Rachel Alexander 09 - Without a Word

might have even walked him had she known where the key to the wrought iron gate was kept, but luckily she didn’t. Had I awakened to find that Madison and Dashiell were gone, I would have been at least as scared as she’d have been were it the other way around.
    “Hey,” I said, sitting down on the chair nearer to the stairs. “This looks great.”
    I took a sip of the Coke and a bite of the sandwich. Trust was a two-way street, wasn’t it? Besides, it wasn’t nearly as awful as it looked.
    Emil/Emily swam while we ate, then got up on the flat stone and peered at us, first Madison and then me. I noticed the red kiss marks on his or her cheeks, the stripes all leading toward the small, dark, inscrutable eyes and the bulldog mouth. I wondered how long these little turtles lived and whether Leon had ever found the thing dead when Madison was in school, and replaced it before she’d gotten home. To me anyway, one small green turtle looked pretty much like another, but I guess some people thought that about cocker spaniels and Border collies, too.
    Not me. I wasn’t sure I’d know Sally, having only seen a picture of her that was eleven years old, but I thought I’d know Roy.
    “Here’s my plan,” I said across Emil/Emily’s bowl. “The Guggenheim Museum, shopping at Bloomingdale’s, lunch on the fly, and then I’ll take you back home. Sound okay?”
    No response.
    How did Leon do this? Or didn’t he?
    Madison was already dressed. I took a quick shower and got dressed while she cleaned up after breakfast. I called Leon to let him know we’d survived the night and gave him a time when Madison would be home, and then decided to change the day’s itinerary. I thought at first that Madison would take Emil/Emily along. She seemed to take the turtle everywhere. But the way things were going, I thought Dashiell should go as well. If Madison and I were getting along, it was because of him. He was the bridge between us. More than that, he was a reminder to me that you could understand someone else without benefit of words, though, more than ever, words were what I was still hoping for from Madison, words that would help me find her mother, words that would tell me she hadn’t killed Dr. Bechman.
    The Guggenheim wouldn’t let Dashiell in, but Bloomingdale’s would. I told Madison about the change, and she went right for Dashiell’s leash, leaving the turtle on the rock in the bowl on the marble table.
    Not taking Emil/Emily with us meant we’d have to come back to the cottage before Madison went home. I thought that might be why the turtle was not going to take what might have been his/her first cab ride, so that we could come back here. I didn’t know how far this would go, but I was pleased. I was clearly doing better than I had my first time alone with Madison.
    Getting a cab with Dashiell along wouldn’t be too difficult in the Village, where there were more cabs than customers, but coming home would be another story. In midtown, the competition for taxis was fierce, something I figured we’d deal with when the time came. Madison’s plan was to hold the leash, that was pretty clear even without words. It was okay with me as long as Dashiell stayed right at her side when we were in the store. Since Madison wasn’t talking to him either, I showed her the hand signal that would get him to heel, and we managed to get to the kids’ department without tripping any of the other shoppers.
    I thought that Dashiell’s presence probably helped Madison over her initial embarrassment, and by the time we were finished, she still had the leash and I had a huge shopping bag with bras, a short cotton nightgown, new jeans and a pair of pale green high-top sneakers that were so cool I would have liked a pair for myself.
    We stopped on the main floor for some barrettes and found one in the shape of a turtle. I bought the barrette, but when we found a green plastic turtle pin with rhinestone eyes, Madison paid for it with the ten-dollar bill that had been in the pocket of Sally’s old jean jacket.
    From Bloomingdale’s, we walked all the way to Central Park, Madison and Dashiell ahead, me carrying the shopping bag and following along behind. We bought hot dogs and sodas from a street vendor and sat on a bench eating them in companionable silence. I didn’t at all mind not having a conversation while we ate. The leaves were turning red and gold and orange. Dashiell was sitting in front of Madison, hoping, I