the thread into place. The bat flew between us.
‘I don’t know. He’s different from my other elective mutes. I don’t know what’s going on with him. I don’t know what he’s thinking.’
Jeff gave me an easy, very casual sort of grin. ‘No. But then do we ever know that?’
The one other person whose imagination had been captured by Kevin’s enigmatic behavior was the Garson Gayer social worker, Dana Wendolowski. She had been the moving force behind obtaining permission to keep Kevin at the home beyond the usual age limit and she had been the one to go to the trouble of searching for someone with expertise in psychogenic language problems.
I found a friend in Dana. She was an incredibly hard worker. The only social worker for all of Garson Gayer’s ninety – six children, she still managed to keep tabs on the progress of even the most hopeless ones and to do what she could to improve their situations both inside and outside the walls of the home. There never was a child I asked her about whom she did not know personally. And there certainly wasn’t a single one of them she didn’t care for passionately.
Although originally from a close-knit farm family in the distant rural reaches of Tennessee, Dana had been in the city since she had finished her graduate studies in social work. In her late twenties, she was a very attractive woman in a Scandinavian sort of way, although her fine, highborn features were at odds with her gentle personality.
In the past Dana had tried her own hand at working with Kevin and trying to get him to talk. She had repeatedly brought him into her office, tried to put him at ease by not forcing the issue and by being kind and reassuring with him. But she just had too many other obligations, and after a number of weeks of fruitless, one-sided interactions, she had been forced to give in. But she hadn’t given up on him.
I met Dana when I came into the back room behind the office the following morning. She had been retrieving some typing from the secretaries at the front desk and I was headed for the coffeepot to make some milky coffee. The sessions with Kevin were killing my voice, and even though I didn’t really like coffee very much, that seemed to be the only thing between me and hoarseness.
How was it going? she asked. All right? Was the room all right? Did I need anything? Did I have what I wanted in there?
I assured her I was fine.
She smiled hesitantly. ‘Guess what we found Kevin doing last night?’
I shook my head.
‘One of the aides went into his room unexpectedly and Kevin didn’t hear him. Kevin was standing in front of his mirror. He was working his mouth. Con – that’s the-aide – said he thought Kevin was trying to talk. You know. He was pushing his lips into shapes of words. He wasn’t making any sounds or anything but he was trying to form words with his lips.’ She smiled at me, paused, studied my face. She had her typing clasped against her breast like a shield. ‘That’s a good sign, isn’t it? Do you think it is? A good sign, I mean? That he wants to talk? That you might get him to?’
I returned her smile. There was anxiety in her voice. She’d been at Garson Gayer only two years – less than half the time Kevin had been there – and I could already hear the need for miracles gnawing at her. She’d invested a lot of herself in this brutal business, this job where there was always too much to do and too little to do it with. And I could hear it was weighing hard on a farm girl from Tennessee.
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I think it’s probably a good sign.’
‘Con came right down and told me. He told me what he’d seen and I very nearly called you. I wanted to. I was so excited. And I wanted you to know you were helping him.’
I worked my way down to the therapy room, balancing my cup of coffee on top of my box of materials and struggling to find the key in my pocket. It was a brilliant autumn day outside and when I opened the door to the small room, I was stunned by the piercing sunlight. It illuminated all the little dust motes floating through the air.
Dana’s report of Kevin’s making faces in the mirror was intriguing to me. It was hard to tell if it was much of a sign or not. I didn’t want to put much emphasis on it in my own mind because there was no way of knowing what he had been doing. Just making faces at himself maybe. Or perhaps really practicing. Who knows. But I filed the observation away in the back of my head. So little was known about this silent kid that I appreciated every small notation.
I’d arrived with a new-hatched scheme that morning. Instead of laboring over the dreary story book we’d been using, I thought I’d have Kevin read from the Pumpkin Carol book. We could relax with that. I’d read him some; we could laugh over them; he could try one. It sounded pretty easy.
Kevin appeared at 9:30 on the dot. The aide opened the door and Kevin scuttled in, half walking, half crawling with his knees bent and his arms stiff at his sides. Once the aide retreated, Kevin dived past me for the safety of the table.
Pulling out a chair, I dropped down to the floor, too, and came under the table. Quickly Kevin grabbed the chair and set it up, back against the table, seat facing out, in the way he seemed to find most reassuring. There we were together in the daylight darkness. The dust motes continued gliding down through shafts of sunlight only a few feet away and yet they were a world removed from our murky hideout under the table.
Carefully, I brought the Peanuts carol book out of the box of materials and showed it to Kevin. Paging through the songs, I tried to explain how they had come about. He listened politely but I could tell he didn’t get it. My account was lame, and humor dies under scrutiny.
Then he reached past me for the box. Opening it again, he took out the mystery story and thumbed through it for the page we had been warring with.
‘I thought we might do this one instead. I think we need a change,’ I said.
He regarded me a long moment, and I had no clue as to what was going on in his head. His eyes narrowed. The other book remained in his hands.
‘Don’t you want to try these? These are funny, see? They go to the tunes of Christmas carols. You know.’ And I was suddenly stricken with the thought that perhaps he didn’t know. Maybe his life had been institutionalized beyond a world containing Christmas carols. ‘Do you want me to read you one?’ My voice was beginning to sound a little pathetic even in my own ears. The whole morning was falling flat.
Kevin shook his head. Spreading the mystery story open on the carpet, he leaned over it. He brought a hand up and pushed his lips back to make an e. I heard the familiar breaths in preparation. Then he launched full-tilt into war. Kevin shook, chattered, sweated and physically tried to make his mouth into the shape of the word. He rubbed his throat upward to push the word out. He stretched his neck, as if about to gag. Nothing worked.
‘Look,’ I said, ‘I got another idea. Come here. Come out from under there a little bit. I need more room.’
I crawled out from under the table. Standing up, I offered him one of the chairs. ‘Come here.’
Kevin crawled to the edge of the table but not out from under it. I could not lure him farther. So, taking the chair, I sat in it myself. He was sitting, feet under him, about even with my knees. I bent over and put my hands on his throat.
‘You
