This post originally appeared on the LettersHead site in the summer of 2010.

Living with a person who has autism brings surprises every day, some pleasant and some decidedly less so, but they always catch at your heart, one way or the other.  Take this box of peaches.  I left it in the back of the car for the night, knowing that if I brought it into the house that my son would eat them all before dinner and then I would have no fruit to put in his lunch the next morning.  He is, after all, a teenage boy.  This morning when I went to fetch the box, I found it like this, with four peaches eaten and the remaining pits carefully placed in each compartment (the two empty ones are the ones I put in his lunch).  When I asked if he “sneaked the peaches,” he said, “Yes!  And I left you the seeds!”