“Come on, children, we’re leaving.”
Nobody moves.
“I want to sit next to Petra!” Kende declares.

So I reassure him again that of course he will sit there. At this, Kadosa loses his temper, saying that he absolutely will not sit next to Petra because she will crush him (Petra really is overweight, but this is still a strong exaggeration!). Soma lies low, waiting for his fate. After all, he is still a guest. The grandparents, who only hear half of what is being said and who, besides, raised only one healthy child, keep looking from one person to another. They cannot believe what they are seeing. Neither can I.

I ask Kadosa not to behave as if he were in kindergarten. He says he has had enough of having to adapt to his siblings for sixteen years, of everything always having to go the way Kende wants, and of me being unfair. I try to explain to him, my most intelligent child, that I have been explaining for sixteen years now that fairness does not mean treating everyone equally, that he is capable of more and therefore I expect more from him, and whether he would really want to be in Kende’s place.

I try to make him understand that in this situation this is the only solution, because Kende has refused to sit next to me for years, so he has to sit in the back. That he is calmer when he sits next to Petra, and if Petra were sitting in the front, Kende and the two of them would not fit in the back seat. Even thinking it all through takes a long time.

Meanwhile, Kende is screaming with nervousness, swearing and calling his brother a rat. Kadosa is shouting too; he cannot stand being called a rat. The boys are on the verge of fighting, and my father steps between them. Finally, while everyone else is shouting, I go over to Soma and ask him whether he would be willing to sit next to Petra.

“Of course,” he says. He had only been trying his luck, but he really doesn’t mind.
Relieved, I tell the children how kind Soma is. Then Kadosa gets into his friend’s place and, out of loyalty, saves him from something only he is afraid of.

We set off. Everyone is sulking, plugging their ears and listening to music in their own little worlds. Kende pulls his hood over his head and rhythmically bangs it against the car window.
After about ten minutes, I speak to Soma in English so that Kende and Petra cannot understand us, and tell him how sorry I am that he had to be part of such a terrible argument. I tell him that it really is difficult for Kadosa to have two siblings like these, and now the friends as well; that we really do always have to adapt, but that it is difficult for Kende too, because he never feels good enough or lovable enough. And that it is difficult for Petra now as well, because her brother treats her so aggressively. It is difficult for me too, because there is no solution and we are not completely crazy, even though every sign points to the contrary. We are just trying to laugh at something that, otherwise, we could only cry about.

The boy listens politely all the way through. He seems to understand, nods with a philosophical expression on his face, then plugs his ears again and disappears into another world.

That is how the first half of the journey passes. I begin to calm down.
But, unfortunately, I have to stop for fuel halfway along the motorway. As soon as I pull in, Kadosa jumps out of the car.
“I can’t take this anymore,” he says. Petra is practically lying on top of him. Kadosa has no room and cannot stand her repetitive, childish questions. He is not going to sit here any longer.
Petra asks, confused and innocently, in her usual whining voice:
“But what’s wroooooong?”
“You are what’s wrong here!” Kadosa shouts sharply.
Kende jumps out, grabs his backpack and starts walking towards the petrol station entrance, between the cars driving in, in the direction of the motorway. He is going home on his own.
Petra has a hysterical fit.
“Nooooo, Kende, don’t leave me here, waaaaait!” she cries after him.
I run after Kende and drag him back. I hug Petra.
“Kende and I love you. There’s nothing wrong. Kadosa is just having a very hard time with this situation right now.”

Soma offers to swap places with Kadosa. But Kadosa still doesn’t want to put his friend through this terrible ordeal. He turns to me and says:
“Mum, I can’t take this anymore. I always have to adapt. Everything always has to be the way Kende wants it. I’ve had enough. I asked ChatGPT, and it said that once I turn sixteen, I don’t have to do what you want anymore. You can’t say that I don’t have a choice! I’m never coming with you again, or I’m moving in with Dad.”

And I just stand there, stunned. I cannot believe my ears.

My child, whom I have spent all these years teaching to accept difference, through actions and unwavering example, through kind words and patience, is standing in front of me feeling that the tragedy of his life is having to sit next to an overweight, disabled but loving little girl because of his autistic brother—and he wants to move in with his father.

With his father, from whom he expected so much as a child, and whose absence I often saw weighing on him. With his father, with whom life may now seem easier, because there he does not have to face every day all the things he faces here. Because Petra is not even invited to go there.

Here stands this child before me, sword drawn, who at the age of two said:
“Mummy, God sent me here so that I can help my siblings when you are no longer here!”
And I don’t know what to say. Should I rage, cry, scream? What is one supposed to do in a situation like this?

How familiar this situation is to me …! After all, when they were little, how many times did I find myself in situations where I didn’t know whether to wake Kíra, run after Kadosa, or argue with the man who was shouting at me in a judgemental tone over Kende, who did not know how to behave?

What did I learn then? What is one supposed to do at times like this?
I know! Take a deep breath, in and out, in and out, one, two, three. Find the inner axis, fly out of myself, take a long-term perspective, hold on to the reassuring knowledge that this is only one day, and within that, only one moment. A very difficult moment, admittedly, but it too will pass.

A reassuring feeling, a familiar voice that whispers to me from both inside and outside at once: everything will be all right, exactly as it should be. You don’t have to solve anything!
Then I see myself getting back into the car. Everyone else gets in too. I order them not to say a word to anyone until we get home, because it is impossible to drive safely like this … Then I press the accelerator and stare straight ahead, always straight ahead, focusing only on the next stretch of road I can see.

After about ten minutes, my tears begin to fall. I take care to see properly, wiping them away, but they do not stop.

I feel it. I feel what my youngest son may have been going through since the day he was born. From his point of view, he may genuinely feel that he always has to adapt, and that Kende is allowed everything he is not. Perhaps he even feels that less attention is paid to him in this family because he is not the disabled one, no matter how consciously I have tried to pay attention to him too, knowing that people expect him to do everything the others cannot.
Who knows, perhaps he even feels guilty for being the healthy one and still being the one who causes the trouble. It is also possible that, deep down, he is angry with his brother because he feels sorry for me too.

He is only sixteen, and he is full of anger, uncontrollable rage. He is only sixteen, and he has already lived sixteen years in the most natural way in the world with two autistic siblings, as the youngest and the only typically developing child, beside a strange, endlessly patient, incomprehensibly cheerful mother who is “unable to raise” her siblings properly. And only recently has he begun to realise that he could have a different life. A life in which he would not have to adapt so much. A normal life, with normal siblings.

He has had enough of me, his siblings, his life and, most of all, himself. I feel for him, and at the same time I am unbearably angry with him. Because I feel for Kende too. The one whose brother is constantly laughing at him, provoking him, pestering him. The one whom, for seventeen years, no one outside his family has accepted as he is. But perhaps he does not always feel how hard the rest of us are trying to accept him either, because he is a great challenge, constantly pushing everyone’s boundaries, a great master who teaches patience, acceptance and compassion at his own expense and to his own detriment. The one who, no matter how little he understands numbers and the concept of time, still feels and notices that he is different. The one who finally no longer feels alone, because six months ago he found a companion: a similarly disadvantaged, lonely soul, someone rejected and laughed at by others. The only one who, in the middle of all this upheaval, is not licking his own wounds, but thinks of me too, and asks with heart-breaking childish innocence:
“Dóriiii, what’s wroooong? How are you feeling today, Dóóóóri?”
The only one who remembers that I have been struggling with a herniated disc for eight months and am pushing through this day with a migraine.
“Dóri, does your heaaaad still hurt?”
I feel for him too. And I cannot offer him any comfort either. Just as I cannot offer comfort to the others.
Or to myself.

I am helpless. Just a woman standing in the middle of the fire, trying to make the best of the situation, and discovering along the way that she cannot. A woman who does not know which son to support without losing the other. A woman who cannot understand how we got here, how a small kindergarten argument turned into such an enormous, unresolvable, unsolvable drama.

Then I look in the rear-view mirror and see that Kende, still hiding beneath his hood, rests his head on Petra’s shoulder and hugs her. He almost buries himself in her soft body. He hugs her the way he last hugged me when he was very little, before he began to find physical touch repulsive, before and as he was turning inward, away from the world.

I sob even harder, and outside, the rain begins to pour too. Emotions are flowing both inside and out, and I remember how I was pottering about in the kitchen and heard Kadosa’s firm voice, at the age of six, when his best friend came to our house and laughed at Kende.
My youngest son said, in a manly voice that tolerated no contradiction:
“Listen, Andris! You are my best friend, but if you laugh at my brother, you can never come here to see me again!” And as I drive, I can once again feel the tear-soaked tea towel in my hand. I relive that moment, hope flashes up, and calm takes hold of me.

This child has a good heart and compassion in him. He simply has too much of his own trouble to bear, too much of his own awakening into adulthood, too much of the realisation that there is no way out of this situation. He does not yet know—how could he?—that the way out is not always for one person to win over another, but sometimes for all of us to learn to live with what is, while trying to give one another more space.

To surrender instead of fighting.
And to do all this cheerfully.

And this year, for the first time, they stayed alone at my parents’ house and returned home by train. I merely went to meet them at the station. It was astounding! Eighteen years it took to reach this milestone, but we had finally made it. When I saw them, despite my attempts to avoid the thought, the painful journey of so many difficult, seemingly insurmountable challenges rushed to the surface—challenges that have nearly faded away by now. As much as I smiled with joy at the sight of my grown, quirky little ones, the familiar lump of emotion formed in my throat, and with it, the tears came. I embraced my two older children—who had suddenly become far more independent than I had anticipated—on the platform. In the midst of my wild, fluctuating emotions, as I tried to hold back the tears to avoid alarming them, I caught a glimpse of Kende out of the corner of my eye.

He, who had always shied away from my embraces, now flashed the most dazzling, charming smile and said with his unique pronunciation “Goo(d)bye!” to a young, pretty lady. She smiled back and vanished into the crowd. And so it is. Goo(d)bye, kid-free beer.