Unsaid Page 5

  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 w
hat 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.

  4

  The 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.

  As David paces, he reviews the notes and questions he’s written to himself on a yellow legal pad. Chip, Bernie, and Skippy follow David’s movements from their places on the floor—four steps to the right, stop, turn, and then four steps back.

  David pauses for a moment and peers down at the dogs. “I need you all to be on your best behavior.” The dogs return David’s look as if they not only understand him, but are prepared to comply. But David doesn’t know them like I do.

  Soon enough, the doorbell rings and the dogs obediently follow David to the front door. Behind it, waiting on the porch, is a small, pencil-thin woman in her early forties. Her steel-gray skirt and starched white blouse are ironed to perfection. Her hair is combed into a tight bun the likes of which I’ve only seen in magazine advertisements from the 1950s for kitchen products.

  David opens the door. “Please come in,” he says. The woman extends her bony hand, and David shakes it gingerly.

  “I’m Margaret Donnelly, but you may call me Peg.”

  “Peg it is.” David waves her into the house.

  “What a charming piece of property you—”

  As soon as Peg crosses the threshold of the house into the hallway, Bernie can no longer control his excitement. He lets out a joyful “woof” and jumps on her. The unexpected force of Bernie’s two forepaws on her slender shoulders knocks poor Ms. Donnelly square on her ass. Although unharmed, Ms. Donnelly, apparently not a dog lover in the best of circumstances, begins to scream for help. Chip and Skippy now bark wildly at her, joining the game. The more the dogs bark, the more Ms. Donnelly screams.

  “Peg—Ms. Donnelly—just please calm down!” David yells at her as he tries to pull Bernie away.

  “They’re attacking me!”

  “They’re not attacking. They think you’re playing.”

  Amid the shrieking, Chip and Skippy can resist no longer and join the fray. Ms. Donnelly and the three dogs form a heap in the middle of the hallway. David tries to separate canine and human, but it’s like trying to remove a fly from a bowl of oatmeal—there’s no way to do it without taking some of the oatmeal, too. In the process of reaching and pulling, David accidentally grabs Ms. Donnelly’s breast. At this perceived violation of her person, Ms. Donnelly lets out a primordial shriek only a Saturday-morning cartoon character could replicate.

  I start to laugh. It is such an odd feeling that at first I don’t recognize what’s happening to me. But then I hear myself. I put my hand over my mouth to keep the sound inside. That doesn’t work. I feel the need to turn away even though I’m somehow sure that no one can hear me. I run out the front door almost doubled over in laughter.

  Suddenly Ms. Donnelly catapults out of the house. Her hair has been ripped from its neat bun, her blouse is covered with paw prints, and her skirt is so askew it is turned nearly all the way around. She runs down the front steps while pulling dog hair from her mouth.

  In her panic, Ms. Donnelly nearly trips over Henry, my huge orange tabby cat, who is cleaning himself on the front steps. Henry pauses only for a moment with annoyed interest to watch Ms. Donnelly race sobbing to her Ford before he returns to his more important business. Ms. Donnelly, once safely entombed in her car, screeches down the driveway.

  Inside the house, David, his arms folded sternly across his chest, stares at the three dogs. Chip and Bernie are now quiet and contrite under his gaze. I could swear, however, that Skippy is smirking. “That was your best behavior?”

  David grabs the legal pad off the table in the hallway and scratches out Ms. Donnelly’s name so hard his pen gouges the paper.

  My definition of a bad day is one spent trying to pound square pegs into round holes. Measuring David’s subsequent five interviews against that yardstick, David has had a very bad day.

  When Congressman Wolfe arrives at the lab for Jaycee’s presentation, he is accompanied by a staff aide, a photographer and—to Jaycee’s obvious alarm—Scott Jannick.

  After brief introductions by Jannick, Wolfe says, “You’ve got thirty minutes, Dr. Cassidy. Then I need to head back to the city. So, show me what Cindy can do.”

  Jaycee clears her throat and then begins her well-rehearsed remarks. “As I explained in my letter to you, we have known for decades that chimpanzees are capable of acquiring and using human language. The problem is that physiologically, they are not capable of producing human speech sounds. So we’ve always had to use a substitute for human speech—principally American Sign Language and lexigraphy. But both those forms of language have their problems. Lexigraphy is far too limiting and rigid. ASL is preferred because it is more flexible and allows for spontaneous conversation except it requires advanced manual dexterity. Unfortunately, the chimpanzee hand was not made for the nuances of ASL. Chimpanzee ASL work before ours was criticized on the grounds that the chimpanzee gestures or attempted gestures allowed too much room for interpretation or manipulation by the tester.

  “So, that’s the bad news. The good news is that there have been some extraordinary advances in technology and computer modeling in the last few years. We believe we can now overcome those limitations and literally unlock the language potential of the chimpanzee.”

  Wolfe shifts impatiently in his seat as Jaycee continues. “My research assistant, Frank Wallace, was working on his PhD in a relatively new field called computer-assisted linguistics when I co-opted him for my research. Basically, the theory is to develop computer models for those with speech impairments in an effort to augment the speaker’s own capabilities. For example, a stroke victim wants to say ‘give me the apple,’ but may only have the physical capability to say ‘gif ma aal.’ By mapping th
e individual’s specific impairment against a normal speech function, we can then plug that into the computer model so that it compensates for the gaps between what the speaker wants to say and what he or she is physiologically capable of saying. This is called interstitial linguistic programming or ILP. And yes, that is a mouthful.”

  Jaycee hands the congressman a thick PowerPoint presentation book. “This describes in detail the theory and programming behind ILP and how we applied it here.”

  Wolfe passes the book to his aide without looking at it. “My staff will read the documentation later. I suggest you just tell me what you think I need to know so we can get on with the demonstration, Dr. Cassidy.”

  “Of course. We began with the idea that we could use ILP for other parts of anatomy besides the vocal apparatus. We modified the ILP for Cindy by treating the differences between her hand and a human hand as an impairment. We created a computer model of a human hand and then superimposed a computer model of Cindy’s hand over it. There were obvious differences. We programmed the ILP to compensate for the differences. Then we had a pair of gloves tailored for Cindy’s hands and wired the gloves with the ILP program.

  “You’ll see that she uses the gloves in conjunction with a specially designed lexigraphic keyboard that we taught her to use. The board supplements the signing and can give us the type of information that normally would be provided by the ASL speaker through what we call non-manual markers—like facial expressions, head movement, gaze direction, or mouthing. Once we run the gloves and her keyboard answers back through an ASL translation program, Cindy’s signs are almost instantly converted into English words that appear on a computer screen.”

  “And for my little non-scientific mind, what does that all mean?” Wolfe asks.

  “We converse. In English,” Jaycee says and then lets her answer sink in for a moment. “And you can read Cindy’s words in real time as she uses them without me trying to tell you what Cindy is saying.”