More notes: Autism symptoms--Slow or delayed language development. Lack of facial expressions or gestures. Inappropriate repetition of sounds, words, sentences, or whole conversations. (This symptom may be immediate or delayed.) Avoidance of eye contact Inability to recognize social cues or other people's feelings. "Tunes out" the world. Preoccupation with specific parts of an object. Highly intolerant of a change in routine.

The man looked up blearily, wincing at the croupy wail of his toddler daughter. "Can't you shut that kid up? You know I have to work tomorrow. She's not cutting another tooth already is she?"

"She's sick, okay?" The mother bounced the fretful little girl. "I'm worried about her. She had a play date with Marla Wallace's girl a few days ago, and Doreen is sick, too. I think we'd better take her to the emergency room."

"Can't it wait till tomorrow?"

"I don't know. Let me take her temperature."

He fell asleep while she took the hacking, crying baby into the bathroom to get the thermometer. Suddenly he was being shaken roughly. "Goddamn it, I said..."

"Get up! Get up, you son of a bitch! My baby has a temperature of 103, and I didn't even keep the goddamn thermometer in the whole three minutes." His wife's voice rose above the baby's shrieks. "You're taking me to the hospital right now!"

At the hospital they tried to make her sit in the waiting room and fill out forms. She screamed and cursed, thrusting the still shit smeared thermometer under the admitting nurse's nose. The woman laid her hand on the wheezing little girl's forehead, then snatched her from the mother's arms and hurried down the hall, calling for a doctor.

A few minutes later Daphne Breman was wrapped in a thin blanket to keep her thrashing under control. A nurse supported her as she lay in a tub of water and chipped ice, fans blowing breezes over her, ruffling her damp, sandy curls. The doctor was talking to the distraught mother. The father, yawning hugely, was sitting in the corner, sleepily filling out paperwork. "I don't know yet what it is, Mrs. Breman, but I can make a good guess. Has she been around any other children with similar symptoms?"

"The Wallace girl, but she didn't seem all that bad."

"She's right down the hall. Has Daphne had her vaccinations yet?"

"No. I was going to do that next month, after her first birthday."

The doctor rubbed his face. "Damn. It's no doubt, then--She's got measles." He patted the woman on the shoulder. "We're going to do what we can for her, Mrs. Breman, but she's a very sick girl."

The waiting began. The father returned home for another hour or so of sleep before he went in to work. The mother didn't try to persuade him to stay. He proved his uselessness in her eyes by even considering leaving while their baby was so sick.

The minutes ticked by, turning to hours. The mother insisted on staying with little Daphne, and the over-worked ER nurse allowed it. Elsie Breman grimly held her daughter in the water, feeling the chilly liquid turn first tepid, then warm with her daughter's body heat.

The first convulsion struck at 4:37 am. Daphne went rigid in her mother's hands, blue eyes glazed and staring. She trembled from head to foot, then thrashed violently. As she screamed for help, it was all that Elsie could do to keep her daughter from slamming her tiny head into the basin edge. It was almost over by the time the doctor and nurse had raced into the room. The baby was fussy and frightened, but seemed to be unharmed. The doctor soothed Elsie, telling her that seizures were not uncommon for a baby with a high fever. Indeed, it wasn't rare for children to suffer one unexplained convulsion in their lives. "As long as its just one, we don't need to worry."

At seven am. Elsie had to take a trip to the lavatory. The day shift ER nurse assured her that Daphne would be fine during the few minutes that would take. See? The baby was sleeping quite peacefully. So peacefully that the nurse, with Elsie gone, decided that it was safe to change the water in the tub. She was wrong.

Daphne convulsed again just as the woman was lifting her from her bath, and the nurse was not ready. Tiny but sturdy arms and legs shot out at odd angles, stiffening, and one bare foot drove against the nurse's starched white bosom with sickeningly painful force. Elsie was entering the room just as the woman dropped her child. She screamed as the baby fell against the exam table, then dropped to the floor with a meaty splat, and continued to jerk and twitch. The doctor, right behind her, scooped up the child and began a frantic examination as he shouted for security to come and pull the enraged mother off the woefully outclassed nurse.

The fever went down to normal range within another four hours, but Daphne Breman remained unconscious for two days. She had a hairline skull fracture, a dislocated shoulder, and severe bruising. She convulsed six more times before she finally opened her eyes to find her mother hovering over her. By that time her father had already contacted a personal injury lawyer.

1968

They were having dinner in a nice restaurant, and Simpson Breman knew that had to mean that they wanted to deal. He'd been paying attention in court, he'd seen the jurors staring at his daughter as she sat, dull-eyed, in his wife's lap. He'd recognized the horror and pity caused by the tiny helmet she had to wear in order to avoid further head injuries if she fell.

Simpson stared at the two lawyers--one representing the hospital, the other the ER doctor's malpractice insurance company. "My daughter has epilepsy. She can't go a week without a seizure, and it's not one of those nice, discreet little petit mal ones, either. We're talking falling down, jerking and twitching, foaming at the mouth. If we don't shove something between her jaws, she might bite her own tongue in two. The doctors don't know how she'll end up, but their best guess is that she's going to be slow. She'll never have a normal life, she'll always need to be taken care of, and all you're offering is a million?"

"Mister Breman, there is no proof that the epilepsy was caused by the fall," protested the junior lawyer. "Several experts have stated that it could have been caused by the fever, and they all agree that the doctor and hospital did everything in their power to..."

"She's going to need to be taken care of," said Breman flatly. "Someone's got to provide for it, and I'm not going to be able to afford it. If you don't, she'll have to go into a state home. You really think that the jury is going to look at that little girl, look at her grieving mama, and not hold you responsible?" The lawyers were silent. "Two and a half million. I'm not a greedy man. You know damn good and well that if it goes to the jury they're liable to award two or three times that amount."

"And we can appeal," said the senior lawyer. "You wouldn't see a penny till your daughter was a grown woman."

Breman shrugged. "She could stay in the state home while we went through the appeals." He smiled nastily. "And then they'd award us even more for our suffering and mental anguish."

The senior lawyer stared at him. It was very seldom he met an opponent who was just as cold-blooded as he was. This man was willing to warehouse his daughter in order to win what he thought was his due. He sighed, and said, "One point five."

Simpson Breman's smile widened. "You know, usually I can only afford a beer. I need to study up on wines." He reached for the wine list. "We can negotiate."

1970

"Elsie, it's time for her to go to kindergarten, okay?"

"She doesn't have to go, Sim. It isn't required by law."

"Look, the case worker says that she can, so she should, and if you think that I'm gonna risk having them question that settlement, you're crazy." Elsie glared at him. "Damn it, she's going to have to learn how to deal with the world sooner or later."

"But not now. I don't see why we can't have a... a tutor for her the first couple of years."

"Why? They have a perfectly good public program."

"You are so damn cheap, Simpson! That's why you want to send her out to school--it's free, and it will get her out of your way."

"Christ, Elsie, if that was what I wanted, I could have placed her in a home when we got the settlement."

"No, you couldn't," she said quietly, "because you know I would have killed you."

They stared at each other for a long moment. "Okay, no kindergarten, but I'm telling you you're going to regret it. The kid is going to have enough to overcome as it is without you isolating her even more."

1972

Elsie clutched Daphne's hand tightly as they sat in the car. "There it is, baby, you see? That's your school. Now, I know that it's big, and scary, but you have to be a brave girl for mama."

Daphne said nothing, her tiny hand warm and limp in Elsie's. The girl was staring at the toes of her shoes, studying the bright, unmarred curve of the toes. Mama had insisted on buying her lots of new clothes for school. As usual, Daphne had allowed her mother to dress her like a doll. She was perfectly capable of dressing herself, but saw no point in insisting on it. She saw little point in insisting on anything--or interacting with the world at all. It would be years before psychologists would widely recognize her condition for what it was--borderline autism, a disassociation from society. She even felt little contact with the physical world around her. Often it surprised her that she was able to affect things around her.

Elsie sighed. "Lord. I managed to hold them off an extra year, but I can't stall any more. The law says you have to be in some sort of organized educational plan, and your sorry Daddy won't spring for home tutors. We're going to go in now, baby. I'll take you to your room." They got out of the car, Daphne waiting patiently till her mother came around the car and opened her door. As they walked into the long, low building, Elsie said, "I've talked with them, honey. I've told them how special you are, and how careful they'll have to be of you. I've given the nurse your medicine, and she'll give it to you at lunch. Don't you let them forget, now! Daphne, are you listening to me?" She stopped. Daphne continued to study the floor, eyes meticulously tracing the pattern of the tiles. Elsie touched her daughter's face, waiting till the girl's eyes drifted up to her. "What are you going to do at lunch?"

"Clean the plate, plate the clean, clean it all. Take my meddy, gulp, gulp, gulp, pill gone," Daphne said quickly, her voice a toneless chant.

"That's right. You have to take your meddy. You don't want the shaking to come back."

"No, no, no go. Shaking, waking, very scary, no. What about my hard hat? Where's that?" She looked back at the floor. "No rug, hard floor, floor hard. Bang the head, make me dead."

Elsie winced. "You haven't had a seizure for a long time, baby. Just... just if you start to feel funny, lay down on the floor, before you fall down, okay?" Daphne's attention had drifted to a poster that showed a cheerful group of bland boys and girls, industriously working at their school desks. "Daphne!"

"Lay down, stay down."

"That's right." As they started walking again, Elsie muttered, "Special needs class, my ass. My baby isn't stupid--she's just different."

1975

"She hates it, Simpson!"

"Elsie, I seriously doubt that she even notices what's going on around her."

"How can you say that? You've seen the work she brings home from school. She's a good student--she's smart. Her teacher admits it; she says that Daphne doesn't belong in her class. Simpson, she's reading four years over her grade level. Her teacher gave her a junior high mathematics text book, and she's worked half the problems in it, with practically no mistakes."

"Okay, so she isn't retarded--intellectually. Socially, that's another matter. I've talked to the teacher, too, and I hear what you shut out. Daphne doesn't interact, Elsie. She might as well be alone in that class room."

"And why not? She doesn't belong there. The other students know it, and they resent her. I've seen how they treat her. Simpson, she comes home with spitballs in her hair. She has scabs on her knees from where they trip her."

"Children have accidents. They play..."

"You just got through telling me she doesn't interact, Simpson--you can't have it both ways."

He sighed. "She falls down."

"That isn't her fault! And she hadn't been falling down for a long time before we put her in school. It's getting more and more often now. The doctors warned that stress could bring on seizures, change her body chemistry so that the medication wasn't as effective."

"Christ! What fucking stress? Elsie, the girl is a stone. She's a lump, she doesn't feel anything. I don't think she's said five words to me in the last month unless I prodded her." Elsie stared at him, and the genuine hatred he saw shining in her eyes startled him. He knew that Elsie was stubborn and unrealistic where Daphne was concerned, but he tried again. "Honey, you're going to have to face facts--she's not normal--she never will be. They have folktales about changelings--where a baby is stolen and something inhuman that looks just like it is left in its place. That's sort of what happened with Daphne. The disease and the accident stole the daughter we should have had, and left us with..."

They were standing in the hall, and the living room was dark, save for the flicker of the television. Daphne sat on the floor before it, face tipped up, blank eyes fixed on the screen. She'd sit like that for hours, watching whatever unfolded with equal interest--or lack of interest. News, comedy, cop shows, variety, cartoons... It all washed over her. Or so Simpson Breman thought. He didn't realize that, in actuality, it was all absorbed. "It left us with THAT."

"She isn't a that--she's your daughter, you asshole."

He scowled. "I'd get more affection and recognition from a goddamn Chia Pet. She stays in the school." He walked away, intent on getting a drink. He didn't really need an excuse to drink, but if he ever felt he did, he had an excellent one sitting in the living room.

1977

"Oh, God, Simpson, you can't send her to that public junior high! She'll only be in the special room for two classes a day. She'll have to deal with those little monsters the rest of the time. It's bad enough as it is, but she'll be around older children--teenagers. And they're vicious to the different ones--you know that."

"She's doing all right. She doesn't complain."

"Maybe she doesn't, but her teacher has noticed it. Even the other students in her class tease her unmercifully, and the so called 'normal' ones... Have you seen what Bobby Barclay wrote in her workbook? Filthy devil! I wanted him to be suspended, but they say they can't prove he did it."

"He must like her."

She stared at him in disbelief. "I think that's the stupidest statement you've ever made. And I suppose that the pinches mean he wants to go steady? She has blue marks on her arms."

"He's probably just trying to get a reaction out of her." Simpson was pouring himself another scotch. "God knows I'm tempted sometimes."

Elsie's eyes were like ice chips. "You know what would happen to you if you did."

He slammed the glass down on the table, liquor slopping out onto the shining veneer. "God damn it, woman, I'm getting sick of you threatening me!" He pointed at her. "Keep it up, and I'll leave your ass--you and that breathing lump in there. No one with a grain of reality in their soul would blame me."

Her voice was silky. "What's wrong, Sim? Is your 'secretary' getting impatient?"

He snatched his coat from the closet. "I'm getting out of here. I'm going somewhere I can have a little peace, and be around someone who cares about ME for a change."

"Be sure to wrap your dick in plastic before you stick it in that swamp between her legs!" she shrieked as he stormed out. She went to the table and tossed off the drink he'd left, then went into the living room and sat on the couch behind Daphne. Her daughter never turned, never acknowledged her, but it didn't bother Elsie. She knew that Daphne was aware of her. "What are you watching, baby?"

It was some old black and white movie. On screen there was a bizarre cacophony of blaring music and the sound of bells. The image of a horrifically beautiful woman, hair a towering frizz of white streaked black, dark stitches laddering her neck, lurched on the screen. Her long body was swathed in flowing white--what could have been a wedding gown, or a shroud. "Ah, Bride of Frankenstein. That's a good one. Isn't it, honey? Do you like it?" Daphne's head moved a fraction of an inch--up, then down. "It's a classic."

She watched the end of the show with her daughter, watched as the Creature's heart was broken yet again, as his last hope of any love or kinship was dashed. Watched as his intended mate shrieked and hissed in horror. A tear trickled down the Creature's ashen face as he ordered the 'normal ones' away, his deep voice wrenching with pain and anger. "You live. We belong dead." Then he pulled the switch, and the laboratory exploded.

There was another minute or two, a totally unnecessary shot of the two protagonists escaping, assuring the far-in-the-past audience of the prerequisite 'happy ending'. Everything of significance had already happened, though.

"Dead."

Elsie was a little startled, though not as much as her husband would have been. Daphne did speak of her own volition, though not often. "What, baby?"

"Dead. We belong dead. Dead long, long dead, belong. You live. We belong dead."

Daphne often fixated on a word or phrase--repeating it, switching it around, and working out variations. Elsie sometimes thought that it resembled some examples of 'stream of conscious' writing. It was as if Daphne didn't have the mental screen that most people did, and whatever ran through her mind, spilled from her lips.

It usually ran its course in a few seconds. Not this time. Daphne continued. "Dead. Long dead, long to be. Be dead. Dead, deadly live. You live dead. Dead."

Elsie began to feel a trickle of unease. Another movie, Night of the Living Dead, was just starting, a young man and a blonde woman bickering in a car as they drove through a cemetery. "Oh, I don't think so." Elsie got up and went to the television, changing the channel. "That's enough of that morbid stuff, huh, doll? How about, oh, a nice comedy? Look, there's Jerry Lewis! Let's watch him, okay?" Daphne stared silently at the brightly colored, antic activity on the screen. "Okay, Daphne?" Daphne nodded. Relieved, Elsie went to sit down.

"Mommy?"

*She so seldom talks to anyone directly,* thought Elsie. *That's got to be a good sign.* "What is it, baby?"

Daphne didn't turn her head, didn't move, never took her eyes from the screen. "Dead is better."