The Listeners

by Jordan Tannahill

Hi, Claire, Valeria said, with a curt smile. Do you have a moment?

  Yes, hi, I said, rising from my chair. What’s going on?

  Well that’s what we’re here to figure out. Valeria’s bob cut jostled as she turned to Cass. Do you mind giving us a few minutes, Cassandra?

  Of course, Cass said, glancing at Kyle, and then back at me. I saw her read the fear on my face. She frowned as she gathered her things and made towards the door. Valeria pulled two more chairs over to my desk. From out in the hallway I could hear the conversation and laughter of students, completely oblivious to the imminent implosion of my life. As Cass reached the door she gave me an odd look, which I held, as she closed the door behind her.

  Claire, this is Kyle’s mother, Mrs. Francis, Valeria said. The familial resemblance was uncanny, especially in the eyes.

  Very nice to meet you, I replied, extending my hand.

  What’re you doing with my son? she asked, ignoring my hand. I told her I would be happy to talk to her about it. Oh really, would you be? she replied, vicious.

  Yes, I would. Your son came to me a month or so ago after class, I said, holding her gaze. He told me he’d been distracted during my lessons because he wasn’t sleeping, and I asked him—

  This noise business is your doing, you put this in his head, she said, cutting me off.

  Valeria gestured to the chairs she’d assembled. Why don’t we all sit down, shall we?

  I told Brenda I had never spoken with Kyle about the noise before he approached me, and I looked to him for confirmation about this, but he was staring down at his hands.

  He never once talked about this noise before you, she said. He never even mentioned it and then all of a sudden—She splayed her hands towards Kyle, as if his physical being was all the argument she needed to make. She grabbed a chair and sat down, and the rest of us followed suit.

  Can you hear this noise right now? Valeria asked me. I told her that I could. She turned to Kyle and asked if he could too. He looked up but seemed unsure what to say.

  Brenda motioned to him—No, you see?

  I can, he replied.

  Brenda turned and leaned in towards Kyle. You can, what? That’s not what you said two hours ago. He sighed and shrugged, and Brenda turned to me, eyes wide. Y’see, you’re putting this in his head, she said. Look at him. He has no energy, he’s tired, he’s depressed. His grades are through the floor. He doesn’t listen to me when I’m speaking to him, he just—She gestured off into the distance. And then I find out he’s been seeing you after class, she continued. Spending time with you in your classroom and in your car, going on drives with you in your car, when the whole time he’s been telling me he’s been at basketball.

  My heart sank. She knew about the drives. How much had Kyle told her, and for the love of Christ, why?

  Is this true, Claire, Valeria asked, looking pained, that you’ve been going on drives with Kyle in your car?

  Yes. It is. I heard my voice as if it were thrown by a ventriloquist.

  Talking about this imaginary noise, and tell her—Brenda said, turning back to Kyle—driving around looking for this sound like they’re chasing ghosts. You are insane.

  Is this true? Valeria asked again.

  We have gone on a couple drives after school to—I began, weakly.

  How many?

  Five or six.

  Valeria’s eyes widened, as if I’d just said an impossibly high number. Five or six drives, she said.

  I explained that we mostly just talked, about feeling isolated; about how this had made us feel cut off from our friends and family, and then Brenda claimed I was the reason for his withdrawal; that I was the one who had cut him off. And honestly, if she was Ashley’s teacher, and it was Ashley in her car, I’d have been saying the same thing, I’d have been breaking down the door wanting answers too. I knew how this must have looked from the outside. I knew how beyond the pale this was, and of course I sympathized with her, mother to mother. But I wanted to tell Brenda—I saved your son. Did he ever tell you about how he wanted to kill himself? How he started to self-harm? You should be thanking me, lady. You should be thanking me your son is still here, sitting in that chair, looking at his hands.

  I took a deep breath and, while trying to keep my voice from quavering, I explained how we had been brainstorming possible sources for the noise and told them about the map of all the sites we had visited. I thought perhaps the level of thought and commitment we’d brought to this would help them understand how seriously we took this; how much it had affected us, and the lengths we would go to to help ourselves, when no one else seemed prepared to. I explained our theory about the noise, and the app on Kyle’s phone we had been using to measure the sound at each location. I explained why we chose the sites we did. The electrical substation. The construction work up by Saguaro Drive. The wind turbines out by the interstate. I noticed Valeria grimacing. I tried to imagine how she must have seen me in that moment; a trusted and respected colleague of nearly a decade, suddenly unhinged. Unrecognizable. I exhaled and told them that I was aware of how odd all of this must sound.

  We’ve been trying to educate ourselves the best we can, I said.

  Valeria turned to Kyle. Is this true, what Ms. Devon’s been saying? she asked. He looked up, ran his tongue along his lower lip, and nodded. Can you please use your words? she asked.

  Yes.

  So you do hear this noise then, Valeria said. If everything Ms. Devon is saying is true, then you—

  Brenda slammed her hand down on the top of my desk. Stop—playing with his words.

  I’m just trying to get the story st—

  I hope you realize I am this close to going to the police with this.

  Yes, I understand that, but—

  So you better stop putting words in his mouth.

  If this is going to proceed, I need to hear the rest of his story.

  Brenda pointed her finger at Valeria’s face. Do not put words in his mouth.

  All right.

  Or I am calling the police.

  Valeria raised her hands, nodding. She then asked Kyle if she could listen to the recordings he had made of the noise on his phone.

  The app doesn’t make recordings, it’s a spectrogram, he replied. It graphs sound in real time.

  It’s almost impossible to record the hum itself, I said. We’ve tried, but there’s too much ambient noise.

  But it does pick up enough to measure, he clarified. It’s not in our heads.

  He looked straight at Brenda as he said this, for the first time since they arrived. She narrowed her eyes at him, and then, while still holding Kyle’s gaze, she asked if I had ever taken her son back to my house.

  Mom, no, Kyle replied, exasperated.

  I can assure you, Mrs. Francis, that I would never invite a student—

  Assured, do you think I’m assured?

  Mom, I’ve told you.

  Told me? You didn’t tell me about any of this until I forced it out of you. And only thanks to your daughter, Ms. Devon.

  I’m sorry?

  Brenda’s face dropped. You don’t—you don’t know about my little exchange with Ashley this morning?

  I felt like I had been hit in the stomach with a baseball bat. I wasn’t sure if I could withstand what I was about to hear.

  Well, Brenda continued, clearly relishing this turn, let me tell you then. I was in the kitchen making coffee. Kyle had left his phone on the counter, and I noticed it light up with a WhatsApp message. ‘Do you want to ruin her?’ Brenda looked at me, and then at Valeria, eyebrows raised in theatrical indignation, before continuing. That’s what it said—‘Do you want to ruin her?’ So, as you can imagine, I made him come downstairs, unlock his phone, and show me the whole conversation because I damn well wanted to know what kind of son I’m raising.

  My throat burned, and no amount of swallowing made it better. Oh Ash, I thought. What have you done?

  So once I figured out what was going on, Brenda continued, I m
essaged her back. I said—‘This is Brenda Francis. You tell your mother Yes. I sure the hell do.’

  And what did she reply? I heard myself ask.

  Brenda removed Kyle’s phone from her pocket. Nothing yet, she said, and then looked up at me. But she’s read the message.

  But she’s read the message. Those words gutted me more than any other. Even now, I still wonder why Ashley never came to warn me of the impending shitstorm before it knocked on my classroom door. Did she want to punish me? Or did she stall out of guilt; out of fear of what she’d accidentally set into motion? I’ve tried not to let it eat away at me.

  To this day, I replay in my head the conversation I had with Valeria, after Brenda had stormed out with Kyle in tow. I hear her telling me how she had the greatest respect for me as a teacher, and how worried she was about me, and how, when I was struggling with burnout, she supported me taking the time off that I needed. And I hear myself still trying to salvage what I could, though already knowing it was too late. I hear her telling me that she’s cancelling my afternoon classes, and referring my case to the school board with the recommendation that my contract be terminated, and I hear myself pleading please don’t do this to me, and her saying I’m afraid you did this to yourself, and me shouting back that she had no idea, no fucking idea what we were living through, and then that was it, once I swore at her, that was really it. I think about how she waited for me as I collected my things.

  One of the great abiding joys of my life had been working with young people; introducing them to the power of language, literature, ideas, and helping free them from all of the patriarchal, white-dominant, homophobic, and generally anti-imagination, anti-pleasure, anti-risk-taking frameworks that they’d been corralled into like cattle. More than a joy, it was also my purpose. For that to be stripped from me was one of the great humiliations of my life. Looking back, the collapse of my identity as an educator was a major turning point. Maybe the turning point. The moment I was no longer a respectable person, not even to myself.

  I didn’t blame Brenda for razing me to the ground. I probably would have done the same. But I vowed that afternoon that I would not let her destroy Kyle, even if out of love. As a teacher, every so often I would come across a student like Kyle who seemed, like a desert oasis, to exist against all odds, who was curious and well-read, or had the desire to be, but came from a home with no books, where curiosity was discouraged, and where intellectuals were viewed at best with skepticism, but mostly with scorn. I was such a student, born into such a home, and I always recognized others when they came along. In most cases, that curiosity dried up by the time the student reached grade twelve. I watched it happen time and again, a little bit every day, until, by graduation, the student was a dry and hardened salt pan. I never blamed the mothers like mine, or Brenda, who were just doing their best with what they had, long ago calcified themselves. But I refused to let it happen to Kyle.

  Valeria walked with me to the parking lot as I carried my things, past students and my colleagues, none of them the wiser about what was unfolding. I couldn’t bear the thought of driving home so I just drove around and around the neighbourhood aimlessly, until I headed out onto the highway and into the desert, past shuttered motels, the truck stop, all the way out to Harding, to pull my car over at the military base, where I listened in vain, before driving back home after sunset, the desert the colour of a bruise. I still think about the look on Paul’s face as I walked in the door, holding the contents of my desk in a banker’s box. I think about how I didn’t even have the strength left to talk to Ashley, as she walked in the door a half-hour later, still in her muddied soccer gear. How she ran upstairs and slammed the door to the bathroom, and stood under the hot shower for an hour, before going to bed, and how I didn’t cry until I was finally alone in the guest room. I still think about waking up in the morning and dreading the unending hours of daytime ahead, with no company but the hum; and then spending the whole day dreading the return of my own husband and daughter. I think about how Cass, and Nadia, and the book club didn’t so much as call or email. I think about what rumours must have begun circulating through the school halls; through the staff lounge; through the air in the form of a thousand text messages. I think of Ashley finding me on the couch one night, staring at my laptop. The air charged with her presence, her silence. I feel the weight of her sitting down beside me.

  I messaged Kyle because I was fucking scared for you.

  I know, I hear myself saying. I know, kiddo.

  But, like, do you really have any clue how much this has completely fucked up my life? I’m the one who has to live with—Kaitlynn and Sarah aren’t even talking to me! People are posting all kinds of shit about me. The looks I get? When I walk into the girls’ bathroom? Like it’s all fine for you to hide away here on the couch, but I’m the one who has to go into school every day and face it all.

  As I look at her, I remember the feeling I had the moment I first saw her after giving birth, her face contorted in distress like it was now. The feeling had something to do with the realization that, from that moment on, I would never quite be a whole person again. That there would now always be some part of myself living outside of my body that I had only nominal control over, if any. I loved her with an intensity that startled even me at times, startled me in its animal insistence, like a genetic imperative beyond my reason.

  Ashley wiped her eyes and leaned into me and I put my arm around her. And I held her tight. I held her like she might slip away from me. I felt us all slipping. Slipping into a household of secrets, and silences, and resentments. And me, slipping fastest of all, into darkness. Into days of never leaving the house. Never leaving myself. Never leaving the hum.

  7

  YOU ARE NOT A CRIMINAL

  You are not a pervert

  You are not malicious

  You are not stupid

  You are not selfish

  You are not insane

  You are not cancelled

  You are not a cuntface

  You are not a bad wife

  You are not a bad mother

  You are not your mother

  You are not your own tired reflection in the mirror

  You are not a human-shaped flesh sack

  You are not being cosmically punished

  You are not the wreckage of your own sublimated desires

  You are not going to show up at Ashley’s game like this

  You are not going to cry in front of Paul again

  You are not going to touch yourself while crying again

  You are not going to throw Paul’s clothes out of the closet again

  You are not going to move the bottle of pills from the cabinet

  You are not going to call the school

  You are not going to call Brenda Francis

  You are not going to text Kyle

  You are not going to go to that meeting on Sequoia Crescent

  You are not going to check Facebook

  You are not going to check Facebook

  You are not going to check Facebook

  8

  I WENT TO THE MEETING ON SEQUOIA CRESCENT.

  I went to the meeting despite knowing Paul and Ashley would be apoplectic if they found out. I went not knowing, really, whether I wanted to go, or whether it would be productive for my mental health, such as it was. I went not knowing whether Kyle would be there or not; we had stopped all contact. Perhaps I only went because I suspected he would be. I guess that says everything you need to know about where my head was at the time. I was able to go because Ashley had a game that Saturday morning which Paul drove her to and stayed to watch; otherwise I would never have been able to slip away.

  I realize some readers might be thinking—hold on, what the hell was all that about not wanting to risk your connection with Ashley, or her well-being? What about stopping when your child asks you to stop? It’s hard for me to look back and justify it now, but my thinking at the time was consumed with the overwhelming
despair that I was failing Ashley as a mother. I felt I needed to do something to get myself out of my stupor. I needed information. Even if she might be mad or hurt in the short term, should she find out, I went to the meeting with the intention of making myself better in the long run, so I could be the mother she deserved, and the partner Paul needed.

  There was something in Paul that just kind of gave up on me, when everything with Kyle and my termination came to light. The only time we spoke about it, he told me that he felt betrayed. That it made him feel like ‘a chump,’ after all of the effort and care he had shown.

  I’m done, he said, scrunching up his mouth, and shrugging. I’m just … I’m done.

  Done with my condition, with my insomnia, with talking about it, with talking to me, with caring. And after everything, I didn’t blame him. I felt a kind of desperation that I find it difficult to put into words without making myself sound crazy, which of course I was in a sense, I had completely tipped over into some sort of manic state, and I knew I had too, and was just trying everything I could to pull myself out of it. But then, the more you flail around trying to heave yourself out of the quicksand of mania, the more manic you seem, and the more manic you are.

  When I pulled up at the house on Sequoia Crescent, my first thought was—these people pay for professional landscaping. Their driveway asphalt looked freshly laid. Their home was large, without being ostentatious. As I walked up the front path, with its ground-level lights embedded in the stone, I thought about how people with money bought large homes, but people with real money bought large homes that somehow didn’t look large. I was anxious, and when I get anxious I get gassy, and I let out a truly noxious fart right as I arrived at the door, and had to wait for a full twenty seconds until things had sufficiently abated before I rang the doorbell, and it was just as well that I did as the door was opened almost immediately by a large man with tousled white hair, a tenure-track beard, and a zippered burgundy sweater. His owlish face broke into a broad, inviting smile.

  Hi, I’m Howard, he said, extending a well-lotioned hand, which I took, and shook, and introduced myself. As I stepped into the house, I could hear light and easy conversation in the next room. Howard was wearing these sort of streamlined grey felt slippers, and told me I was welcome to keep my shoes on, but I removed them anyway, and followed him through the front hall, with its wide-plank hardwood floors, earth tones, and Kabuki theatre masks on the walls. I followed him into the adjoining living room where six others were standing, chatting around a low coffee table as if at a cocktail party. Kyle was one of them. He was holding a glass of Coke with ice cubes in it. Everyone looked up and smiled in our direction, except Kyle who fixed his gaze on some indeterminate point on the ground between us. Howard introduced me, and then I shook everyone’s hand one by one as they introduced themselves. When I reached Kyle, we introduced ourselves in a mumbled and, I suspected, unconvincing little pantomime, but no one seemed to notice.