So many of us carry secrets — some heavy, some light. Some that mean nothing, and some that change everything. Six writers tell stories of secrets kept, shared, and revealed

Dare to Tell the Truth

By Tammy Rose

T

his was a mistake. I knew this would be a mistake. Too many people, too much noise. Too much. Too much. My eyes darted nervously around the room.

Everyone seemed to be having a good time. The annual neighborhood carnival that raised money for the local special needs school was always popular.

My girls had begged to go, so here we were. But this was going to be a disaster.

“Ooooh, look, Mommy! They have purple cotton candy!” Miri yanked on my sleeve. “Can we have?? Please?!”

Sure. Sugar high. Food coloring. Might as well start with a bang. I moved Ari’s carriage toward the cotton candy booth. But as usual, Yehudah was faster.

Gone! He was gone, slithering through the crowds, hitting the cotton candy booth and climbing onto the table to grab the sticky strands wafting from the machine. There was a shriek from the high school girl manning the machine, a groan from Chaya at my side. “Get him down from there!” she hissed.

With hyperfocus, nothing in my peripheral vision, I abandoned Ari’s carriage and leaped forward, tackling Yehudah midair like a professional linebacker. I grabbed him around his midriff and dragged him away from his goal.

He shrieked, kicking, slapping his sticky hands, making a mess of my sheitel. But I was no novice and hung on tight. I used his momentum to clear a path back to where I‘d left Ari.

Miri was crying. “We can’t go anywhere with him!” she wailed. “Everyone’s looking at us.”

“Here.” I drew out a 20-dollar bill. Miri’s eyes narrowed; she sensed the bribe coming. “You can go to as many booths as you want. Yehudah and I are going outside to the moonwalks.” And after purchasing $20 worth of harmony, I abandoned any pretense of a family bonding day and moved outside.

Sure enough, Yehudah brightened at the sight of the huge jumping castles and leaped onto the first one.

Finally. I exhaled. He’d be fine here, and I’d have 20 seconds to catch my breath.

My respite lasted barely that long. A shrill cry pierced the air, and years of experience had me racing to the moonwalk. A little girl had fallen over, and Yehudah, laughing like a hyena, was jumping manically near her, as her prone body flew up and down on the inflated floor. I didn’t think he was the one who’d knocked her over. But the sight of her flipping up and down sent him into a frenzy. Once again Ari was abandoned as I tried climbing onto the moonwalk. A man standing there was faster and caught Yehudah in a tight grip.

“Whose son is this?” he demanded.

The million-dollar question. Do I claim parentage, or do I beg the earth to swallow me up?

“I got him,” I squeaked. “I’m sorry, he gets very excited on moonwalks.”

“Then he shouldn’t be allowed on there!” A woman stuck her face into mine, the small girl now sobbing on her shoulder. “If you can’t control your son, he can’t play here, he could’ve hurt someone. Besides, this carnival is hosting a lot of special needs kids. What if he really hurt someone like that?”

But my son is also— The words stalled.

There — in that crowd, where everyone would have understood me — I still couldn’t say the words.

I left the girls with a neighbor and returned home with Ari and a very overstimulated Yehudah.

I knew I shouldn’t cry — the tears do no good and the pain wrenches me open. But it was a losing battle. I sat on the couch, rocking back and forth, a harsh sound punctuating my sobs.

Yehudah meanwhile had gravitated to one of his favorite places: the fish tank, where he was trying to catch a fish. We only owned guppies so I knew he couldn’t succeed, but this always kept him busy and calm.

I looked at him through my swollen eyes. His stunning, gorgeous face with solemn puppy eyes, long lashes, platinum- blond hair. He could be a model for healthychildhood.com. But behind the adorable facade lay a mess: convoluted brain wiring, explosions, meltdowns, physical attacks, chaos.

And no one knew.

Beyond my husband, my therapist, and our doctor, no one knew what we were dealing with. Not my neighbors, not my friends. Even my parents, who’d made aliyah five years before with my only brother — no one knew.

That’s how it had to be.

“What about shidduchim?” my husband would ask. “Do we want to take out a full-page ad in the newspaper? Why air our dirty laundry to all our neighbors — that nebach we’re the ones with the crazy kid?”

Didn’t sound so bad to me. We were the ones with the crazy kid. But this was so important to my husband that I went along with it.

I became as much a social outcast as Yehudah. He was bused to school in a neighboring city that had a better program for children with autism. His teachers were great. At least there I had a support system. I was one of those weird mothers who looked forward to PTA. At least I could discuss Yehudah with people who understood.

But at home, I became more and more of a recluse. I dropped my job and began working remotely. We couldn’t invite company. We couldn’t go out to the park. We couldn’t even attend hakafos on Simchas Torah. Yehudah was spiraling out of control as the years went by. Someone, something had to give — and I was afraid it would be me.