The Home Front by Margaret Vandenburg Page A

expectations, for the sake of parents as well as their children.
    “Loving Max for who he is doesn’t preclude visualizing who he might become,” Rose said.
    “I’m wary of visualizing anything with kids on the spectrum,” Sasha said. “It’s like fanning the fire.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “They visualize way too much as it is. Instead of seeing dust motes swirling in the sun, Max sees solar systems. An alternate universe light years away from ours.”
    “Isn’t there something wonderfully imaginative about that?”
    “He’s a little boy, not a science fiction writer. He needs to be grounded in the real.”
    “The real is relative.”
    “That’s a fairly accurate diagnosis of autistic cognition, you know. Believing with every fiber of your being that the real is relative.”
    “That’s obviously not what I meant. I’m just saying we shouldn’t underestimate the power of positive thinking.”
    “If anything, Max’s thoughts are too powerful. He can’t see beyond them.”
    “Not just any old thoughts. Healthy thoughts. Thoughts of abundance rather than scarcity.”
    They weren’t exactly in an argument. You can’t argue with cheery champions of the best of all possible worlds. Ordinarily Sasha would have let Rose’s blind optimism run its course. But something about her investment in perfection seemed to threaten the therapeutic process. It left very little room for Max. They all needed to be on the same page, or at least on the same planet, to facilitate his recovery.
    “Trust me,” Sasha said. “His world is already way too abundant. He can’t take it all in. We need to teach him to focus on one thing at a time.”
    “I’ll leave that to you,” Rose said. “You’re obviously very good at it.”
    Rose ostensibly meant it as a compliment, but they both detected something dismissive in her tone. Sasha expected as much. Parents could be just as resistant as their children, sometimes even more so. Rose, on the other hand, was surprised at her own audacity. She had come a long way since accepting Dr. Dillard’s diagnosis at face value. Your son may never advance beyond the mental age of five or six . She remembered Tashi warning her against treatments that might rob Max of his gifts while curing his so-called deficiencies. She was less and less certain what, if anything, was wrong with him.
    Todd felt curiously indifferent, watching them spar over Max’s prognosis. It was a familiar feeling, symptomatic of his desk job waging virtual war. Umpteen hours a day he surveilled the lives of others thousands of miles away. Feeling like a spectator in his own home was even worse. At least at work he could drag a mouse and a drone would do his bidding. He could push a button and activate a Hellfire missile. There was a two-second lag time as his directives bounced from satellite to satellite, leapfrogging across cyberspace before activating distant launchers. But the fundamental mechanism of cause and effect was still intact, the prerequisite of being the principal player in his own life. Even remote control pilots retained a modicum of control. At home, nothing he did produced the desired result. Everything was inconsequential. He loved his son, who shrank from him rather than loving him back. He loved his wife, and she retreated further and further into la-la land. His daughter’s primary emotional relationships were apparently online, given the amount of time she spent on Facebook. Everyone was missing in action, worlds away from here and now. Little wonder he was so detached.
    “Sorry to break up the party,” Todd said. “Uncle Sam is beating the war drum.”
    Every Monday Todd excused himself with a variation on the same joke. Pesky old Uncle Sam was always cutting their meetings short, summoning troops from the far corners of the Mojave Desert. Todd didn’t really sound sorry about leaving. Even indifference could be exhausting. He was tired of the prospect of treatment with no end in