Two hours later, we walked into Brookfield Memorial Hospital.
And when Walter Bennett saw my son, the first thing the seventy-four-year-old man did…
was start crying.
PART 6 — THE GIRL IN THE PHOTOGRAPH
Walter Bennett was tall, thin, and stooped slightly at the shoulders.
He wore khaki pants, a hospital volunteer vest, and glasses attached to a cord around his neck.
When Caleb walked toward him, Walter took one look at the boy and covered his mouth.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
Caleb looked at me.
“For what?”
Walter wiped his eyes.
“For frightening you.”
“The money was kind of scary,” Caleb admitted.
Walter laughed through his tears.
“That was not my intention.”
We sat in the hospital cafeteria.
Jenna and Sophie came too.
Sophie was wearing the red dress again.
The moment Walter saw her, he stared.
Not in a rude way.
In the way someone looks at a door that suddenly opens into another lifetime.
“That’s Sophie,” Caleb explained.
“I know.”
Walter’s voice shook.
“I saw her picture.”
Caleb placed the old photograph on the table.
“Who’s Ellie?”
Walter didn’t answer immediately.
Then he touched the edge of the picture.
“My daughter.”
His eyes remained on the photograph.
“She was born in 1978.”
Walter had been twenty-six.
His wife, Carol, had been twenty-four.
Neither knew anything about Down syndrome.
“The doctor talked about everything Ellie might never do,” Walter told us. “He barely talked about what she could do.”
The world was different then.
Support systems were different.
Attitudes were different.
Walter’s parents urged them to place Ellie in an institution.
Some doctors suggested the same thing.
Carol refused.
Walter…
hesitated.
“I loved my daughter,” he said. “But for too long, I was embarrassed by how other people looked at us.”
Caleb frowned.
“Why?”
Walter looked at him.
“Because I was weak.”
The answer came without excuses.
“When Ellie was six, she wanted a red dress for Christmas. She saw it in a catalog.”
He smiled faintly.
“Red was her favorite color.”
He bought the dress.
Ellie wore it constantly.
To church.
To the grocery store.
To family dinners.
She once wore it over pajamas because Walter had tried to hide it in the laundry.
Caleb laughed.
Walter did too.
Then his smile faded.
“One afternoon, my company held a large picnic. Families were invited. I was hoping for a promotion. I was worried about what my coworkers would think.”
