The Home Front by Margaret Vandenburg

in the Barron household. Rose squeezed Floortime therapy into the few hours left before and after Max’s ABA sessions with Sasha. No matter how lackluster his response, she managed to rev herself up to dizzying heights of animation. Her voice, which was ordinarily on the sultry side, was elevated at least an octave, resembling a cartoon character on speed. She talked a mile a minute, punctuating everything with exaggerated gestures. Given Max’s hypersensitivity, this frenetic approach seemed counterintuitive, like giving Adderall and other stimulants to kids with attention deficit disorder. But even Todd had to admit that the results were remarkable. Max’s attention span, which had been virtually nonexistent, improved dramatically. He even started pointing at things, the first step toward learning to talk. Rose operated on the assumption that he understood every last word she said.
    “Where’s your soldier, Max?”
    Rose held out her hands, clenched tight in the manner of guessing games. Max spotted a telltale bazooka peeking through her fingers. He grabbed it and Rose exploded into applause.
    “Wowee! You found your soldier! Let’s try again.”
    Rose took another toy soldier from a regiment jumbled in the box by her side. This one carried a machine gun. She knew better than to ask Max to relinquish Bazooka Joe, which was clutched tightly against his chest. Periodically, she had to find a different set of props for their Floortime exercises. After a week or two, Max developed an attachment to the objects. She could no longer touch them without catapulting him into territorial tantrums. The soldiers were Todd’s idea. They had been his as a boy. Watching Max play with them provided the kind of connection he craved with his son, oblique but better than nothing.
    Rose dangled the second soldier in the air. Max was still fixated on the one in his hand. He started flicking the bazooka with his index finger. Rose let out a loud whoop to attract his attention. She waited until his eyes focused and then made her soldier dance back and forth, just out of reach. Max seemed to smile, possibly even at his mother. When she hid the soldier behind her back, he squealed with what sounded more like delight than autistic screeching. They were actually communicating. In his excitement, Max dropped his soldier. He climbed to his knees and lost his balance. When he recovered, he extended both arms, almost touching his mother’s crossed legs. Then he seemed to forget what he was trying to find.
    “Where’s your soldier now?” Rose shrieked.
    She twirled around, revealing the toy behind her back. Max lunged at it and fell giggling to the floor. His eyes were fixed on the ceiling. Rose couldn’t tell whether he was having fun or withdrawing into what Todd called Giddy Land, a private place where laughter was hysterical rather than happy. She put the soldier’s foot in her mouth, hoping to coax Max into making eye contact. Ordinarily he avoided looking at people’s faces. They conveyed too much emotional information, especially his mother’s solicitous expression, which threatened to swallow him. Her smile was like a beast baring its teeth. He peered at her out of the corner of one eye, just enough to pinpoint the location of the soldier. He managed to grab it without touching anything warm or soft or wet. It had been a close call. Too close.
    Max retreated across the living room toward a blinding light. Rose watched him squinting into the sun, shaking his head like a horse fending off a pesky fly. She rushed over, trying to intervene before it was too late. The window had already hypnotized him, the bright white noise of light eclipsing every other sensation, even his mother’s grip on his arm. His eyes alternately squinted and rolled to the side, taking refuge in the partial and the peripheral. He started tiptoeing, first tentatively and then almost frantically, as though struggling to climb out of his body.
    If Sasha had been