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FOR THE NEXT TWO WEEKS THE STORY OF THE DISGRACED DOCTOR and the nameless, voiceless girl was headline news. The phones at the police station were jammed with calls from doctors, psychiatrists and counselors, kooks and scientists. Everyone, it seemed, wanted to save Alice from Julia’s incompetence. Drs. Kletch and Goldberg called daily. The Department of Social and Health Services required updates twice a week. They were beginning to suggest residential care at almost every turn.
Julia worked eighteen hours a day. She was with Alice from sunup to sundown; after the child fell asleep, she went to the library and spent more hours in front of a computer screen or online.
Everything she did was for Alice. On Wednesdays and Fridays, like clockwork, she went to the police station, where she conducted a press conference. She stood at that podium, inches from the microphones that amplified her words. She told them every aspect of Alice’s treatment, offered every identity hint that was revealed. None of it interested them.
They asked endless questions about Julia’s past, about her regrets and failures and lost patients. They cared nothing for the milestones of Alice’s recovery. Still, Julia tried. She reached for me today. . . . She buttoned her blouse. . . . She pointed at a bird. . . . She used a fork.
All that mattered to the reporters was that Alice hadn’t spoken. To them, it was more proof that Julia could no longer be trusted to help even one troubled child.
But in time, even the rehashing of Julia’s past began to lose momentum. The stories went from headline news on page one to a paragraph or two in the local interest or Life sections. Local water cooler conversation left the unknown girl behind; now the mini quakes shaking Mount St. Helens were on everyone’s mind.
From her podium, Julia stared out at the few reporters in the police station. CNN, USA Today, the New York Times, and the national television stations weren’t here anymore. Only a few of the local papers were left, and most of them were from small peninsula communities like Rain Valley. Their questions were still pointed and cruel, but they were asked in dull, monotone voices. No one expected any of it to matter anymore.
“That’s all for this week,” Julia said, realizing the room had gone still. “The big news is that she can dress herself. And she shows a true affinity for anything made of plastic. She can take or leave television—I think the images move too quickly for her—but she can watch cooking programs all day. Maybe that will strike a chord with someone—”
“Come on, Dr. Cates,” said a man at the back of the room. He was desperately thin, with shaggy hair and a mouth made for cigarettes. “No one is looking for this kid.”
There was a murmur of assent from the crowd as they talked among themselves. Julia heard the papery rustle of their laughter.
“That’s not true. A child doesn’t simply appear and disappear in this world. Someone is missing her.”
A man from KIRO-TV stepped forward. The compassion in his dark eyes was almost harder to bear than the disinterest of his colleagues. “I don’t know what’s true about your past and what’s media spin, Dr. Cates, but I know that you’re a smart woman. There’s something wrong with this kid. Big-time wrong. I think that’s why her family dumped her in the woods and walked away.”
Julia stepped out from behind the podium and moved toward him. “You have no evidence to support that. It’s just as likely that she was kidnapped so long ago that her family has given up on her. Stopped looking.”
His gaze was steady. “Stopped looking? For their daughter?”
“If—”
“I wish you luck, I really do, but KIRO is pulling out. The rumblings at Mount St. Helens are front and center now.” He reached into his rumpled white shirt pocket and withdrew a card. “My wife’s a therapist. I’ll be fair to you. Call me if you find out something substantive.”
She looked down at his card. JOHN SMITH, TV NEWS. KIRO, she knew, had a top-notch research staff and access to people and places she couldn’t begin to reach. “How hard did you guys try to find out who she is?”
“Four researchers worked on it full-time for the first two weeks.”
Julia nodded. She’d been afraid of that.
“Good luck.”
She watched him leave, thinking, And there goes the last of the good ones. Next Wednesday she’d be giving her update to representatives of local newspapers, with smaller circulations than most high schools, and—if she was lucky—some low-rent stringer for the tabloids.
Peanut crossed the room, weaving through the row of metal folding chairs, picking up the discarded news releases they’d handed out. Her black rubber clogs made a thumping sound on the floor. Cal went along behind her, grabbing the chairs, clanging them shut.
Within moments the podium was the only remaining evidence of today’s press conference. Soon there would be no audience for any of this. The pressure of that knowledge had been building in Julia, filling her lungs like a slow-growing case of pneumonia.
The milestones she’d reported to the media today were important. In ordinary therapy, the amount of progress Alice had made in three weeks would be considered successful. Now the child could eat with utensils and use the toilet. She’d even come so far as to show sympathy for someone else, but none of it answered the central question of identity. None of it would get Alice back to her family and her real life. None of it would guarantee that Julia could keep working with her. In fact, with every day that passed in the child’s silence, Julia felt her grasp on her confidence loosen. At night, as she lay in her bed, listening to Alice’s quiet nightmares and violent moments, Julia thought: Am I good enough?
Or worse: What am I missing this time?
“You did a great job today,” Peanut said, trying to force a smile. It was the same thing she’d said after each press conference.
“Thanks,” was Julia’s standard answer. “I better get back,” she said, bending down for her briefcase.
Peanut nodded, then yelled to Cal, “I’m takin’ her home.”
Julia followed Peanut out of the station and into the gunmetal gray light of sundown. In the car, they both stared straight ahead. Garth Brooks’s voice floated through the speakers, complaining about friends in low places.
“So . . . I guess it isn’t going so well, huh?” Peanut said, strumming her black-and-white checkerboard fingernails on the steering wheel at the four-way stop.
