Maerleen Loegins travels back to the 1950s where she becomes a physics student and live-in help for a family where both parents are overwhelmed by young Addie, an even younger autistic Cyril, and two newborn twins.
The reason her parents had put an ad in the paper offering free room and board and a small stipend to a college student was to have someone around to look after their children, especially Cyril, who wouldn’t be ready to go to school that fall, not even to kindergarten, and might never be.

Variants

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  1. “Strawberry Birdies” by Pamela Sargent, in Asimov’s Science Fiction, December 2011.
    2. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . written by Pamela Sargent