The Girl enjoys playing with the chess set I brought back from Poland. (If I remember correctly, a gift from Nana and Papa, when they came for our wedding.) She has invented her own little version that involves us using single pieces to push our opponent’s single piece around the board for a few moments. She loves the game, but I’ve yet to discern the sublime objective.

Occasionally she just gets all the pieces out and puts them on the board. There’s usually a pattern: black pieces on black squares; white pieces on white squares.

A perfectly impossible position, but notice: the white king is in check, forking the queen.

It’s another example of the similarities between toddlers and older children with autism: pattern, pattern, pattern. Everything has its place, and to disturb that order is to invite chaos, in more ways that one.

We’re more like that than we’d like to admit. A colleague once commented that we’re all on the autism spectrum; it’s just that some of us have very mild cases. Mine manifests itself in my obsession with seeing patterns in floor tiles and then feeling a compulsion to walk in accordance with said patterns.

That’s probably why I looked at L’s work, smiled, and said proudly, “Very symmetrical. Well done.”