The Rescue Read Free Page A

"The reports aren't in his file."
    "I didn't give them to you."
    His eyebrows rose slightly. "Why?"
    She reached for her purse and set it in her lap, thinking. Finally: "May I be frank?"
    He studied her for a moment before leaning back in his chair. "Please."
    She glanced at Kyle before facing the doctor again. "Kyle has been misdiagnosed again and again over the past two years-everything from deafness to autism to pervasive development disorder to ADD. In time, none of those things turned out to be accurate. Do you know how hard it is for a parent to hear those things about her child, to believe them for months, to learn everything about them and finally accept them, before being told they were in error?"
    The doctor didn't answer. Denise met his eyes and held them before going on.
    "I know Kyle has problems with language, and believe me, I've read all about auditory processing problems. In all honesty, I've probably read as much about it as you have. Despite that, I wanted his language skills tested by an independent source so that I could know specifically where he needed help. In the real world, he has to talk to more people than just me."
    "So . . . none of this is news to you."
    Denise shook her head. "No, it's not."
    "Do you have him in a program now?"
    "I work with him at home."
    He paused. "Does he see a speech or behavioral specialist, anyone who's worked with children like him before?"
    "No. He went to therapy three times a week for over a year, but it didn't seem to help. He continued to fall further behind, so I pulled him out last October. Now it's just me."
    "I see." It was obvious by the way he said it that he didn't agree with her decision.
    Her eyes narrowed. "You have to understand-even though this evaluation shows Kyle at the level of a two-year-old, that's an improvement from where he once was. Before he worked with me, he'd never shown any improvement at all."
    Driving along the highway three hours later, Denise thought about Brett Cosgrove, Kyle's father. He was the type of man who attracted attention, the kind who'd always caught her eye: tall and thin with dark eyes and ebony hair. She'd seen him at a party, surrounded by people, obviously used to being the center of attention. She was twenty-three at the time, single, in her second year of teaching. She asked her friend Susan who he was: she was told that Brett was in town for a few weeks, working for an investment banking firm whose name Denise had since forgotten. It didn't matter that he was from out of town. She glanced his way, he glanced back, and their eyes kept meeting for the next forty minutes before he finally came over and said hello.
    Who can explain what happened next? Hormones? Loneliness? The mood of the hour? Either way, they left the party a little after eleven, had drinks in the hotel bar while entertaining each other with snappy anecdotes, flirted with an eye toward what might happen next, and ended up in bed. It was the first and last time she ever saw him. He went back to New York, back to his own life. Back, she suspected even then, to a girlfriend he'd neglected to mention. And she went back to her life.
    At the time, it didn't seem to mean much; a month later, while sitting on the bathroom floor one Tuesday morning, her arm around the commode, it meant a whole lot more. She went to the doctor, who confirmed what she already knew.
    She was pregnant.
    She called Brett on the phone, reached his answering machine, and left a message to call; three days later he finally did. He listened, then sighed with what sounded like exasperation. He offered to pay for the abortion. As a Catholic, she said it wasn't going to happen. Angered, he questioned why this had happened. I think you already know the answer to that, she answered. He asked if she was sure the baby was his. She closed her eyes, calming herself, not rising to the bait. Yes, it was his. Again he offered to pay for an abortion. Again she said no. What did she want him to do?