At the most unexpected moments, however, he reached out and put a hand on hers, or he touched her jet-black hair and then his own, as though to say that he knew he had received it from her.

Although he allowed himself to be hugged and kissed, he neither hugged nor kissed in return. As far as she was concerned, it beat in sync with hers all these years later.īesides, he was as cute as any kid in a cookie commercial and, in his own way, affectionate. His heart began beating as he formed within her. How could she not? He had been conceived in love. He taught himself to read only a few months after his fourth birthday, and he was reading at a college level three years later. He didn't go to school, but neither was he home-schooled. He listened intently to everything that was said to him, and he was at least as obedient as Megan had been in childhood. He didn't throw tantrums, wasn't stubborn.Īs long as he was in the company of those he knew, he never recoiled when touched or suffered mentally from physical contact, though he found strangers suspect and often frightening. He had been diagnosed with a rare form of autism, although in truth the doctors didn't know what to make of him.įortunately, he had none of the most problematic behavior associated with autism. The cause of his amusement was often internal and a mystery to his mother. He laughed, although seldom at anything that was said to him or at any comical sight. At birth and for a few years thereafter, he cried, but not once since he'd turned four years old. Woodrow Bookman, Woody to everyone, had never spoken a word in his eleven years of life. She stood in the doorway of her only child's bedroom, watching him at his computer with its array of associated equipment, as he researched whatever currently fascinated him.

This current sense that somewhere bells were tolling toward her final hour would pass it always did. A love that she'd thought would endure, a man she had believed would grow old with her: All was taken away without warning. This wasn't intuition at work, but just the consequence of being widowed at thirty. Three years after the accident, Megan Bookman's heart and mind were in a good place, although occasionally anxiety afflicted her, a feeling that time was running out, that a sinkhole might at any moment open under her.

Devoted by dean koontz