I smiled politely and tried to play dumb. "What do you mean?" What he means is, will my kid be okay?
"You know what I mean." He peered at me through his wrinkles. I took a moment to gather myself.
"I don't know. It's impossible to know." Which is and is not the truth. I wanted to tell this man, your child is already okay. He counts his toys and he waves and he talks and he climbs into his mother's lap when he wants her attention. Your child runs with everything in him and he likes pulling petals off of flowers and he splashes in the water with his brother. His smile takes up his whole face. His laughter curls out in delightful ribbons. He pushes cars and watches Mickey Mouse and digs his toes into the grass. He is a little boy who likes little boy things.
I want to tell this man, a diagnosis isn't a death sentence any more than being neurotypical is a golden ticket. Nothing is guaranteed.
What I tell this man instead is that I can't give him a solid answer, and anyone who claims to have said answer is lying or trying to sell him something. I talk about the progress his kiddo's made, the eye contact and the awareness, but my heart aches to tell him, "He is already okay. He was okay before our therapy. He will be okay after the therapy. He will be okay even if he stops responding to therapy because he is full of love, even if that love is hard to see sometimes."
My point is, he'll be as okay as anyone else.