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Connie had never heard of autism, but here it was; here he was; here was Gene. She felt both horrified and liberated. It wasn’t her fault! She had always suspected that she might have hurt him without realizing it when he was an infant and, as a result, he had developed wrong and with a built-in resentment against her; this is why his eyes never met hers. But it wasn’t her!
    After the program Connie called her prayer partner, Myra, who, before retiring, had worked as a nurse at the State School. Myra had heard of autism, although they hadn’t had any autistic kids on her floor. She doubted Gene was autistic, because, as she put it, “Those kids tend to raise Ned when they don’t get what they want.”
    You haven’t seen Gene when I try to put a scratchy sweater on him , thought Connie. Still, it was true that the kids on that show had seemed barely functional. Was that a result of autism, though? Connie and Myra prayed together, and before they said good-bye Myra gave Connie the telephone number of the doctor under whom she had worked at the State School—a fine, Christian man.
    The State School was located on the hill north of town, where, legend had it, the cavalry had finally tracked down and killed Chief Eula, for whom the town was named. Connie had driven past the hill and peeked up the willow-lined lane innumerable times, but had never driven up it until now. She parked atop the hill, where there were five box-like brick buildings arranged around a cul-de-sac and a chapel at its farthest end. A vegetable garden at the plateau’s edge was visible in the gap between the buildings, and in it several adults in straw hats stood on their knees in a line, staring at her. Connie waved. One hand shot up and waved back emphatically; another rose in a vague acknowledgment. A woman nodded at Connie and turned to the others, said something, and went back to digging with her trowel. Whatever she said, the others didn’t obey, but continued to stare at Connie until she passed out of their line of vision. It occurred to Connie that this place was a humane sort of prison.
    She entered a large, open hall with shining floors that reflected the light from the windows and empty walls that echoed the sound of her footsteps. The odors—bleach, feces, and aerosol air freshener—didn’t bother Connie, as they also filled the nursing home where she worked.
    The room number the doctor had given her was 210. Connie expected on her way to encounter a receptionist, or a nurse, or even an inmate, but there was no one. She found room 210, knocked, and a voice from within told her to enter.
    The doctor who sat behind the desk was very old. Older, even, than Myra. He wore a crewneck cotton sweater with no undershirt. This was the way the old men at the nursing home dressed when they were in their last stage of unassisted living; they selected their clothes for the ease with which they could be put on and taken off. Connie suspected (though she couldn’t see, as the doctor remained seated behind his desk) that he wore no socks and his shoes were slip-ons.
    “So,” said the doctor after they had introduced themselves and chatted for a minute about Myra, “you have some questions about your boy?”
    Shyly, at first, Connie told the doctor how Gene never looked her in the eye, and never embraced her, and when he told her that he loved her, he said it as if it was something he had memorized. Although the doctor’s bottom eyelids sagged open like a Saint Bernard’s, revealing the red veins inside, his gaze was focused. She told him how he would take things apart and put them back together when she wasn’t around, and she would only know when the phone receiver felt different in her hand, or the answering machine’s buttons were a little crooked, or the toaster, the doorbell, the curling iron behaved a little differently. And how, recently, he had taken to tearing flowers apart. If she brought home a bouquet from work, she’d have to give