The Last Don - Mario Puzo [143]
When they got out of the car, Athena seemed to have control of herself. She pulled Cross into the house and then turned and faced him. “That was the baby I told Boz I buried in the desert. Now do you believe me?” And for the first time Cross really believed she might love him.
Athena led him into the kitchen and made coffee. They sat in the alcove to watch the ocean. As they drank their coffee, Athena started speaking. She talked casually, no emotion in her voice or on her face.
“When I ran away from Boz, I left my baby with some distant cousins, a married couple in San Diego. She seemed a normal baby. I didn’t know she was autistic then, maybe she wasn’t. I left her there because I was determined to be a successful actress. I had to make money for both of us. I was sure I was talented and God knows everybody told me how beautiful I was. I always thought that when I was successful, I could take my baby back.”
“So I worked in Los Angeles and visited her in San Diego whenever I could. Then I began to break through and I didn’t see her that often, maybe once a month. Finally when I was ready to bring her home I went to her third birthday party with all kinds of presents, but Bethany seemed to have slipped into another world. She was a blank. I couldn’t reach her at all. I was frantic. I thought maybe she had a brain tumor, I remembered when Boz had let her fall on the floor, that maybe her brain had been injured and it was now beginning to show. For months after that I brought her to doctors, she underwent a battery of tests of all kinds, I took her to specialists and they checked everything. Then someone, and I don’t remember whether it was the doctor in Boston or the psychiatrist in Texas Children’s Hospital, told me she was autistic. I didn’t even know what that meant except that I thought it was some kind of retardation. ‘No,’ the doctor said. It meant she lived in her own world, was unaware of other people’s existence, had no interest in them, could feel nothing for anything or anyone. It was when I brought her to the clinic here to be close to me that we found she could respond to that hugging machine you saw. That seemed to help, so I had to leave her there.”
Cross sat without a word, while Athena continued. “Being autistic meant she could never love me. But the doctors told me some autistic people are talented, even geniuslike. And I think Bethany is a genius. Not only with her painting. Something else. The doctors tell me that after many years of hard training some autistic people can be taught to care for some things, then some people. A few can even live a near-to-normal life. Right now, Bethany can’t stand listening to music or any noise. But at first she couldn’t bear to have me touch her, and now she’s learned to tolerate me, so she’s better than she used to be.
“She still rejects me but not as violently. We’ve made some progress. I used to think it was punishment for my neglect of her because I wanted to be a success. But the specialists say that sometimes though it seems hereditary, it can be acquired, but they don’t know what really makes it happen. The doctors told me it had nothing to do with Boz dropping her on her head or me deserting her, but I don’t know if I believe that. They kept trying to reassure me that we were not responsible, that it was one of the mysteries of life, maybe it was preordained. They insisted nothing could have prevented it from happening and nothing can ever change it. But again something inside me refuses to believe any of that.
“Even when I first found out, I thought about it constantly. I had to make some hard decisions. I knew I would be helpless to rescue her until I made a lot of money. So I put her in the clinic and visited her at least one weekend a month and some weekdays. Finally, I got rich, I was famous and nothing that mattered before mattered any longer. All I wanted was to be with Bethany. Even if this hadn’t happened, I