“The lizards?” He was scratching away.
“Noah was two. We were at the Museum of Natural History. We went to see the lizard and snake exhibit. And he was … just…” She paused. “The only word for it is transfixed, I guess. He stood right in front of the first tank and starting yelping. I thought something was wrong, and then he said, ‘Look, a bearded dragon!’”
She glanced at Anderson and saw how intensely he was listening to her. The other psychologists had never been interested in the lizards. He bent to write a note, and she noticed that his blue sweater, which looked so soft and expensive, had a conspicuous hole in the sleeve. It was probably as old as she was.
“I was pretty surprised, because his vocabulary was limited at that point, he had just turned two, it was all ‘I want Mom-Mom and water and duck and milk.’
“Mom-Mom?”
“He usually calls me that, or Mommy-Mom. I guess he likes to have his own name for me. Anyway, I thought he was making it up.”
“Making what up?”
“The name. Bearded dragon. It sounded fanciful to me, like something a child would dream up, a dragon with a beard. So I laughed at him, thinking it was cute. And I said, ‘Actually, sweetie, it’s a—’ and looked over, you know, at the card. And, sure enough, it was called a bearded dragon.
“And so I asked him, ‘Noah, how do you know about bearded dragons?’ And he said—” She looked again at Anderson. “He said, ‘’Cause I had one.’”
“’Cause I had one?”
“I thought … I don’t know what I thought. He was being a kid, making things up.”
“And you never owned a lizard?”
“God, no.” He laughed, and she felt an uncoiling, a relief at talking freely about Noah’s differences. “And it wasn’t only bearded dragons. He knew all the lizards.”
“He knew their names,” Anderson murmured.
“Every lizard in the place. At the age of two.”
She had been so startled, so proud of his obvious intelligence, of his—why not say it?—giftedness. He knew the names of all the lizards—something she had never known. It thrilled her, watching him stare into each miniature rain forest, so cunning and mossy, its inhabitants barely moving except for the flick of a tongue or a jerky journey across a log, while his high pure voice exclaimed, “Mommy-Mom, it’s a monitor! It’s a gecko! It’s a water dragon!” She had thought with relief that his way in life would be clear: scholarships to the best schools and universities, his formidable intelligence greasing the way to a successful life.
And then, gradually, her pride had turned into confusion. How did he know this stuff? Was there some kind of book or video he’d memorized? But why hadn’t he mentioned it before? Had someone taught him? The matter had never been clarified; she had merely accepted it as part of his specialness.
“Was there a book or video at a friend’s house, maybe?” Anderson asked now, as if reading her mind, his quiet voice bringing her back to the clatter of the diner. “Or his nursery school? Something he might have seen somewhere?”
“That’s the strange thing. I asked around—I was pretty thorough. There was nothing.”
He nodded. “Would you mind if I asked around a bit myself? At his school and with his friends and sitters?”
“I guess not.” She looked at him sideways. “It sounds like you’re trying to explain it away. Don’t you believe me?”
“We have to think like the skeptics think. Or it’s all—” He shrugged. “Now: did you notice any change in his behavior, after the episode with the lizard?”
“His nightmares got worse, I guess.”
“Tell me about those,” he said, his head bent over his pad. But it was too much, suddenly, to tell.
“You might want to look at this.” She placed the binder that was Noah on the table and slid it across to him.
*
Anderson turned the pages slowly, poring over the details. The case was not as strong as he’d hoped—the nightmares and water phobia were commonplace, if unusually intense, the rifle and Harry Potter references were interesting but inconclusive, and the knowledge of lizards was promising, but only if he could prove that there was no clear source for the child’s expertise. Most important, there was nothing concrete that might lead him to a previous personality—guns and Harry Potter books were as widespread as air in this culture, and a bearded dragon pet was nothing much to go on. The child had mentioned a lake house to his teachers, but it was useless to him without a name for the lake.