by Torey Hayden
Midst this, Helen and I had managed to squeeze in our two desks, a large table, and two sizable bookshelves. As always, Helen’s side of the room was a triumph of order and organization. My side looked, as Helen succinctly put it, as if the condemned-building notice was overdue.
I had just returned to my desk from the session with Cassandra when there was a quick rap at the door, and it opened. Nancy Anderson stuck her head in. She was the charge nurse on the unit during the weekdays. In her fifties, a tall, strongly built woman of African American origins, Nancy had made a career of psychiatric nursing. She loved the job; she loved the kids, and decades of experience had given her a clear understanding of life’s absurdities, which meant her reaction to most things was a good laugh.
“This one’s for you,” she said, waving a piece of paper.
“What is it?” I asked and reached over for it.
“He’s asked specially for you. Read your research on elective mutism. Saw that article in the paper. Wants you.”
“Oh, good,” I muttered sarcastically.
I hated these—cases where the parents wanted a specific therapist or therapy—because they often came with wildly unrealistic expectations. Many were looking for miracle workers, nothing less, and it seldom worked out that miracles were in the cards.
“Harry’s looked it over,” Nancy said. “He says why don’t you arrange an opportunity to see the child sometime this week. There’s a space in his schedule to interview the parents next Friday, if that works for you. If they want to go ahead with something, if it looks right, there’s a space coming open on the unit a week next Wednesday.”
I took the paper from Nancy. “Geez. This is out in Quentin. Did Harry notice that?”
Nancy lifted her eyebrows in a “no idea” expression.
“That’s almost two hundred miles. It’s going to take over three hours of driving just one way. It’ll use up my entire day just to observe the kid for forty-five minutes.”
“I think that’s why they’re thinking of inpatient.”
“Surely they’ve got services in Quentin.”
“Well, they want you.”
I started reading. It was a personal letter from a man named Mason Sloane. He was the grandfather of the boy in question and the letter was written on the letterhead of a well-known regional bank.
Oddly, to my mind, the first thing Mr. Sloane established was his family business pedigree. They were majority shareholders in the bank, which had been founded in the late 1800s by his grandfather. Ownership and operation of the bank had passed from father to son through the generations and was now managed by Mr. Sloane’s son, who was a prominent businessman in Quentin, a small city of about thirty thousand.
What drew Mr. Sloane to me was an article he had read in the city’s Sunday newspaper about my research into elective mutism. He had a four-year-old grandson named Drake, his only child’s only child. The boy did not speak outside the home. Mr. Sloane said he was an exceptionally intelligent and lively boy; however, he had always refused to speak to almost everyone. The family had taken him to various specialists locally with no success. When Mr. Sloane read about my work, he knew here was Drake’s problem. And I was the solution. Drake had elective mutism and if he came to see me, he would be cured.
The rest of the letter outlined how money was no object nor was distance or effort. They’d do anything to see Drake had the help he needed and I was it. All I had to do was name my price and make the arrangements.
Sitting back in my desk chair, I sighed. The article he was referring to in the newspaper had been one of those things that had seemed like a good idea at the time I did it. This was before I’d gained any insight into how important it was to journalists to write dramatic stories, even if there wasn’t actually any drama in your work to write about, and how, if you did get suckered into talking about your favorite bit of research, a reporter desperate to prove to his boss he can write something more exciting than this week’s round of society weddings was not the best guy to open up to. What I had hoped would be an article providing general information on this surprisingly common childhood problem metamorphosed into pop psychology sound bites that not only had never come out of my mouth but also diminished my treatment methods, making them sound effortlessly, almost arrogantly effective, as if there were no margins for error at all.
There was more to worry about in Mr. Sloane’s letter, however. It was clear from the tone that he had already made several sweeping assumptions: that Drake was a perfectly ordinary boy just waiting to be cured, that “cure” was just a matter of finding someone with the magic to do it, and that enough money could fix anything.
The way the hierarchy was set up at the hospital meant each child who entered the unit was assigned his or her own team of specialists, which would include nursing and care staff, psychologists, occupational or physical therapists and educators from the unit, plus liaison people, who would continue to work with the child when he or she returned to the community. Each such team was always headed by a child psychiatrist. Even if one of us in an allied position had been responsible for referring a child to the unit with the intention of working more intensively on a problem ourselves, nonetheless, the case leader was still one of the psychiatrists. This was because the unit was, first and foremost, a medical facility. The child psychiatrists, by virtue of also being medical doctors, were thus always at the top of the pecking order. Moreover, it was they alone who were able to prescribe drug treatment in addition to the other forms of therapy.
I wasn’t known for being a natural team player, certainly not back in my teaching days, when I’d rather relished the “outsider” status provided by being in special education, and I had always been inclined to rebellion. However, I found this hierarchical approach worked well in the tightly structured hospital setting. I was grateful not to be in a position to make the ultimate decisions, which were often very gray and, thus, very difficult, and frequently had grave consequences. Even more, however, I enjoyed the intellectual stimulation provided by regular interaction with professionals whose background and training were very different from my own.
We had five child psychiatrists, four men and a woman, and they were, all of them, sharp, erudite individuals. My favorite among them was Dave Menotti, who was affable and witty and most likely to come down from “Heaven”—our term for the corridor on the floor above where the psychiatrists’ offices were—to fraternize with us. Harry Patel, however, was the psychiatrist I most looked forward to leading my team. He was a quiet man who seldom socialized, so it was hard to get to know him personally. A native of New Delhi—indeed, a fairly recent immigrant—he often gave the impression of not quite having a command of English, and this contributed to his slightly aloof nature. But this wasn’t true. Harry just didn’t waste words if none were needed. And Harry was stunningly good at what he did. I would have expected the difference of cultures to work against him, but this hadn’t happened. Indeed, perhaps it was this that gave him such astute powers of observation, because I found he could see depth even in the most ordinary of situations. Faint nuances of behavior, fleeting expressions, sighs, silences. He took them all in. He worked with incredible delicacy, never pushing the children, never leading, only following. I loved watching him in action, and I loved even more the chance at his guidance.
So, even though I had qualms about Mr. Sloane’s letter regarding his grandson, if Harry suggested we observe the child, I was happy to do so. Thus, I cleared my schedule, packed up my “box of tricks,” and set out for the long journey to Quentin.
Chapter
4
I enjoyed the drive out to Quentin, appreciating a chance to get away from the city for the day. It was late winter going into spring and the weather was gorgeous in that heartbreaking way of a dying season. The snow was gone, the landscape gray and brown, and yet there was an expectancy to it, a nascent joie de vivre. Moreover, I loved driving itself and the freedom and solitude of being on the open road.
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I reached the preschool just after eleven, which gave me about forty-five minutes to observe Drake in his class. Martina, Drake’s teacher, greeted me in the school office.
“We’ve been expecting you,” she said cheerfully. “We’ve had at least five phone calls this morning.”
I raised my eyebrows in surprise. “Really? From whom?”
“Mr. Sloane. To see if you had come.”
“Drake’s father?”
“No, Mason Sloane, Drake’s grandfather. We all call Drake’s father ‘Walter.’ Mr. Sloane is his father.” She laughed. “It can be even more confusing than that, because Mr. Sloane always refers to his son as ‘Watty,’ while Walter’s wife calls him ‘Skip.’” Then a friendly grin. “But ‘Mr.’ always refers to the old man.”
“And he’s been calling? Here?”
Good-naturedly, Martina rolled her eyes. “Welcome to Sloaneville.”
Drake was not at all what I’d anticipated. His macho soap-opera name had put me in mind of aristocrats or oversexed mallards. When I first saw him in the classroom, however, I didn’t even realize Drake was a boy. Not only were his features soft and feminine, but his hairstyle was a girl’s. At least in my book. He was blond with thick, shiny, straight hair, and it was cut in what I could only describe as a bob. And not even a “Dutch boy” bob. This was a long, shoulder-length bob with well-trimmed bangs of the sort you might see in pictures of boys in medieval times. I had not seen any boys look like this lately, however. Even back in the 1960s and 1970s when there was a certain vogue for long-haired boys’ styles, they were not the court-of-King-Arthur fashion this boy wore.
Drake also defied the stereotypic personality of an elective mute. In my experience, the majority of children with this disorder were shy and withdrawn. Drake, however, was participating joyfully in a rollicking singing and dancing game with the other children. He wasn’t singing, of course, but he was having a high old time joining in with the movements, his actions open and uninhibited.
At least pretty much they were “open and uninhibited,” because that was the other unusual thing about him. He was not dancing alone. Accompanying him was an enormous stuffed tiger, which he clutched tightly around the neck with one arm. It had brilliantly hued orange-and-black stripes, a merry, almost cartoonish face, a big fluffy white belly, and was formed into a permanent sitting position. And quite honestly it was almost as tall as Drake was.
Taken aback by this Prince-Valiant-meets-Calvinand-Hobbes combination, I just stared.
He was fun to watch. This kid had megawatt charisma. The other children in the class were unfazed by his silence, his odd name, his crazy hairstyle, or his having a life-sized tiger for a sidekick. They actively sought his company and included him in everything happening. Drake responded to each overture with enthusiastic charm. Indeed, he responded just as eagerly to the teachers. I observed him focusing well, listening attentively to instructions, following directions easily and cheerfully. From everything I observed that morning, Drake was a happy, well-adjusted little character.
After the children left, I joined Martina for lunch in the teachers’ lounge. “He’s certainly not what I expected,” I said. “I’m going to admit right here that seeing him in the classroom, I wouldn’t have identified him as having the level of problems he apparently has. What’s your take on all this?”
“Have you met the family yet?”
“No.”
She raised her eyebrows meaningfully. “Well, I won’t say anything more, then. I’ll let you form your own opinion.”
Comprehending, I nodded.
A pause.
“So tell me about the mutism,” I said.
“It’s absolute. In all the time he’s been here, I’ve never heard a single word out of him. In fact, he almost makes no noise of any kind. He does speak at home. He just won’t speak here in front of anyone else.”
“So what have you tried?” I asked.
Martina shrugged. “To be honest, not much. He’s only four. I’ve had other kids with these kinds of problems. Usually, like him, they’re only children. Or firstborn. They come in really shy and frightened and feel a bit besieged by all this new activity. Normally, I just give them time and eventually they do settle in and start talking.”
“So you’ve had experience before with elective mutism?”
She nodded. “I’ve been teaching preschool almost twenty-five years now. You see all kinds. I can remember this one little girl. Her name was Stormy, of all things. Which was quite a misnomer. Tiny, pale, mousy little thing, and she wouldn’t say a word. Would hardly breathe. She sat all folded up on her chair, and you could just tell she was overwhelmed. Her mother was really shy as well, so I think it was a family trait. And yeah, she was totally mute, just like Drake. Wouldn’t say a thing. It must have taken six months or more with her. But we just stayed patient and finally she started.
“So this is what I told Drake’s family,” Martina continued. “Just give him time. He’ll settle in. But Christ, that grandfather. Nothing is good enough for that man. Nothing happens fast enough. He runs his life like it’s a business. In fact, I think he’d like to run everybody’s life like a business, and I’m quite sure he does at home. He’s absolutely fixated on ‘meeting targets,’ on everything ‘being within normal guidelines.’ That’s the whole reason they brought Drake into this program. To ‘get him to meet normal guidelines.’ I mean, hell, what’s that when it’s at home? There’s huge latitude when you’re talking ‘normal’ at age four. But obviously, whatever we’re doing, we’re not doing it well enough, because now you’re here. He didn’t even have the courtesy to inform us, to give us a chance to review the situation. Just bang. ‘Time’s up. You’re finished.’”
“So you don’t really think Drake’s mutism is a problem?” I asked.
Martina shrugged. “I dunno. I wouldn’t want to say at this point, really. I don’t see the point of giving him that kind of label. If it were my kid, I would have just left well enough alone, because he’s doing really well in all other respects. So I would have just given him time to grow. He’s a young one. An August birthday. I personally wouldn’t start him in kindergarten this year, which, of course, is what they want to do when fall comes. Yes, he is definitely bright enough. No question of that. But what’s the hurry? The rat race will still be there. So I’d say, ‘Here, sonny, play another year.’ I think that’s all he needs.”
“What’s with the stuffed toy?” I asked.
“Ahh. That’s ‘Friend.’ That’s what we’ve named it; I think just because you always tend to say, ‘Where’s his friend?’ Drake doesn’t call it anything, of course. Or if he does, we don’t know about it. But if you want to see him get distressed, try taking Friend off him.”
“It’s a little … big, isn’t it?”
“Tell me about it. And it goes absolutely everywhere. To lunch. On the playground. To the toilets. Now, that’s fun! I say, ‘Let’s leave Friend out here so he doesn’t get dirty while you go potty,’ and I might as well be saying, ‘I’m going to cut Friend up into little pieces and stuff him down this toilet while you’re in there.’”
I grinned. “Wishful thinking?”
Martina grinned back. “If I tell you we actually got stuck in one of the toilet cubicles one day because of Friend, you’ll get the picture. Just some places that you, a kid, and a three-foot tiger can’t go.”
“So what’s your take on Friend?” I asked. “Security blanket?”
“Oh, no, Friend’s much more than that. He’s a proper friend. You know. The kind you have to set a place for at the table. Drake is an imaginative little boy. We’re handicapped, of course, not having him say anything, but you can tell when watching him that he’s ‘talking’ to Friend. And he’s quite insistent that Friend be given his own paintbrush or crayons or cracker at snacktime. My guess is that Friend is more than just a security blanket. I suspect we’ve got a very intelligent, creative child here, and Friend’s the only one with
access to his world.”
After lunch I was to spend half an hour of individual assessment time with Drake. I was shown into the room where the youngest children in the program—the two-year-olds—met, because they only came in the mornings, so the room was empty in the afternoons. It was a lovely room, bright and spacious, painted pale green and white, with a generous number of attractive toys. I was concerned that these would distract Drake, making him uninterested in one-to-one work with me, especially as he himself would be tired by that point. However, I needn’t have worried. He entered willingly with Martina and when she introduced me, he happily sat down in one of the small chairs beside me at the table. Well, he and Friend.
He was a very attractive child. Indeed, he was more than attractive. There was about him a cherubic beauty. Porcelain skin, delicate little Cupid’s-bow mouth, sparkly brown eyes with lashes so long they fell in the “to die for” category. He was like one of those dolls-for-adults, those “collectors’ pieces” that are never meant to be played with. His girlish haircut contributed to this rarified aura.
And he was a very charming child. Looking up with wonderfully smiley eyes, as he sat beside me, his expression was of eager, almost squirmy anticipation, like a happy puppy. It made me feel just as eager.
“Hi, my name’s Torey, and know what? I’ve come here today just to see you! You and I are going to do some interesting things together.”
More excited squirming, more gleeful smiling.
“And look. I’ve got a box all full of fun things for us to do. Shall we open it and see?”
Drake didn’t try to open the box himself, but he looked at it with anticipation. I reached over and pulled the box toward us. This was the “bag of tricks” I traveled with when I went to assess children or work with them in schools. The container had originally been a presentation box for a gift of fruit, and as the fruit had had to travel by carrier, it was sturdily made. It was low and flat with a lid that lifted off. Inside I kept a whole assortment of things I thought might be helpful in encouraging children to talk—puppets, paper dolls, plain and colored paper, a whole collection of different pens, pencils, and crayons in a smaller box, some stickers, a couple of picture books, a Richard Scarry’s word book, a joke book, a coloring book, a paperback full of puzzles, two Matchbox cars, a family of dollhouse dolls, an old, broken Instamatic camera, some plastic animals, some plastic soldiers, and whatever “clever” things currently had my fancy. At the moment it was a “fortune-telling” fish, which was really no more than a piece of plastic that flipped around when warmed by the heat of the hand.
