Elias sits at the kitchen table, watching a YouTube channel hosted by a man who takes videos of elevators in hotels and office buildings.
(If I could assume, I'd say he's on the spectrum too.)
Elias now knows the different sounds of Dover and Schindler dings. He can tell if an Otis elevator is a Series One from the shape of the buttons. He refers to "classic Otis leveling" when we reach our chosen floor and looks to find the carrying capacity posted inside.
He has taught us about less known names like Kone and Thyssenkrupp, laughing uncontrollably at his Dad when Nick mispronounced the second name in a short iPhone video he sent to us from Anchorage-- Elias's giggles infecting me, till both our eyes watered, mine for the pure sight of Elias's unabashed joy.
Elias smiles to himself at something the YouTube host says, his head bent close to the screen, absorbed in a world of silver boxes that rise.
Olive sits next to him, cutting out an indigo butterfly she drew on a piece of white printer paper. "Mom, I'm not going to use my iPad all this year. Can I sell it?"
I smile at the contrast between my kids. Olive an endless aquamarine pool of imagination and action; Elias a fern and dandelion sponge for information, no detail too specific for his file cabinet mind.
While reading The Night of the Dragon, #55 in the Magic Tree House series, Jack or Annie referred to a past adventure that I couldn't recall, despite feeling as though I've read all the Treehouse books to my son over the past five years, as he resists a new collection of books, the repetition and predictability of a return to the Frog Creek woods a comfort to Elias in this chaotic world that is not in number order.
"I don't remember that one," I said.
And without a pause, without even looking up from the page, Elias said: "Its number 14. After the volcano and before the earthquake."
I just looked at my boy, awed by his numerical memory.
He later corrected himself and told me that "Viking Ship at Sunrise" was actually number fifteen and the earthquake story came later.
And I forget where I put my burnt orange coffee cup almost every morning, the names of my old teachers, my license plate number, the face of someone I've met-- files scattered across the sepia floor of my mind, unretrievable, especially when called.
And then there's Olive, whose creative impulses turn our cabin upside down, the living room a stage, kitchen table an art studio, her bedroom a tumble of stuffed animals, papers, and clothes, with no structure to the heap, no empty space on the floor, no map, no boxes, no lines.
No wonder my children clash.
No wonder a four-wheeler tied to a trailer left on the top rung of the ladder can turn a playground into a battle field. A sweet boy into an unthinking storm of fury and will. A strong girl into the hunted, seeking somewhere safe to hide.
Me in the middle wanting to rewind.
But time only moves forward, not back, each second adding to the space between. Between events, between memories, between night and the goldenrod dawn of a new day.
When Olive doesn't feel tired at bedtime, we let her keep her light on and draw. She often fills multiple pages in her sketch book before falling asleep next to her box of crayons-- sea green, periwinkle, mahogany, tumbleweed, sunglow, robin egg blue -- that tip and scatter across her lavender flowered sheets.
Last night, after an easy Sunday, that included a walk in the woods of our new home, through a "Devil's Club jungle," over fallen Spruce, along a mossy bank, into a new part of the verdant forest, with Olive moving with ease as the leader, me in the middle assisting Elias as he worked twice as hard to navigate the bramble, with a body that doesn't receive clear directions from his brain, after we successfully returned to our clearing without injury or mishap, without tears or anger, after both children ate their plates clean and showered and lay their contrary heads on separate soft pillows, after Nick and I stayed up talking and connecting the way husbands and wives can, we found this picture on Olive's chest...
the word "love" written in violet, broken in two, within the square lines of the skateboarder's shirt, her arms spread wide, as the canary sun clearly shines over the magenta mountains and shamrock trees that, without question, rise.
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