That someone else was often Lisa, whose time was also valuable. Naturally, over time, she began to resent her role as the only one doing house repairs. She couldn’t believe that her former logging town husband was so worthless around the house. It pissed her off. A lot.
When things broke, it led to an argument. Grant would respond by noting how many important things he had to do for work right then. Lisa would respond with something like, “Oh, I guess saving people’s lives isn’t as important as what you do.” Things became very unpleasant in the house, which gave Grant yet another reason to be at work. It was a vicious cycle.
When Grant later looked back on the “Docker years,” the one thing he was ashamed of was squandering all the skills he had in Forks and becoming a dependent, soft, fat, typical suburban American. He became what would later be known as a “sheeple” (a combination of a “sheep” ignorantly grazing without thought and “people”).
Grant, who worked very hard, was a sheeple. As a sheeple, he fit in just perfectly in the Cedars subdivision where they lived. The Cedars was an upper end place. The houses weren’t mansions, but they were upper end. Almost everyone who lived there was a state employee; many were assistant directors of state agencies. People were nice … well, Grant assumed they were. He never actually got to know most of them.
One exception was the Spencer family two houses away. They were not government employees. They were friendly and their kids played with the Matson kids. They were Mormon, but didn’t meet all the stereotypes about a male-dominated household that tried to convert everyone. They were just regular people who, as Mormons, did slightly “weird” things like have a year’s worth of food stored. And they didn’t drink. The Spencers were the only other “conservatives” Grant knew of in the neighborhood.
The rest of the people in the neighborhood were unknowns. It was weird. Grant knew which agencies his neighbors worked for but didn’t know much else about them. They would wave when they drove by, but Grant didn’t know their names. In fact, Halloween was the only time he would see them when he took the kids out trick or treating. By the time Halloween rolled around the next year, he had already forgotten what his neighbors looked like and what their names were. Why even learn their names? He only talked to them at Halloween, which was fine with Grant. They were mostly liberals or, as Grant called them, “libs.” They all put up Democrat yard signs during election season. Putting up those yard signs was like a display of loyalty to the great and wonderful God of government.
Grant hated all the Democrat yard signs in his neighborhood, so he put up his own yard signs for Republicans and even an occasional Libertarian. Once those signs went up the first time, some people in the neighborhood stopped being (fake) polite to him. They were a little cold toward him. Most still waved, but a couple of them were downright hostile.
Grant was actually proud that these people didn’t like him. They were the ones using their government jobs to hassle the little people and take everyone’s money to waste on their stupid utopian dreams. They were the kind of people who had plumbers charged with crimes for installing water heaters.
Chapter 9
The “A” Word
Grant’s son, Cole, was two years old now. He wasn’t talking much. Grant was a little worried, but he didn’t want to bring it up.
Manda, as they called Amanda, was the perkiest and most outgoing child on the planet. She had red hair and was the center of attention in any setting.
Lisa was her competitive self. A person has to be competitive to make it through medical school but she was a little too competitive sometimes. She had to master everything she set her mind to. She knew what was best because she had looked into it and her worthless husband just worked and then collapsed on the couch to watch football. “If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself,” was, unfortunately, becoming her motto. Even more unfortunately, it was true, given her workaholic and overweight husband.
But, all the comforts of the suburbs made things fine. Nice house, nice cars, nice furniture, all that. They weren’t in debt but they had lots of stuff.
Lisa was also concerned about Cole not talking. She took him, without telling Grant, to a pediatric specialist. “Autism.”
That’s what was wrong with Cole.
“Autism.” What a terrifying word. It meant never talking, having to live in an institution. Lisa cried all the way home from the doctor’s office.
Grant cried when Lisa told him of the diagnosis after the appointment. Their “perfect” life wasn’t so perfect now. One of their kids wasn’t going to be a doctor or a lawyer. He would probably have to live in an institution. It was devastating.
But the diagnosis explained a lot. As they would later find out, Cole had a normal IQ, but had extreme difficulty communicating. He could not understand many words and he couldn’t speak them. Later, at age seven, he could speak and understand words at a two year-old level.
Amazingly, Cole could read years ahead of his age. He didn’t always understand what was written, but he did pretty well. He had a photographic memory. He could recall a license plate he had seen two years earlier. He could tell extremely slight differences in detail between things. He could understand mechanics and figure out devices instantly. He was an absolute whiz on the computer. Basically, his extreme lack of verbal communication was made up for by his extreme understanding of visual things.
It was very frustrating for the little guy. Cole would be tired and want to sleep but he couldn’t say it. He knew what to say but the words wouldn’t form. None of the grownups could understand what he wanted. He would try to talk and they would ask, “Are you hungry? Do you need to go potty?” No, I’m tired, he would try to say. I want to go to bed now. Then he would cry. He cried a lot.
Lisa, the competitive one and the doctor, went to work learning everything about autism. She bought dozens of books on the topic. She crafted a very detailed plan to teach Cole to talk. It centered on visual things. She made index cards with words on them, like “eat.” She would show a card to Cole and he would know it was time to eat. He understood that because it was written down, it wasn’t words someone was saying to him. Cole soon progressed to showing Lisa or Grant the “eat” card, which meant he wanted to eat. It was like sign language, but with index cards.
Cole began using the cards less and less and began using simple words. The words were still fewer and more basic than kids his age, but he was learning. It was like he was stuck in France and everyone spoke French except him. He had to figure out how to get things done with simple words and hand motions like one would if they were surrounded by people speaking only French.
Kindergarten was the first big test. Lisa worried that the teachers wouldn’t accept Cole; Grant was ready to sue them. But, the teachers in Olympia were great. They made educating Cole a top priority. The kids were also great to him; they took him under their wings. For all the bad things Grant thought about government, he had to admit that the Olympia schools were excellent. They were taking care of his little Cole and that was all that mattered.
Cole got better and better. By his later years of elementary school, he could string sentences together. It was still very hard for him to understand people he wasn’t used to. People like his family had gotten used to how to talk to him, but others didn’t know.
Manda took amazingly good care of her little brother. She spent a lot of her free time helping him talk and asking him questions to get him to talk. It was heartwarming. Cole came to depend on his big sister. When she was gone, Cole would ask, “Where is Sissy?” He could handle her being gone, but he was much more comfortable with her around.