It was the same as at Garson Gayer. After days and weeks and months of silence, Kevin suddenly decided to talk again to the hospital staff. It must have been hard to do, the way he did it, because everyone had become so accustomed to his silence. It created a terrible furor for the first few days afterward, which caused Kevin to slink around in embarrassment. To me he did not appear to enjoy all the commotion he had created, although to keep doing that kind of thing, perhaps some deep, inner part of him did. It was very nearly Christmas by then, and he had been on the unit since September. Like the time before, I asked him why he had chosen to talk and why now. Secretly I wondered if it reflected anything Jeff or I had done, but I couldn’t tell. As always, Kevin seemed to run a parallel path of development. While he did improve, there was never any real evidence to link it with something we were doing. Maybe he would have gotten better anyway, without us. Kevin’s reason for talking was less specific this time than it had been the year before.
