We have met Penny and Max in their professional roles, Penny as Caitlin’s teacher, and Max as the agent from Gloria’s rented property (see Case A: Caitlin Smart and Case F: Max Sullivan and Gloria Johnson). Now we see them, from Penny’s point of view, as a couple, and as parents of their autistic son Jack, and their daughter Sarah, who will soon be leaving home for university. Their relationship is reaching a crisis as Penny feels increasingly burdened by the task of caring for Jack, and angry that she is being left alone with this as Max becomes more and more disengaged. Both of them are finding their work roles much less problematic than their parental roles, and tending to take refuge in them. Penny is more self-aware about this than Max is, and keeps her work and home life in separate compartments, to the point where Alison, her head teacher, is quite unaware of Penny’s home situation before this email correspondence puts her in the picture. But this compartmentalisation is not a viable long-term strategy, and we see it beginning to break down here for Penny as Alison offers her an opportunity for professional development and Penny has to articulate her reasons for turning this down. Maybe this brings her to a realisation of how her responsibility for Jack is preventing her from realising her own potential, at a time in life when most parents, and particularly mothers if they are the main carers, are finding themselves more able to focus on their careers as the demands of child care become less all-consuming. This could be a factor in the eruption of her anger with Max.

Max’s reaction to Penny’s outburst reveals how much he is struggling, and how out of his depth he is feeling in his relationship with Jack. We gather from Penny that over the years she has informed herself about autism and sought out the support of other parents of autistic children, but there is no indication that Max has taken any part in this, so now he does not have those resources to draw on. He is left with his disappointment over what Jack cannot be and cannot do, and his grief for the loss of the son that he hoped he would have, and so he cannot appreciate Jack’s achievements, in spite of Penny’s efforts to get him to do so. This has become particularly acute for him at this moment because of his contact with Gloria’s son Gary, who is about the same age.