The Home Front Read Free Page B

who would only eat round, tan foods. Most of Max’s dinner was on the floor halfway across the room. Green beans were not tan. Tofu steaks were not round. Rose refused to stop dishing a full meal onto his plate, no matter where it ended up. Max’s behavioral therapist insisted that giving in to his whims would reinforce them, and all would be lost. Todd understood this to mean they were engaged in a battle of wills. Max versus everybody else. He couldn’t help admiring his son’s determination. It had been months since he’d eaten anything that wasn’t round and tan.
    Everyone was pretending they were a perfectly normal family eating a perfectly normal dinner. Rose was helping herself to another gooey dollop of tofu surprise. Todd was politely refusing seconds, having already devoured a Big Mac and fries on the way home from work. A preemptive strike. Maureen was clamoring for dessert. Once she finished her so-called meal there was nothing to do but badger her parents. Teasing her younger brother was no fun. He barely knew she existed.
    “What’s for dessert?”
    “I already told you,” Rose said. “Carob sorbet.”
    “Can I watch videos until you guys finish eating?”
    “How many times do I have to say no, young lady?”
    Maureen was sick and tired of her mother’s random rules. She turned to her father, hoping she could leverage him more effectively. In her experience, fathers were pushovers. They weren’t around enough to keep track of all the regulations laid down by mothers, who apparently had nothing better to do than sit home all day terrorizing their children. Fathers went to work and earned what they called a living, which gave them the right to be grumpy when they got home.
    “Daddy?”
    “You heard your mother.”
    “I’m bored.”
    “Smart people don’t get bored.”
    “What do they do?”
    “They make conversation.”
    “Yada yada yada.”
    “Tell us about your day at school.”
    Todd was careful to pay as much attention as possible to Maureen. Having an autistic brother was like sharing the nest with a gorilla. Miraculously, she didn’t seem to mind all that much. She was a classic eldest child whose ego was even bigger than the gorilla. Rose attributed it to the fact that Maureen was a Leo. Max was a Sagittarius, but either autism or his rising sign must have eclipsed his sunny disposition. Given the circumstances, their daughter was remarkably well-adjusted. She tripped off to school without throwing tantrums. She played with her dolls without ripping their heads off. She ate her supper without herding it into two rows of four.
    “Anne’s dad came to talk about his job,” Maureen said.
    “That’s nice,” Rose said. “What does he do?”
    “He’s a plumber.”
    “A noble profession,” Todd said.
    “What does that mean?”
    “Your father was joking.”
    “No I wasn’t.”
    “He fixes toilets.”
    “I rest my case,” Todd said. “What could be more noble than that?”
    “What do you do at work, Daddy?”
    Before Max’s diagnosis, Todd dreaded the day his children would grow old enough to ask this question. Afterward, he feared that Max might never develop the language skills necessary to ask it. In any case, the answer was classified top secret.
    “Everything but fix toilets. We bring Anne’s dad in for that.”
    “What about dripping faucets?”
    “Yup. That’s my job.”
    “For heaven sake, Todd,” Rose said. “Do you want Maureen to tell her friends at school you fix faucets for a living?”
    “Why not? Like I said. It’s a noble profession.”
    “Not as noble as defending your country.”
    Todd shot Rose one of their coded parental looks, which, in layman’s terms, meant what’s your goddamned problem. Rose knew better. She was usually a model military wife, steering clear of her husband’s profession, which was way too explosive for table talk. Her capacity to dredge up innocuous topics of conversation was unparalleled. But once in a while she