Silent Storm Lesbian Story

06: Our Love

06: Our Love

Davie sat in her lab space watching Teagan carefully. The entire room looked more like a small playroom and Davie was dressed casually. There was a low table for coloring and play, small chairs, bean bags, a variety of board games, legos, and dolls. A one-way mirror dominated one wall with a small observation room and video recording system in the space behind it.

Both the 8 year-old and her mother, Keira, were engaged in a cut-throat game of Hungry Hippo that had Keira rolling with laughter.

Keira and Teagan were participating in Davie's research in Selective Mutism. In the past year Teagan slowly fell into a pattern of speaking less about her friends and school. In a matter of months Teagan completely ceased speaking to her classmates or speaking at school. She spoke only with her family and never spoke about her peers or school. On occasion she would speak to an adult figure but it seemed that she was edging toward mutism with those engagements as well. She was still attending school in a limited fashion but did not speak from the moment she stepped on the grounds until she left.

Keira moved trying to use a quick finger to redirect a rolling white ball.

"Mom! You're cheating!"

"No ... no ... I didn't actually touch it!"

"Mom!"

"Okay! Okay! You win!" Both Keira and Teagan laughed and broke from the game.

Davie engaged her voice software. "Well played Teagan! I'm going to meet with your mom, okay? We'll be right back." Teagan grinned and nodded but did not speak.

On the other side of the mirror Keira sighed deeply, "Today was a good day, right?"

Davie communicated through her iPad. "Mm-Hmm! I think so. We'll need to go back through the video and record the data points but Teagan seemed to engage verbally with you more this week even though I was sitting in the room. Next time we'll try with an unknown adult in the room sitting off to the side coloring."

Davie watched Keira's eyes as she looked through the mirror at her daughter. "Remember Keira the process can take some time. We'll continue to record verbal responses, tactile responses, self directed engagement and direct response."

"As Teagan's measurable behaviors change we'll modify the environment. It's critically important that you continue to model some of these practices at home. When you drop her off at school are you still walking her in?"

"Yes, everyday. She's still only going 3 times a week ½ days."

"That's okay, just keep engaging with the people around you, young and old. We want those mirror neurons firing. We'll do the same in the lab. I think she'll be due for a PET scan in about a month."

"Okay Dr. Kaplan." Keira grinned, "Next time, Teagan is going down!"
----

When Davie returned to her office she immediately checked her phone. She hadn't heard from Vineeta in a couple of days and she was getting anxious. She stared at the days old string of messages from Vineeta and sighed. She could feel uncertainty and pain building. Davie's eyes burned and she wanted to curse in frustration, to cry out with pain, and she couldn't. The voices of her most intense emotions were still locked inside her. Davie's hands shook as she texted Vineeta.

"all ok?"
"miss you"
"please call"

...

"super busy"
"will call tonight promise!"
----

Davie fidgeted uncharacteristically while watching the empty screen, waiting for Vineeta to come online. She tried to eat, she tried to read, tried to organize her Spotify account, time crawled. At 11:30 Vineeta came online and it took everything in Davie not to immediately try to open up the call. She waited just a few minutes for the video request to come through. Davie was so anxious to talk to Vineeta she had to concentrate to slow her hands.