“Oh, no.”
For the first time in two and a half hours, Eloise stirred. She frowned, plucking at her blanket.
“Okay. Okay,” Maddy said as she scrambled toward the DVD player.
Maybe the disk had a scratch on it. She pressed the power button on and off a few times, but nothing happened. She could smell a faint burned electrical odor. Not a good sign.
Behind her on the couch, Eloise began to protest. “Je veux le chat de chat!”
Maddy’s French was rusty, but she got the drift. Eloise wanted her movie back on, pronto.
“I don’t think that’s going to be possible, chérie,” she said. “Milo and Otis are having a petit sleep.”
Eloise was still staring at the television. Her expression darkened ominously. Maddy scooped up the colored prism Eloise had been so fascinated with earlier and handed it to her. Eloise gave it a single disinterested glance before letting it fall to the floor.
“What about lunch? You must be hungry, no?” Maddy tried next. “Très affamée, oui?”
She rushed to the kitchen and quickly slapped together a peanut butter sandwich. Eloise became more vocal with every minute, calling out in French for the movie to start again.
“Why don’t we eat lunch, first, sweetie?” Maddy suggested, offering Eloise the sandwich cut into quarters.
But Eloise simply wasn’t interested. She ignored the plate, pointing at the television. Her voice rising in pitch, she demanded Milo and Otis.
Maddy sat back on her heels. She had no idea what to do. Eloise had not made eye contact with her once, and Maddy didn’t know if the little girl could understand a word she was saying. Doubtful, given her autism and the fact that Maddy was speaking mostly English with a tiny smattering of French.
Maddy pounced on the bag of supplies Charlotte had brought with her, hauling out pajamas, diapers, some fruit snacks and a well-loved rag doll. She delivered the doll to Eloise with her heart in her mouth, but once again Eloise was not interested.
Just her luck—a kid who knew her own mind.
Eloise’s complaints were increasing in volume. Maddy stiffened with alarm as the little girl began to rock. For a split second she considered calling Max, but she didn’t want to add more pressure to what was already a stressful situation.
“Okay. It’s going to be okay, Eloise,” she said soothingly.
She glanced around the apartment, but nothing leaped out at her. In desperation, she did the one thing she was good at—she started to dance.
“Hey, look, mon petite, look at this,” she said as she did a pirouette, then an arabesque, followed by a deep plié.
She did another pirouette and realized that Eloise had stopped rocking. And for the first time all day, she was focusing on Maddy and following her every move.
A surge of relief washed through Maddy.
“You like this? You like le ballet?” She danced a few more steps and noticed that Eloise was moving her arms and legs in abbreviated imitations of what Maddy was doing.
“You want to dance, too?” she guessed.
She danced a few more steps, and again Eloise wriggled in time with her.
“Yes! You do want to dance. What a wonderful idea,” Maddy said.
Quickly she located Max’s stereo system and shoved the first disk she found into the tray. As Vivaldi’s Four Seasons poured into the room, she danced toward Eloise and held out her hands. Her excitement faltered as Eloise simply sat staring at her. Then, slowly, Eloise lifted her hands toward Maddy’s and allowed Maddy to pull her to her feet.
Maddy stepped from side to side, encouraging Eloise to copy her. Her tongue wedged between her lips, Eloise rocked back and forth on her chubby baby legs. Once the little girl was moving confidently, Maddy introduced a simple twirl. Eloise’s face lit with delight as she whirled in a circle, arms spread wide for balance.
She giggled, her small face flushed with pleasure. Warmth and an odd humbleness filled Maddy as she took in the pure joy on Eloise’s face. There was so much honesty there, no pretense or subterfuge or self-consciousness.
“You can feel the music, too, can’t you?” she said, even though she knew Eloise could not understand.
Totally immersed in the moment, Maddy began to string a series of simple steps together in her mind. Then, Eloise’s hands held fast in her own, Maddy showed her how to dance.
“SHE’LL BE FINE. When I spoke to Maddy they were still watching the DVD,” Max said.
Charlotte fretted beside him, hands fiddling with the seat belt as he wove through traffic. Richard had arrived at the hospital half an hour ago. Keen to collect Eloise and take her home, Charlotte had left him to sit with Marcel while Max drove her home. She claimed it was because she knew Eloise hated having her routine interrupted, but Max was aware it had far more to do with Charlotte having taken an irrational dislike to Maddy.
“You know I hate leaving Eloise with strangers,” Charlotte said. “It’s bad enough when they’re trained sitters.”
“Maddy’s perfectly capable of handling Eloise,” he said as they turned into his street.
Charlotte didn’t say anything. The moment the car drew to a halt, she was outside and heading for the door to his apartment.
Her expression became grim as she registered the music leaking from his apartment.
“I told her Eloise doesn’t like loud noises,” she said. “What does she think she’s doing?”
Despite his firm belief in Maddy’s capabilities, he felt a twinge of concern. He’d seen Eloise howl a dozen times in reaction to anything overly loud.
He opened the door and they both froze on the threshold, surprised into stillness by the sight of Maddy and Eloise dancing together in the center of his work space.
Maddy was leading, her movements simple but graceful, and Eloise was imitating her, pirouetting, leaping, spinning and gliding in a child’s interpretation of the choreography. Both were oblivious to their audience, utterly swept up in the moment.
Max’s heart squeezed in his chest as he saw how much pleasure Eloise was taking from the experience. Her gray eyes sparkled with delight, and he could hear her laughing above the music.
Charlotte clutched his forearm, her expression torn between shock and amazement. Then Maddy caught sight of them and stopped in her tracks. Her hair had come loose from its topknot and hung in wispy strands around her face and neck. She was flushed, her violet-brown eyes shiny with laughter and fun.
She had never looked more beautiful to him.
“You’re back,” Maddy said, reaching for the remote control and silencing the music.
Eloise made a noise of protest as she registered that the dancing was over.
“But she hates music,” Charlotte said. “I’ve tried everything. The Wiggles, Disney songs…”
“She loves to dance,” Maddy said with a shrug. “She’s a natural.”
Charlotte shook her head, bemused.
“The DVD player died,” Maddy said. “I couldn’t find anything else she was interested in, so…we danced.”
“You have good instincts. Most autistic children love music and movement. But for some reason Eloise never has,” he said.
“Until now,” Charlotte said. The look she sent Maddy was searching. “Perhaps she simply didn’t have the right teacher.”
Maddy shrugged self-deprecatingly. “I