I walk down the hall to see Shay. I watch her through the window in her door, sitting in a yellow chair, doing a finger play Doctor Beck taught us months ago. The plastic punching man is in Shay’s room. Doctor Beck unlocks the door and lets me in.

Shay leans forward in her chair, facing Doctor Troy. Shay’s hair is dark and all around her head. Her eyebrows are thick.

Doctor Troy sings about the dicky bird flying from a tree. He moves his hands to show the movement of the bird, first in front of him, then behind his back. Shay watches, her head tilted down, her eyes peering up through her lashes. She stumbles along, echoing the doctor. But even with the little dicky bird song, her voice does not sing. It shuffles through the sounds. It stumbles and trips over the notes.

Suddenly, as I watch Shay, I am angry at her, for what she is doing to the music.

She stares up at me from her chair. I can see, in her eyes, in the way she moves her head, she knows what I am thinking.

Doctor Troy takes Shay’s hand and drags her to where I stand. “This is Mila,” Doctor Troy says. “Do you remember Mila?”

Shay says Mila, but her voice is as flat as the windless sea.

“That’s right, Shay,” the doctor says. “Mila.” The doctor makes a note in his book. Shay says Mila. Once they wrote, Mila says Shay. But that was so long ago.

Why have I come so far and not Shay?

Doctor Troy takes Shay by the hand and leads her back to her seat. He starts the same dicky bird song again. But Shay slides off her chair and sits on the floor, rocking.

It really doesn’t matter about Shay and the locked door. Shay is locked inside herself.

I back out of the room. The inflated punching man brushes against my shoulder. Before I know what I am doing, I spin around, pull my hand back, and hit it.

The punching man swings backward, then snaps up to a standing position. The expression on its face never changes. It stands and takes the hit and still it smiles and waits for more.