Page 177 of As They Are
“That doesn’t count.” I shook my head. “Because I didn’t have all of you.”
“And you like having all of me?”
“I do.”
I wished I could have said my day went well from there, but the construction on the community center echoed around the square, invading even the clinic.
It didn’t help that my schedule was packed and I was busy from the second I unlocked the door through lunch.
There wasn’t much I knew about tiling, but workers were cutting a lot of it. The high-pitched squeal followed me around, giving me a headache by midday, and it only got worse when I refilled Wren’s water like I promised to.
My mood was rapidly declining, something I usually would have gone home for. But in the afternoon, I had to go to Food ‘n’ Things again to get ingredients for dinner. Most of what I had at the house were portions for one, and Wren had already asked to come back over.
I didn’t want to cancel, so I put in the earplugs. They didn’t block out everything, but they made it all more manageable. Ihad to take a few minutes to sit in the near silence before I left, but I was already more like myself.
As I walked, I hoped no one noticed them. It had been very tempting to take them out and never use them again when Mom had asked what they were. It was always tempting to hide what I struggled with, even when it was to my own detriment. Having Wren there made it easier to explain.
Thankfully, she had taken what Wren had said easily. Maybe she didn’t understand it, but she didn’t argue. I wasn’t sure if my neighbors would have the same reaction.
Maybe I wasn’t giving them enough credit. Or I could be exactly right. It was hard to tell how people would act when they heard about a disability.
Food ‘n’ Things wasn’t busy, and I was able to grab what I needed for chicken alfredo. When I turned the corner, I ran into Henrietta and Marjorie, who were talking by the freezers, ice cream in hand.
“I swear, every time you get ice cream, you regret it!” Henrietta’s voice was tight. “Why do you insist on making yourself suffer?”
“It’sice cream,”Marjorie said. “What else am I supposed to do?”
“Not eat it?”
“That’s miserable!” Marjorie’s eyes cut to me. “Henry, tell her that life without ice cream isn’t worth it!”
“Everything is good in moderation, but if it makes you sick, then even less of it is probably best.”
Marjorie sighed. “What a doctor answer.”
“He has sense,” Henrietta said. “So get the sorbetto.”
“That’s boring,” she complained as I walked around her. I thought I was free to check out with Dale, but she grabbed my arm. “Hey, what do you have in your ears?”
My shoulders slumped. I was caught. “Earplugs. It’s a little loud today.”
“You’re telling me,” Marjorie said. “I don’t care, but Hen here can’t deal with it. I keep telling her she’ll adjust once we get back to work, but she’s been in a bad mood all day.”
“I’m fine!” she insisted. “I just hate loud noises, especially when they’re repeated like that. Couple that with the stress of having to socialize, and I’m ready to crawl out of my skin and into a quiet cave and stay there.”
“That sounds similar to what one of my autistic students experiences,” someone else added. We all turned to see that Nicole, the local teacher, had joined us. I rarely spoke with her, though I knew she and Cain had had problems in the past. “The girl I’m talking about is autistic, though. It often goes undiagnosed in women, and our understanding of it is more recent, so plenty of older adults were never evaluated. Might be something worth talking to Henry about.”
My shoulders grew tight as I watched the two older women carefully.
“We don’t need to get her evaluated. Have you seen this woman’s doll collection? Iknowshe has autism. Knew it the second they had a word for it!”
“Marj!” Henrietta hissed, her face darkening. “Don’t mention the dolls.”
“At least you know,” Nicole said. “Where did you get those earplugs, Henry? I wanted to gift some to the girl in my class, but haven’t been able to find a set yet.”
“Wren got them for me, so you’d have to ask her. I think the brand is on the case, though.”
“Give them to me too,” Marjorie said. “I’m staging an intervention.”
