CHAPTER THIRTEEN
LEO
THE RINGING FADED BUTthe silence has not. It encases me in my own body not unlike skin. I’m sequestered in the confines of my own mind and what those around me are capable of conveying by means of notes, hand gestures, or by trying to read their lips. My parents flew in and stayed at my house for almost four months. My mom kept track of all of the medical appointments and my dad drove me to them. Like a small child, they came together to care for me like they did for Natalia. They only left when the medical appointments slowed to a trickle and I insisted I needed to learn how to do life on my own. Losing a sense after having it your entire life proves more challenging than if you were born with the loss. The adjustments are colossal and everything in my world is affected.
If you don’t know what hearing traffic or cars around you sounds like, then you always use another sense, like vision, to determine your safety cues. My brain is like what the fuck is going on, bro? We don’t know how to do anything anymore. I’m on medical leave from work, although I’ve already seen paperwork with the words medical discharge scrawled across the top. I didn’t pause too long to consider it because that was before they gave me my dim prognosis.
Profound Hearing Loss. That’s the kind hearing aids won’t help. That first doctor, on day one, who mentioned acoustic nerve damage was absolutely correct. Bi-lateral acoustic nerve damage. Damage might be too soft a word. Destroyed completely would better sum up the fucking situation. There are moments of fuzzy static and ringing, but there’s not much else. No voices or sounds I’ve been accustomed to hearing. We drove into Boston for a second and third opinion. One of those doctors said we needed to wait another couple of months before he would assess me, and the other agreed with the Navy physicians, but said there was talk of a surgery that might be able to give me some of my hearing back. It wasn’t in the human trial stage yet. They’ve only operated on rats with success, and the risk of brain damage was prevalent.
Sunlight filters into my home. I ripped down all of the blinds and curtains in the entire house because I hate the dark now. That which I used to prowl in—used to seek out to conduct business is now just as terrifying as being one of the men whom I hunted. I want to see everything because I can hear nothing. I dropped a spoon on the floor seventeen times this morning just so I could feel the vibration on the floor and try to conjure the sound that is supposed to go with it. It’s demeaning. I’ve lost all of my pride and sense of self. Did the permanence of the hearing loss cross my mind in the beginning? Maybe for half a second. If it were permanent I’d lose my entire life and everything and everyone in it. Why dwell on something that tragic? Turns out it’s as bad as I assumed. Worse.
The overhead light in my bedroom flickers on and off three times. I groan, and throw an arm over my face. There’s one person who escapes my rule of seeing everything. I wish she were dark black invisible so I wouldn’t know what I was missing. Kendall hops on my bed, the fucking marker board in one hand and a pink capped marker in the other. She smiles wide, trying to disguise how upset it makes her to see me like this. Every day she comes here. Every day she tries to help me. Every day I turn her away—push her into the dungeon of my self-pity. I don’t deserve a woman like her. Not one who is currently finalizing a divorce I helped create.
“Go away, Sunshine. I don’t have time for your bullshit today. I’ll answer your normal questions before you even ask. No I don’t want to learn sign language and no I don’t want to go anywhere.” I lift my arm to watch her face.
She frowns and signs, “Please.” Fuck, I’m picking up on it. She’s so sneaky with it that I’m learning when I don’t know I’m learning. I’ve picked up words here and there. Simple phrases and a few letters. She left a poster with the American Sign Language alphabet in my living room. In a desperate moment of absolute boredom, I looked at it. Studied it. Realized how useful it would be to know it. I used to be a pragmatic man, and that won’t go away easily.
“No, Kendall. Please just go.”
She writes on the larger-than-life board. “You are a coward. I don’t care if you learn sign language for you because you’re a bastard. I want you to learn it for me. DO YOU KNOW HOW ANNOYING IT IS TO WRITE A CONVERSATION? Learn a bit more for me?”
“Wow,” I exclaim. “You’ve got teeth today. Who pissed in your Cheerios?”
She signs one I know, “Your mom.”
I laugh out loud and her mouth quirks into a grin. She finger spells something in sign language, but goes too quickly. “I have no idea what you just said.” Anger rises. It’s all bullshit. This is fucking bullshit. I want her voice.
She slows down. “Bog night.” Then, “Warm outside.”
I look away. Kendall drops a hand on my exposed stomach and runs it up to my chest and back down. She neither needs to sign for me to know what she’s thinking, nor does she need a translator to know what the tent in my sheet means. I take her wrist firmly. Her big eyes meet mine. “Quit it.”
She smirks and signs, “What?” with her free hand, throwing it out to the side.
“You’re so coy, Kendall Simmons,” I say, shaking my head. This is what every day consists of. So close to her, yet so far away.
Kendall takes her hand away from my grasp and folds her hands in her lap. Her face falls. I sit up and scoot so my head is resting against the headboard. If I’m not at a medical appointment, eating, or working out in my home gym, I’m in this fucking bed feeling sorry for myself. “What’s the matter?”
She shakes her head, erasing the marker board. “The divorce was finalized. Not sure how to sign that so you know what I’m saying.” I watch as she writes and read it upside down. She doesn’t need to turn it so I see it. Kendall knows this. She erases and keeps writing. “I’m officially not a Simmons anymore. Sager. Back to the maiden name.”
“Are you upset? I’m sorry,” I say into the void.
She shrugs. “It’s been a long time coming. I’m happy that we’re through it. Adam moved out. I helped him. It’s just Coal and me. It’s lonely, but not bad. The title of divorcée kind of sucks. Starting over is strange. I was Adam’s wife. Now I’m single. Weird.” She finishes writing and shrugs once more and signs, “I’m okay, bog night?”
“Why do you want a bog night so badly?”
“I miss you,” she signs. “I miss us.” She motions between our bodies. My heart pounds. How long have I waited for Kendall to be available? Five years? It feels like a lifetime. I’ve wanted to take her for my own from the moment I first laid eyes on her. When it wasn’t socially acceptable for a nineteen-year-old man to look at a seventeen-year-old girl in such a way. Now the moment has arrived, Kendall is perched on my bed touching my bare skin while calling herself single, and I’m so fucked up it’d be a crime to act on my emotions.
“You see me every day. How can you miss me? I’m really proud of you. It took courage to get through that process, and I’m a bad friend. I didn’t help you at all.”
She nods and signs, “Yes.” Her eyes tell me the rest of the story. Kendall wants what she’s always wanted from me. More than I can give. She writes down, “I wish I could sign this. It would make both of our lives easier. I tell you every day that nothing has changed for me. What’s it been? Three months?”
“Four,” I correct her. “I looked at the poster, FYI.”
She rolls her eyes and writes on, “It doesn’t matter to me you can’t hear. That doesn’t change how I feel about you. I know you hold out hope the damage isn’t permanent, and I hope that for you, as well, but if it’s not the case, then I’m here for that, too. I’m here.”
“You shouldn’t be. I don’t deserve any favors. I did this to myself.”
She slams a finger into my chest. The sunlight beats down on her angry face. I don’t make out the words, but I know what she’s saying—rather, what she’s refuting. It’s funny how I can argue with her without knowing exactly what she’s saying.
