The Rescue - Nicholas Sparks [7]
Kyle didn’t answer. Instead he lifted a tiny jet in the air, pretending to make it fly. One eye was closed, the other was focused on the toy in his hand.
“Kyle, honey, do you see any boats?”
He made a tiny, rushing sound with his throat, the sounds of a make-believe engine surging in throttle. He wasn’t paying attention to her.
She looked out over the water. No boats in sight. She reached over and touched his hand, making sure she had his attention.
“Kyle? Say, ‘I don’t see any boats.’ ”
“Airplane.” (Owpwane)
“I know it’s an airplane. Say, ‘I don’t see any boats.’ ”
He raised the toy a little higher, one eye still focused on it. After a moment he spoke again.
“Jet airplane.” (Jet owpwane)
“Yes, you’re holding an airplane.”
“Jet airplane.” (Jet owpwane)
She sighed. “Yes, a jet airplane.”
“Owpwane.”
She looked at his face, so perfect, so beautiful, so normal looking. She used her finger to turn his face toward hers.
“Even though we’re outside, we still have to work, okay? . . . You have to say what I tell you to, or we go back to the living room, to your chair. You don’t want to do that, do you?”
Kyle didn’t like his chair. Once strapped in, he couldn’t get away, and no child—Kyle included—enjoyed something like that. Still, Kyle moved the toy airplane back and forth with measured concentration, keeping it aligned with an imaginary horizon.
Denise tried again.
“Say, ‘I don’t see any boats.’ ”
Nothing.
She pulled a tiny piece of candy from her coat pocket.
Kyle saw it and reached for it. She kept it out of his grasp.
“Kyle? Say, ‘I don’t see any boats.’ ”
It was like pulling teeth, but the words finally came out.
He whispered, “I don’t see any boats.” (Duh see a-ee boat)
Denise leaned in and kissed him, then gave him the candy. “That’s right, honey, that’s right. Good talking! You’re such a good talker!”
Kyle took in her praise while he ate the candy, then focused on the toy again.
Denise jotted his words in her notebook and went on with the lesson. She glanced upward, thinking of something he hadn’t said that day.
“Kyle, say, ‘The sky is blue.’ ”
After a beat:
“Owpwane.”
In the car again, now twenty minutes from home. In the back she heard Kyle fidget in his seat, and she glanced in the rearview mirror. The sounds in the car soon quieted, and she was careful not to make any noise until she was sure he was sleeping again.
Kyle.
Yesterday was typical of her life with him. A step forward, a step backward, two steps to the side, always a struggle. He was better than he once had been, yet he was still too far behind. Would he ever catch up?
Outside, dark clouds spanned the sky above, rain fell steadily. In the backseat Kyle was dreaming, his eyelids twitching. She wondered what his dreams were like. Were they devoid of sound, a silent film running through his head, nothing more than pictures of rocket ships and jets blazing across the sky? Or did he dream using the few words he knew? She didn’t know. Sometimes, when she sat with him as he lay sleeping in his bed, she liked to imagine that in his dreams he lived in a world where everyone understood him, where the language was real—maybe not English, but something that made sense to him. She hoped he dreamed of playing with other children, children who responded to him, children who didn’t shy away because he didn’t speak. In his dreams, she hoped he was happy. God could at least do that much, couldn’t he?
Now, driving along a quiet highway, she was alone. With Kyle in the back, she was still alone. She hadn’t chosen this life; it was the only life offered to her. It could have been worse, of course, and she did her best to keep this perspective. But most of the time, it wasn’t easy.
Would Kyle have had these problems if his father were around? In her heart she wasn’t exactly sure, but she didn’t want to think so. She’d once asked one of Kyle’s doctors about it, and he’d said he didn’t know. An honest