Rachel Alexander 09 - Without a Word

her shirt tucked in in the front and hanging out in the back. “You do understand the circumstances, don’t you?” I asked, so angry that no matter how hard I tried not to, I ended up shouting.
    Should I just turn around, go sit in the living room and wait for Leon, I wondered, tell him this wasn’t going to work? I could follow the slimmest thread, but I couldn’t follow nothing, and nothing was precisely what I was getting.
    But I didn’t do that. I was already on the road to hell. Now I started running.
    “I wish one of you would help me out,” I said. “I wish one of you would tell me what kind of music she likes, if she had any friends, boy oh boy, the names of a few friends would be nice. Or even what she likes to eat, her favorite color, anything , just anything at all. But no, no one’s talking. Are you listening? Good.” Too angry to stop, not sure why.
    “Here’s the thing,” I said, watching her left cheek twitch up and down, her eye, I guessed, along with it, but the way she was holding her head and with those dark glasses on, I couldn’t see her eyes. “I don’t know who I’m looking for, except that she’s twenty-eight, shorter than I am, she’s right-handed and she may or may not have a Border collie with her.”
    With that, the tics revved up. Madison took off her glasses, bent her head and cupped her palms over her eyes, then quickly put the glasses back on. As soon as she dropped her arms, the bed seemed to be shaking. But it wasn’t the bed, it was Madison, her arms trembling as if she’d suddenly gotten very cold.
    What the hell was I doing here? What the hell was I doing to this kid?
    “I’m sorry,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper. “You don’t have to do a thing. I’ll work it out. I promise.” Thinking that now I was really being cruel; I was giving her hope.
    “By the way,” I said, holding up the jacket with both hands so that Madison could see it, “I found this, too. I think this would be perfect for you. What do you think?”
    At first, Madison didn’t move. She sat where she was, legs folded in front of her, the book leaning on her feet. Then she pushed the book out of the way and got up. She slid off the bed and came around to where I was standing, took the jacket and slipped it on. I heard the front door open, heard Leon walk into the kitchen, open the refrigerator and pop open a can of soda. I checked my watch. He’d only been gone an hour and ten minutes.
    “Looks good on you, kiddo, real good,” I whispered, giving her shoulder a quick squeeze. “Check the right-hand pocket,” I whispered, walking out into the hallway before she did.
    “How’d it go?” he asked.
    “Swell,” I said. I didn’t tell him that I was dying from a lack of information. I didn’t ask him who I had to fuck to get out of this job. I didn’t tell him anything.
    Leon’s eyebrows went up. My mouth stayed closed. If Leon wasn’t talking, neither was I. That’s when Madison came out of her room, still wearing Sally’s jacket.
    “I’d forgotten about that. Where was it?”
    “In the back of the closet,” I said. “You mentioned that there were things of Sally’s here. I hope you don’t mind my looking around.”
    He shrugged his shoulders. Leon, it seemed, had nothing to hide.
    “Hey, Madison, thanks for the visit. Maybe next time you’ll come to my house, okay?”
    Leon walked me out into the hall. I asked him about Madison’s diagnosis and what the prognosis was. I told him I’d be in touch.
    Walking home with Dashiell, I realized the morning hadn’t been a total loss. I’d found out what didn’t work with Madison. Now all I had to do was find something that did. I’d also seen evidence that Madison had problems other than chronic motor tic disorder. For one thing, there was a roar in the apartment. I wondered if it came from the street or if it was the result of some sort of air intake for the kitchen vent. But that made no sense. The kitchen had a window, so it didn’t need a vent and probably didn’t have one, especially in a building this old. Maybe it was just the hum of the city, something newcomers always heard and natives rarely did. In that case, why was I hearing it? Being a New Yorker, I shouldn’t have noticed it at all. Instead, I couldn’t get the sound, like the sound of the ocean from two blocks away, out of my mind. The only explanation I could come up with was really crazy, that it was the sound of Sally’s absence,