Carol called Helen from the hospital hallway. She told her mother the situation. Helen offered to take one child.
Carol told me she chose Sophie not because Sophie was less loved or less wanted but because Sophie was calmer. Sophie adjusted to new environments more easily. Sophie slept through transitions that woke Nate. Sophie, at three, demonstrated the particular adaptability that some children carry, the ability to land in a new place and settle, and Carol calculated that the landing in Michigan would be less damaging for Sophie than for Nate.
She told me the calculation was wrong.
She told me she knew it was wrong approximately six months after Sophie left, when Helen called and reported that Sophie had stopped speaking.
Not gradually. Abruptly. Sophie, who had been talking in sentences at three, went silent at three and a half. She communicated through gestures. She pointed. She nodded. She shook her head. She did not speak.
