The day I met Saben the wind was blowing ferociously, not just little currents of air but violent gusts that had me hanging on to my skirt like it was a life raft and I was bent double scuttling to my car. When I finally reached it, I could barely open the door and almost had to put my foot on the side of the car for leverage. Damn. Why was it so windy? Every other day of the year is calm and beautiful, but the day I wanted my hair to look presentable, the weather has a paroxysm. The quiet solitude of the car gripped me like a warm glove, though, and I started to relax. I put on some music and let it seep through my veins.

             It was my daughter Trish’s birthday and she was bringing over her boyfriend from college, which was the occasion for my need to have a good hair day. I remembered the first time I met him. They had come over unexpectedly; the house was a mess and I was in stained sweats with a hole in the crotch, quite a first impression. But this time I was prepared. I had hired a housecleaner, actually blow-dried my hair, and was wearing clothes that were clean.

             I smiled to myself at the prospect of not eating dinner in front of the computer while evading my other daughter, Julie, who was holed up in her room on the phone. I felt like she wasn’t even a relation to me anymore, but a renter who just occupied space; over the years she just became so distant. It would be nice not to be so lonely, nice to have a conversation outside of work. The drive home was smooth; the music seemed to move rhythmically with movements of the people on the street. Everything seemed to move in slow motion. It gave me this nostalgic feeling, reminding me of the opening scene of a movie. The man mowing his lawn took long, deep, slightly choreographed strides; a runner leaped through the air on invisible strings, her hair waving around in transparent water, and while this phenomenon was transpiring, glitters of golden leaves danced in the road, mesmerizing me.

            I was about a block from my house when a saw him; a beautiful boy with dark hair and a chubby face. I guessed that he was only about four or five years old. He was sitting in an empty parking lot of a church, a small funnel of churning leaves surrounded him. At first I thought he was laughing, thought he was enjoying the mini tornado of twirling leaves, but at a second glance it struck me that he was sobbing. I had already passed the entrance to the church and kept on driving. I’ve got to get home, I thought. I’m sure his mom is right there with him; I just didn’t see her. I glanced at the clock. I had about thirty minutes until Trish would be at my house; not enough time to check on that boy and make sure that dinner was ready. But something sank in my stomach and I could tell it would sit there and fester if I didn’t make sure that he was fine.

            I rounded the block, praying to myself that the next time I drove by he would be in the embrace of an adult, or better yet, gone, but he was still there, still sobbing so uncontrollably that I wondered if he was epileptic.

           I parked the car in the empty spot next to where the boy was sitting. He didn’t look up at me, but just sat with his knees up to his chins, arms wrapped around his legs and rocked back and forth. The wind took a ravenous nip at my neck when I opened the door and twirled around me like a python. I grabbed my coat off the passenger seat before stepping outside.

           “Hey there,” I said, trying not to expose that it had been years since I had dealt with a child that young. “Are you ok, buddy? Where’s your mommy?” I was close to him now and I knelt down beside him.

             I looked at his face and it was so striking that it almost felt like he punched me in the stomach. I had never witnessed a face so pure and beautiful, not even in my own children. His hair was a shiny, black forest that densely inhabited every square inch of the top of his head, framing a small cherubic face —a face that if displayed, the signs of joy would have lifted my spirits, but instead were stained with tears and made me feel despondent.

             “Mommy!” he cried, and grabbed a fistful of leaves and in one quick sweep he smashed them against his face. He looked at me with despair, bits of leaves clung to the tears and snot. I had no idea how to react. My girls never acted this way; maybe this is just how boys act when they are frightened.

             “It’s ok sweetie. We’ll find your mommy.” I scooted a bit closer to him, putting my hand on his shoulder, and he shuddered, pulling his shoulder away a bit, but then easing it back. My legs were starting to burn from squatting and I sat cross-legged beside him on the concrete. “What’s your name?” I asked, but he just kept rocking and I wrapped my coat around him; afraid that he might be cold.

            “What’s your name?” he echoed, mimicking my voice almost exactly and he stared at his hands as he flapped them wildly.

              It was then that I noticed his bracelet; the shiny silver glared in my eyes, reflecting the sun. I grabbed his arm to stop his flapping and looked at it more closely. Engraved on the surface of the bracelet was: I am Saben Gaucin. I have autism. I live at 318 Maple Ct.

             Autism. I had heard of that but I couldn’t fully remember what it was. Images of the movie Rain Man and his neurotic behaviors pummeled through my head, and I wondered if he had some odd, genius talent such as counting toothpicks or knowing the day of the week from various years.

              I stared at Saben. He looked so desperate and it seemed so odd that his mother wasn’t with him. What kind of parent lets her four year old out by himself?

              “Well, Saben,” I said finally, “Why don’t we try to go find your mommy?” He seemed to relax a bit at the sound of his name, but refused to get in my car when I tried to coax him in, so we started towards his house, walking the two blocks side by side, with the guide of racing, dry leaves clicking by on the ground.

               Halfway to his house, I stuck my hand out and to my surprise, Saben clasped his chubby hand around my own. It was so soft and small, and it filled my mind with memories of my own children’s chubby digits; the way they used to eat cheerios one by one, or when they both held my hands on the way to the park, intertwining their fingers in mine. I missed them so much, and even though they were so close, I felt like they were buried away somewhere.

              By the time we reached his house, Saben seemed to be extremely agitated and apprehensive about entering it, and didn’t want to walk up the driveway. I walked up to the door and rang the doorbell, leaving him on the grass by the sidewalk. No one came, so I pounded on the door and it moved it a bit, prompting me to try the knob. To my delight, the door opened and I hoped that his mother would be there so that I could still get home in time before Trish showed up.

              “Hello?” I yelled as I poked my head in the door. The front room was dark and cavernous, and only a few rays of sunlight poked through the closed blinds. Smalls bits of lint floated in the sunrays giving the room a mystical quality. It looked like a room no one ever used, a room that was just for show. It looked like my life.

               Just then something beyond the enchanting bit of lint, beyond the living room, beyond the allegory of my life, grabbed my eyes. It was a hand. One lonely hand, relaxed, with the fingers curled into themselves. Odd thoughts flashed through my mind, memories of cheap movies with dismembered, maniacal, murderous hands and the Addams Family with their creepy family pet. This hand was attached to a wrist, though, and it still sent a piercing pain to my stomach.

               “Hello?” I said again, hoping the hand would move. It lay there limp as a fish, and I stared at its fingers. They looked like dead, purple spider legs.

                Slowly, I put one foot in the door, and a rustling behind me sent a shot of adrenaline through my body. Saben ran through the leaves in his yard and up to the door. I instantly felt nauseous. Not only did I have some stranger’s child with me, but I was also going to trespass into their home, and there was an unexpected extremity waiting on the floor.

                “Come on, Saben,” I said, trying to sound placid while my insides churned. He grabbed my leg, the one that had invaded the house, and started to whimper. “It’s ok, sweetie, let’s go find mommy.” I untangled his arms from my leg and gently pulled him into the house, closing the door behind me. The solitude slapped me in the face. It was so quiet it felt like my eardrums may have collapsed, and even though the house closed out the bitter wind, it could not close out the ringing in my ears.

                “No!!!” Saben screamed in an inhumanly, hi-pitched tone. “No mommy! No mommy is not sleeping!!!” He was jumping around on his tiptoes and flapping his hands expeditiously.

                 I willed myself to walk towards the doorway; the purple spider legs were beckoning me to come. Slowly I forced my legs to pace, each step revealing a snapshot of the scene. Dirty dishes filled with half-eaten food sat on a high, bar-like kitchen table. A crumpled napkin with lipstick stains lay on the floor beside a stool that was capsized. Each step brought me closer to the hand and my eyes kept floating back to it. Quiet sobs of Saben reverberated in my skull as he lay on the floor in a heavy heap.

                Just as I reached the opening of the doorway, a blast of cold air howled through an open window over the kitchen sink, sending the airy, linen curtains into flight. I wanted to run over and shut out the frigidness before it sunk into my bones permanently, but I had a feeling once I walked through that doorway it would be too late anyway. I stood motionless, feeling my breath begin to precipitate. I knew this was a pivotal moment. Walk beyond my allegory, and into the truth, or run away from it and leave innocent victims behind.

               Slowly, I slid my back against the doorframe and onto the refrigerator that sat perpendicular to it. In my peripheral I could see the hand, ornamented with red polish that complimented the morado hue of the skin, and on the other side I saw the cavernous living room with Saben curled in a ball, like Metroid in the old video games my daughters used to play, and I half expected him to roll up the side of the wall. I counted to three, each number I struck my head against the side of the fridge trying to command my body to move. In one quick, feline like movement I spun around and aimed my eyes on the floor. A slender arm branched up from the hand, which was rooted onto the body of a woman. She was tiny, but because she was sprawled out, she left little space on the kitchen floor.

             She was facing away from me, and I tip-toed to the left and forward a bit to look at her face; maybe she was still alive. But that was a bleak hope at best. Her skin had an ashy, plum hue to it, and I stared at her chest trying to see the rise and fall of breath, but she lay inert.

               She didn’t look like the typical mom, and for a moment I wondered if maybe she was the babysitter, but then, where were the parents? She had to be Saben’s mom, though; she looked just like him. Her hair was a mass of thick black ringlets that stretched on the floor like swaying seaweed. The same cherubic face that had smashed leaves clinging to it lay motionless and slightly peaceful; her head tilted off to the side. There was something sticky and purple smeared on her face and an empty bottle of cough medicine and a spoon was scattered beside her.

              My stomach began to feel sick and I started to think about the horrible events that occurred to lead up to this moment. They were probably eating dinner, chewing and swallowing like they had a lifetime left to enjoy, and then suddenly, mom can’t breath. She panics. She grabs her throat and tries to suck in some air. She stands up so fast the stool she was sitting on falls to the ground; the loud clack of its impact echoes against the walls. Her face starts to turn red, and Saben turns to her and laughs because he thinks that she is trying to be funny. What an awful feeling. She probably looked at Saben, while her limbs began to feel lighter and she began to float away. The thought of leaving her son alone probably killed her before the lack of oxygen. She falls to the ground, leaving a louder echo than the overturned stool.

              “ Poor Saben. He probably stared at her, blinking his coal black eyes, eventually crawling off the stool and over to try her, wailing over her body when it remained motionless. I imagined his small, little body climbing on top of the counter and sifting through his medicine cabinet. Once he found the cough syrup and grabbed a spoon, he tried to give it to his mom. It would seem logical to a child; the medicine probably always healed him.

                My legs felt like heavy stones and my eyes shifted frantically around the room. What should I do? What should I do? The colossal impact of the situation slammed down onto my shoulders and I disintegrated to the floor. I grabbed her hand; it felt cold, almost gelid, and it was hard like an extremity of a plastic doll. I rubbed it, hoping it would warm up, but it caused a shiver down my spine and I instantly dropped it to the floor.

                I looked around for a phone, but suddenly noticed that the wailing in the front room had stopped, and I stood up and peeked around the doorway and into the living room. Saben was asleep on the floor. My coat was covering him as he lay like a slumbering fetus. The soft but rapid rise and fall of his breath soothed me a bit. I grabbed a phone that sat on the kitchen counter and punched the numbers with a trembling finger. My voice wavered as I told the 911 operator what had happened. I felt guilty, like in some way I was responsible for the tragedy, and my chest felt saturated and soggy. I hung up the phone and went to the couch and collapsed.

                I glanced over at Saben. I felt so bad for him. What would he do without a mother? I knew how flawed the social services system was. It would probably be impossible for someone to adopt him, not only because of his age but because of his disability. I wondered where his father was; he probably ran off when the mother was pregnant. I continued to stare at Saben. He looked so peaceful curled under my coat. His long, black eyelashes fluttered with his dreams. My eyes felt fat with tears, and I rolled onto my back and stared at the ceiling trying to prevent the salty drops from spilling out.

               I thought about my own children, how we disregarded each other’s lives, pretended that we were two dimensional, and all this time never realizing that such ignorance could have devastating consequences. I could die and my children would be alone; we would be passing souls that never really got to meet. There had to be a way to change it. What if I never could?I slid off the couch and edged my way over to where Saben was sleeping. Slowly, I lifted up the coat and moved under it, scooting close to his warm, little body. His back was to me and I wrapped by arm around him and nuzzled my nose in his neck. He smelled like soap, or the way the new cabbage patch dolls smelled, like baby powder and new plastic. I wished that I could swallow him, swallow the pain that he would soon experience.

              The light outside was fading away, and the floating lint bits no longer danced with mysticism. But the moon’s cape would soon appear; maybe it could cover my flaws. The touch of the cold hand still remained in my palm, and I drifted off to sleep, waiting for the sirens to awaken me.