(Peggy is narrating)
“I gave you an older non-normed Stanford-Binet test not topping out at 180. You went way over with a 240 nonverbal.”
My jaw dropped. I felt faint. HOLY SHIT!
“It was a 160 overall,” he explained, “but the nonverbal is your maximum potential.”
I stared at my toes. “I have trouble just talking with people. Writing is easier. I have more time to build up sentences in my mind. Why is my life so hard when you say I have so much potential?”
The professor folded his arms across his chest. “I can explain.”
I dug my nails into my palms and cringed. “I know. People keep telling me I have attention deficit disorder as well as social anxiety.”
“Not so, Margaret.”
I closed my eyes and started crying. “Please don’t butter me up, Professor! What’s so horrible about me?”
His voice took on real concern. “I gained access to some very well hidden information about your earliest years. You are autistic.”
I stared at him through my tears. “What’s that?”
He shook his head. “This is so often misdiagnosed! It can impair communications, causing you anxiety around your peers.”
I felt bitter. “Can you tell me what happened to my parents?”
His face fell. “You really want to know?”
“Yes,” I sighed.
“They left you in a hospital waiting room when you were three.”
I felt my stomach twist itself up in knots. “No…”
“They tried finding them. You were not talking back then, so authorities had nothing to go on. They even compared your DNA against criminal and paternity databases worldwide without success. You became a ward of the state and were given a new name.”
Shocked, I whispered, “My folks dropped me off like garbage!”
“It gets worse, though,” DuQuesne said. “Do you want to hear?”
He handed me pages written in an Asian language, with curves and columns of numbers. “I found this in the now defunct charity hospital you stayed in. Look at the top margin.”
What I saw confused me. “Why is my name handwritten there?”
“Its title is ‘Accelerated Language Learning by Aphasic Child, from Medically Based Education Techniques by the DPRK.’ Dr. Yoon, the author, suicided when discovered. Washington State sued the hospital. The leftover assets are for your care and college.”
I begged with my eyes for a place to withdraw. He pointed down a corridor. I dashed to his bathroom, dropped to my knees, then screamed at the top of my lungs, over and over, into the toilet there.
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