school that day, Jadie arrived, as she now commonly did. She hobbled into the cloakroom, slammed the door, took the key from me, locked it, then pressed the little tab of masking tape over the keyhole. Afterward, she went and locked the other door. Immediately becoming upright, she gave a little scream. This over, she darted off around the room, circling it quickly, lithely. This done, she stopped. She scanned the room, then came to stand beside my desk.
Silence followed. I always had my plan book out during this time, not only because it was my planning time but also because it allowed me to focus on something other than Jadie, and this gave these little get-togethers a less intense timbre.
“You know what?” she said softly.
“What’s that?”
“There’s nothing for me to do in here.”
“You’re feeling a bit bored?”
She nodded.
“What do you suppose we might do about it?” I asked, hoping this might lead to expansion beyond the locked doors of the cloakroom.
“It’d be nice if those dolls were in here.”
“If you want to play with those dolls, that’s okay,” I replied.
“But they’re out there.”
“You could go get them. The box with the clothes in it is on the bookshelf. You could put the dolls you wanted into that and bring them in here.”
Jadie studied me. I could tell she wanted me to go get the dolls for her, but when she didn’t speak, I went back to my work. Jadie continued to stand, her expression morose.
“If you open the door, you’ll be able to get the dolls,” I said, not looking up. “It isn’t very far from the door to the bookshelf. You can bring them back in here and close the door again.”
Jadie turned her head and looked at the door. Not only would she have to leave the safety of the cloakroom to do this, but to carry the box of dolls back, she needed to remain upright. Unlike her speech, which had generalized quickly to include the others in the classroom, her posture seemed unchanged outside the privacy of the cloakroom. Sighing sadly, she slumped down on one of the benches.
“Do you want some help?” I asked.
She nodded.
“You know, if you explain to me what you want, then I am much more likely to help. I can’t read your mind. You need to tell me when you want help.”
Still silence.
I rose from my chair. “I’ll open the door.” Getting the key from the other door, I peeled back the masking tape and unlocked it. Jadie shrank back. “Come on,” I said, extending my hand. “We’ll go together. You get which dolls you want, and I’ll carry the box of clothes.”
Jadie accepted this. Taking my hand, she crept behind me into the classroom, where I gathered up most of the big dolls and put them into her arms. Jadie, not quite bent double by this time but definitely slumped, scurried back into the cloakroom ahead of me. As I closed the door and relocked it, she relaxed visibly, but not quite trusting me, she had to get up and check that the door was well and truly locked and then return the key to block the other keyhole.
The trauma of having had to go out into the classroom to get the dolls clearly overwhelmed Jadie. Still hunched over, she sank down onto the bench adjacent to the doll box and peered in at the collection of hard-won dolls, but she seemed unable to summon up enough strength to take them out and play with them. For five minutes or more, she just sat, all the usual liveliness she brought with her into the cloakroom momentarily gone. Then, at last, she reached in and started to take the dolls out. One by one, she lined them up on the bench. When she had finished, she sat back a little and observed them.
“These dolls are pretty,” she said softly.
“Yes, they are nice. I think so, too.”
“Where’d you get them at?”
“I bought them. Not all of them at once, but one at a time, over the years.”
“How come? You’re too big to play with dolls.”
“I bought them for the children I work with.”
Jadie paused, reaching a finger out to gingerly touch the hair on one of the dolls. “Are them the boys and girls you were telling me about that one time? The ones like me that don’t talk?”
“Yes.”
“Did you really work with those kids?”
“Yes.”
She looked over. “Really? You’re not just making that up?”
“Yes, I really did work with girls and boys like you before. I worked at helping them start talking again and at getting over the kinds of problems that made them stop in the first place. That was my special interest, you see. It’s called ‘research.’ That’s when you want to learn more about something people don’t know much about already. And I was very interested in children who found it hard to talk in certain places. I wanted to know what was wrong, and I wanted to find ways to make things better for them, so that was my research.”
“And did you find out about them?” Jadie asked, her attention going back to the dolls.
“I think so, yes.”
A pause came and it lingered. Jadie was still not playing with the dolls, not even touching them. She just sat, gazing at them. “Them other kids,” she started slowly, “they really didn’t talk? Like me?”
“Yes, just like you.”
“But then you made it better for them? Did you? And then did they talk? They talked to you then? They told you things?”
“Yes.”
She looked up at me. “They told you things?”
I nodded.
“And you believed them?”
“Well, I always try to listen to what people tell me.”
“And then you tried to make it better for them?”
“Well, I did try.”
Silence then. Jadie reached over and picked up one of the Sasha dolls. It had thick, waist-length black hair, which she gently smoothed down. “Can I change this doll’s clothes?”
“Yes, of course. You may dress any of them any way you want. They’re meant for playing.”
Again she caressed its long hair and gazed into its face. Then, bending over the box, Jadie sorted through the clothes, taking out a complete outfit consisting of undershirt and underpants, shirt, overalls, sweater, mittens, coat, shoes, socks, and woolly hat. I went back to work on my plans but stole occasional glimpses of her. She remained tenser than usual. Her shoulders remained hunched, her limbs drawn in close. Even with the doors locked, she didn’t seem much more relaxed than she generally was in the
