They sit together on the couch perpendicular to Wilson’s chair. The boy pulls a comic book from his mother’s purse; the mother herself digs through the pocketbook for her lipstick, which seems to Wilson colorless. She looks older than Ruth, her hair graying and skin beginning to loosen at the cheeks—but maybe it’s that she’s tired. Because there is something young about her eyes, and the hand she uses to apply her lipstick is smooth, almost fragile-looking. He wonders what is wrong with her son—if he won’t speak, like Isabelle, or if maybe he won’t eat or sleep. The woman glances in Wilson’s direction and gives a small smile; Wilson lowers his gaze. He does not want to be this woman’s ally. He does not want to compare symptoms and swap shrink stories, the shop talk of parents of troubled children. He almost resents this woman’s smile; he resents that she must pity him just as he has been pitying her. He wonders if when Isabelle emerges from Dr. Steingold’s office this woman will herself wonder what is wrong with Isabelle, just as he himself has been wondering about the woman’s son.

The woman clears her throat, but before she can speak, if she was going to speak at all, Wilson takes a magazine from the coffee table to hide behind. It is a National Geographic, which is a magazine he enjoys; there was a time in his life, when he was younger, when he wanted to be a National Geographic reporter and travel to many of the exotic places featured in the magazine. Today, though, he can hardly focus; he flips blindly through the pages, and only when he comes across a photograph of a yawning grizzled lion does he realize that the main article in this edition is on Africa. His heart begins to race—Africa, again. It cannot be anything but a sign, he thinks, that he should stumble across a long article on Africa sitting here in the waiting room as, on the other side of the thick wood door, some man, a stranger, is trying to get his daughter to speak. The doctor won’t succeed, he thinks; not one of them has. But Africa, he thinks—he is more certain than ever that somehow, the answer lies in Africa.