They pulled into downtown, then turned right onto one of the side streets to find a parking space. Even though it was the last night of the festival, the crowds were light, and they found a spot close to the main road. Walking toward the carnival, Denise noticed that the booths along the sidewalks were fairly well cleaned out and the people who ran them looked tired, as if they couldn’t wait to finally close down. A few of them were already doing exactly that.
The carnival was still going strong, however—mainly kids and their parents, hoping to enjoy the last couple of hours of entertainment that the carnival would provide. By tomorrow everything would be loaded up and on its way to the next town.
“So, Kyle, what do you want to do?” Denise asked.
He immediately pointed to the mechanical swing—a ride in which dozens of metal swings rotated in circles, first forward and then backward. Each child had his or her own seat—supported at each corner by a chain—and kids were screaming in terror and delight. Kyle watched it going round and round, transfixed.
“It’s a swing,” he said. (Ess a sweeng)
“Do you want to ride the swing?” Denise asked him.
“Swing,” he said with a nod.
“Say, ‘I want to ride the swing.’ ”
“I want to ride the swing,” he whispered. (Wonta wide ee sweeng)
“Okay.”
Denise spotted the ticket booth—she’d saved a few dollars from her tips the evening before—and began to reach into her purse. Taylor, however, saw what she was doing and raised his hands to stop her.
“My treat. I asked, remember?”
“But Kyle . . .”
“I asked him to come, too.”
After Taylor bought the tickets, they waited in line. The ride stopped and emptied, and Taylor handed over the tickets to a man who’d come straight from Central Casting. His hands were black with grease, his arms covered in tattoos, and one of his front teeth was missing. He tore the tickets before dropping them into a locked wooden box.
“Is this ride safe?” she asked.
“Passed inspection yesterday,” he answered automatically. No doubt it was the same thing he said to every parent who asked, and it didn’t do much to relieve her anxiety. Parts of the ride looked as if they were stapled together.
Nervously Denise led Kyle to his seat. She lifted him up, then lowered the safety bar for him as Taylor stood outside the gate, waiting for them.
“Ess a swing,” Kyle said again, once he was ready to go.
“Yes, it is.” She put his hands on the bar. “Now hold on and don’t let go.”
Kyle’s only response was to laugh in delight.
“Hold on,” she said again, more seriously this time, and Kyle squeezed the bar.
She walked back to Taylor’s side and took her place, praying that Kyle would listen to her. A minute later it started, and the ride slowly began to pick up speed. By the second rotation the swings were beginning to fan out, carried by their momentum. Denise hadn’t taken her eyes off Kyle, and as he swung by, it was impossible not to hear him laughing, a high-pitched giggle. As he came back around, she noticed that his hands were still right where they should be. She breathed a sigh of relief.
“You seem surprised,” Taylor said, leaning close so his voice could be heard over the noise of the ride.
“I am,” she said. “It’s the first time he’s ever been on a ride like this.”
“Haven’t you ever taken him to a carnival?”
“I didn’t think he was ready for one before.”
“Because he has trouble talking?”
“Partially.” She glanced at him. “There’s a lot about Kyle that even I don’t understand.”
She hesitated under Taylor’s serious gaze. Suddenly she wanted more than anything for Taylor to understand Kyle, she wanted him to understand what the last four years had been like. More than that, she wanted him to understand her.
“I mean,” she began softly, “imagine a world where nothing is explained, where everything has to be learned through trial and error. To me, that’s what Kyle’s world is like right now. People sometimes think that language is just about conversation, but for children, it’s much more than that. It’s how they learn about the world. It’s how they learn that burners on the stove are hot, without having to touch them. It’s how they know that crossing the street is dangerous, without having to be hit by a car. Without the ability to understand language, how can I teach him those things? If Kyle can’t understand the concept of danger, how can I keep him safe? When he wandered away into the swamp that night . . . well, you yourself said he didn’t seem to be frightened when you found him.”
She looked at Taylor earnestly. “Well, it makes perfect sense—to me, at least. I’d never walked him through the swamp, I’d never shown him snakes; I’d never shown him what might happen if he got stuck somewhere and couldn’t get out. Because I hadn’t shown him, he didn’t know enough to be afraid. Of course, if you take that one step further and consider every possible danger and the fact that I have to literally show him what it means, instead of being able to tell him—sometimes it feels like I’m trying to swim across the ocean. I can’t tell you how many close calls there have been. Climbing too high and wanting to jump, riding too close to the road, wandering away, walking up to growling dogs . . . it seems like every day there’s something new.”
She closed her eyes for a moment, as if reliving each experience, before going on.
“But believe it or not, those are only part of my worries. Most of the time, I worry about the obvious things. Whether he’ll ever be able to talk normally, whether he’ll go to a regular school, whether he’ll ever make friends, whether people will accept him . . . whether I’ll have to work with him forever. Those are the things that keep me awake at night.”
She paused then, the words coming slower, every syllable edged with pain.
“I don’t want you to think that I regret having Kyle, because I don’t. I love him with all my heart. I’ll always love him. But . . .”
She stared at the revolving swings, her eyes blind, shuttered. “It’s not exactly what I imagined raising children would be like.”
“I didn’t realize,” Taylor said gently.
She didn’t respond, seemingly lost in thought. Finally, with a sigh, she faced him again.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have told you those things.”
“No, don’t be. I’m glad you did.”
As if suspecting that she’d confided too much, she offered a rueful smile. “I probably made it sound pretty hopeless, didn’t I?”
“Not really,” he lied. In the waning sunlight she was strangely radiant. She reached over and touched his arm. Her hand was soft and warm.
“You’re not very good at that, you know. You should stick to telling the truth. I know I made it sound terrible, but that’s just the dark side of my life. I didn’t tell you about the good things.”
Taylor raised his eyebrows slightly. “There are good things, too?” he asked, prompting an embarrassed laugh from Denise.
“Next time I need to pour my heart out, remind me to stop, okay?”
Though she tried to pass off the comment, her voice betrayed her anxiety. Immediately Taylor suspected that he was the first person she’d ever really confided in this way and that it wasn’t the time for jokes.
The ride ended suddenly, the swing rotating three times before coming to a stop. Kyle called out from his seat, the same ecstatic expression on his face.
“Sweeeng!” he called out, almost singing the word, his legs pumping back and forth.
“Do you want to ride the swing again?” Denise shouted.
“Yes,” he answered, nodding.
There weren’t many people in line, and the man nodded that it was all right for Kyle to stay where he was. Taylor handed him the tickets, then returned to Denise’s side.
As the ride started up again, Taylor saw Denise staring at Kyle.
“I think he likes it,” Denise said almost proudly.
“I think you’re right.”
He leaned over, resting his elbows on the railings, still regretting his earlier joking.
“So tell me about the good things,” he said quietly.
The ride circled twice, and she waved to Kyle each time before saying anything.
“Do you really want to know?” she finally asked.
“Yes, I do.”
Denise hesitated. What was she doing? Confiding about her son to a man she barely knew, giving voice to things she’d never said in the past—she felt unsteady, like a boulder inching over the edge of a cliff. Yet somehow she wanted to finish what she had started.
She cleared her throat.
“Okay, the good things . . .” She glanced briefly at Taylor and then away. “Kyle’s getting better. Sometimes it may not seem like it and others may not notice it, but he is, slowly but surely. Last year, his vocabulary was only fifteen to twenty words. This year, it’s in the hundreds, and at times he puts three and four words together in a single sentence. And for the most part, he makes most of his wishes known now. He tells me when he’s hungry, when he’s tired, what he wants to eat—all of that’s new for him. He’s only been doing that for the last few months.”
She took a deep breath, feeling her emotions roil to the surface again.
“You have to understand . . . Kyle works so hard every day. While other kids can play outside, he has to sit in his chair, staring at picture books, trying to figure out the world itself. It takes him hours to learn things that other kids might learn in minutes.” She stopped, turning toward him, an almost defiant look in her eyes.
“But you know, Kyle just keeps on going . . . he just keeps on trying, day after day, word by word, concept by concept. And he doesn’t complain, he doesn’t whine, he just does it. If you only knew how hard he has to work to understand things . . . how much he tries to make people happy . . . how much he wants people to like him, only to be ignored . . .”
Feeling her throat constrict, she took a ragged breath, struggling to maintain her composure.
“You have no idea how far he’s come, Taylor. You’ve only known him for a short while. But if you knew where he started and how many obstacles he’s overcome so far—you’d be so proud of him . . .”
Despite her efforts, tears began to flood her eyes.
“And you’d know what I know. That Kyle has more heart, more spirit, than any other child I’ve ever known. You would know that Kyle is the most wonderful little boy that any mother could wish to have. You would know that despite everything, Kyle is the greatest thing that’s ever happened to me. That’s the good thing I have in my life.”
All those years of having those words pent up inside, all those years of wanting to say the words to someone. All those years, all those feelings—both the good and the bad—it was such a relief to finally let it all go. She was suddenly intensely thankful that she’d done so and hoped in her heart that Taylor would somehow understand.
Unable to respond, Taylor tried to swallow the lump that had formed in his throat. Watching her talk about her son—the absolute fear and absolute love—made the next move almost instinctive. Without a word, he reached for her hand and took it in his. The feeling was strange, a forgotten pleasure, though she didn’t try to pull away.
With her free hand she wiped at a tear that had drifted down her cheek and sniffled. She looked spent, still defiant, and beautiful.
“That was the most beautiful thing I think I’ve ever heard,” he said.
When Kyle wanted to ride the swing yet a third time, Taylor had to let go of Denise’s hand so he could walk over and present the additional tickets. When he returned, the moment had passed; Denise was leaning on the barrier, resting on her elbows, and he decided simply to let it go. Yet standing beside her, he could still feel the lingering sensation of her touch on his skin.
They spent another hour at the carnival, riding the Ferris wheel—the three of them crammed into the wobbly seat with Taylor pointing out some of the places that could be seen from the top—and the Octopus, a spinning, dipping, gut-twisting ride that Kyle wanted to ride over and over again.
Toward the end of the hour they headed over to the area that housed the games of chance. Pop three balloons with three darts and win a prize, shoot two baskets and win something different. Vendors barked at the passersby, but Taylor walked past all of them until reaching the shooting gallery. He used the first few shots to understand the sighting of the gun, then proceeded to make fifteen straight, trading up for larger prizes as he bought more rounds. By the time he’d finished, he’d won a giant panda only slightly smaller than Kyle himself. The vendor handed it over reluctantly.
Denise relished every minute of it. It was gratifying to watch Kyle trying—and enjoying!—new things, and walking around the carnival provided a pleasant change from the world in which she normally lived. There were times when she almost felt like someone else, someone she didn’t know. As twilight descended, the lights from the rides blinked on; as the sky darkened even further, the energy of the crowds seemed to intensify, as if everyone knew all this would be over the following day.
Everything was just right, as she had barely dared to hope it would be.
Or, if possible, even better than that.
Once they got home, Denise got a cup of milk and led Kyle into his room. She propped the giant panda in the corner so he could see it, then helped Kyle change into his pajamas. After leading him through his prayers, she gave him his milk.
His eyes were already closing.
By the time she finished reading him a story, Kyle was breathing deeply.
Slipping from the room, she left the door partially open.