Chapter 2

Jessica sits in the pediatrician’s waiting room flipping through a stack of outdated magazines, but soon gives up on the hope of finding distraction in their pages. She tucks Gavin’s hair behind his ear and watches the clock. At ten, he’s old enough to not take any interest in the grubby toys scattered on the carpet of primary colors.

Funny how anxieties evolve. At least germs were a threat she understood when he was younger and more vulnerable, but now she’s thinking about the labels on the video game cases. Warnings for epileptics that game play may induce seizures. She slides her phone partway out of her purse to check her mail notifications, acutely aware of Gavin’s eyes on it. In waiting situations, he usually asks if he can play a game to stave off the boredom, but not today.

The door to the exam room opens and a young nurse in pink scrubs, clipboard in hand, calls Gavin’s name. She records his height and weight on the scale in the hall, asks a few questions and jots the answers on her clipboard, then leaves them to wait for Dr. Sonya beside an exam table covered with a fresh sheet of tissue paper.

Gavin steers clear of the table and takes a seat in a chair beside his mother, his feet swinging back and forth like he’s pumping a playground swing. Like maybe if he can get it swinging high enough, he might jump off and land in the dirt somewhere, leave the exam table in the dust. Jessica can’t say she blames him. That’s where you sit to get poked with needles and gagged with a Popsicle stick.

Dr. Sonya comes in looking better rested than at their last visit in March, when cold and flu season was still raging. She wears a white coat over a gold-trimmed black skirt and ruffled blouse. Jessica has always been amused by Sonya’s slightly garish sense of style. Her own tends more toward blue jeans and jerseys whenever she has to upgrade from flannel pajamas, so she knows that part of her reaction to fancy clothes is the culture shock of stepping outside the comfort of her work-at-home world. She likes the Pakistani doctor well enough, even if they’ve never had a warm relationship. Something about the list of probing questions a pediatrician has to ask at each wellness visit has always made Jessica feel a little judged, but she knows that’s on her. And anyway, Gavin has grown into a strong, healthy boy.

Until now.

Sonya asks Gavin to remove his shirt and take a seat on the table, where she performs a rote examination: eyes, ears, glands, heart and lungs. She lingers a little longer than usual on the eye exam, asking Jessica questions to assemble a full account of what happened the previous night. Jessica has plenty of questions of her own, but Sonya asks her to hold onto them for now while she moves on to quizzing her patient.

“Do you remember waking up and leaving your mother’s bedroom?”

Gavin shifts his weight from side to side, rustling the tissue paper under his bottom. His gaze drifts over the framed artwork lining the walls—paintings by other kids—and he nods.

“Why did you go to your room?”

His eyes dart to his mother, but he answers honestly, though with so little volume they can barely hear him, as if incriminating himself quietly will make it better. “I wanted to do something in my game.”

“A video game? On your tablet?”

His brow furrows.

“On the iPad?”

“Yes. In Minecraft.”

“And it couldn’t wait until morning?”

The doctor’s tone is light, nonjudgmental. But now it’s Jessica who shifts in her seat, anticipating questions about how much screen time she allows him.

“I had an idea for something I wanted to build, and I wanted to do it before I forgot, because I might not remember in the morning. And I didn’t want to wake up my mom.”

“It’s a construction game,” Jessica interjects. She has often rationalized the hours she lets him spend on the game with a set of bullet points she can tick off to other adults when the subject comes up: it’s constructive, it’s creative, it gets them thinking like engineers, the violence is no worse than Legos with everything made of little blocks, and the ambient music is so soothing. Now, though, she catches herself and offers no more of this sales pitch for a game she’s never played.

And Dr. Sonya isn’t interested in the intricacies of the game. She’s more concerned with the continuity of Gavin’s consciousness.

“Gavin, do you remember everything that happened between the time you started playing the game and when your mother came into your room?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you remember hitting your head on the wall?” Jessica asks.

Gavin’s eyes widen. “The game didn’t make me do that.”

“But do you remember doing it?” Sonya asks, holding a finger up to indicate that Mom should hang back and let her ask the questions.

“No. But my head hurt in the morning.”

“Okay. So, there’s missing time from when you were in your room with your game, like there would be if you fell asleep while playing it.”

Gavin nods.

“What do you remember next? What’s the first thing you remember about your mother being in the room?”

“Nothing. I just remember waking up in my own bed.”

“Okay. That’s good, Gavin. You’re doing great with these questions. Does the game have a lot of action? Flashing lights?”

“No.”

“How about the task you wanted to finish in the game? Did you complete it?”

“I don’t remember. I need to check if it saved.”

Something about his flat tone tickles Jessica’s lie detector. Did he go on it again this morning? She explicitly told him not to.

“Did you feel funny at all while you were playing?”

“Funny how?”

Sonya bobs her head from side to side. “Sometimes people feel funny before the kind of episode you might have had. It’s called an aura. And it can be different for everybody. Maybe a dizzy feeling, or just a feeling like something is going to happen. Do you remember having any kind of strange feeling while you were playing your game?”

“No.”

He answers so fast that Jessica knows he isn’t even considering the question, trying to shut down the possibility that his gaming had anything to do with what happened. But she holds her tongue and defers to the pediatrician.

Dr. Sonya pats Gavin’s knee and tells him he can put his shirt back on. Turning to Jessica, she says, “It does sound like a seizure, but they say everybody gets the first one free.”

“What does that mean?”

“A pattern of recurring seizures could lead us to a diagnosis of epilepsy, but a single event doesn’t mean there will be more. That said, we should still run some tests. I’ll give you a slip to take over to the lab for blood work. We’ll check his electrolytes and run a complete chem panel. It’s good to have if we need to choose an anticonvulsant medication. But that’s getting ahead of ourselves. The EEG isn’t my go-to for a first seizure, but because he was looking at a screen when it happened, we should do one. It’s totally non-invasive. We monitor his electrical activity while exposing him to a strobe light. If he’s prone to photosensitive epilepsy, it should induce another event.”

Jessica toys absently with the flower pendant on her necklace—an anniversary gift from Matt. “So, we do a bunch of tests and get a diagnosis if we’re lucky?”

“If we’re lucky, this was a one-time thing. Sometimes the brain’s wires just get crossed.”

Gavin looks from his mother to the doctor. “I glitched like a computer?”

Sonya laughs, a soft sound, like water. “Something like that. If it happens repeatedly, we can also do a CAT scan of your head to see what’s up. But let’s start with just the EEG.”

“How could a cat look at my brain?”

Now both women laugh, and some of the tension in the room is alleviated. “It’s actually a CT scan, we just call it a CAT. It stands for ‘computerized tomography.’”

“So, it’s a tomcat scan. My friend Jacob has a tomcat named Hooper.”

“I have two cats at home. Siamese. They’re feisty.” The doctor wrinkles her nose and gets a smile out of him. “Okay, Gavin, you’re all set. Why don’t you go and pick some stickers out of the basket? I think we might even have a BB-8 in there.”

“Kylo Ren?”

“Take a look.”

After Gavin scoots out of the room, Jessica closes the door behind him and turns to Sonya, bracing herself for the battle that awaits at home. “So. Should I limit his screen time until the tests come back?”

* * *

Gavin comes to the end of a chapter in his new book and reads the first paragraph of the next while feeling along the couch cushion for his bookmark. Warrior cat books are awesome, so it’s a good thing there are like a million of them. He’s been reading like a fiend ever since his doctor visit because after buying him the latest in the series and filling him with ice cream, his mother hit him with a video ban.

He had a full-blown tantrum when she told him he was cut off until they got all the test results back from the hospital. He knows he was disrespectful, but she kept her cool and didn’t yell back at him. Daddy is quicker to fight fire with fire, but his mom tends to stay calm and tell him things he already knows, like how she understands it was no fun getting poked with a needle at the lab, but she’s doing this to keep him safe.

Cutting him off even after he passed the test with the flashing lights is totally unfair. She couldn’t even explain why she was doing it. She just kept saying she wanted to wait a little while and see if it happened again. Because now his life is a science experiment. Even checking on the gold that’s piled up like snow overnight in Clash of Clans will have to wait until she knows it’s safe, which he guesses is whenever she feels like changing her mind. If she really understood how mean that was, she wouldn’t do it. End of story.

But it’s hard to stay mad at her when she’s worried about him on top of being worried about Daddy. He worries about his father, too. He may only be ten, but he’s not stupid. He knows that when his father is away from home, terrorists are trying to kill him. At times like that, a boy could really use a good video game to take his mind off things.

He goes to the kitchen, drags the step stool to the corner cabinet, climbs up, and helps himself to the giant bag of Goldfish crackers. His mom buys them by the case at BJ’s and Gavin devours them like a mechanical shark whenever he’s gaming or watching his videos.

Back on the couch, he gazes forlornly at the blacked out flat screen TV from which his fuzzy reflection stares back at him. Rainbow Dave will have posted four new Minecraft videos by now and Gavin hasn’t seen a single one.

Even though Doctor Sonya doesn’t have any answers about why he got a case of the shakes that night, at least it hasn’t happened again since, so that’s good. His mom is also happy that they sold a bunch of the rocks he painted with peace signs and words like HELP, CARE, and LOVE. It was fun doing those, and it did keep his mind off his missed games for a little while. Gavin feels good about helping the refugee kids they’re sending the money to in Syria.

When they looked at the Rocks for Refugees fundraiser on her computer this morning, Mom gave him a big squeeze and a kiss on the cheek and told him how much good they were doing for the same people Daddy was fighting to protect.

“Stay happy,” he told her. “Don’t read the comments.”

She flashed him one of those wide-eyed looks he sometimes gets when he surprises her. Not all of her Facebook friends agree with helping the refugees. He knows that upsets her, but he’s just glad she’s in a good mood today and has moved on from following him around the house with her phone in her hand, waiting for him to have another seizure.

It’s been a whole week. He’s been good. He’s been patient. It might be time to test the limits of the Great Screen Time Blackout of 2016.

He returns the Goldfish bag to the cabinet and strolls down the hall, bobbing his head and singing to himself. “Are you ready? Are you ready? Are you ready to rave with Rainbow Dave?”

In his bedroom he gathers what he needs and gets down to business, thinking how lucky it is that Dave came up with this idea while he’s grounded from gaming. Ordinarily, Gavin wouldn’t think it sounded fun. Usually when Dave gives them a build challenge, it’s meant to be done in Minecraft. This week, though, it’s a real-world challenge, one that Gavin can do. And he will only need permission for the last part. What’s even better is that Dave announced it in one of his Real Vlogs, which Gavin was allowed to watch yesterday because those don’t show any gameplay graphics.

It’s as if Dave knows what he’s up against and has picked the challenge just for him.

It takes most of an hour before he wedges a final pillow into place and decides he’s satisfied with his effort. His stomach tingling with the prospect of rejection, he goes to his mother’s office and waits quietly for her to finish the email she’s writing.

“What’s up, bud?”

“Come see what I made. In my room.”

“You made something? Cool. Let’s check it out.”

She stands and stretches, pressing her fists into her lower back, then follows him down the hall. Cooper the Corgi comes to check it out too, but Gavin makes him wait in the hall so he won’t ruin it.

“Hey, look at you go,” she says with a smile in her voice. “You made a blanket fort!”

“Do you like it?”

“An epic blanket fort. I do like it. You see? You can find ways to entertain yourself without electronics.”

He shrugs. “It was Dave’s idea.”

“Dave?” She looks puzzled for a second, but then she gets that he’s talking about the same Dave as always. The guy she calls Gavin’s Virtual Big Brother. “Huh? Dave told you to build a blanket fort?”

“He told everybody to make one. On his Monday Real Vlog. You let me watch it, remember? I guess on his regular video for Sunday, he made a blanket fort in Minecraft with wool blocks. So then he said kids should try to make a real one and send him a picture of it.”

Gavin knows he’s talking too fast, but he’s excited and nervous. His mom crosses her arms over her chest. Not a great sign that she’s open to persuasion.

“Can I? Please?”

“What, take a picture of it?”

Gavin nods vigorously, overdoing it and making her laugh.

“Okay. It is pretty cool. Do you want me to take the picture on my phone, with you in it?”

“Yeah. Then you can text it to me on the iPad and I’ll upload it to his site.”

“Whoa, hold your horses, mister. Who said you’re back on the iPad?”

“Not for gaming, just to send it to him before he gets like a million of them.”

It’s not an exaggeration. Rainbow Dave has over ten million subscribers. Gavin knows his mother likes Dave, even though he has a rainbow mohawk, because Dave never swears in his videos, and none of the games or mods he showcases are inappropriate. But…

“Are the photos just for him, or does he post them on his website or show them in a video?”

Here we go. “He doesn’t post fan photos on his web site or Instagram. He might show a couple in the next Real Vlog. Probably not mine. Anyway, what’s the big deal?”

Now it’s her turn to shrug. “You know I try to keep pictures of you off the internet.”

“You don’t. You post them on Facebook all the time.”

“That’s different. Only my friends can see those. Dave has millions of followers.”

Nana saw something on TV about strangers using the data in photos to find people’s houses and his mom still hasn’t gotten over the crazy idea. He slumps like an inflatable superhero from the Topsfield Fair with a slow leak. “Oh, come on…”

“Watch your tone.”

“I did everything you asked me to. I let them put the jelly and wires all over my head and take my blood. I haven’t played any games or even FaceTimed with Jacob since that night. It’s the most boring week of my life, and I’m totally alone and—”

Her hand goes up in the stop sign gesture.

“Okay, I get it.” She exhales loudly, then combs the stop sign hand through her hair and sits on the corner of his bed. “I’m not trying to isolate you, honey, but it must seem like I am. I just… I’m doing the best I can here while your father is away, and things have been a little crazy since he left. Of course.”

“When it rains, it pours,” Gavin says, repeating a Ritter family catchphrase.

“Yeah.” She gives him a crooked smile and looks around at his room, as if wondering when exactly Thomas the Train was run out of town by Imperial Stormtroopers.

“That really is a cool fort. It’s like your own hobbit hole.”

“I think it’s more like a spaceship.”

“Yeah? Where’s the cockpit?”

Gavin lifts a flap of blanket to reveal an overturned swivel chair he filched from his father’s computer desk. He has positioned it so he can sit on the fake leather back and use the seat cushion as a backrest, keeping a low profile beneath the tent of sheets. Arranged in front of the overturned chair is a makeshift control panel of cheap electronic games from when he was a toddler. “I didn’t turn any of them on,” he says quickly as she takes it all in with a grin.

“Okay, buddy. Why don’t you climb on in and give me a big smile for the picture?”

“For Dave?”

“For Dave.”

“Thanks, Mom!”

“You’ve earned it.”

Gavin gets settled in the captain’s chair while his mother takes the phone from her pocket and thumbs through the settings. She captures his toothy smile and shows him the screen.

“Can you tell it’s a spaceship?” he asks.

“You can totally tell. Rainbow Dave is gonna love it. We should send it to Daddy, too.”

Gavin nods, still looking at the screen, a little cloud of concern scudding across his sunny face. “When can we talk to Daddy again?”

“Soon, I hope. We have a lot to catch him up on. Carol from the FRG says it should be soon.”

“What does FRG stand for again?”

“Family Readiness Group.”

“Oh yeah. Will we be able to Skype with Daddy?”

“I hope so. But even if we can’t, we can still text him through Yahoo until he’s at an FOB.”

“Forward Operating Base?”

“Right.”

An alarming idea strikes him like a gut punch. “But will I be able to text and Skype with him, or could it give me a seizure?”

She drops the phone into the breast pocket of her flannel shirt. “It should be fine, honey. We’re just being extra careful until we figure out what happened.”

“But Dr. Sonya said we might never figure it out.”

“That’s true. But it hasn’t happened again. And they haven’t found any reason to believe it might happen again.”

“So, what does that mean?”

“I still want to be careful about the games, Gavin. Those are different. They’re flashier. We talked about that.”

“For how long?”

“For a little while. Can you just be patient with me, please? I want to talk to your dad about it first.”

“I guess. But if it’s okay for me to talk to Daddy on Skype, can I talk to Jacob on FaceTime?”

She cocks her head and squints at him—skeptical but overdoing it for effect and making him giggle.

“Are you trying to trap me with logic, mister?”

“Maybe…” He draws the word out in a singsong way, and she pokes his belly, making him laugh again.

“Okay. You can FaceTime Jacob from your blanket fort and show it off to him. You get fifteen minutes.”

“That’s it? Oh, man.”

“Make it count.”

“But we have, like, a whole week of stuff to talk about.”

“Twenty. And I’m checking in on you. And I better not catch you guys gaming.”

“O-kay,” he says with a downward lilt.

“Cheer up, bud. We’ll get through this.”

Gavin nods, runs down the hall, and returns with his iPad. He climbs into the fort, settles into the overturned chair, and flips the lid on the device. While the FaceTime call rings in his friend’s house three towns away, he calls after his mother, asking her to text him the photo. Her footsteps retreating to the kitchen tell him he’s been granted a moment of privacy. He settles into his cozy cockpit, eyes greedily fixed on the rectangle of light in his lap.

Jacob is gonna wig when he hears what Gavin saw in the Nether before he blacked out.