Miss Me; When I'm Gone (editing)

CHAPTER 11 (Travis)

Travis

One phone call to Jaco, and I had an appointment the next day with a physiologist with a PHD in learning disabilities, only an hour and a half away from Miami Place. The man stood up to shake my hand from behind his wide, cluttered desk after pushing his glasses back up his nose from where they had slipped. He didn't seem very thrilled about our meeting. An annoyed furrow sat between his white eyebrows, giving him a pinched look.

"You must know people in high places, Mr. Miliani. I, as you can imagine, am a busy man, and my courses are coning to the end of the semester."

As I had guessed, he wasn't happy about this. Knowing Jaco, he'd called the president of the university where this guy taught and had him order Dr. Michael Roberto to meet me today.

"I'm sorry that I've come during a bad time for you. I leave town tomorrow, and there's some business that I need handled before I go back to California."

The man's time was obviously important, so I wasn't going to waste it. I pulled the piece of paper Blair had left crumpled on the floorboard of Karleah's Mercedes when she scrambled out in panic. Every time I looked at it, I remembered her struggle, and it made something inside me ache.

I handed him the paper.

" I had asked the person who wrote this to write down three-three-three Berkly Road. If that person is an adult around the age of twenty-two and struggled to write this much, what do you think that means? Why would she write that? And why would it be so difficult and send her into a panic?"

The doctor frowned down at the paper.

"Twenty-two, you say?" He asked.

"Yes, sir." I replied.

"Are you asking me for you or for her? Surely a twenty-two year old who suffers this severely has already been diagnosed in school or as a child and knows what her problem is."

He knew what the problem was. My heart sped up.

"No, she doesn't know. She couldn't finish high school. She can't pass tests. She been told she's.... Stupid. But she's not. Not at all."

The doctor muttered a curse and sat back down in his chair, looking at the paper I'd given him.

"I thought that by this day and age, our public school systems were more adept at labelling and dealing with learning disabilities. Especially one as common as dyslexia. Tell me, does she read?"

Dyslexia. Fuck me.

I'd known someone with dyslexia in school. He had special classes and a tutor who helped him everyday. He ended up passing and graduating with honors. No one had helped Blair, and it had been this simple.

A lump formed in my throat, and I pressed my fist into my thighs. Anger, relief, and frustration all coursed through me at once.

"No, she can't read. She tries, but she struggles. I need to get her help. Someone who can help her read and write. She struggles daily with things that are so simple to everyone we, and she thinks its because her brain isn't all there. I will pay whatever price."

Fuck, I wanted to roar in protest. It was just pure injustice and neglect.

"I know a professor in Chicago city. He is younger, but this is a condition that is near and dear to his heart. His father suffered from the same thing and didn't learn to read or write until he was fifty years old. Ryker VanWoodson has had several adult cases that have ended successfully. He even works at a school for dyslexia in a less fortunate neighborhood pro bono, several afternoons a week.