“Oh, it was wonderful,” Bridget enthused. “Just to hear her voice like that… I think that’s a huge step forward.”
“Do you really? I’d like to believe it is,” Reeves said as they reached the house. Emma and Agnes had already disappeared inside and were nowhere to be seen.
“Most certainly,” Bridget said. “The reason she’s being quiet isn’t that she’s forgotten how to speak. It’s that she’s feeling too timid to use her voice for some reason. Laughing like that is a sign that she’s letting her walls down. Maybe it means she’ll be ready to talk to us soon. I hope so, at any rate.”
“So do I,” Reeves agreed fervently. “I’ll wait as long as it takes. You’ve made it clear to me that I need to be patient. I want her to recover, so I intend to do that. But if you have any advice for me, any suggestions on how I might help her find the ability to speak, I will take them to heart.”
Bridget couldn’t keep the smile off her face. “Suddenly you’re so willing to listen to me,” she said.
“Don’t let it go to your head,” he replied, but he was smiling. “It’s only because today went so well. If it hadn’t been for her laughter, I would still be telling you that this picnic had been a bad idea and a mistake. A foolish indulgence.”
“Well, I think that’s more than fair,” Bridget said.
He raised his eyebrows. “Do you?”
“Of course. I don’t expect you to go on listening to me if my thoughts and ideas don’t produce any results,” she said. “And likewise, when I turn out to be right about something, I’m glad to see that you’re willing to acknowledge that fact.”
“You’re humble too,” Reeves laughed.
“Well, I’m perfectly humble when the situation calls for it! When I make a child laugh, though, I think that’s something to be proud of, and I’m not going to pretend otherwise for the sake of humility,” she said, grinning. “You know, I’ve spent enough time with children who were suffering through hardships to understand just how difficult it can be to put smiles on their faces.”
“This is something you have experience with?” he asked her.
“Oh, yes. It’s not exactly in the description of my responsibilities at the orphanage, but those children have been through so much. When I see one who is suffering, I consider it a duty to try to brighten their day in whatever way I possibly can. Sometimes that means an extra piece of chocolate slipped into a pocket after dinner. Sometimes it means sitting with them after a nightmare until they’re able to fall back asleep. But more often than you might expect, I find that telling a little joke makes a world of difference for these children. It’s something I’ve gotten fairly good at over the years, if I do say so myself.”
She blushed as she spoke the words. It was true—shewasgood at making children laugh—but she had never actually said that aloud before. There had never been a reason to. Now that shewas standing here with Reeves, she found that it was something she wanted him to know—but that didn’t make it easier to pay herself a compliment. It was still awkward, still something she felt like she shouldn’t be doing. It was more polite, more courteous, to be humble, as he had said.
But he was still smiling at her. “I’m glad you’re good at that,” he said. “I’m glad Emma has someone in her life right now who knows how to cheer her up. It’s such a good thing for her. Have you dealt with children who didn’t speak before?”
“There was one a few months ago, a little boy,” she said. “Owen was his name.”
“What was the matter with him?”
She hesitated. “I’m not sure I want to tell you. I don’t want you to worry.”
“Why would I worry?” he asked.
“Well, I wouldn’t want you to think that what’s going on with Emma is in any way similar, that’s all,” she said. “This boy had been orphaned on the street for some time. He was starving when he came in. I mean, Emma did look as if she hadn’t been eating well for a while, but this was different. Worrying. It took days before I could get him to eat a proper meal, much less start talking.”
“Did he eventually start talking?” Reeves asked.
“He did. And it started just like this—with laughter,” Bridget said, feeling warm as she remembered what had happened. “We were at dinner one night, and he had a potato, which he wasn’t eating. I tried to convince him over and over to just take a bite, but he didn’t seem able to do it. Finally—I don’t know what made me think of it—I started talking to him as if I were the potato. I put on a funny voice, and I said,Please don’t eat me, Owen!I’ll never forget the way I felt watching him start to smile, hearing that first laugh come out of his mouth…” She sighed, remembering. “It was truly one of the most powerful experiences of my life, realizing that I had been able to break through the tension that child was carrying around.”
“And you think you’ll be able to do that again?” he asked. He’d stopped walking, and now he turned to face her. “Do you really think so? It would just mean the world to me to see her all right again.”
“I know,” Bridget said quietly. “Today was a very encouraging sign. Truly. I do think we’re going to see a lot of progress now, if we can just continue to be patient with her and let her come around in her own time.”
“Well, I can do that,” Reeves said. “But I feel like I should be doing more.” He looked down. “That’s what’s so frustrating about all this, really. I know you want me to wait. I know you don’t want me to demand answers. I even understand why I shouldn’t do that. But to just sit back and allow this to take as long as it’s going to take …”
“It’s the right thing to do,” Bridget told him. “I’m confident of that.”
“But it’s maddening. I’m a man of action. I want todosomething.” His hands balled into fists. “I want tofixthis. The fact that the only way to fix it is to wait for it to fix itself… it drives me mad.”
“You’re doing more than that,” Bridget told him. “You may not realize it, Reeves, but you’re doing a lot. I know you want to take action in a way that’s big and dramatic. You want to hunt down the person who took her from you. Of course you want that. But actually, doing that isn’t going to bring Emma back to you, even if vengeance would feel good. What will bring her back is doing things like we did today. Quiet moments that let her feel safe once more, that give her a reason to trust that everything is all right. Letting her laugh. That’s how we get her to come back to us. It might feel like you’re not doing anything, but actually, you’re doing a great deal.”
The tension left him slowly. His head hung, but then he peered up at her. For the first time, Bridget found herself noticing how long his eyelashes were. He had such a hard, manly face, but those lashes were the one point of softness within it, and they made her feel extraordinarily tender toward him.
Maybe that was why she found herself reaching out a hand to touch his arm.
