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depression he might be experiencing."  He paused.  "Benjamin helped me to focus.  The key was to sit with him in silence and observe what I could without words or feelings getting in the way."
    Paul Plotnik cleared his throat as he raised his hand.
    Jonah nodded to him.
    "Before we call in a neurosurgeon, shouldn’t we get that MRI?" he asked.  "Can you be certain it won’t be normal?"
    "I can’t be certain," Jonah said, "but I would be shocked if it were."
    Plotnik looked away.  His shoulders slumped even more.
    Jonah wanted to rehabilitate him.  "Dr. Plotnik’s psychological theory," he said to the audience, "strikes me as very plausible, by the way.  Benjamin’s illness could indeed have been caused by his father’s abrupt departure from the family."
    Plotnik looked back at him.  "Didn’t you just say he has a brain tumor?"
    "Glioblastomas incubate as long as six years before spreading," Jonah told him.  "That takes us back to the time Mr. Herlihey walked out on his family.  Let’s not forget:  the limbic system is the brain’s emotional control center.  No one can know for sure that losing one’s father couldn’t spark a malignancy there.  Why should that be less likely than stress damaging the heart?"
    Plotnik stared back at Jonah.
    "And who’s to say," Jonah continued, shifting his gaze back to the entire audience, "if Mr. Herlihey had told the whole truth about the months he went missing whether that could have somehow bolstered Benjamin’s immune system, raised his level of antibodies, maybe even made his tumor remit?  Truth has the power to heal."
    Jonah saw that Craig Ellison was watching him with a kind of reverence.  He decided to go the extra mile and bring out the whole truth about why Paul Plotnik had missed the boat with Benjamin.  He looked back at him.  "What’s equally interesting, Paul, from a psychological standpoint, is that you know from your own experience something about what Benjamin has suffered neurologically."
    Plotnik looked at Jonah quizzically.  "Are you talking about my stroke?"
    "Yes," Jonah said.  "Would you mind terribly if I use your experience to make a teaching point?"
    "Not at all," Plotnik said, no resentment left in his voice.
    "Your stroke," Jonah said, "was minor.  But judging from the particular facial muscles affected and the overcompensation of muscles on the right side of your body — that strong handshake of yours — the brain injury was probably in an area of motor cortex adjoining those that control mood and language."
    "Exactly," Plotnik said, incredulous.
    "So that right after your stroke you would have not only felt physically weak, but would have had trouble with word finding — and with depression."
    "A bit."
    "And both largely resolved as the affected brain tissue healed."
    "Resolved completely," Plotnik said.
    Jonah didn’t feel the need to point out that Plotnik’s speech and appearance had not completely returned to normal — and never would.  But Plotnik’s refusal to accept the continuing impact of the stroke reinforced Jonah’s suspicion.  "It’s possible that your not wanting to think about your brain injury would make it that much harder to recognize Benjamin’s.  Your first impulse might be to try not to think of it."
    Plotnik squinted at Jonah.
    "I think that’s going out on a limb," Craig Ellison said.  "As you’ve said, none of us would have been likely to get an MRI in a case like—"
    "No, Craig," Plotnik interrupted.  "I think he’s right."  He turned to Ellison.  "Diagnosing Benjamin’s pathology would have meant revisiting my own — thinking about my stroke again.  That’s something I haven’t been willing to do."
    "So you presented the case here," Jonah said.  "You knew there was something about Benjamin you might not be seeing."
    Plotnik nodded.  "A clinical blind spot."
    "And you dealt with it by bringing him before other eyes.  Ours.  You got him the help he needed."
    "If I did," Plotnik