Saving Elijah

picked out for him a few months before. It had been love at first sight. Elijah and Tuddy spent the next two hours on my lap munching on our muffins, staring out the window, and occasionally playing with a toy I pulled from my bag. I was disappointed but not surprised. He was always wary of new situations, had to warm up to new things gradually, on his own time.
    A few weeks after we started the group, one of the toddlers, Paulie Pearl, brought over a colorful spinning top. Elijah, who was on my lap, watched Paulie place the top on the table and push the shaft to make the toy spin.
    Elijah watched him.
    Paulie pushed it again, apparently trying to show him how to do it.
    Elijah reached out. I held my breath. It looked like he was going to touch it. Elijah froze, then jerked back his hand. I tried to guide his hand again to make the toy spin, but this time, too, he yanked his hand away, clenched his teeth, and began to scream. Was he screaming in frustration because he knew what to do but couldn't yet get his hand to do it? Was it a sensory problem that might improve with occupational or physical therapy? Or was it a mental handicap, which would never really get better? I didn't know. All I knew was that you couldn't force him to do things he didn't want to do, or couldn't do.
    Paulie Pearl brought over several offerings that day, but Elijah screamed every time, then finally rewarded Paulie's efforts by hurling a red fire truck across the room, where it collided with a collection of silver-framed photographs arranged on a side table, toppling the lot. One frame crashed to the floor and broke.
    "Oh, God, I'm so sorry," I said. "Let me help you clean it up. Say you're sorry, Elijah."
    Of course, he hadn't mastered any speech yet.
    "No, no, it's fine." Tammy Pearl, Paulie's mother, cleaned up the broken glass, then set the surviving frames up again while I stood, holding Elijah, who clung to my neck for dear life.
    "Maybe we should go," I said.
    Becky stood up. "Don't, Dinah." She came over and took Elijah's hand. "You just didn't want to play with the truck now. Right, Elijah?"
    He hid in my neck.
    "Right, Tammy?" Becky said.
    Tammy had just gotten the frame arrangement on the table the way she wanted it. "Of course. Anyone want any more coffee?"
    The other children went back to playing in the far corner, and the mothers went back to coffee and chatting. Elijah got off my lap and crawled over to the television. I turned it on for him. He was afraid to touch the button, or he hadn't yet figured out things could be turned on by buttons. But he had recently started to point to things he wanted for the first time.
    After a few more weeks, some of them were grumbling. "Do we have to have that thing on all the time?"
    One day the TV was off and Elijah was grunting and pointing toward it, so I got up to turn it on for him. Tammy Pearl cornered me. "Have you taken him for some kind of evaluation?"
    "Of course." No, Tammy. We're trying to figure this out on our own.
    "Is he autistic? What's the prognosis?"
    I felt myself tearing up. "They aren't sure yet. But, you know, Tammy, when he does manage to learn things, he gives you a smile so big you can live on it all day."
    Becky, who seemed to have heard the conversation even though she'd been talking to one of the other women, and the other kids were making a lot of noise, moved toward us. "That's true," she said. "I'm a witness."
    The playgroup gradually fell apart, there were more and more absences, until finally all of the women except Becky had dropped out officially. Various reasons.
    About six months later I ran into a woman I knew from Alex's middle school PTA, in the supermarket. Elijah was with me, sitting in my shopping cart, eating a donut I'd given him to keep him quiet. Before I had Elijah, it had never occurred to me that I'd feed a child to keep him quiet. Elijah threw a tantrum at the drop of a hat, but I didn't want to confine him to the house because of it.
    Amanda and I chatted for a moment, then she said she had to get back with the refreshments for her daughter's playgroup.
    Elijah was clapping his hands.
    "I joined a few months ago," she said. "Karen really loves the stimulation of the other kids. You probably know some of the women. Leslie Lee? Tammy Pearl?"

    *    *    *

    One night, Elijah scooted away when I reached for the towel after his bath, and ran downstairs naked. Twelve-year-old Alex was watching television, a history of rock and roll. Elvis