At times, without coaching, Shep could relate almost normally, if awkwardly, to Dylan and to others. More often than not, however, he needed to be guided toward communication, constantly and patiently encouraged to make a connection and to maintain it once it had been established.
Conversation with Shep frequently depended on first making eye contact with him, but the boy seldom granted that degree of intimacy. He seemed to avoid such directness not solely because of his severe psychological disorder, and not merely because he was pathologically shy. Sometimes, in a fanciful moment, Dylan could almost believe that Shep’s withdrawal from the world, beginning in early childhood, had occurred when he had discovered that he could read the secrets of anyone’s soul by what was written in the eyes… and had been unable to bear what he saw.
‘By the light of the moon,’ Shep repeated, but this time with his gaze fixed on the floor. His whisper had fallen to a murmur, and with what sounded like grief, his voice broke more than once on those six words.
Shep seldom spoke, and when he did, he never spouted gibberish, even if sometimes it seemed to be gibberish as surely as cheddar was a cheese. Within his every utterance lay motive and meaning to be discerned, although when he was at his most enigmatic, his message could not always be understood, in part because Dylan lacked the patience and the wisdom to solve the puzzle of the boy’s words. In this case, his urgent and fiercely felt emotion suggested that what he meant to communicate was unusually important, at least to him.
‘Look at me, Shep. We need to talk. Can we talk, Shepherd?’
Shep shook his head, perhaps in denial of what he seemed to see on the motel-room floor, in denial of whatever vision had brought tears to his eyes, or perhaps in answer to his brother’s question.
Dylan put one hand under Shepherd’s chin, gently lifted the boy’s head. ‘What’s wrong?’
Maybe Shep read the fine print on his brother’s soul, but even eye to eye, Dylan glimpsed nothing in Shepherd but mysteries more difficult to decipher than ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics.
As his eyes clarified behind waning tears, the boy said, ‘Moon, orb of night, lunar lamp, green cheese, heavenly lantern, ghostly galleon, bright wanderer—’
This familiar behavior, which might be a genuine obsession with synonyms or which might be just another technique to avoid meaningful communication, still occasionally annoyed Dylan, even after all these years. Now, with the unidentified golden serum circulating through his body and with the promise of ruthless assassins riding this way on the warm desert breeze, annoyance quickly swelled into irritation, exasperation.
‘—silvery globe, harvest lamp, sovereign mistress of the true melancholy.’
Keeping one hand under his brother’s chin, tenderly insisting upon attention, Dylan said, ‘What’s that last one – Shakespeare? Don’t give me Shakespeare, Shep. Give me some real feedback. What’s wrong? Hurry now, help me here. What’s this about the moon? Why’re you upset? What can I do to make you feel better?’
Having exhausted his supply of synonyms and metaphors for the moon, Shep turned next to the subject of light, speaking with an insistence that implied a greater meaning in these words than they otherwise seemed to possess: ‘Light, illumination, radiance, ray, brightness, brilliance, beam, gleam, God’s eldest daughter—’
‘Stop it, Shep,’ Dylan said firmly but not harshly. ‘Don’t talk at me. Talk to me.’
Shep made no effort to turn away from his brother. Instead, he simply closed his eyes, putting an end to any hope that eye contact would lead to useful communication. ‘—effulgence, refulgence, blaze, glint, glimmer—’
‘Help me,’ Dylan pleaded. ‘Pack up your puzzle.’
‘—shine, luster, sheen—’
Dylan looked down at Shep’s stocking feet. ‘Put on your shoes for me, kiddo.’
‘—incandescence, candescence, afterglow—’
‘Pack your puzzle, put on your shoes.’ With Shepherd, patient repetition sometimes encouraged him to act. ‘Puzzle, shoes. Puzzle, shoes.’
‘—luminousness, luminosity, fulgor, flash,’ Shep continued, his eyes jiggling behind his lids as though he were fast asleep and dreaming.
One suitcase stood near the foot of the bed, and the other lay open on top of the dresser. Dylan closed the open bag, picked up both pieces of luggage, and went to the door. ‘Hey, Shep. Puzzle, shoes. Puzzle, shoes.’