“Damn it, Hanson, what do I need to do to get you to give me some suction here,” Thorton yells. Sally immediately complies, but the cavity quickly fills again with blood.
Out in the crowded waiting area, Sally’s son, Clifford, sits quietly drawing on the sketch pad in his lap. Clifford looks like he is nine or ten. He’s even more beautiful than his mother, with his giant brown eyes, long eyelashes, and rounded features.
Although I can’t see what he is drawing, Clifford’s pencil strokes are not the hesitant stray marks of a doodler. With his tongue extended from the side of his mouth in concentration and his brow furrowed, he draws as if his subject is evanescent and he must get the image out of his head and on the paper as quickly as possible.
It takes me a moment, but I finally understand what is missing from this waiting room. There are no barks, whines, yeows, or screams coming from the dogs and cats waiting for treatment. Where there otherwise should be the noise of panic, fear, and hurt, there is only stillness and the scratch of a pencil point against heavy sketch paper. When I look more closely, I see that every animal eye in the room is focused on the boy and his pad of paper.
Besides the boy, the only other person in the waiting room without an animal is an older woman with starched white hair and a nervous habit of chewing on her thumbnail as she paces in front of the reception desk. That must be her dog in the OR.
As I watch, a drastic change comes over the boy. He stiffens in his chair, drops his pencil, and then grimaces in pain. The dogs nearest him begin to howl.
The boy slowly rises to his feet, places his pad on the seat, and moves toward the operating room. Dr. Thorton nearly knocks the boy over in his rush to get to the surgical supply cabinet located on the far side of the reception area. The boy doesn’t appear to register Thorton’s presence and instead enters the OR suite.
Sally, struggling to stop the blood coming out of the unconscious dog’s chest, doesn’t notice her son until he is almost upon her.
“Clifford, you can’t be here,” Sally tells him sharply. “Go back to the waiting room.”
Clifford ignores her. No, that’s wrong. He doesn’t even seem to be aware of his mother. He approaches the dog on the table with an affect that is so flat, it cannot be faked.
“Clifford! Not here!” Sally quickly looks to the entranceway of the OR to make sure they’re not being observed. “Please,” Sally begs him. “You need to get out!”
Clifford lowers his head onto the head of the dog and closes his eyes. Then, in a sweet, light, clear, and beautiful voice, Clifford sings out, “Grass grass grass. Grass for all to see. I love the green green green grass grass grass.” Clifford’s smile is so wide and his face is filled with such open joy that Sally is speechless. “I knew it,” Clifford says to no one in particular. “Grass and trees and… can you smell the air? It’s been so long since I’ve smelled air like that.”
Thorton bangs back into the OR. “What the hell is going on in here?”
Thorton’s outburst shocks Sally into action. “I’m getting him out, Dr. Thorton.”
“He can’t be in here,” Thorton says.
“Grass grass grass,” Clifford sings again with his eyes squeezed closed. “I knew there’d be grass.”
“I understand, Doctor,” Sally says in near panic. “I’m sorry. But I just can’t pull him away or he’ll—”
“Well, either you do it, or I will,” Thorton threatens as he takes a step toward the boy.
“No! Please, don’t.” Sally steps between Thorton and Clifford. “You don’t understand. He—”
“What’s that boy doing to my dog!” It’s the white-haired woman from the waiting room. She must’ve heard the yelling. “Dr. Thorton, what in God’s name is going on?”
“It’s quite okay, Ms. Pendle,” Thorton says in his most assuring tone.
“Mother of God. All that blood. Is that from Archie?” Ms. Pendle asks, her face sheet white.
Before anyone can answer her, Clifford breaks out into a joyous yell: “BennieBennieBennieBennieBennieBennieBennieBennie-Bennie.” Tears stream out of Clifford’s closed eyes. “I knew you’d make it for me, Bennie. I knew it’d be you. No cane, too!”
Ms. Pendle stumbles backward and steadies herself on a nearby countertop. “No cane?” she repeats.
A small crowd of staff forms by the entrance of the OR. “Jennifer,” Thorton commands to a vet tech in surgical scrubs, “please show Ms. Pendle to my office.” Jennifer gently eases the confused woman out of the room.
Once Thorton checks to be sure that the client is gone and the door to the OR is closed, he turns on Clifford. “That’s enough,” Thorton shouts at the boy and grabs him by the arm, trying to pull him away from the dog.
Clifford screams as if Thorton’s hand is made of acid.
“NoNoNoNoooooooo!” Clifford tries to pull his arm away in agony. “Bennie. They’re taking me.”
Sally jumps to her son’s aid. “Get your hands off him,” she shouts as she rips Thorton’s hand away. “Can’t you see he’s not even here?”
At the sound of his mother’s voice, Clifford’s eyes flash open and he bolts upright. He looks around the room and finally appears to recognize his surroundings. The anguish on Clifford’s face—on any face that young—is horrible to see. Fresh tears pour down his cheeks, this time as far removed from joy as possible.
“I’m sorry MamaI’m sorry MamaI’m sorry MamaI’m sorry Mama.” Clifford repeats these three words over and over without inflection and as he does so, he begins to draw in the air with the pencil he no longer holds in his hand.
“It’s okay, Cliffy. It’s okay.” Sally puts her arms around the boy’s shoulders and slowly moves him toward the entrance of the OR.
Thorton listens to the dog’s chest with a stethoscope. “The dog’s gone,” he confirms in disgust and then throws his stethoscope across the table.
Sally ignores him. To Clifford she says, “Let’s get your pad and pencil.” Sally looks like she’s aged years in seconds.
Clifford allows himself to be walked out of the OR, but will not make eye contact with his mother. “I’m sorry MamaI’m sorry Mama.”
“I know,” Sally says.
Thorton shouts at Sally’s back, “My office in ten minutes.”
Fifteen minutes later, Sally sits in one of Thorton’s exam rooms with Clifford on her lap. The boy is almost composed, except for the occasional snuffle. Sally tries to rock him, but his hands are in constant motion, drawing with the pencil and pad Sally retrieved from the waiting room.
A knock on the exam room door is so tentative I almost don’t hear it. Ms. Pendle, her eyes rimmed with tears, walks in on Sally and Clifford. The boy takes no notice of her.
“I’m very sorry for your loss, Ms. Pendle,” Sally says. “I deeply regret the confusion in there.”
Ms. Pendle nods. “How is your son?” she asks in a voice choking back grief and uncertainty.
“He’ll be fine.”
“May I ask…” Ms. Pendle searches for words that will not offend.
“He has Asperger’s syndrome. The wiring in his brain is a little different from the rest of us. When he gets upset…” Sally lets her sentence hang and nods toward the operating room.
“I see. I’m so sorry.”
Sally searches Ms. Pendle’s face for some evidence of condescension and sees only what I see—an old woman now alone in the world trying to find some solace in the part of being that she doesn’t understand.
“Thank you. Clifford generally manages pretty well—except when he’s upset.”
Ms. Pendle hesitates before she next speaks. “Your son mentioned a ‘Bennie’ in there. Is that someone he knows?”
Sally shrugs. “It’s not a name I’ve heard before. No one we know.”
“Do you know why he might’ve chosen that name?”
“When he has an episode, his brain is firing on all cylinders. He could’ve picked the name up anywhere—TV, a book, someone at school. The doctors say the words probably don’t mean anything. Like his drawings—hypergraphia, they call it,” Sally says, pointing to the paper Clifford is transforming with his pencil. “Just
regurgitations from somewhere in his brain. He probably won’t remember any of this by the time he calms down. He never does.”
Ms. Pendle clears her throat and then turns away from Sally to straighten some jars on the countertop that do not need her attention. “My husband loved Archie. Sometimes I think that dog was the only reason he wanted to live after his stroke. He hated that cane.”
“I’m sorry?” Sally asks.
Ms. Pendle turns to face Sally, and again her words fail her. “You see… it’s just that… well, my husband’s name was Benjamin. I was the only one who called him Bennie.”
“Oh.” I can literally see Sally’s growing discomfort with the road this conversation has taken. Her journey has been too hard and too long. Sally’s lips press into a razor-thin line as her eyes narrow in suspicion. Behind those eyes, just for an instant, I see a woman who believes in nothing except the need to care for her son and the hope that, with the right education and training, he will learn to be independent from her in some way that matters in the world. I see a woman who believes in no one except herself because everyone else has failed her or Clifford. I see a woman who has long since put away the glass slippers, the pretend ball gowns, and any dream that some glitter-winged fairy godmother is going to “bibbity-boppity-boop” away her responsibilities.
But Ms. Pendle’s face is so hopeful and vulnerable right now that I fear Sally’s response. To my great surprise and relief, however, I see Sally’s defenses momentarily soften. “My husband once told me that animals were put on this earth to help redeem us,” she says. “That must be hard work, but they never give up on us. It would make sense to me that, when it’s all over, they finally get to just enjoy the fruits of that labor. Don’t you think?”
Ms. Pendle squeezes her eyes shut and nods gratefully. When she opens them again, she mouths a silent
thank you
to Sally and backs out of the room, leaving Sally alone with her son and his now completed drawing.
Clifford’s picture is so finely detailed that it looks like a black-and-white photograph.
In the drawing, Archie and an old man without a cane walk side by side through an ancient grove of trees.
In the CAPS lab, Jaycee runs Cindy through her finger-spelling exercises. I’ve seen them do this before. Jaycee first speaks and signs a word, then waits for Cindy to copy her gestures with her gloved fingers. Jaycee confirms that Cindy has matched the sign correctly by checking that the word appears on her computer screen.
In the five minutes I’ve watched them so far today, Cindy got almost all the words correct. When the computer reflected an error, however, Jaycee gently molded Cindy’s fingers until the correct word appeared. Every correct response elicited Jaycee’s excited praise and a squeal from Cindy.
They are just finishing the word
apple
when a man with thinning gray hair that matches the color of his suit thunders into the lab.
“You had no right!” he shouts at Jaycee.
“Nice to see you too, Scott,” Jaycee says as she quickly returns Cindy to the Cube. Cindy curls her lips back against her teeth, a sign that she does not like either this man or his tone.
“You could’ve at least given me the common courtesy of telling me that Congressman Wolfe was coming,” he says, his voice only slightly less booming.
“Why? So you could convince him not to come?”
“No, because I am the director of this facility and I make those decisions.”
“His committee is the only shot I’ve got for an extension of funding, and you won’t help me. I did what I had to. Sorry if it doesn’t fit within your little political protocol.”
“I’m attempting to save NIS and yourself from what will be a terrible embarrassment. You’ve no idea the situation—”
“—just because you don’t trust my work, doesn’t mean it’s not valid.”
“Actually, as far as the funding for this project goes, that’s exactly what it means.”
“Professional jealousy is not an attractive quality on you.”
“Jealousy? That’s what you think this is about?”
“I don’t see a lot of other reasons.”
“How about the fact that you can’t replicate your results? Those gloves and this computer program only seem to work for you. She won’t converse with anyone else. Why is that?”
“That’s not true. I’m not the only one she’s responded to.”
“Who else, then? I know she won’t do it with Frank. Show me just one other person. Bring him here and show me.”
Jaycee doesn’t take the offer.
“That’s what I thought,” he barks. “No one but you. That’s prima facie evidence that she’s not responding to language at all; she’s responding to your cues—whether they are intentional or not. Congratulations—you’ve turned her into Pavlov’s dog! That’s why no respected peer-review journal will accept your work. And if you weren’t so close to this and”—he points to Cindy—“to her, you’d see that I’m right.”
Cindy becomes more agitated as the argument continues. She paces the length of the Cube, whimpering every few moments.
“I don’t think Wolfe will see it that way,” Jaycee says. “And we both know that’s really what you’re afraid of, isn’t it, Jannick?”
Jannick throws his hands up and heads toward the door. He turns to Jaycee one final time. “You’ve really lost yourself in this, Dr. Cassidy. It’s sad that we’ve gotten here, but it convinces me that my initial decision was absolutely correct. If you can’t replicate your test results with someone else asking the questions, then this project will end regardless of the dog-and-pony show you put on for Wolfe.”
Once Jannick is gone, Jaycee opens the door to the Cube and Cindy jumps into her arms. She calms Cindy with the soothing sounds and gentle strokes that I imagine a mother would use to assure a frightened child.
I know why Jaycee is unwilling to present the other person that Cindy spoke with. She can’t.
That person is me.
T
he passage of another few days has David looking slightly more human. He has shaved and dressed in a pair of khakis, a button-down blue oxford shirt, and Sperry loafers.
He paces nervously around a living room that likewise appears to have received a few minutes of attention since Max’s visit; there is still a mess, but now it has the broad outlines of a shape and the food remnants, at least, are gone.