a conversation from that morning. “I’ve found a good one.
You’re not going to believe it; it’s in Iowa! And it costs a bundle,
so you’d better do well.” And I did.
With me, my parents always emphasized education, decorum, achievement. Yet the moment Andrew was diagnosed,
each of them softened. “I think he’s actually smarter than
the rest of us,” my mother would whisper. And my father—
Harvard educated—would nod. “As long as he’s happy,” he’d
say, stroking my son’s cherubic blond head.
“This is not your fault,” my father
says as I cry. “Children forgive you,
as long as you stick by them.”
Novelist Ann Bauer splits her time between Seattle and Minneapolis. Her son Andrew lives in New Hope, Minnesota, and studies painting at Interact Studio.
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