AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I had stepped into the other room, and I closed the door behind me. “Put her on.”
“Okay, hold on. She’s in her bedroom.”
Lauren carried the phone toward her sister’s room. “How are you doing?”
She shrugged. “Okay. School sucked today, and my blood pressure was high, but I’m okay now.”
I frowned. “How high?”
She paused and stared at the camera. “Not too high. I know what it needs to stay under, Mom.”
“I know you do, Lauren, but I worry since I’m not there.”
“It’s okay.” She resumed her trek, and I heard her opening the door. “Emmy, Mom is on the phone. She wants to talk to you.”
Lauren turned the phone around, and Emmy was adjusting stuffed animals on a shelf. My mom knew better than to go in there and move Emmy’s things. That was how we’d realized that she was on the spectrum. I had rearranged her room, and she’d had a major meltdown.
“Emmy, sweetheart, talk to mommy.”
“I can’t. I need to fix this. Grandma put them all wrong.”
“Okay, you will get them back.”
She spun and yelled at me, “They will never be back the right way. They were perfect, and now they aren’t.”
“Emmy, you need to calm down.”
She shoved Lauren’s hand away. “Go away. I need to get this right.”
“Emmy, don’t push at your sister. You will get the stuffed animals back in place.”
Emmy spun and put her face close to the screen. “No! They will never be right again! She wasn’t supposed to touch them! I had them perfect!”
“Sweetheart, stop,” I said softly. She frowned slightly but stopped talking. “Close your eyes and remember what your stuffed animals looked like. I know you have the picture in your mind of how they were.”
She kept staring at me.
“Emmy, do as I say. Close your eyes and picture them.” She finally closed her eyes. “Now picture them how they were. Can you see them?”
After a moment, she nodded, and then her eyes popped open, and the angry look was gone. In its place was determination. She turned away from the phone and began to move them around. A moment later, she paused, and I could tell by her profile that she had her eyes closed again. She opened them again and got back to work, this time with a slight smile on her lips.
“Excellent, Emmy. See? You know how they go. You will make them perfect again.”
She didn’t say anything as all her focus was on her task.
“Emmy, I’ll talk to you later. Lauren, can you take the phone to Grandma, please?”
“Yeah,” Lauren replied. “I told Grandma yesterday that I would help Emmy clean her room. I knew this was going to happen.”
“Thank you, sweetie.”
“Grandma, Mom is on the phone.” She handed her phone over to my mother, who put it to her ear.
“Mom, it’s a video call, not a phone call.”
“Oh!” She pulled it away from her ear and stared at the screen. “How are you?”
“I’d be better if you hadn’t cleaned Emmy’s room.”
