Page 3 of Broken Bayou
I redirect my cart toward the sound and when I turn the corner and see the child, I know those women have it wrong. He looks to be about two or three. He’s sitting on the floor, flapping his hands, and screaming. A sound so specific that if your ears aren’t trained to listen for it, you’ll miss the root cause.
Two stock boys have gathered at the end of the aisle now, and it looks like one is videoing. Idiots.
“Honey, please stop,” the woman says, her voice cracking, her face red with embarrassment as her son starts biting his own arm.
I saw this behavior more times than I can count when I was in private practice. So much so that I kept a sensory kit on hand to help de-escalate the situations: soft things, shiny trinkets, snow globes.
His mom is combing through her tote and doesn’t notice me as I scan the shelves. He needs a distraction.
I abandon my cart and race back to the aisle with the salad dressing. I spot a clear bottle of Italian. Bingo. Next best thing to a snow globe. I slip it off the shelf, remove the label, and head back to the screaming child. I push my cart past them, shaking the bottle so the herbs, oil, and vinegar start to mix and change colors. The boy tilts his head, stops screaming. I shake again and he reaches for it.
“That should buy you some time,” I say to his mom with a smile as I continue past them, leaving her in stunned silence and me thinking how I’d put Occam’s razor up against a degree any day.
There is no bank of checkout lanes or self-checkout at the Sack and Save. Just good old Johnette behind the counter, currently occupied by a group of men and women huddled around her and looking down at something. I stop behind them.
“Oh, bless her heart,” a woman says.
The hairs on the back of my neck tingle.
“I couldn’t believe it when I saw this,” Johnette says, leaning over the counter, pointing at what I now see is her phone screen. “’Member her? Used to visit here in the summers.”
Shit. I wonder again if that back door still exists and, if so, if it’s still unlocked.
“I do remember her,” one woman says. “Had that poor darling little sister.”
“Well, I can tell you this,” Johnette says. “She don’t remember any of us.”
The YouTube video has started. I hear my voice coming from the phone. I hear the perky voice of host Harper Beaumont say, “Good morning, Fort Worth, and welcome toFort Worth Live. We have a special guest with us today.” Harper continues, “She’s here to talk about her new bestseller,Honest Healing: Parenting a Child on the Spectrum. A book that shot up theNew York Timesbestseller list after celebrity influencer Charlotte Dalton posted about how it’s helped her family on Instagram. Since then, the phrasehonest healingseems to have caught fire, not only locally but nationally as well. Welcome, Dr. Willa Watters.”
Shit. Shit. I could run. Go to Shadow Bluff and hide. But it’s been a long two days, and I’m just too damn tired to run.
I stay where I stand and, in the words of another Krystal Lynn saying, take my licks. Which unfold in blinding HD at the checkout counter of the Sack and Save Food Store.
I watched oldFort Worth Liveclips with Amy, my best friend and show producer, to prepare for my interview. The set was more cow town than glossy pretense, just like the city I chose to live in compared to its sister city, Dallas. It’s the reason Amy picked that show. “It’s a perfect fit,” she said, even though I wondered if that was true. The outfit I chose for that day screamed glossy pretense: pencil skirt, kitten heels, silk shirt.
Amy was hovering too close yesterday at the KTFW television studio. She sensed my nerves. But it wasn’t exactly nerves. It was somethingelse. I was off kilter. A combination of the feelings that letter drudged up and the hangover from too many Texas Twisters, as the bartender called them, the night before. I clipped out of my thirty-fifth-floor apartment that morning with my ... overnight guest, giving him a thumbs-up when we parted ways in the lobby of my building, his flip-flops slapping across the marble foyer. Flip-flops.
Getting hammered the night before my first live television interview and bringing home a stranger was classic self-sabotage. Willamena Pearl in her youth may not have known better, but Dr. Willa in her midthirties certainly did ... and yet ...
The makeup artist did her best with the beard burn I showed up with, and Amy did her best to assure me everything would go smoothly, and it did. At first. The mic techs wove a microphone through my blouse buttons and secured it to my bra and then to a Velcroed pack on my back. Harper stuck to the script, asking beautifully mundane questions.
“So after practicing child psychology for a few years, you switched to writing a column for the newspaper, then radio.” She added with a silly laugh, “Some of our viewers probably don’t even know what a newspaper and radio are.”
I gave her a courtesy laugh even though I couldn’t imagine she had even one viewer who didn’t grow up on radio and newspapers. That’s why I was there. Those were the people who would buy my book. Avoiding too much of a soapbox, I explained how dealing with insurance made it too difficult to maintain a private practice and how I felt I could reach more people if I expanded my scope. So I started a column for theFort Worth Tribune, then was approached by execs at KWKP radio station about hosting a show. And it took off from there. TheHonest Healingpodcast was a natural pivot. A way to stay current.
Harper nodded and smiled and led me down a lovely risk-free path. We briefly discussed my lack of children, but it was nothing I hadn’t said before. My explanation simple and true. I raised my sister, and itwas grueling and challenging. So instead of having children, I chose a career where I could focus solely on helping them.
“Awww,” the woman in the cutoffs says. The group nods. None of them look at me, though. Not the real me. They’re engrossed in the screen me.
I haven’t watched this clip yet. Too soon. I was waiting for the right time. So much for that theory.
Harper’s voice rings out: “I hear you’re headed toGood Morning Americanext. Glad we could catch you before you get too big for our little old show.” I laughed, politely.
Oh, the smugness in that laugh.
“Okay, how about we open up the phone to callers.” That was something I didn’t expect. That wasn’t on the script.
The calls were typical at first. A distraught woman with an estranged son, followed by a resentful woman whose husband refused to have their child tested. I referred to certain chapters in my book and told them what I tell so many: You can do this. Your child needs an advocate. Always.
