A Night in the Life (The Will Chronicles, v1)

By Tara Cohen

He hit me again last night. This time it was so hard I heard my nose crack and I fell to the floor. While I sobbed in pain, he continued screaming, seemingly incensed all the more by my cries. I slunk from the room and fumbled through the freezer for an ice pack, all the while listening to his continued raging in the next room. Tears flowing down my face, I wondered how my life had come to this.

Long ago, I promised myself I would never marry a man who would even consider raising his hand to me or our children. I would never accept a partner who would intentionally hurt me because my adult life would be what I wanted it to be: happy, peaceful, free of yelling or violence or the threat of either. My children would never fear me or my spouse. They would know unconditional love and security at home. And yet, last night, I lay on the couch, icing my face, contemplating how much yelling, hitting, and eggshell-walking goes on in my home, no matter how much I struggle against it. How had I gotten to this place? How did I become  the type of woman who is grateful when her bruises aren’t easily visible? How did I come to have this secret and to carry this guilty weight of unabating abuse? Why was I so ashamed to tell my friends or family?

I heard him getting progressively angrier, and I knew I had to go back in and finish this episode we were having, no matter how badly I wanted to get in my car and drive as far away as possible. But I went back, and not two minutes after returning, he dealt me such a blow to the bone behind my right ear that I crumpled to the floor in tears of physical pain, stress, and mental exhaustion. I took a deep breath. I sat up. I looked at him, and I thought how, when I’ve known women in abusive relationships, I’ve told them what’s happened isn’t their fault, but that making a change is their responsibility. I’ve told them time and again to get out of the situation; seek help. But what help is there for me? After all, I can’t leave him. He’s only 3. He’s my son.

I stared at Will and wondered how someone so small could be so strong. I thought, as I have done countless times, “Why is this happening to my son?” As he screamed, flailing in my gentle husband’s arms, I said in my calmest Mommy Voice, “Will, Baby, tell Mommy what you need. You have to stop hitting Mommy and Daddy. What do you need? Show Mommy.”  He had been inconsolably screaming and thrashing in this manic, coming-out-of-his-skin hysteria for a solid 20 minutes by then, and my nerves were on fire as though I’d just avoided being rear-ended by an 18-wheeler.

Will stood up, still sobbing hysterically, and he took my hand. He led me to the bedroom door and out. We walked through the kitchen, and I thought, “Great, he wants to watch TV when he should be in bed. Now what do we do?” But I was wrong. He led me to the back door and put my fingers on the handle. This was completely new behavior, but I followed his lead, flipped on the porch and yard lights, and we headed to the back yard. It was nearly 11 p.m. by then, and as he screamed while searching frantically in the minimally lit yard, I thought to myself (not for the first time) that with all the screaming in our home, we are sure to get a visit from a Children’s Services social worker one of these days.

“What do you need, baby? What’s out here?” I asked. Will’s always had an affinity for sticks. Sticks, twigs, branches, basically any sort of dirty tree part that will leave bits of nature all over my carpet is good with him. Lately it’s been long weed-like tendrils of grass from our badly-in-need-of-a-mowing back yard. So I yanked one up and asked, “This one, Will? Is it this one?” He took the grass rope and led me back into the house, tears miraculously ceased, and went without resistance back to his room. I slid to the floor outside his door, silent tears shaking my entire body as I wept for my son, my husband, my daughter, our family, our life. I held up an adrenaline-infused hand and wondered how long it would take for me to stop trembling this time. I took one deep breath. And then Will started to cry again.

I waited a few minutes, hoping he would just settle down now that he had his cord of grass, but no. I called quietly to Marty, determined not to wake our daughter who, astoundingly, had so far slept through the crisis. It was well after 11 p.m., and I asked him to go out to our front yard and find the specific stick that Will had been carrying during our walk earlier in the day. He went without hesitation, not for an instant even registering what an odd request it was, because in our home, it actually isn’t all that unusual. Will’s screaming escalated, and within seconds he was flailing his body against the bedroom door. Getting back his stick of the day did not help. If anything he was increasingly upset. I found his weighted vest, something it still pains me to own, brought it into Will’s room, got down on my knees, and forced him into it. I found myself wincing and fastening the vest at arm’s length, trying to avoid another headbutt to the nose or side of the head. I held his hand, and asked once more what he needed. We ended up in the chilly backyard again, gathering yet another snake-like strip of semi-dead grass.

As we walked back into the house, he ran to the couch. I had Marty dim all the lights as I put on “Horton Hears A Who,” Will’s new favorite. The pressure of the vest was already helping him settle down, and after five minutes of the movie, I was able to hold him in my lap firmly, helping him calm even further. Another five minutes and we transitioned to bedtime. Although he cried a little, he went to bed and slept until morning.

It was a good hour before Marty or I could calm down enough to consider going to bed. In the morning, I was still so tense that I got out of bed looking like I’d already had 5 cups of black coffee. At the slightest fuss from Will, I involuntarily recoiled and flinched. When he got upset over a diaper change, I heard myself begging him not to hit or kick me. I wept in the bathroom, sobbing on my husband’s shoulder about how wrong it is for a mother to be so tense with her own child, so afraid of whatever little thing might set him off, so terrified for what the future brings because there will surely come a day when I cannot restrain or carry him, and then what?

That “then what” is what keeps me up at night. It’s the reason my life is autism 24/7. It’s why I have days when I cannot bear to be around typical children and why I sometimes actively avoid older kids with special needs. The typical children show me everything that’s been taken from my family. The older special-needs kids confirm my worst fears. Yet withdrawing from the presence of either group does not make me feel better. On the contrary, it elicits such shame in me. Am I really so petty and jealous that I cannot take joy in the good fortune of my friends and their typical children? Am I really so weak that I cannot face the sight of Will’s potential future? No. No in both cases. I am not petty or jealous or weak. What I am is scared. I’m scared and worried and, sometimes, just so damn sad that I can’t breathe.

But somehow, I do breathe. Every day, my husband and I, we breathe in and out and in and out and put one foot in front of the other and do our best. Some days our best is truly phenomenal. Some days our best is fairly pathetic. But we do our best, fill our home with love, celebrate every baby step, enjoy every smile and giggle, and love our kids with everything we’ve got. That’s all we can do. And it occurs to me that Will is doing the same. He breathes in and out. He puts one foot in front of the other and does his best. Some days his best is simply amazing. Some days his best makes me cry. But he’s doing the best he can, taking his baby steps, having his good days and his bad, learning and growing and trying. And it’s all I will ever ask of him.

(Written January 2009)