"Fourteen, fourteen chores to be done

Fourteen more before nightfall comes

Fourteen con-men lean against the fence

Within their hands a means for defense

Fourteen, fourteen cries in the night

Fourteen lives that were meant to, but won't see the light"

Mrs. Nichols, how long ago did he begin vocalizing like this?

Anne Marie Nichols adjusted herself, clearly uncomfortable with having to deal with this line of questions.  In fact, anything having to do with Davy made her uncomfortable.

Her lips thinned in the small pause before she answered.

"Well, as you know, Davy's…condition had been improving these past few months: he speaks a lot more - to us all.  His father, his older sister; he seemed to be almost nor...Almost like us."

Mrs. Nichols fell into a momentary silence watching Davy sitting on the floor of the private therapist's office.  She allowed herself a momentary indulgence to blame Davy's father for Davy's autistic condition.

With a small shake of her head she added, "As for this...this rhyming thing of his that began in recent days.  The first time I heard him was about 4 days ago on Saturday.  I thought it was just gibberish until I started to really listen to what he was saying."

The therapist nodded her head slowly as Mrs. Nichols described Davy's new behavior.

"Mrs. Nichols, it is not uncommon for autistic children to have abrupt, though minor, changes in behavior.  Sometimes it can be temporary.  Another patient of mine had a simi.."

"I don't care who else has this, or that change in behavior!  I just want this thing to be ended and Davy fixed.  And I don't care how!"

The speechless wide-eyed expression on the therapist's face made Anne Marie look away as she reigned in her frustration and disappointment.  Closing her eyes tightly she internalized self-reproach for such a loss of control, for such an outburst that could convey her true feelings of distaste, of...of...almost repugnance for having given birth to such a defective child.

Try as she might, Anne Marie had quietly admitted to herself that she simply had no love for her own son.

At first this was a horrendous notion that had insinuated itself into her thoughts shortly after the doctors had diagnosed her boy as autistic.  Oh, she tried hard; she tried to convince herself that it was the stress of parenting a child like Davy that brought about these ludicrous feelings of indifference.  Self-preservation of a mother's psyche, she told herself, in order to be able to do and provide for her son.  But it was in the thin hours of night when she finally stopped pretending.  Once she dropped the facade - at least to herself - two things occurred: she no longer felt so tormented with guilt for having so little love (let's face it, none) for her son.  The second thing was a growing disdain, an almost-hate, for the twelve year old boy.  She could not help herself, she would think; I was not meant to have him - should not have bore him into the world, enslaving me to a life-long sentence of wiping and cleaning after him.