To the edge of disclosure

Abby and I were sitting at the dining room table on Sunday afternoon. She was getting a headstart on her homework for the week, and I was having my afternoon coffee and skimming the Boston Sunday Globe magazine. I turned the page to Connecting the Dots, a piece about an adult's discovery at age 41 that he had Asperger Syndrome. I skimmed the subheading and let out a little "huh."

"What, 'huh,'?" Abby asked.

I hesitated. Explaining Abby's diagnosis to her is on my agenda for this year, in conjunction with her therapist. While we all think it's time she started to understand it, we haven't really discussed the approach we'll take. I want to tell her but I want to do it the right way, and I'm not sure what that is.

Abby was looking at me. Sometimes her radar is very acute.

"There's an interesting-looking article here," I said.

"What's it about?" she asked.

"The man who wrote it just found out that he has something called Asperger Syndrome," I said.

"What's that?"

"It's a difference he has, in the way his brain works," I said.

"Is he going to die?" she asked, worried.

"No, no no," I reassured her. "It's not a disease. It's just a difference in the way his brain works. It makes it harder for him to make and keep friends."

She thought about that. "Do we know anyone who has it?"

"Well, do you remember Mommy's friend Erik, who came over for dinner a couple of years ago when Kathleen and her family were here?"

"Yes," she said. Of course she remembered. Abby never forgets anything.

"Well, he didn't have a doctor tell him, but he was pretty sure he had Asperger's, and I thought so, too," I said.

"Is he still alive?" she asked, worried again.

I took a deep breath. "Sadly, no," I said, "but he died in an accident. It wasn't the Asperger's."

"Do we know anyone else?" Abby persisted.

"Well, not exactly, but Asperger's is a kind of autism, and you do know someone with autism."

"Who?" she asked.

"Your friend P," I said.

"How do you know he has it?" she asked.

"His mom told me," I said.

"How does she know?" Abby asked.

"P's doctor told her," I explained. "And he also does some things that people with autism sometimes do."

"Like what?"

"He asks a lot of questions, he says the same things over and over, and sometimes he talks too loud. He's very smart but he has trouble looking at people sometimes, and he needs work on his friendship skills."

I was generalizing; I haven't noticed P's trouble with eye contact -- perhaps because eye contact is an issue in my own family -- and I really don't know about his friendship skills, but that terminology is something that Abby's therapist uses with her.

Abby thought about that for a minute. "Does anyone in our family have autism?"

"No," I said, choosing to interpret her question narrowly. "No one in our family has autism like P."

She didn't react with any sort of emotion. I thought she might be relieved, or disappointed, but she just took it all in.

"Can you help me find this word?" she asked, showing me her phonics word search.

"Sure," I said.

We have to tell Abby about her diagnosis, and soon. She notices differences between herself and her friends, and just last week, a girl in her class told Earl at drop-off time that a boy calls Abby a "weird girl." The sooner Abby can own the Asperger's, and therefore we can take a more direct approach to helping her succeed with it, the better.

I'm going to call her therapist today. This can't wait.