“No, I’m not,” he said, images of the past surfacing against his will.

“Yes, you are.” She reached for his hand. For the next twenty minutes they talked about inconsequential things, their conversation wandering here and there. At last Taylor asked about the men who wanted to drive her home; she laughed and rolled her eyes, explaining it away as part of the job. “The nicer I am, the more tips I get. But some men, I suppose, take it the wrong way.”

The simple drift of the conversation was soothing; Denise did her best to keep Taylor’s thoughts away from the accident. As a child, when she’d had nightmares, her mother used to do the same thing. By talking about something else, anything else, she would finally be able to relax.

It seemed to be working for Taylor as well. He gradually began to speak less, his answers coming more slowly. His eyes closed and opened, closed again. His breaths settled into a deeper rhythm as the demands of the day began to take their toll.

Denise held his hand, watching until he nodded off. Then she rose from the couch and retrieved an extra blanket from her bedroom. When she gave him a nudge, Taylor lay down and she was able to drape the blanket over him.

Half-asleep, he mumbled something about having to go; Denise whispered that he was fine where he was. “Go to sleep,” she murmured as she turned off the lamp.

She went to her own room and slipped out of her workclothes, then into her pajamas. She untied her ponytail, brushed her teeth, and scrubbed the grease from her face. Then, after crawling into bed, she closed her eyes.

The fact that Taylor McAden was sleeping in the other room was the last thing she remembered before she, too, nodded off.

“Hewwo, Tayer,” Kyle said happily.

Taylor opened his eyes, squinting against the early morning sunlight streaming in the living room window. Wiping the sleep from his eyes with the back of his hand, he saw Kyle standing over him, his face very close. Kyle’s hair, clumped and matted, pointed off in various directions.

It took a second for Taylor to register where he was. When Kyle pulled back, smiling, Taylor sat up. He ran both hands through his hair. Checking his watch, he saw that it was a little after six in the morning. The rest of the house was quiet.

“Good morning, Kyle. How are you?”

“He’s sleeping.” (Eez sweepeen)

“Where’s your mom?”

“He’s on the couch.” (Eez on-ah coush)

Taylor straightened up, feeling the stiffness in his joints. His shoulder ached as it always did when he woke.

“I sure was.”

Taylor stretched his arms out to the side and yawned.

“Good morning,” he heard behind him. Over his shoulder he saw Denise coming out of her room, wearing long pink pajamas and socks. He stood up from the couch.

“Good morning,” he said, turning around. “I reckon I must have dozed off last night.”

“You were tired.”

“Sorry about that.”

“It’s okay,” she said. Kyle had wandered to the corner of the living room and sat down to play with his toys. Denise walked over to him and bent, kissing him on the top of the head. “Good morning, sweetie.”

“Morning,” he said. (Mawneen)

“Are you hungry?”

“No.”

“Do you want some yogurt?”

“No.”

“Do you want to play with your toys?”

Kyle nodded, and Denise returned her attention to Taylor. “How about you? Are you hungry?”

“I don’t want you to have to cook up something special.”

“I was going to offer you some Cheerios,” she said, eliciting a smile from Taylor. She adjusted her pajama top. “Did you sleep okay?”

“Like a rock,” he said. “Thanks for last night. You were more than patient with me.”

She shrugged, her eyes catching the morning light. Her hair, long and tangled, grazed her shoulders. “What are friends for?”

Embarrassed for some reason, he reached for the blanket and began folding it, glad for something to do. He felt out of place here, at her house, so early in the morning.

Denise came and stood next to him. “You sure you don’t want to stay for breakfast? I’ve got half a box.”

Taylor debated. “And milk?” he finally asked.

“No, we use water in our cereal here,” she said seriously.

He looked at her as if wondering whether or not to believe her, when Denise suddenly laughed, the sound melodic.

“Of course we have milk, you goob.”

“Goob?”

“It’s a term of endearment. It means that I like you,” she said with a wink.

The words were strangely uplifting. “In that case, I’d be glad to stay.”

“So what’s on your agenda today?” Taylor asked.

They’d finished breakfast, and Denise was walking him to the door. He still had to make it home to change before heading off to meet his crew.

“Same as always. I’ll work with Kyle for a few hours, and then I’m not sure. It sort of depends on what he wants to do-play in the yard, ride bikes, whatever. Then it’s off to work tonight.”

“Back to serving those lecherous men?”

“A gal’s gotta pay the bills,” she said archly, “and besides, they’re not all so bad. The one who came in last night was pretty nice. I let him stay over at my place.”

“A real charmer, huh?”

“Not really. But he was so pathetic, I didn’t have the heart to turn him down.”

“Ouch.”

As they reached the door, she leaned against him, nudging him playfully.

“You know I’m kidding.”

“I hope so.” The sky was cloudless, and the sun was beginning to peek over the trees in the east as they stepped out onto the porch. “Hey, listen, about last night . . . thanks for everything.”

“You already thanked me earlier, remember?”

“I know,” Taylor said earnestly, “but I wanted to do it again.”

They stood together without speaking until Denise finally took a small step forward. Glancing down, then up at Taylor again, she tilted her head slightly, her face drawing nearer to his. She could see the surprise in his eyes when she kissed him softly on the lips.

It wasn’t more than a peck, really, but all he could do was stare at her afterward, thinking how wonderful it was.

“I’m glad I was the one you came to,” she said.

Still dressed in pajamas, her hair a tangled mess, she looked absolutely perfect.

Chapter 18

Later that day, at Taylor’s request, Denise showed him Kyle’s journal.

Sitting in the kitchen beside him, she flipped through the pages, commenting every now and then. Each page was filled with Denise’s goals, as well as specific words and phrases, pronunciations, and her final observations.

“See, it’s just a record of what we do. That’s all.”

Taylor flipped to the very first page. Across the top was written a single word: Apple. Beneath that, toward the middle of the page and continuing onto the back side, was Denise’s description of the very first day she’d worked with him.

“May I?” he asked, motioning to the page. Denise nodded and Taylor read slowly, taking in every word. When he finished he looked up.

“Four hours?”

“Yes.”

“Just to say the word apple?”

“Actually, he didn’t say it exactly right, even in the end. But it was close enough to understand what he was trying to say.”

“How did you finally get him to do it?”

“I just kept working with him until he did.”

“But how did you know what would work?”

“I didn’t, really. Not in the beginning. I’d studied a lot of different things about how to work with kids like Kyle; I’d read up on different programs that universities were trying, I learned about speech therapy and the things they do. But none of them really seemed to be describing Kyle-I mean, they’d get parts of it right, but mostly they were describing other kids. But there were two books, Late-Talking Children by Thomas Sowell and Let Me Hear Your Voice by Catherine Maurice, that seemed to come the closest. Sowell’s book was the first one that let me know that I wasn’t alone in all this; that a lot of children have trouble speaking, even though nothing else seems to be wrong with them. Maurice’s book gave me an idea of how to actually teach Kyle, even though her book primarily dealt with autism.”