Saving Elijah

appointment.

    *    *    *

    Two weeks later, I drove Elijah into Manhattan to meet Sam at the Medical Center. He was late, and we waited in the huge glassed lobby. Elijah spent the time toting Tuddy around, peering through the big glass windows at the cars and buses speeding by, peeking around the big desk, engaging the receptionist. I had deliberately left Creatures of the Deep at home. He'd taken to carrying the big book around with him all the time, just like he carried Tuddy. Yet I couldn't complain about this new piece of obsessive behavior, not when he seemed so much more sociable, happier, less frustrated. He was still cognitively behind his more normal peers, and awkward and cross-eyed. But he was blossoming like a little flower, gaining in his language and small-motor skills every day, and he had somehow retained the winning enthusiasm that had originally arisen from having to work so hard to learn things. I hadn't seen a tantrum since he came out of the coma. What mother of a child like Elijah wouldn't be overjoyed to see this? I was, and I was also terrified.
    Finally, I gave up waiting for Sam, and we got on the elevator. Elijah laughed all the way, all thirty floors. I kept thinking how he might have reacted to the odd feel of the swift rise in the elevator before all this. He might have freaked.
    Just as we were ushered in to see the doctor, Sam showed up. No explanation for his lateness, only a hasty, "Sorry."
    David Selson was an older man, maybe early sixties, with a full head of white hair, an aristocratic demeanor, and a friendly, calm, easy air about him. He reminded me a little of my writing student Abe Modell. His office was full of toys.
    "Who's this?" Dr. Selson said
    "Tuddy." Elijah held Tuddy out so that Dr. Selson could see it.
    "Oh, Tuddy. I see."
    "Elijah takes Tuddy everywhere with him," Sam said.
    "Well, I can see why. He certainly is a handsome turtle, isn't he?"
    Elijah nodded, then settled into my lap, and settled Tuddy on his own. Selson pulled a Tweety Bird puppet out of his white coat.
    "My name's Elijah," he said, moving the puppet's mouth.
    Elijah grabbed for the puppet. "My name's Elijah."
    "No, mine," the doctor said. "Now just look here." He held the toy up with one hand and shined a pin light into Elijah's eyes with the other.
    Elijah, laughing hard, reached for the toy. "Mine!" As he reached he looked into the light. Nice trick. It wouldn't have worked if it weren't for Elijah's newfound friendliness toward doctors, toward everyone, in fact. He no longer seemed so confused by the world or by his own sensory experience, much less frightened by it.
    "Mine." Dr. Selson winked at me, then gave Tweety to Elijah. Then pulled something else out of his pocket. A purple dinosaur puppet.
    "Look, Mommy," Elijah said.
    I had taken Elijah to his first art class at the Jewish Community Center the day before. The kids were going to make simple puppets, and the demonstration puppet Addie had shown the class in the beginning was a purple dinosaur.
    "I see. Just like Mrs. Stern's puppet." I wasn't sure if the puppet Elijah had presented me with when I came to get him was supposed to be a bird or a mouse, but it was a puppet. Addie said he had concentrated, and listened, and seemed to make friends with a kid named Jason. He'd even used scissors. At this rate, he'd be able to join a regular class next year.
    "Barney says Elijah should come over here," Dr. Selson said.
    Elijah got off my lap right away and climbed right onto David Selson's lap, and sat there through much of the doctor's examination.
    Afterward, in his office, David Selson looked up from the charts and test reports we'd brought.
    "I'd say Dr. Moore is following a standard course. I wouldn't change a thing."
    "What about all his new talents?" I looked at Elijah, who was sitting on Sam's lap. I expected a self-satisfied "So there!" expression from Sam. No such thing. He was looking at his watch. He'd checked it three times since we'd been in Selson's office. Where did he have to be that was more important than this?
    "I suggested to Dr. Moore that maybe the seizure had altered some original miswiring of the synapses or something," I said.
    "What'd he say?" the doctor asked.
    "He said he doubted it."
    David Selson looked at Elijah, then at us. "Well, I suppose it's possible," he said slowly, "but since our measuring tools can only measure what they measure, there's simply no way to tell. A comparison of IQ scores might help