Page 37 of Light Up The Night
"Precisely." She pauses, regarding me steadily. "What was the thought, please? I shall not be angry with you, I promise."
"Cadence—"
She squeezes my knee. "I am curious. I give you my word, I will not think less of you, and I will not be offended. I like to think I have grown out of being offended by such things.”
"Something like, you sound like a robot who learned English at Downton Abbey."
She blinks at me for a moment, and then…laughs, genuinely amused. "A Downton Abbey robot? My goodness, that is apropos, Riley. Very humorous." She pats my knee. "So. Questions. You may ask me anything and I will answer honestly and to the best of my knowledge."
"Why do you talk the way you do?"
"Well, first, you must know that I was nonverbal until I was five years of age. I understood what was said, I simply did not speak. Icould, since I obviously have functional vocal chords. The second thing you must know in order to understand my speech patterns and syntax is that I have always been academically precocious. I was readingRun Spot Runtype board books at eighteen months. By three years of age, I was reading at an adult level—by five, I was absorbing every book I could find. My parents are scholars and academics, so our house was and still is full of books on every subject one can think of, primarily nonfiction. We did not and do not own a television, I have never owned a smartphone, and rarely access the internet for any purpose other than research or other such utilitarian purposes, such as booking flights or lodgings. I read encyclopedias, histories, biographies, old textbooks, collections of essays by renowned thinkers from all ages. So, what you must understand from this is that the language to which I was exposed from birth was largely formal."
"Makes sense to me."
"Indeed. When I finally began speaking at age five, it was in complete sentences, using formal structure and syntax. Then, when I was eight, my private tutor assigned a novel for me toread. I had read fiction, of course, but unless assigned fiction for school, I only read nonfiction. The book Mr. Craig assigned me to read wasPride and Prejudice."
I nod. "Now that tracks. I watched the movie with Kiera Knightly in it a while back, me and the chick I was seeing at the time."
"So you are at least familiar."
"Yeah, for sure. I got the feeling that there was a lot going on, especially in the dialogue, that I was missing, though. Like, it just went way over my head."
She nods. "Oh, certainly. That is why I enjoyed the books so much. Because it was written, I could take my time with it as I attempted to understand the difference between what was being said and what was implied, inferred, or otherwise left unsaid. I suppose something in the way they spoke in the Regency Period resonated with me. I became fixated, and devoured everything that was written about and during that period." She taps her bag. "Pride and Prejudiceis still my favorite novel, and I re-read it regularly."
"You mentioned fixation," I say. "What does that mean?"
"Hyperfixation is a hallmark of autism. Neurotypicals like yourself will discover something they are interested in—baseball, finance, chess, pornography, photography, automobile restoration, what have you. A neurotypical brain can balance that interest or hobby with other things—eating, drinking, social events, sleep, sex, television, reading. A neurodivergent brain, like mine, does not. The scope and severity of hyperfixation, like everything else, differs from person to person. My particular hyperfixation is the absorption of information—the processing of data."
I frown. "Meaning?"
"I enjoy all topics. Science, mathematics, history, language, anthropology, sociology, philosophy, everything. But when Iwas five, around the same time as I began talking, I came across a somewhat dated copy of Pearson'sHuman Anatomy and Physiology, a standard university issue textbook. Why one becomes fixated on something is, so far as I am aware, inexplicable. For me, it is human anatomy. I read that book cover to cover multiple times, highlighted and annotated it to the point of absurdity. I memorized it, cover to cover, every word, diagram, and photograph."
I boggle at her. "Youmemorizedan entire fucking anatomy textbook at age five?”
She nods. "Yes. I told you—I possess an eidetic memory. I do not forget what I have seen, read, heard, or learned."
"Ever?"
She shrugs. "Not so far."
"So you still have that in your brain? The whole thing?"
"Yes."
I rock back. "Fuck me, that's incredible."
She shrugs again. “It is merely how I function." A wave of her hand. "That textbook was the beginning, for me. I moved on to everything medical. Textbooks on every subject—the nervous system, musculature, veins and arteries, the brain, sedation, everything I could find in the library and everything I could beg my parents to order from Amazon. I subscribed to medical journals. I read study abstracts and meta-analyses. I became hyperfixated to the point of obsession with all things medical, but anatomy in particular. The human body is a fascinating machine. It is endlessly complex, and at once delicate and fragile yet remarkably resilient."
"So becoming a doctor was sort of a no-brainer, then," I say.
"Oh, yes. My father is a surgeon and my mother is a nurse. When I was six, we moved to Kenya to become missionaries. Being fascinated with all things medical already, I attended the clinic where my parents worked on a regularbasis, and frequently watched my father perform surgeries while my mother assisted as his nurse. Many thought it wildly inappropriate, if not borderline abuse, to allow a six-year-old to watch her father reduce a leg fracture, or stitch up a laceration, or repair a severed artery. But my parents knew that I was different. It was not common back then to apply the ASD label to girls, as it presents much differently in females than it does in males, especially cases like mine."
"Cases like yours?"
"Yes. My presentation of autism is high-functioning with savant tendencies." She smiles, anticipating my questions. "It means I am capable of autonomy. I do not need constant care and supervision. I can function in society—feeding and clothing myself appropriately, navigating, learning, all the things that a neurotypical person takes for granted as everyday actions, things you don't think about doing—you just do them. Savant tendencies indicate the overlap of my eidetic memory and hyperfixation—meaning, my somewhat extraordinary capacity for informational intake and retention.” She pauses, thinking. "For many with autism, savant tendencies or hyperfixation tends to focus on one thing, either to the exclusion of all else or nearly so."
"The kid in class who's obsessed with dinosaurs and can tell you everything about them," I say.
