Her professor (Dan Lauria), takes her to her word and assigns her to a challenge, indeed: a patient named Jacob Tanner (Jay Michael Ferguson), who cannot speak at all.

At first, Dana is frustrated with this mute 21-year old… and the co-dependent relationship he has with his overly nurturing mother (Dorothy Lyman). But as Dana works with Jacob, she becomes fascinated with his charming ability to communicate to her without words, and she becomes more and more convinced that he could learn to speak.

Dana questions Jacob's mother in order to understand the history of his inability to speak, but to no avail. In a desperate attempt to protect her son from the outside world, she shuts Dana out completely.

This does not waver Dana's almost unexplainably strong will to understand Jacob…but she does get more than she bargained for when this speechless patient speaks to her own heart in a way she never knew possible.