Leaving my genius Asperger husband and son

"X equals four, Y equals twelve." Lucas tapped his yellow pencil against the grid of his graph paper.

"Are you sure about the variable?" I held out a ceramic plate of sliced apples.

"Variables are absolute. People are not." My seven-year-old son didn't look up. He tapped his forehead twice with his index finger. It was a self-soothing rhythm he used when the math got complicated.

Genius. Asperger's. The two labels that defined my entire existence.

"Did you finish the geometry assignment for school?" I walked closer to his desk.

"Shapes are rudimentary. I moved on to cryptography."

"You need to do your homework, Lucas."

"The public education system fails to challenge my intellect."

"Mrs. Gable said you refused to participate in art class today."

"Finger painting lacks algorithmic structure, Mom."

"You still have to try."

"Trying implies a possibility of failure. I do not fail at art. I simply reject it."

"Eat a slice of apple." I pushed the plate closer, changing the subject.

"Sugar spikes disrupt cognitive flow."

"Just one."

"Negative."

The bedroom door swung open. Julian walked in, forcefully loosening his silk tie.

"Who is rejecting what?" Julian asked.

"Art class."

"He doesn't need art." Julian bypassed me completely and leaned over the small desk. "He needs logic."

"He needs to socialize with kids his age, Julian."

"He's a genius, Theresa. Stop trying to make him average."

"I just want him to be happy."

"He is happy. Right, buddy?" Julian patted the boy's shoulder.

"Emotional states are subjective. I am currently engaged." Lucas kept his eyes on the screen.

"See?" Julian smirked at me. "He's perfectly fine."

"He had a meltdown yesterday because someone sat in his assigned chair at the library."

"Because you didn't manage his schedule properly." Julian dismissed my concern with a wave of his hand. "What are you working on now, Lucas?"

"I am compiling the string array." His small fingers flew across the mechanical keyboard. "It requires a nested loop to decrypt the ASCII values."

"Show me." Julian pointed at the monitor.

I stood there holding the fruit. Invisible in my own home.

"Your mother wouldn't understand this part," Julian muttered to Lucas.

"Mom doesn't code."

"I used to."

"That was a long time ago." Julian crossed his arms. "Let's run the execution command, Lucas."

I stepped closer, ignoring the slight. I looked at the screen.

"Eighty-seven is W."

Julian paused. He glanced at me over his shoulder. "What?"

"The first ASCII value in your array. It's a capital W."

"You remember ASCII tables?" Julian sounded genuinely surprised.

"I was top of my class, Julian. One-hundred-one is E. Thirty-two is a space."

Lucas typed rapidly. "Mom is correct. The decryption is processing."

"Let him finish it himself." The surprise morphed immediately back into annoyance.

I read the rest of the numbers on the screen. 108, 111, 118, 101. L-o-v-e.

65, 117, 110, 116. A-u-n-t.

77, 97, 110, 100, 121. M-a-n-d-y.

*We love Aunt Mandy.*

I stopped breathing for a second. My jaw