Ellie took a deep breath. It was impossible not to think suddenly of the line of hopeful parents outside, all of them waiting for a miracle. This would be the longest day of her life. Already she wanted to cry.
She took the photo, touched it. When she looked up again, Mrs. Stern was weeping. “Ruthie’s blood type?”
“O,” Mrs. Stern said, wiping her eyes and waiting.
“I’m sorry,” Ellie said. “So very sorry.”
Across the room, Peanut opened the door. Another couple walked in, clutching a color photograph to their chest.
Please God, Ellie prayed, closing her eyes for just a moment, a heartbeat, let me be strong enough for this.
Then Mrs. Stern started to talk. “Horses,” she said in a throaty voice. “She loved horses, our Ruthie. We thought she wasn’t old enough for lessons. Next year, we always said. Next year …”
Dr. Stern touched his wife’s arm. “And then … this.” He took the picture from Ellie, staring down at it. Tears brightened his eyes. He looked up finally. “You have children, Chief Barton?”
“No.”
Ellie thought he was going to say something to that, but he remained silent, helping his wife to her feet.
“Thank you for your time, Chief.”
“I’m sorry,” she said again.
“I know,” he said, and Ellie could see suddenly how fragile he was, how hard he was working to keep his composure. He took his wife’s arm and steered her to the door. They left.
A moment later a man walked in. He wore a battered, patched pair of faded overalls and a flannel shirt. An orange Stihl chainsaw baseball cap covered his eyes, and a gray beard consumed the lower half of his face. He clutched a photograph to his chest.
It was of a blond cheerleader; Ellie could see from here.
“Chief Barton?” he said in a hopeful voice.
“That’s me,” she answered. “Please. Come sit down …”
TEN
Last night Julia had transformed her girlhood bedroom into a safety zone for her and her patient. The two twin beds still graced the left wall, but now the spaces beneath them were filled to block hiding places. In the corner by the window, she’d gathered almost one dozen tall, potted plants and created a mini-forest. A long Formica table took up the center of the room, serving as a desk and study space. Two chairs sat tucked up beside it. Now, however, she realized what she’d missed: a comfortable chair.
For the past six hours the child had stood at the barred, open window, with her arm stuck outside. Come rain or shine, she held her hand out there. Somewhere around noon a robin had landed on the windowsill and stayed there. Now, in the pale gray sunlight that followed the last hour’s rain, a brightly colored butterfly landed on her outstretched hand, fluttering there for the space of a single breath, then flew off.
If Julia hadn’t written it down, she would have stopped believing she’d seen it. After all, it was autumn; hardly the season for butterflies, and even in the full heat of summer, they rarely landed on a little girl’s hand, not even for an instant.
But she had written it down, made a note of it in the permanent file, and so there it was now. A fact to be considered, another oddity among the rest.
Perhaps it was the girl’s stillness. She hadn’t moved in hours.
Not a shifting of her weight, not a changing of her arm, not a turn of her head. Not only did she evidence no repetitive or obsessive movements, she was as still as a chameleon. The social worker who had come this morning to conduct the home study to determine Julia’s fitness as a temporary foster parent had been shocked, though she tried to hide it. As she closed her notebook, the woman had thrown a last, worried glance at the girl before whispering to Julia, “Are you sure?”
“I am,” Julia had said. And she was. Helping this child had already become something of a quest.
Last night after preparing the bedroom, she had stayed up late, sitting at the kitchen table, making notes and reading everything she’d been able to find on the few true wild children on record. It was both fascinating and wrenchingly sad.