Once again, I’m humbled by your response to my posts. This post will detail the events of the last two days, as well as bits of random information that may have some bearing on whatever’s happening—so it may feel more disjointed than usual. I apologize for that; I’m just trying to figure out what’s going on and don’t have time to worry about making this sound pretty. However, unlike previous posts, I’ll do my best to jump into the comments and interact with you here. I’ve been really grateful for the amount of exposure Lucas’s story has received, and especially for all of your theories and ideas. They’ve proven very helpful over the last two days, and I’d greatly appreciate your continued input.
Before I get into that, though, I want to tell you about a loose theory of my own. As you can imagine, Anna and I have been brainstorming incessantly for any possible explanation, and we haven’t come up with much. I mean, there’s not a lot to come up with—at least, not within the realms of rational thought. But a little over a month ago, something happened in our family, and I’m starting to think it might be related to recent events.
My grandpa died of a heart attack. No need for condolences, he was a total asshole. Even worse, he was a religious asshole—the worst kind, in my opinion. For instance: he strongly disapproved of my relationship with Anna just because her family is Catholic. (Ironically enough, Anna’s an atheist; she just attends church to appease her parents.) Now, it’s one thing to disapprove of your grandson’s girlfriend in silence, but it’s another thing entirely to voice it like he did. Every time he saw her, he’d comment on how “immodestly” she was dressed, even if her outfit was perfectly appropriate. He frequently referred to her parents as “ingrates” and called Catholicism “the whore of the earth.” He hated racial minorities (especially the Jews) as well, but that’s neither here nor there.
But family is family, so a few Saturdays ago, I found myself dressed in black and delivering his wretched corpse to the dirt. My dad was directly in front of me when it came time to carry the casket, and he had a faint smile on his face. He always hated his father-in-law. Even my mom seemed to possess a vague sense of relief throughout the day. All in all, it was a surprisingly pleasant occasion for our family. Anna even came—she said it was to help us keep an eye on Lucas, who has a habit of wandering off when people aren’t watching him, but I think (she’d never say this out loud, of course) she just wanted to see the old man drop six feet with the rest of us. Besides, she didn’t seem to try overly hard to stop Lucas from sitting on every damn headstone he saw.
See, Lucas doesn’t really have a social filter, so doing things that most people would find inappropriate or disrespectful (like sitting on graves) is almost second nature to him. Once, when he was six years old, his Sunday School teacher gave him a toy dog. At the time, Lucas was obsessed with “The Sandlot,” and the dog the lady had brought him looked an awful lot like the dog from the movie. So rather than thanking this lady for the toy, like a non-autistic 6-year-old might do, he looks right at her and deliberately yells, “Oh, SHIT!”—just like Benny does when that dog jumps over the fence at him.
But I digress. I’m sorry to go off on a tangent like that, it’s just that Lucas is doing worse. He barely gets out of bed, and I like remembering how he used to be. I guess the point of telling you all that was to say that my grandpa didn’t like Lucas, either—he despised anything that didn’t meet his definition of “normal.” In fact, he seemed to think autism was just a phase that could be snapped out of. My dad usually hated my grandpa silently, but when the old man called Lucas a retard one day, I thought my dad was going to knock his fucking lights out.
Anyway, my theory is that this all has something to do with my grandpa. I mean, he can’t stand either Lucas or Anna, then he dies, and then all of a sudden crazy shit starts happening to both of them? That seems like too big of a coincidence to ignore. My theory isn’t any more specific than that, unfortunately, but maybe you guys can help me out there—you had some good ideas on my last post.
For instance, one of you suggested that we videotape Anna in her sleep. So we did. She was initially resistant to the idea, but she gave in—after all, her nighttime excursions have increased in frequency, and she’s obviously worried about it. So, two nights ago, we set up a video camera, Paranormal Activity style. She didn’t like the feeling of being watched, or the glowing red dot that illuminated her otherwise dark room, but she was eventually able to fall asleep.