it
, we’d been told.
He’ll be fine.

But this?

They were, I still think, among the most frightening words a parent can hear. We both knew about autism—who hadn’t seen
Rain Man
? Or read about autism in news magazines or seen shows about it on television? I stared at Ryan. Was that our son? Our
child
? Our
baby
?

No, I immediately thought, the doctor was wrong. Ryan wasn’t autistic. He couldn’t be. He was fine. I’m not going to believe it. I can’t believe it. But . . .

Deep down, I knew there was something wrong with him. Both Cat and I had known he wasn’t right for months. But we had never imagined it could be this serious. It couldn’t be this. Oh, Please God, not this.

“What do you mean?” I stammered.

“It’s a disorder . . .”

“I know what it is. But why? . . . How . . . ?”

The doctor patiently explained what he’d seen in the office. The lack of eye contact. Lack of comprehension. Inability to talk. Intense focus on colorful items. Lack of motor skills.

We were in a daze as he went on. We already knew those things; we knew our son. We hadn’t known what they meant.

“Is he going to be okay?”

“I don’t know.”

“What should we do?”

“He needs to be tested. There’s a developmental center in town, and they can answer your questions better than I can.”

At home, Cat and I found ourselves staring at Ryan as he sat quietly in the living room, feeling a tidal wave of emotions.

Denial. Guilt. Anger. Fear. Hopelessness.

We spent the rest of the afternoon looking for reasons to believe what the doctor had said, and reasons to doubt him. We talked about Ryan and what we’d noticed over the years. We went back and forth for hours, talking and worrying and crying and sitting by Ryan, trying to convince ourselves that there was nothing wrong with him at all, but somehow knowing that there was. Hoping. Praying. Pleading.

That night, when I called Micah, I could barely tell him what had happened. My hands shook when I held the receiver. My throat was tight and I couldn’t get the words out without breaking down.

“Jesus,” Micah said. “Are you sure?”

“No,” I said. “We don’t know anything for sure. We’ve got to bring him in for tests.”

“What do you need me to do?”

I began to cry.

“Micah . . . I . . .”

“Do you want me to come out there? Help you guys through this? You want me to find out who you should talk to? I’ll do whatever you need.”

“No,” I said. “That’s okay. We don’t know anything yet.”

“I feel like I’ve got to do something.”

“Just pray for Ryan, okay? Can you do that for him?”

“I’ll pray for all of you,” he said. “I’ll start praying right now.”

The only thing I remember about the next two months was a sometimes nagging, sometimes overwhelming, sense of worry about our son. At times, it was all I could think about; other times, when doing something else, I’d suddenly get the strange feeling that something was . . .
wrong
and it would take a moment before I realized I’d been subconsciously thinking about my son.

Dread. It permeated our home, seeped into the nooks and crannies of our lives.

Over the coming weeks and months, Cat shuttled Ryan to and from various doctors in search of answers. There were long waiting lists—it took six weeks to have his initial evaluation completed—and I remember sitting in the office, waiting for the words I didn’t want to hear.

“Though he’s thirty months of age, currently he has the developmental skills of a fourteen-month-old. There are other problems, too. Lack of eye contact, for example.”

“What are you trying to say?”

“I think there’s a good chance that he has autism.”

“Is he going to be okay?”

“I don’t know.”

“Is there anything we can do?”

“I don’t know.”

“What can we do at home?”

“I don’t know.”

There were never any answers. But always, at each evaluation, they recommended another test. Again, it would take another six weeks; again, it was all we could think about until the day finally came.

At the second evaluation, in late April—after three long months of worry—we were seated before another doctor, who perused Ryan’s file before finally glancing up at us.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “but I think we might have been in error. We don’t believe Ryan is autistic, though he may have autistic tendencies.”

“What does that mean?”

“We think he might have pervasive development disorder.”

“Is he going to be okay, then?”

“I don’t know.”

“Is there anything we can do?”

“I don’t know. For the time being, however, I’d suggest getting another test. A specialized hearing test. We want to make sure he hears sounds correctly.”

Another month passed. Another round of worries. Another test. Another meeting with a doctor.

“I’m sorry, but we might have been wrong. We don’t think Ryan has pervasive development disorder.”

“What’s wrong with him?”

“Ryan,” the doctor said, “is profoundly deaf.”

We looked at the doctor. “Then how come he turns when the air conditioner goes on?”

“Oh, he does that?” the doctor asked. “Well, then let’s give him another test.”

Tests. That’s all they ever recommended.

He got another hearing test, one that tests the inner ear. A month later, we talked to the doctor again.

“You were right,” he said, “Ryan can hear.”

“Then what’s wrong with him?”

“The problem with your son is that he’s severely retarded, with attention deficit disorder.”

“He’s not retarded,” I said. “He’s smart. He remembers everything.”

Not knowing what else to do, they recommended yet another test.

After that, at the next meeting, they reverted to autism again, though they categorized it as mild. At the next meeting, they switched back to a diagnosis of pervasive development disorder.

No one, in other words, knew what was wrong with our son. No one could tell us what to do. No one could tell us whether he was going to be okay. No one could tell us
anything
.

My wife lived the day-to-day struggle far more intensely than I. She took Ryan from one evaluation to the next while I worked during the day; in the evenings, she handled the kids while I wrote. In the little free time I had, however, I began to read about childhood developmental disorders. I read through one book, then another, then still another. Within a couple of months, I’d read through forty books—covering the entire spectrum of possible disorders—and a couple of hundred clinical reports outlining various therapies. It was my way of trying to cope, to handle the unknown, to somehow find a way to understand my son. I was searching for something, anything, that could lead to answers.