I realize he is trying to embrace me. I put the receiver down and step up to the window. I mimic his position, so that we are mirrors of each other, with a glass wall between us. Maybe this is what it is always like for Jacob, who tries to connect with people and can’t ever quite manage it. Maybe the membrane between someone with Asperger’s and the rest of the world is not a shifting invisible seam of electrons but, instead, a see-through partition that allows only the illusion of feeling, instead of the actual thing.
