My daughters are multilingual. They immerse themselves in declensions, and adverbial phrases, parsing the nuance of a particular word for its meaning. I am impressed by their willingness to translate, so that mono linguists like myself can understand too.

 

Last night I nudged Ben to fold his laundry. There were four baskets in his room, two dirty and two clean, and cross pollination was inevitable unless the washed ones were put away. He did not bite.

 

This morning he was still upstairs when his breakfast was ready, so I went to go check on him. He was in fact out of the shower, and had pants on. But somewhere in the act of putting on a shirt he got redirected. He was folding them. Like I asked.

 

"Ben! We need to hurry! I have eggs downstairs for you!" I tugged a striped button up over his head, and grabbed his shoes. "Follow me!"

 

Half way down he spoke. 

 

"You don't love me." What?

 

My knee jerk reaction was to disprove him. I reviewed the events of the morning. I had cooked him breakfast. Poured him juice. Set silverware. Carried his shoes. Clearly, I passed the love test. 

 

"Of course I do," I dismissed his accusation. 

 

I prodded him to eat, and found his coat just as his companion arrived to fetch him.

 

"I love you!" I added like a district attorney's final statement. 

 

After the door swung behind him, I began to wonder. What was he trying to express?

 

Maybe he was reaching to say he did not feel loved. Or possibly, since his emotional vocabulary is shall we say truncated, he did not feel respected. Or appreciated. He was after all doing precisely what I asked, only twelve hours later. Picky picky. 

 

I could count on half a hand the number of times Ben has spontaneously said he loves me. It would take no hands at all to count the times he has asked if I love him. Those words, and their entourage of feeling words lie across the great divide of his brain. Some people have trouble voicing emotions. Those with autism more so.  

 

I wonder if I could ask him to create a Venn Diagram for me about when he does and does not feel loved. But only if I truly care to know.