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him one rose, and put the rest by her bed where she could guard them. Connie didn’t mention the obscene details of how Gene would lay his flower under the desk lamp and slowly peel back its petals to expose the powder-tipped shag, dig for the inner parts with his thumbs, then turn away to sneeze.
    “He checked out Bach records from the library and sat right in front of the speakers to listen to them. I asked him why, and he told me, ‘Bach is talking to me.’ ” Connie didn’t say what Gene had said next. She had asked him how Bach could be talking to him, and he had replied, “He asks questions and I answer.” Then he had shaken his head wildly, a gesture he used frequently, implying both a clearing of the head and exasperation at having to waste his time explaining when he certainly wouldn’t be understood. “I mean, Bach poses a question, and I predict the answer.”
    Bach poses a question . A sixth-grader. Connie couldn’t string together all his habits for display, even to a doctor. She was embarrassed on Gene’s behalf for doing such things and on her own for putting up with it, for having been defeated by him. She had witnessed children defeat their parents before, but never using such roundabout tactics. It didn’t seem fair.
    “His teacher called me just last week,” she said. “Gene is putting the date on his papers in the Hebrew or Chinese calendars. He refuses to use ours. These things frighten me a little, doctor. It seems wrong to refuse to date things from the Lord’s birth.” She stopped.
    The doctor said, “Mrs. Anderson, sounds like you’ve got yourself a unique little feller.”
    Connie nodded.
    “Let me ask you, what was Gene’s first word?”
    “Phone,” Connie said. “My husband used to call out ‘Phone,’ when the phone rang. Then one day Gene called it out, too.”
    “How old was he?”
    “Very young,” said Connie. “Ten months.” She knew the age because when Gene was eleven months old her husband had left.
    “And at that time, did he know his name? Would he look up when you called him?”
    “Yes.”
    “About when did he begin speaking in sentences?”
    “Around two, I suppose. He’s always been bright. That’s not the problem.”
    “Interesting. Has Gene ever tried to hurt himself?”
    “Oh, no,” said Connie.
    “Does he throw fits where he hits you or hugs himself and rocks back and forth?”
    “No, but he does throw things.”
    The doctor nodded. “A unique little feller who throws things.”
    Suddenly Connie saw what the doctor saw: a lonely woman, frustrated that her son didn’t love her enough. Because he suspected her of this, she suspected herself.
    “Maybe I should bring him here to meet you,” she said meekly.
    “There’s no need for that, Mrs. Anderson. I just asked you if your son displayed any of the three cardinal indications of autism. Does he have delayed or impaired speech development? No. Does he show evidence of delayed or impaired cognitive development? No. Does he show violent or self-destructive behavior? No. The patients who live here, Mrs. Anderson, are disabled—mentally disabled, profoundly. Your son is not.”
    Again, something snapped into focus for Connie: it was this doctor’s job to ward off parents who came attempting to dump their children here merely because they were difficult. Connie bowed her head. “I don’t want to bring Gene to live here, doctor, I just want to find out what’s wrong with him, and help him.”
    The doctor smiled kindly. “Perhaps you can help him by focusing on what’s right with him. That is my suggestion. Do you know why Bach wrote his music, Mrs. Anderson?”
    “No.”
    “He wrote every piece, and there are hundreds upon hundreds of them, for the glory of God. Be glad your boy listens to Bach, Mrs. Anderson. It’s better than the garbage my kids listened to.” He took a deep breath, apparently pleased with how the meeting had gone. “It was a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Anderson.