Chapter 5 - The Reconstruction
The work began on Monday morning.
It was not therapy in any sense that Dr. Vance would have recognized. There were no standardized tests, no vocabulary lists, no digital voice boxes.
Ruby moved into the guest suite at the end of the east wing. Her mornings began at seven with Sophia in the conservatory—a massive glass pavilion attached to the rear of the house that had been neglected for a decade, its iron ribs covered in peeling white paint and its floor littered with dry terracotta pots.
"If we want the mind to move," Ruby told Santiago during their first formal meeting in the study, "we have to make the body move. Trauma freezes the motor cortex. She sits because sitting is safe. We need her hands to do things that have nothing to do with being evaluated."
They cleaned the conservatory themselves.
Santiago, looking out from his office window on the second floor, watched in disbelief as his sister—the girl who had not touched a household object other than a spoon or a pencil in seven years—carried bags of potting soil in both hands, her face smudged with dirt, her hair tied back with a piece of garden twine.
Ruby worked beside her, teaching her the signs for every plant, every tool, every insect they uncovered beneath the rotting wooden staging.
Fern. A curved stroke of the index finger mimicking a frond unfurling.
Trowel. A flat scoop of the right hand into the open palm of the left.
Earthworm. A wriggling pinky finger tracing an S-curve across the soil.
Sophia learned with a terrifying, ravenous speed. Her brain, dormant and starved for seven years, absorbed the gestures like parched earth taking in rain. By the end of the second week, she was no longer merely answering; she was initiating.
One afternoon, as the first light snow began to dust the glass panes of the conservatory roof, Santiago walked through the iron doors. He carried his leather briefcase, having just returned from a meeting with the port authority.
He stopped ten feet from the worktable where Ruby and Sophia were potting paperwhite bulbs for the winter.
Sophia saw him first.
She did not freeze. Her shoulders tightened, but she did not drop her tools. She looked at him, then looked at Ruby.
Ruby gave her a small, almost imperceptible nod.
Sophia wiped her dirty fingers on her canvas apron. She lifted both hands to her chest.
She made three signs.
The first was a flat palm drawn across her forehead—the sign for father or authority. Then, two hands held together like the pages of a book, opening toward him. And finally, her right hand lifted to her mouth, fingers together, then sweeping outward with a small, graceful dip.
Santiago stood motionless. His briefcase felt like a block of lead in his grip. "What... what did she say?"
Ruby did not look up from her bulbs. "She asked if you had a good day in the city."
Santiago’s throat closed. The sound of his own pulse roared in his ears. He looked at Sophia—at the dirt on her cheek, at the smudge of peat moss on her nose, at the clear, grey eyes that were looking at him not with terror, but with an immense, cautious curiosity.
He took a step forward. He set his briefcase on the damp gravel of the floor.
He had spent four nights in his library with a mirror and a manual of American Sign Language he had ordered under a false name through an academic bookstore in Evanston. He had practiced until his knuckles cramped, feeling clumsy, foolish, and monstrously heavy.
He lifted his right hand.
His fingers were stiff. His palm was broad and scarred across the meat of the thumb from an old knife fight in his twenties.
He touched his fingers to his chin, then moved his hand forward toward her, keeping his palm flat, his head dipping in an awkward, hesitant bow.
Thank you.
Then, his fingers formed a shape he had practiced for two hours the night before: his thumb tucked between his index and middle finger, his hand moving in a small, downward circle.
Yes.
Sophia’s eyes widened. A tiny, high gasp escaped her lips—an actual vocal sound, cracked and thin from seven years of disuse, but unmistakable.
She looked at Ruby, her face radiant with shock.
Ruby was smiling, her eyes bright with unshed tears. She looked at Santiago, and for a fraction of a second, the wall between them—the wall of blood, of money, of the fire in Lincoln Park—seemed to thin until it was no thicker than the skin of an onion.
Sophia turned back to her brother. Her hands flew:
You are terrible at that. Your fingers are like sausages.
Santiago frowned, looking at Ruby for translation.
Ruby coughed into her shoulder to hide her laugh. "She says... she says your accent is very formal, Mr. Moretti."
May you like
Santiago looked at his sister. He saw the twitch at the corner of her mouth, the light in her eyes, and for the first time in seven years, Santiago Moretti felt something inside his chest unlock with a soft, clean click.
"Tell her," Santiago said, his voice husky and rough, "that sausages or not, I will learn whatever I need to hear what she has to say."
