Daniel Isn't Talking by Marti Leimbach Page A

is a reason to live in one’s own country? – I discovered as though by accident that I’d fallen in love with Stephen.
    We were in his muddy blue Volkswagen driving out to South Wales. There was a particular beach we liked that made only a pathetic nod toward tourism and was more or less vacant most of the year. I looked at his profile as he sang along with a Van Morrison song, his hand on my knee, and I realised I loved him dearly, the way you do a great friend or a member of your family. He had a knack for making me feel good, bringing me tea in bed and reading me jokes from a book just like my brother used to do when we were kids. He was an expert camper and knew, for example, how to pitch a tent in the wind and cook an entire breakfast using only a tiny gas cylinder. One day wesaw a rosewood vanity box in the market on Portobello Road. He brought it home and made it into a record player, that old-fashioned relic of a machine, with speakers so small we could tuck them on the window sill behind the bed. Even now, when we make love, he moves over me silently and thoroughly and selflessly, kissing me afterward, his hands in my hair.
    â€˜And that is how often each week?’ asks my shrink, his notepad on his thigh, his mechanical pencil hovering above.
    â€˜That isn’t the problem either,’ I tell him.
    He sighs, shakes his head. Slaps his pen on the clipboard.
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    But this session, session number two zillion, we hit on it.
    â€˜What am I scared of?’ I say, whimpering. One hour, sixty-five pounds, thirty minutes of London traffic each way, a splitting headache, no workable drugs, and all I’ve done is cry. ‘What am I scared of?’
    He nods. Says nothing. Fixes his lips into a serious expression. Another time, not now, I might wonder what Jacob thinks about during the session when all that happens is a lot of crying. But I’m not thinking about Jacob.
    â€˜There’s something wrong with my baby,’ I say, sputtering through the sentence, all snot and tears, my ears ringing, a stabbing pain in my throat.
    â€˜What is wrong with him?’ asks Jacob slowly.
    I feel my child is slipping away from me. It is as though he’s lost, or hovering distantly along the horizon, even when he is right up close, even when he is in my arms. I don’t know why I feel this way, or what to do to hold on to him. Somewhere in the world, right now, a new baby has been born and everyone is celebrating that he is just so perfect. All around me spring is bursting forth. There’sflowers and birdsong and mothers with babies. All of this depresses me, and I cannot stand to admit it.
    â€˜I don’t know what’s wrong with him,’ I say. Daniel uses my hands like tools, opening my fingers and putting them on to his train so I will roll it. He spins on the wooden floor until he falls down, laughing, paces the edges of the garden so that there is a balding path, will eat nothing at all except biscuits and milk, has one stupid toy.
    â€˜He’s got one toy!’ I say. ‘It’s like he’s hypnotised by it.’
    â€˜What’s the toy?’ asks Jacob. This is typical and what I love about Jacob. He doesn’t say, ‘Then buy him another toy.’ He knows I’d have already bought him half the shop.
    â€˜A train.’
    Jacob considers this. ‘I used to have trains. My son had trains. I can remember the track took up the whole dining-room table and we built a station out of shoeboxes.’
    â€˜Exactly!’ I say. ‘But Daniel doesn’t build the track or care about the station. It’s just this one stupid train!’
    â€˜Have you taken him to a neurologist?’
    That word – neurologist. I hate that word and all it signifies. It seems to me that once you are talking about neurology you are talking about sealed fate.
    â€˜He’s going in two weeks to a paediatrician,’ I say. ‘The ENT