Finding a Voice

by Kim Hood

  The girl was taken to hospital, where she is in stable condition, recovering from non life threatening injuries. The boy was located about one mile away and airlifted to hospital. He too is in stable condition.

  ‘When I found her, she was in pretty bad condition,’ said Jones. ‘She was bleeding pretty badly, and she seemed to be in shock. All she could say over and over again, was to find her friend, that he was in danger.’

  It is still unclear why Jo would have taken Chris, a severely physically impaired fifteen year old. No other people are suspected to be involved, and as both are minors, no charges are expected to be laid. However, given the level of disability of the boy, the police have concerns about the teen girl endangering his life in what was essentially abduction.

  ‘We are respecting the wishes of both the family of the girl and the care staff of the boy in their request to allow Jo to recover before questioning her,’ said Officer Morgan.

  It won’t be possible to question Chris, as he is non-verbal and has no means of communicating.

  ‘Wow, I think I am in trouble, Mom,’ I said, when I had finished reading the article.

  ‘You could say that you have stirred the pot of complacency, Jo.’ Mom was as clear as ever. ‘Newspapers don’t always get the whole, or even the right, story. Notice the part about you being covered in blood? Not true. I was here to meet you before you went into surgery, a few scrapes on your hands, but other than that no blood.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  But in the early afternoon, sure enough a police officer did come to talk to me. The nurse came in and called Mom out, and then they both came in with the police officer, uniform and all. My heart sped up a little, but I thought back to the fear of being in the cabin, not knowing if Chris was okay, and knew that any trouble I was in didn’t matter. Chris was alive and nothing else mattered.

  Right away, the officer let me know that he was not here on a social visit.

  ‘Hello, young lady,’ he greeted me. ‘I suppose you know that you are very fortunate that everything has turned out as it has.’

  I nodded, holding tight to my confidence that everything would be okay.

  ‘It is a very serious offence to take someone, or hold someone, against their will. You are only lucky that juvenile law applies to you, but consequences can still be serious. Do you understand what I’m saying?’

  Again I nodded.

  ‘Is it okay if I ask you a few questions?’ the officer asked, taking off his hat.

  ‘Yes. I’m ready,’ I said, prepared to share everything.

  He took out a small notepad and a pen.

  ‘So I understand from Mr Jenkins that you were assisting Chris at lunch time on Thursday. But at the end of lunch, when Florence came to collect him, you were both gone. Can you take me through what happened?’

  I took a breath and then just told him the whole thing. I started with Chris’s communication: H O M E S A D and my sudden decision to run with him. I told him the details of getting to the cabin, the fall, the seizure, the fear that Chris might be very sick and even die. I just spilled out the truth.

  The officer’s expression didn’t change through my lengthy retelling. He just nodded in encouragement. When I was done, he flipped back through the notes he had taken while I talked.

  ‘You mentioned that Chris told you that he was sad at home, and that this prompted you to make the decision to run away. Can you explain that a bit? Chris can’t talk, from what I understand.’

  ‘He can’t talk with his voice. And he’s a bit stubborn, so he never wanted to use picture symbols to talk and that’s what people were trying to teach him when he was a young kid. But somehow he learned to read, and his spelling isn’t great, but he can dictate messages.’

  The officer wasn’t writing notes anymore. He was looking at me with his mouth open.

  ‘And you know this because?’

  I didn’t think he believed me at all.

  ‘We have a way of talking. Can you show me your cell phone?’

  I explained to him how Chris tapped his head, the same way someone would use the number pad to write a text.

  ‘Why doesn’t anyone else know about this? It’s the first I heard he could communicate.’

  ‘Because I’m stupid and thought I had to sort Chris’s whole life out before I let anyone know,’ I supposed. And there was more. ‘Plus, I think it was that I thought it was something special that only I could talk with Chris. In a way I didn’t want to share that. I thought I could be the one to make everything perfect, and I just couldn’t. That was wrong, and selfish.’

  ‘So if I went in to ask Chris questions, he could answer me?’ the officer asked.

  ‘If he wanted to he would. I can’t promise he will.’

  ‘And tell me, I had down that Chris is, how do you say…’ He flipped through his notes again, finding an underlined bit. ‘Intellectually impaired, probably in the moderate range? Are you saying that isn’t true?’

  I smiled, remembering a similar conversation with Mr Jenkins.

  ‘I don’t know. Does it matter? It’s not like someone who isn’t as smart, or even isn’t able to use words to talk, can’t let you know how they feel. You just have to listen.’

  I sat clutching the pieces of torn paper, with their hurried letters scrawled on them. I had shown the officer how to use the system, mimicking the way that Chris would respond with his head while the officer practised by asking me questions. Then I had pleaded to see Chris, just for a short while, and to explain to him that someone new was going to use the communication system to ask him questions.

  ‘He just might be more likely to talk to you, if I set it up first,’ I tried. ‘That is, if he’ll ever talk to me again.’

  ‘I suppose so. But I’ll leave it to the nurse to make sure he’s okay with seeing you,’ he had warned.

  So now I was being wheeled to see him. He was in a room just down the hall. There were three other beds in the room, but all of them were empty. The head of Chris’s bed was propped up and he was hooked up to an IV much the same as the one the nurse wheeled along with my wheelchair. I was relieved to see the smile I was used to seeing on his face.

  ‘Remember, only five minutes,’ the nurse reminded me, as she parked my wheelchair nearby – too far for me to reach Chris’s bed. I was learning what it was like to rely on someone else for movement.

  ‘Is it okay for you to bring me right up to Chris? We need these cards to talk, and I need to put them on the bed.’ I indicated the pieces of paper in my lap. I saw the nurse hesitate. ‘It’s not like I can do a runner out the door with him now.’

  The nurse smiled and inched my chair right beside him and then headed out the door. I took a deep breath and looked Chris in the eye, hoping he would know how sincere my next words were.

  ‘First, I’m so sorry, Chris. I didn’t mean to scare you. I didn’t mean to drop you in the river and I understand if you will hate me forever.’ I had practised these words on the way down the hall.

  ‘Do you hate me?’ I asked, prepared for him not to answer. He did though, a definite head tap to the right, ‘No.’

  ‘I only have a few minutes, and then the police are going to ask you questions. So, it’s up to you, anything you want to say to me?’

  He tapped to the left.

  ‘Okay. I’m going to listen this time.’

  Chris had never been so definite and fast in his head tapping. N O T M E S A D J O S H O M E S A D. Then he stopped responding.

  It took a minute for me to figure out the words. Then I did and I understood my mistake.

  ‘Not me sad. Jo’s home sad,’ I read out. ‘Is that right, Chris?’

  An emphatic ‘yes’.

  Chris had not been telling me that he was sad in his own home; he had been worried about me and the problems I had in my home. I had misread him completely. Presumed that he must be sad to live in the group home. During all my rambling every lunch hour I had thought I was just talking to myself. B
ut Chris had been carefully listening to me, really caring, even knowing I was sad without me even talking about it.

  Even though we only had a few minutes together, I had to just sit and take that in before I prepared him to talk to the police. I didn’t have any experience in having a friend. It had never occurred to me that Chris might be sad for me. It was the strangest thing – knowing that he cared that I had been sad, suddenly made me happier than I had ever been.

  But it wasn’t the time to tell him any of this. The nurse was back to take me to my room. I had to let Chris know about his next conversation – if he chose to have it.

  ‘I’m only allowed to be here a few minutes, and I think the time is up,’ I said, nodding my head toward the nurse. ‘There is a police officer here, and I’ve showed him how we talk. He wants to ask you about me taking you from the school.’

  Chris’s eyes were intently on mine, and his brows furrowed.

  ‘Please, Chris. Talk to him. I don’t care what you say. Just … it’s your first chance to talk to someone, and he’s promised he’ll listen.’

  That’s all that I had time for. The nurse wheeled me away and the police officer walked in to Chris. I wasn’t worried. Whatever he said was going to be okay. As long as he chose to say something.

  I knew that Chris could be stubborn when he wanted to be, but I should have known by now that he also seized opportunity when it came along. The officer had promised that he would give me an honest report of how it went, as long as it was okay with Chris, if he said anything at all. It was nearly an hour later when he returned, still carrying his little notepad.

  I looked at him expectantly, half dreading what he might have to say to me. He was shaking his head when he sat down and I felt my face drain of colour. I was in trouble.

  ‘I’ve a lot to report back to you,’ he said. ‘Chris had a lot to say it seems. I didn’t exactly think you were lying about him talking to you, but I didn’t believe he would say so much. He wants me to tell you all this by the way.’

  The officer opened his notepad.

  ‘This was his response to my question about being taken from the school by force. And I quote: Surprised, but I trust Jo. She my friend. Only wants to help me. Nobody listened before. Gives me a voice, first time ever. Please don’t put her in jail. I need her. Everything okay with us. No jail please.’

  ‘He said that?’ I was incredulous. Chris had never been able to say that much before.

  ‘And you are right. His spelling is atrocious. Took me ages to get it right.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  I wouldn’t get to speak to Chris for nearly two weeks. He was released from the hospital the next day but I had to stay and it would be two weeks before I was finally able to go back to school on crutches.

  A lot happened in that time though. And when I saw him next, it would never be just me and Chris talking again. Chris would be able to talk to anyone he wanted to.

  When Mr Jenkins came to visit me the next day it almost seemed like I was back in science class with him. He popped his head in my hospital room door, without actually entering the room, much the same as he would have in the SE wing.

  ‘You missed science Friday, so I thought I might stop in and pick up our lesson here,’ he teased, ‘Unless you’re busy?’

  ‘Actually, you are one on my long list of apologies to be made,’ I said.

  ‘Oh good,’ he said, striding in the room and sitting down for once. ‘But apologies are all mine I’m afraid – though I do admit that I wasn’t so happy with you a couple of days ago.’

  ‘Sorry about that. I know the police were around and everything. Was it bad?’

  ‘Typical teens going missing hardly registers, I’m afraid. Kids in our wing, now that’s a different story. S-h-i-t hits the fan,’ he said. ‘We had a lot to answer for, but hey, it’s all in a day’s work.’

  ‘I understand if I can’t help Chris anymore.’

  ‘Well, I have a feeling we will be able to work through that one. But first my apologies.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘I wasn’t upfront with you, Jo, and I’m afraid I probably contributed to you feeling you had nowhere to turn.’

  ‘What?’ I wasn’t sure what he was talking about.

  ‘I’ve just been in to see Chris and one of his house staff. They had no idea before now that Chris was opening up to anyone. They’re pretty excited about it, by the way.’

  ‘They know about that now? And I guess you do too,’ I said, feeling my face flush at hearing our secret revealed.

  ‘They do after one amazed police officer paid them a visit. Me, on the other hand, I had a fairly good idea that you two were up to some kind of communicating quite a while ago. I didn’t push you to share it with me, because I secretly hoped you were the key to unlocking the potential I suspected all along,’ he confessed.

  ‘You did?’ I was surprised. Wasn’t he always trying to dissuade me from thinking Chris had more capability than he showed? ‘But I thought you didn’t care at all.’

  ‘I see that now, and for that I’m sorry. Really I am,’ he apologised again. ‘I’d tried for two years to get him to communicate. I’d see a spark of interest sometimes, and I could see Chris follow conversations when he was interested, but mostly he’d just go into another zone with me.’

  ‘Mr Jenkins, he’s very stubborn. Don’t feel bad, he does that with me sometimes too.’

  ‘Yes, but he wants to talk to you. I kind of used you, looking for a way – any way – to get Chris to want to talk.’

  ‘That’s okay. I guess it worked for me as much as Chris. Neither of us had anyone we wanted to talk to before now.’

  ‘To be honest, I was so focused on finding the key to helping Chris communicate – I forgot that he just might not want to talk,’ Mr Jenkins went on. ‘I should have thought about it. I can’t go into it, sensitive information about students and all, but he didn’t have the easiest of childhoods before living where he does now.’

  ‘I kind of know about difficult childhoods myself.’ Somehow it didn’t feel like betraying Mom anymore to say this.

  Mr Jenkins was quiet for a moment.

  ‘Maybe that’s why he picked you, Jo. The rest of us were so busy trying to help him. For the first time someone needed his help.’

  ‘No wonder he stopped talking to me then.’ I smiled, thinking how true this probably was.

  ‘I was planning to talk to you Friday because I was heading off to an important conference that afternoon. It was all about communication technology and I wanted to ask you if you thought there was anything that might benefit Chris.’

  I started. Surely it was the conference that I had been wildly planning to take Chris to!

  ‘I very nearly missed it too. We were gearing up for search parties on Friday morning and so going to the conference was the last thing on my mind. I managed to get to it on Saturday after you were found, though.’

  ‘I can tell you what Chris needs. I can show you from the catalogues,’ I began, and then checked myself. ‘Well, I can tell you what I think – but you better ask Chris, not just me.’

  ‘Good point.’

  ‘It’s just that everything is so expensive.’

  ‘Yes, I won’t kid you. That’s a problem. I promise you that it is a problem I will tackle though. I’ll find a way to get it for him.’

  Mr Jenkins wasn’t the only visitor I had that day. I was intent on trying to lean as far as I could to reach a book on my bedside table that was just out of reach, when a hand appeared and brought the book over to me.

  ‘Here let me help you.’

  I looked up to see Sarah. She smiled shyly as she handed me the book.

  ‘Is it okay that I’m visiting you?’ she asked.

  ‘Sure,’ I said, ‘Are you sure you want to be around me though?’

  ‘I never didn’t,’ Sarah said. ‘I didn’t know Lisa was such a cow, I swear I didn’t. She is so mean, and she made it seem I said things I
never said. The very next day after you ran out of lunch in the drama room I told her I didn’t want to hang out with her.’

  ‘Really?’ I was shocked.

  ‘I tried to stop you for weeks after that to explain, but you didn’t even seem to see me, and then I just thought you must truly hate me. Maybe you still do.’

  I was through with being afraid of what anyone thought of me. I didn’t want to keep any more secrets, or try to fit in. I liked Sarah a whole lot, but if it meant trying to pretend that I lived a normal life, so that she liked me, then it wouldn’t be worth it.

  ‘Look, Sarah. I have to let you know. Lisa is right. My mom has some pretty serious mental health problems. That freaks people out. And we don’t have much money; that’s true too. But I’m not ashamed and I don’t need sympathy.’

  ‘Well, my dad is an alcoholic, and we had to leave him this last summer. And I am kind of ashamed of all that. Plus, with moving and all I don’t know anyone, and I need a friend!’ Sarah blurted out.

  ‘Oh!’ I exclaimed, ‘I’m sorry Sarah, I didn’t know. I’m just not that used to people wanting to be my friend!’

  ‘I don’t know anything about that. All I know is that you’re funny and smart and I’d ten times rather have you as a friend than Lisa.’

  ‘Well, I can see your point there,’ I had to agree. ‘She is kind of a cow.’

  And the visitors didn’t stop there. My final visitor that day, Mom’s social worker, came for more serious reasons though.

  ‘Here’s the deal, Jo,’ Francie started, without as much as a hello. ‘I had to work my connections, but you seem to have done your part in impressing the cops as well. So some decisions have been made as to what to do with you.’

  I waited for Francie to take off her coat and sit down.

  ‘These situations could become very messy when there is history – not yours, but your mom’s history.’

  ‘What exactly do you mean by “these situations”?’

  ‘Abducting a person, holding them against their will, endangering their life; that sort of situation,’ Francie said.