Dessie waited behind the curtain while the audience clapped. They cheered loudly, erratically, and some members sobbed. She smiled. Preschool audiences always made her smile.<\/p>\n
She threw open the curtain and had her puppets bow one by one. When she herself finally stood, the children swarmed her. They asked questions, told her their favorite kind of construction equipment, and asked to play with her puppets\u2026all except one boy in the corner. He sat alone, poking at a graphing calculator. It was Dessie\u2019s own four-year old son, Beckett. Her smile vanished.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecket, sweetie,\u201d she said after the other children had left and her traveling puppet theater was packed, \u201cDid you like the puppet show?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo.\u201d Dessie knew he\u2019d say that. His voice sounded, as usual, mechanical.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat didn\u2019t you like, sweetie?\u201d She already knew his answer.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe story doesn\u2019t go that way. Not the REAL story.\u201d<\/p>\n
Today\u2019s show was a parody version of Hansel and Gretel where the witch hadn\u2019t been shoved into an oven, but instead started an Iron Chef-like cooking show. Becket didn\u2019t like variations. He didn\u2019t like imagining<\/em> period.<\/p>\n \u201cYou can change any story you want to. Your imagination can be powerful!\u201d She said in a cheerful voice that masked the futility of it all.<\/p>\n \u201cIt wouldn\u2019t be the right story,\u201d he said. Mechanical. Sometimes she imagined he was a walking puppet and not a real boy, like in Pinocchio, and she\u2019d wake up one day and Beckett would be normal. Imaginative, cuddly. Like the child she\u2019d thought she would have.<\/p>\n \u201cIt would be a new<\/em> story,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cYou shouldn\u2019t change the story!\u201d Beckett was shouting and covering his ears. Whenever he displayed emotion it was always and only the emotion of being overwhelmed with the world.<\/p>\n \u201cListen you\u2026\u201d Dessie started to hiss under her breath. But a stage hand walked up.<\/p>\n \u201cHey, I loaded the set. You guys okay here?\u201d He asked.<\/p>\n \u201cOh yes,\u201d Dessie said quickly. \u201cBeckett likes to learn things once and have them nailed down in his head. He doesn\u2019t like to be troubled by revisions or parodies or new information. You know how kids are,\u201d She laughed. It\u2019s not<\/u> how kids are, <\/em>she thought. It\u2019s just how Beckett<\/u> is. <\/em><\/p>\n \u201cOh,\u201d said the stage hand absently. \u201cI meant about the set and props. Yeah. Ha. Kids.\u201d He walked away without a second glance.<\/p>\n Dessie turned back to her son, flustered. Total strangers assumed things were fine between parents and their kids. She didn\u2019t have to give that guy her whole life story. It probably wouldn\u2019t dawn on the random stage hand that Dessie had blurted the core conflict of her whole life at him. Stupid woman, <\/em>she told herself. No one cares<\/u>. <\/em><\/p>\n \u201cCome on Beckett. Let\u2019s go home for dinner. At least you can make food with me. It\u2019s the only thing creative you can<\/em> do.\u201d She felt awful after it came out of her mouth. She tried not to take her frustration out on him. But she knew she failed a lot.<\/p>\n Beckett pulled up short, jerking Dessie\u2019s arm in its socket.<\/p>\n \u201cI make dinosaur models.\u201d<\/p>\n It was true. He did. Dozens of them, meticulously built following the directions from kits and accurate skeletal diagrams from his dinosaur books.<\/p>\n \u201cYou always build them exactly like the box says to. That\u2019s not creative.\u201d Dessie hated nattering at him. But she also hated the way his mind worked and she couldn\u2019t seem to stop herself when she got going.<\/p>\n \u201cThis time I used different clay to make their skin,\u201d he said in his mechanical voice. \u201cI think you might like them.\u201d<\/p>\n Dessie stared. Beckett never tried new ways of doing things. He always bought the same kind of model, used the same kind of glue, and covered their bones with the same kind of clay. She couldn\u2019t recall having made a different purchase at the hobby store last time.<\/p>\n \u201cDid your dad buy you the new clay?\u201d She\u2019d tried to keep the suspicion out of her voice, but Beckett looked suddenly distant.<\/p>\n Craig liked to one-up her in the gift-giving department. Gifts to say sorry for leaving. He could afford the iPads and video game consoles that Dessie could not. Because I <\/em>stayed in the trenches with our son and the therapists and the IEPs while Craig started over. <\/em>But electronics weren\u2019t good for kids. She told herself that<\/em> was the reason Beckett had to keep them at his dad\u2019s house for alternate weekends only.<\/p>\n \u201cNever mind, sweetie. Let\u2019s go home for dinner and you can show me the models.\u201d<\/p>\n Dessie pushed down a lump of guilt. She tried very hard not to force Beckett into divided loyalties between parents. Not that Beckett appeared outwardly loyal to either herself or Craig\u2026<\/p>\n Come on<\/u><\/em> Dessie, <\/em>she chided herself as the pair walked out the stage door of the Arts Center. Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing it is stupid. <\/em><\/p>\n She repeated the feel-good Einstein quote. It was supposedly inspirational. But it did nothing to ease the ache in Dessie\u2019s heart. Her whole life and soul was emotion and imagination, and those were the two trees her little fish just couldn\u2019t seem to swim up into.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n After dinner, Dessie sprayed their dinner plates in the kitchen sink. Spaghetti with red sauce for her, boxed mac \u2018n\u2019 cheese for Beckett. His favorite comfort food. Every night<\/p>\n \u201cOkay sweetie. You want to show me the new dinosaurs?\u201d Usually she let him go play in his room with his models and worked on her next show. The ones she put on for the normal children.<\/p>\n Beckett looked up from his graphing calculator. Plotting parabolas was his second favorite hobby after building model dinosaurs. His eyes looked\u2014frightened. Not his usual \u2018overwhelmed\u2019 emotion. But frightened.<\/p>\n \u201cFirst promise I can keep them.\u201d His voice sounded frightened too. Not mechanical.<\/p>\n \u201cSure, honey,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n It had been over a year since she\u2019d threatened to throw his dinosaur kits out if he couldn\u2019t look up from them in time to go potty. Not her finest moment. A moment she regretted whenever she thought of it. Beckett still looked hesitant.<\/p>\n \u201cNo really,\u201d he said. \u201cI can keep them no matter what. Promise.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYes, honey.\u201d What had gotten into this kid? <\/em>She wondered.<\/p>\n Dessie followed Beckett up the stairs of their duplex and to his bedroom door. She hadn\u2019t been in his room in weeks. Beckett had started refusing the bedtime stories and lullabies he used to suffer Dessie to perform. She was suddenly suspicious of the sudden refusal. What was<\/u> different about these models now?<\/em><\/p>\n Beckett opened his door.<\/p>\n There on his floor, a herd of six stegosauruses, each about a foot long, were eating lettuce and canned green beans out of one of her missing cereal bowls.<\/p>\n In the corner a kitten-sized allosaurus roared from underneath an overturned laundry basket. Raisin-sized, brown spheres littered the floor. Mini dino droppings.<\/em><\/p>\n Wordlessly, Beckett grabbed a hand broom and dust bin from his night stand and dropped to his knees to sweep them up. It was a practiced motion. He\u2019d been doing this for a while.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat on earth!\u201d Dessie managed to get out.<\/p>\n \u201cYou promised,\u201d Beckett said. The mechanical voice was back.<\/p>\n \u201cBut how?!<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cCraig didn\u2019t get me the clay. I made it with store clay you got me. And then also with my brain.\u201d<\/p>\n Dessie\u2019s mind reeled. Geppetto mastery.<\/em> It was sometimes discussed at puppeteering conventions by the older, stranger puppeteers. Especially after they\u2019d had a few cocktails. Dessie almost got the feeling that a few of them believed they\u2019d brought their puppets to life. Like really. To. Life.<\/p>\n She\u2019d written it off as puppeteering weirdness (of which there was plenty). But here was her own son. And she could no longer deny.<\/p>\n The stegosauruses bellowed tiny bellows and scampered to Beckett\u2019s feet. He petted each one and his face beamed pure joy. Innocence. Beckett still looked the way he always had, but Dessie recognized it now as his own look of play. Six spiky tails wagged as Beckett scratched between the little back plates. She\u2019d never seen living dinosaurs before, large or miniature, but she could tell that these dinosaurs were happy and well cared for.<\/p>\n \u201cOf course you can keep them,\u201d she smiled.<\/p>\n Dessie\u2019s heart began to soar as it had not since she\u2019d first suspected her son was a different sort of baby. Her Beckett, it turned out, was wildly and boundlessly creative.<\/p>\n Sudden guilt hit her as she watched him petting his living wonders. Four years.<\/em> Her son had been this amazing person all along. Creative, loving, and gentle. But she\u2019d wasted his whole life feeling sorry for herself because she didn\u2019t understand. He\u2019d had to show her who he was because she hadn\u2019t bothered to look. What could have been for him if his own mother<\/u><\/em> had paid closer attention\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cBut it ends next month,\u201d his voice was suddenly sorrowful.<\/p>\n \u201cWhy next month?\u201d<\/p>\n Beckett gestured to his modeling desk. Skeletal T-Rexes, Pteranodons, and Parasaurolophuses sat atop it, awaiting their life-giving clay.<\/p>\n \u201cTomorrow I make the Creataceous creatures. And then\u2026\u201d Tears! Tears came down Beckett\u2019s face. He seldom cried.<\/p>\n \u201cThen what?<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou know how the story ends.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe asteroid!?\u201d<\/p>\n Beckett nodded and more tears poured from his eyes. Dessie rushed to him and tried to hold him. He stiffened and she backed off, as usual. Behind him, she saw a box of cat litter with several conical depressions. Inside were eggs\u2014they were nests! Eggs! His creations created life of their own. The asteroid could not<\/em> come this time.<\/p>\n \u201cBeckett, you can change any story you want to.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo. Then it isn\u2019t real.\u201d The mechanical voice was back, but the tears still streamed.<\/p>\n Suddenly Dessie realized something about how his magical mind worked.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd if it\u2019s not real,\u201d she said, \u201cthen these dinosaurs go back to being just models?\u201d<\/p>\n He nodded. It was terrible. He was bound to destroy these little animals because it honored their story. It kept them real. Destroy them eventually or they lose their aliveness.<\/p>\n Dessie felt ashamed. Four years, she\u2019d let him feel her disappointment and hurt. She had to fix this for him now. No more wishing Beckett were the child she\u2019d expected. She had to become the parent her real son had needed since he was born. The failure of imagination has been mine\u2014not his\u2014all along,<\/em> she thought.<\/p>\n \u201cOkay, that\u2019s how their story ends. But sweetie, your time scale is off. Give me your calculator.\u201d<\/p>\n Beckett handed it to her. It had buttons with things like \u2018cos\u2019 and \u2018log\u2019 and \u2018ln\u2019 and \u2018tan\u2019 on it and she handed it right back to him.<\/p>\n \u201cOh hell. You do the numbers. Okay. So how big is a normal stegosaurus?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThirty feet long, nine feet tall, 6,800 pounds,\u201d he said automatically the way some people say \u2018the car is red.\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cOkay, and your stegosauruses are about one foot long. So that\u2019s 30 times smaller. How long was the Mesozoic era?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201c120 million years.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOkay divide that by 30 million years.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWell that\u2019s four million years,\u201d he said. \u201cBut we\u2019re in the middle of the Jurassic period.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBut don\u2019t you see? The orders of magnitude don\u2019t match. You\u2019ve got to give your dinosaurs at least as many million years to live as their body size warrants. You don\u2019t have to end the Mesozoic so soon after you started it!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOh! You mean I didn\u2019t account for scale!\u201d He seemed excited.<\/p>\n \u201cYes?\u201d Sure. Fine. He could correct her math terminology. She didn\u2019t know what she was talking about anyway.<\/p>\n \u201cSo I\u2019ve got at least a couple of million years? Of real time?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s what I\u2019ve been saying.\u201d She said.<\/p>\n He sighed. A look of peace came over him.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ll be long<\/em> dead by then.\u201d Beckett nodded, smiling contentedly.<\/p>\n He reached for Dessie\u2019s hand. She took it and she felt him squeeze. Dessie was in awe. Beckett\u2019s forgiveness came so easily. His trust as well. Children were like that, Dessie knew. She silently vowed to earn Beckett\u2019s trust each day of her life from this one on. She closed her eyes and squeezed Beckett\u2019s hand back while the stegosauruses bellowed in the cat box.<\/p>\n
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