Without a Word by Carol Lea Benjamin

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.
    â€œHey, 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, roaring through the house, not letting anyone forget she was gone.
    As if that weren’t enough, when Leon left the house, he hadn’t offered to kiss Madison good-bye, and when he came home, he’d ignored her completely. Apart from Emil/Emily, the kid was pretty much on her own.

CHAPTER 9
    It was almost lunchtime but I wasn’t hungry. I was still angry and I couldn’t shake it. But who was I angry at? Surely not Madison. She was a frustrating kid but she was managing any way she could, like the rest of us. She’d reacted to an extreme circumstance with extreme behavior, electing not to speak. Did that make her a criminal? Actually, it made her a survivor. Even the little turtle was helping her to survive, giving her some sense of control and a companion who couldn’t walk out on her.
    Was I angry at Leon? Wasn’t he doing the best he could, too? Wasn’t he trying to survive despite difficult circumstances and a severely broken heart? What more could I expect of him, or of Madison?
    Walking down Hudson Street past the big playground, I found myself shrugging my shoulders, talking out loud, like the rest of the crazies in New York. I needed to do something to get my sanity back. I thought about the blue walls of Madison’s room. I needed to get to the pool.
    I dropped Dashiell off at home, grabbed the bag with my suit, cap, goggles and lock and headed for the Y on Fourteenth Street, still talking to myself on the way there.
    I thought about my sister’s kids, kids who had every privilege, pricey private school, horseback riding lessons on the weekend, braces to fix their crooked teeth, a summer abroad studying music for my nephew, one of those expensive summer camps for kids who want to act for my niece. And what about Madison? A nearly empty refrigerator, hair that needed trimming, an isolating chronic disorder, abandonment, neglect and now suspicion of murder.
    Was that why I was so mad? Was I mad because there wasn’t a roast chicken in the Spectors’ refrigerator, because Madison’s nails were long and dirty? Even given Leon’s neglect, there were lots of kids who had it worse than Madison, kids without homes, kids who were abused by their own relatives, kids who lived with parental addiction or without parents at all.
    There was a water exercise class on one side of the pool, families with kids swimming on the other, the dads and moms encouraging their kids to swim, praising every effort. There were only three lap swimmers in the available center