I murmur false appreciation and I glance between the woman and Edison while I try to figure out if this is going to make the situation worse. He has at least turned the volume down a little, and out of his puffy, tear-filled eyes, he’s watching the woman warily. He does so love Babcia. Perhaps he sees the likeness too.

I nod toward the woman, and she lifts the balloon. Eddie doesn’t react. She lifts the doll, and again, his expression remains pinched. Then the lollipop, with the same result. I’ve completely lost hope when she picks up the dreidel, so I’m surprised when Eddie’s wailing falters just a little.

Colorful Hebrew characters are etched into each side, and the woman runs her finger over one of them, then sets the dreidel onto the floor and gives an elegant flick of her wrist. As the dreidel spins, the colors hypnotically blend into a brilliant blur. “My grandson is on the spectrum too,” she tells me quietly. “I have at least an inkling of how difficult your situation is. The dreidels are Braden’s favorite too...”

Eddie is staring intently at the dreidel as it spins. His wailing has stopped. All that’s left behind now are soft, shuddering sobs.

“Do you know what the Hebrew means?” the woman asks me quietly. I shake my head, and she reads softly, “It’s an acronym—it stands for a great miracle happened there.”

I want to tell the woman that I don’t believe in miracles anymore, but I’m not sure that’s true, because one seems to be unfolding right before me. Eddie is now almost silent but for the occasional sniffle or echoed sob. The dreidel’s spin fades until it wobbles, then it topples onto its side. I hear the sharp intake of his breath.

“Darling boy, do you know what this is?” the woman asks quietly.

“He doesn’t speak,” I try to explain, but Eddie chooses that exact moment to dig deep into his bag of embarrassing autism tricks as he turns his gaze to me and says hoarsely, “I love you, Eddie.”

The woman glances at me, and I try to explain,

“That’s just...it’s called echolalia...he can say words, but there’s no meaning behind them. He’s just parroting what he hears me say to him—he doesn’t know what it means. It’s kind his way of saying Mommy.”

The woman offers me another gentle smile now and she sets the dreidel down right near Eddie, starts it spinning again and waits. He stares in silent wonder, and by the time the dreidel falls onto its side for a second time, he’s completely calm. I fumble for his iPad, load the AAC, then hit the finish and the car buttons before I turn the screen toward Eddie. He sits up, drags himself to his feet and looks at me expectantly.

“That’s it, sweetheart,” the woman says softly. She bends and picks up the dreidel, and she passes it to Eddie as she murmurs, “What a clever boy, calming yourself down like that. Your mommy must be so proud of you.”

“Thank you,” I say to the woman.

She nods, and she touches my forearm briefly as she murmurs, “You’re doing a good job, Momma. Don’t you ever forget that.”

Her words feel like platitudes at first. I lead Edison from the store, empty-handed but for the unexpected treasure from the stranger. I clip him into his special-order car seat, a necessity despite his size because he won’t sit still enough for a regular seat belt. I slide into my own seat, and I glance at him in the rearview mirror. He’s staring at the dreidel, calm and still, but he’s a million miles away like he always is, and I’m tired. I’m always tired.

You’re doing a good job, Momma. Don’t you ever forget that.

I don’t cry much over Eddie. I love him. I care for him. I don’t ever let myself feel self-pity. I’m like an alcoholic who won’t take even a drop of drink. I know once I open the floodgates to feeling sorry for myself, I’ll get a taste for it and it will destroy me.

But today my grandmother is in the hospital, and the kind woman with the gerbera shoes felt like an angel visiting me in my hour of need, and what if Babcia sent her, and what if this is my grandmother’s last gift to me because she’s about to slip away?

It’s my turn for a meltdown. Eddie plays with his dreidel, holding it right in front of his face and rotating it very slowly in the air as if he’s trying to figure out how it works. I sob. I give myself eight luxurious minutes of weeping, because that brings us to 10:00 a.m., and we’re now exactly an hour later than I hoped to be.

When the car clock ticks over the hour, I decide to stop wallowing—and then I do: just like that I turn the pity off. I wipe my nose with a Kleenex, clear my throat and start the car. As soon as I press the ignition, my phone connects to the car and on the touch screen by the steering wheel, the missed messages from my mom appear.

Where are you?

You said you’d be here by 9:00. Are you still coming?

Alice. Call me please, what’s going on?

Babcia is awake, but come quickly because I don’t know how long it will be until she needs another nap.

And then finally, one from Wade.

Sorry I couldn’t take today off, honey. Are you mad?

We haven’t even made it to the hospital yet. It’s going to be a long day.

CHAPTER 2

Alina

Tomasz Slaski was determined to be a doctor like his father, but I always thought he was born to tell stories. I decided I’d marry him one day as he told me an elaborate tale about rescuing a mermaid princess from the lake while the rest of our town was asleep. I was nine and Tomasz was twelve years old, but we were already good friends, and that day I decided that he was mine. Somewhere in the years that followed, he came to see me as his too, and by the time I finished grade seven and my family could no longer afford to send me to school, Tomasz had a well-established habit of calling on me at home.

Like most of the children I knew, I left school and went to work in the fields with my parents—although unlike most of the children I knew, I never really worked all that hard. I was the youngest child, and even once puberty had come and gone, I was still fine-boned and only just five feet tall. Everyone else in my family was tall and strong, and despite my twin brothers being only fourteen months older than me, my family had never really stopped treating me like a child. I didn’t mind that too much at all as long as it meant the twins did the heavy lifting with the farm work.

Tomasz was from a wealthier family and long destined for university, so he stayed on at high school far longer than most in our district in southern Poland. Even once our paths diverged, he would regularly climb the hill between our homes to spend time with me, and every time he visited, he’d charm my whole family with outrageous tales from his week.

Even as a child and a teenager, Tomasz had a way of speaking that made you think that anything was possible. That’s what I loved about him first—he opened up my world to endless possibilities, and in doing so, filled it with magic. But for Tomasz, I’d never even have wondered about the world beyond my village, but once we fell in love, exploring it with him was pretty much all I could think about.