"God talked to me today"

Not that there actually was a God, of course. The daughter of two 1960s intellectuals who had forsaken religion to marry, I knew better. The second time Andrew talked of God, I grew uncomfortable; it smacked of ignorance and foolish hope.

"Where did he hear this nonsense?" I asked my husband as we lay down at night. "It's not like we're taking him to some weird church where people speak in tongues."

He shrugged, shaking the bed. "I don't know. My parents?"

It was true that my in-laws would sometimes take Andrew with them to Mass on Easter or Christmas. It was beautiful, they argued. And I agreed that Andrew might enjoy the choir and stained glass and twinkling lights. But to my mind, Catholicism was simply theater. It had nothing to do with God. Something else must be going on.

"Do you think this could be a sign of something bad?" I pressed on. "Some sort of delusion or hallucination? I think we should take him to see a psychiatrist."

"Leave him alone." My husband's voice was low, but his words were firm. "If you start taking Andrew to shrinks, they'll just fuck with his head. Besides, he can do all sorts of other cool stuff. Maybe he really does hear God. Who are we to say?"

This was the sort of crazy that made me love the man, despite his drunken bouts. Autism, my husband insisted, was only a way for other people to quantify what was special -- better -- about Andrew. Albert Einstein didn't speak until he was 3; Leonardo da Vinci was eccentric as a child. Our son was destined for greatness, too. Under the cover of darkness, my husband could always make me believe.

Then daylight came and I considered the facts. Moses, the prophet of my once-Jewish father, supposedly saw a burning bush and heard God's voice telling him to lead the children of Israel out of Egypt. Jesus, the savior of my husband's youth, is believed by Christians all over the world to have wandered into a temple at the age of 12, where he heard the word of God and began a life of martyrdom. Mohammed, restorer of divine faith according to the world's Muslims, reportedly grew disenchanted with life in Mecca, retreated to a cave in middle age, and received a series of revelations.

Not a single one of these guys would have passed the hidden toy test, I thought. Each had withdrawn from society in some queer and antisocial way. Yet, they all had followers, while my son was labeled and sent off to special ed.

Andrew spoke of God casually from time to time, as if he were hearing from an old friend. We'd be having a conversation and he would mention what God "wanted." These pronouncements boiled down to the usual -- less killing and war, kindness for all the animals -- plus a few very specific requests. Andrew was supposed to eat fewer cookies after dinner. His father should stop drinking so much.

God was smart, I noted, yet nothing changed. My husband did not quit going on benders, and eventually we divorced. I ran out of money, which forced me to pick up my three kids and move where the jobs were. Andrew and his brother and sister were dragged through three school districts; the younger two were resilient, but Andrew grew quieter and fell increasingly behind.

Utterly alone in the tiny Rhode Island village where his siblings both found friends, Andrew was a tall, willowy 15-year-old who spoke only haltingly and lurked behind our rental house, looking toward the woods as if he would find something there. God was no longer making appearances. I tried weekend trips to Vermont and clubs at the YMCA, but Andrew grew more and more remote.

So the following year we moved home to Minnesota, where he would have relatives and old friends to rely on. Also, his father -- who had just completed treatment for the second time -- was back in the Midwest, too. There was a brief golden period when I was sure Andrew would come back out, becoming again that vacant but confident boy who had once competed in chess tournaments and played two instruments in the junior high school band. Perhaps I imagined that my ex-husband and I could regain the faith we'd shared early on.

But starting his junior year, bad things began happening to Andrew -- fast, like something falling that you can watch and don't have time to catch. First, there was what appeared to be depression. After years of refusing psychiatrists, we finally took him to one who prescribed a drug that caused fatigue and rapid weight gain: 30 pounds in a matter of months. Suddenly, my delicate, ethereal son became a smelly, galumphing creature, uncertain where his body was in space.

There followed a series of bad medical calls, about which I've already written. A diagnosis of schizophrenia and two trials of exactly the wrong kind of medication. Andrew changed. Like Mr. Hyde, his features grew contorted; my son, at 18, became frightening and repugnant. Flicking at his cheeks with long, ragged fingernails, swaying the blubbery bulk of his body, eyes narrowed to slits. But occasionally, he broke through.

"I think all the pills are hurting me," he said one winter night, his pale eyes suddenly wide and lit with panic.

"Why, sweetheart?" I clung to his arm, desperate to hold on to the lucid person who'd appeared, as insubstantial as the Blessed Virgin at Fatima or the ghost of Marley in "A Christmas Carol." "What makes you think that?"

He leaned in, his yeasty breath warm on my face; I forced myself not to turn away. "God tells me." Andrew's tone was confessional. "But Dad says it's not real and I should try not to listen."

My ex-husband had, just months before, married a woman who worked in the pharmaceutical industry and treated her massive Physician's Desk Reference like a holy book. And while I wasn't looking it seemed he had crossed over to the other side -- this man who once did a rain dance with our laughing little boys until the winds changed and thunder rolled in -- suddenly preaching reason and medical truth.

Now, when we talked, he was immensely sad but resigned, referring to Andrew as "impaired" and "permanently disabled." Gone were the comparisons to Einstein and Leonardo. Instead he cited his wife, a woman who insisted only lunatics thought they could communicate with God. Our son clearly had been suffering from psychotic episodes since adolescence, she said, but we had denied him appropriate treatment. Several doctors agreed and my ex went along.

No one else wanted to consult God or talk about his opinion. Except, suddenly, me.

Next page: If God were actually paying attention, I raged, my wise son would simply awaken