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“I thought you shrinks didn’t use that word.”
“Don’t tell.”
“You’re safe with me.”
She laughed at that. “Hardly.”
“Start talking, Julia,” he said, sipping his drink. The ice rattled in his glass.
“Okay.” She started with the easy stuff. “I’m sure she’s not deaf, and I strongly question the idea of autistic. Strangely enough, I think she might be a completely normal child reacting to an impossibly foreign and hostile environment. I believe she understands some language, although I don’t yet know if she knows how to speak and is choosing not to or if she’s never been taught. Either way, she hasn’t hit puberty, so—theoretically, at least—she’s not too old to learn.”
“And?” He took another drink.
She took a drink, too. Hers was more of a gulp. Her sense of vulnerability was so strong now she felt her cheeks warm. There was nothing to do now except dive in or walk away. “Have you ever read any of the accounts of wild children?”
“You mean like that French kid? The one Truffaut made the movie about?”
“Yes.”
“Come on—”
“Hear me out, Max. Please.”
He leaned back into the cushions, crossed his arms and studied her. “Tell me.”
She started pulling stuff out of her briefcase. Papers, books, notes. She laid them all out on the cushion between them. As Max examined each article, she outlined her thoughts. She told him about the clear signs of wildness—the apparent lack of sense of self, the hiding mechanism, the eating habits, the howling. Then she offered the oddities—the humming, birdsong mimicry, the insta–toilet training. When she’d presented all of it, she sat back, waiting for his comment.
“So you’re saying she was out there, in the woods, for most of her life.”
“Yes.”
“And the wolf they found with her . . . that was what, her brother?”
She reached for her papers. “Forget it. I should have known—”
Laughing, he grabbed her hand. “Slow down. I’m not making fun of you, but you have to admit that your theory is out there.”
“But think about it. Plug our evidence into the known fact patterns.”
“It’s all anecdotal, Julia. Kids raised by wolves and bears . . .”
“Maybe she was held hostage for a while and then let go to survive on her own. She’s definitely been around people at some point.”
“Then why can’t she speak?”
“I think she’s electively mute. In other words, she can speak. She’s choosing not to.”
“If that’s true, even partially, it’ll take a hell of a doctor to bring her back to this world.”
Julia heard the question in his voice. She wasn’t surprised. The whole world thought she was incompetent now; why should he be any different? What did surprise her was how much it hurt. “I am a good doctor. At least, I used to be.” She reached for her papers, started putting them in her briefcase.
He leaned closer, touched her wrist. “I believe in you, you know. If that matters.”
She looked at him, even though she knew instantly that it was a mistake. He was so close now that she could see a jagged scar along his hairline and another at the base of his throat. Firelight softened his face; she saw tiny flames reflected in the blue sea of his eyes. “Thanks. It does.”
Later, when she was back in her car and driving home alone, she thought back on it, wondered why she’d revealed so much to him.
The only answer came buried in her own lack of confidence.
