The Window

by Jeanette Ingold

  Relief runs through me and then my cheeks go flaming hot. I back out, wondering who's seen Mandy's latest mistake.

  But the hall's quiet. Maybe nobody has.

  I say a little thank-you as I search for another door. I find one and open it, and this time I listen for gymnasium echoes before I go any farther.

  ***

  After lunch Ted's waiting for me outside Ms. Zeisloff's room. I think we must look like a couple, standing there.

  "You want people to see us together?" I ask. "The deaf boy reading the lips of the blind girl listening..."

  "I just wanted you to know I'm not coming to class today. I'm in the middle of a project that I've got to finish before it sets, and I've got a pass to work in the art room."

  "So why are you telling me?"

  And as fast as I say it, I feel guilty in case I've hurt Ted's feelings, which is stupid, but I about fall over myself trying to make things right. "Ms. Z.'s will be boring without you. I didn't know you did art."

  "Yeah, well..." His voice trails off.

  "Mandy and Ted," Ms. Z. says, "time to get started."

  Ted must show her his pass. She says, "All right," and I hear her go inside.

  The path is quiet now because the period's begun. I suddenly realize this is about as good a time as I'm going to get to ask Ted to the holiday dance. I wish my hands weren't so clammy. I hope my face isn't getting blotchy red, the way it does sometimes when I'm nervous.

  "Ted, the dance that's coming up ... Would you like to go?" I say, the words spilling out.

  I should have said it differently. What if he doesn't understand that I'm inviting him?

  I add, "With me, I mean?"

  "So everyone can watch the blind girl being led around by the deaf boy who can't hear the music?" But he's laughing as he says it, a friendly laugh.

  "Something like that," I answer.

  For the briefest moment, Ted takes my hand, and I don't know if he's holding it or shaking it. Actually, the way he does it, so fumbling and awkward, I doubt if he knows.

  Ted says, "I accept with pleasure."

  I go inside and my itinerant teacher, Ms. Thorn, wants to work with me on a new set of braille exercises that Ms. Z. is generating.

  "Things going OK, Mandy?" Ms. Thorn asks while we wait for the embosser to finish the page of bumps and spaces. "Did you get the math tapes we ordered?"

  She goes over what I'm doing, class by class, before she says, "All right. Now, let's see how you and your braillewriter are getting along."

  The brailler reminds me of an old typewriter, the kind people had before electric ones and before computers. There's just one row of keys, three on the left and three on the right, that you press to form the six dots of a braille cell. In the middle is a space bar that you work with your thumbs.

  I feed in a sheet of paper and get started on today's exercise, which is a page full of words like cap, cat, can, pan. I'm to read them off the sheet from the embosser and then duplicate them on the braillewriter.

  Grade-one braille, Ms. Thorn calls what I'm doing, working letter by letter rather than with the code for common words and letter combinations; that is grade two.

  It may be called grade one, but what I'm struggling with is worse than it was learning to read print when I was six years old and really in the first grade.

  "I don't know why I have to learn this stuff, anyway," I say. "I can type my work on a computer like everyone else and then just listen to it."

  Ms. Thorn adjusts the way my left hand is positioned on the brailler keys. "But Mandy," she says, "how are you going to check your writing with a speech synthesizer? Or revise it? Do it letter by letter? Word by word? You won't be able to see punctuation or word spacing."

  "I can't see this, either."

  "You will, Mandy," Ms. Thorn says. "One day you'll be able to see braille the way I see print on a page. That's what braille does, Mandy. It lets you see."

  Promises and hype, I think. I wonder how much is just sales pitch.

  But Ms. Thorn doesn't sound like a salesperson, and I want to believe.

  "OK," I tell her. "But I may be ancient before I get it learned."

  Ms. Thorn coaches me for a while as I make cat and can with the braillewriter. Then she tells me she's going to check on Marissa and I should call if I need help.

  Pan. My fingers hover over the keys as I try to picture the dot pattern that makes the letter p. A is easy: one dot, top left in the braille cell. Four dots for n. I pull the lever to ratchet my paper up one line and go back to the exercise page.

  What I find seems too wide a pattern for the domino-like braille cell. I start to call, "Ms. Thorn, there's a mistake." But then I remember about the number sign, how a backwardL of dots changes what follows from a letter to a number. I find the backward L and then the single dot that it turns from a into 1.

  I'm pleased I figured it out, but I don't think my teachers should be throwing me trick problems that I might take for mistakes.

  I hunch over the brailler and think about Ted and me. About Gwen and Paul. About that ice-cream trip that was really a drive into woods by a lake.

  What have I gotten myself into?

  I asked Ted. Actually asked him. And he said he'd go.

  My stomach knots up. How am I going to keep from making a fool of myself? I won't fit in, not at a dance.

  Except ... I like the way he took my hand.

  I hear Ms. Thorn behind me, but I pretend to be so busy that I don't realize she's there. I hope it doesn't show, how mixed up I feel inside.

  Chapter 8

  AT HOME Uncle Gabriel puts some money into my hand. Fifty dollars, he tells me, all in tens. "I figured you'd want to start Christmas shopping early the way Emma always does," he says.

  I must look absolutely out of it, because he adds, "Don't forget something for your aunt. Emma's been carrying on about Christmas this year like I've never seen her before."

  "She needn't carry on for me."

  But Gabriel continues as if I haven't said a word. "You know, we almost had a baby once, your aunt Emma and me, a little girl that died at birth. Your being here—for your aunt it's kind of like being given the daughter she was never able to have."

  I know Gabriel means well, wants to let me know I'm not just a burden. But instead he's making me miss my mother so much. Christmastime ... of all the times, that was when we were the most separate from everyone else, and it made us close. It was like we held each other up in a lonely wind.

  Gabriel's still talking about Christmas presents when Hannah shows up. He says, "Maybe you girls can go shopping together."

  Hannah says, "Sure. It'll be fun."

  When we're alone, though, I say, "I don't need your help, Hannah. I can pick things out without help."

  "Mandy," she says, "I know you can, but how are you going to get to the stores? Walk ten miles? Are you ready to find your way around by yourself?"

  That last is not a fair question because she knows I'm not.

  "Besides," she says, "shopping alone is no fun. Now where are the photo albums?"

  I hear her go into the living room, and her voice comes back from several feet away.

  "Mandy," she says, "why don't you give yourself a Christmas present and stop being so prickly?"

  "I'm not prickly."

  "You are."

  We find albums on the bottom shelf of the television cabinet. Hannah pages through the one she says looks the oldest, searching for photos with names under them. Mostly, she says, the pictures aren't labeled, or the labels say things like "My recital dress."

  Aunt Emma comes into the room, bringing us hot chocolate. "I won't bother you girls." Then, "Oh, look at that. Mandy, Hannah's found a picture of your uncles at the beach at Galveston. Abe's so little he's in a diaper instead of a swimsuit."

  A moment more and she's down on the floor with us, which I know because I hear the bones in her knees crack as she lowers herself. "My," she says, "I haven't looked at these picture
s in years." <>

  "Here's another one," says Hannah. "They're with a girl."

  "That's Gwen. Their big sister Gwen."

  My heart feels as if it's going to explode out of my chest. I want to ask ... except my cheeks are suddenly so stiff, I don't think I can talk.

  But Hannah says, as cool as anything, "She's pretty, like Mandy."

  "She was Mandy's grandmother," Emma says. "Mandy takes after her."

  "But..." Hannah's voice trails off.

  I know I should say something, should correct Emma. Should say, "Gwen wasn't my grandmother, my grandmother's name was Margaret." But I can't, not with Hannah there. How can I let Hannah know, Hannah with her mother and father and brother and dining room tablecloth, that my family is so spaced we can't even agree on my grandmother's name?

  So I don't say anything, only huddle quietly while Hannah and Emma talk on and on.

  Later, in my room, Hannah says, "Mandy, do you think maybe you've just imagined seeing Gwen? That you've known about your grandmother all along, stories tucked in your subconscious? That being here has made them come out?"

  "I haven't been lying," I say, and I feel my face get hot. "I never heard any stories about my grandmother at all because my mom didn't know any to tell."

  Hannah waits, her unasked questions filling my bedroom.

  "Look," I blurt out, "my mother was put up for adoption when she was a baby. She didn't know anything about her real family, not until a couple of weeks before she died."

  I hear Hannah walk over to my window and open it. I imagine her leaning out while she tries to decide what to believe. Her voice comes back, muffled. "Yeah," she says, "families can sure get messed up."

  And an instant later she's plopping down on my bed, starting to talk about the dance. "Do you and Ted want to double with Ryan and me? I'll drive, since it's girl-ask-guy."

  We don't say another word about families, not mine, not hers. It's like we've agreed to let it rest for now.

  We go through my closet, and Hannah says maybe I'd better see if I can get something new because the holiday dance is pretty dressy. "Or you can borrow something of mine," she says. "We're about the same size."

  Our talk is surface talk, but even that's a struggle to keep up with. Most of my mind is turned inward, trying to understand how Gwen could be my grandmother.

  After Hannah leaves I go to the kitchen, where Aunt Emma is peeling carrots. She shaves off curls for me to nibble.

  "You said Gwen was my grandmother?" I ask. "Mom said my grandmother's name was Margaret."

  "Margaret Gwen," says Aunt Emma. "But she was always called Gwen. That's all I've ever heard your uncles call her."

  "Mom told me she was Margaret," I insist.

  There's a silence. Then Aunt Emma sighs. "Yes, well. I suppose your mother just knew from the legal papers, and they wouldn't have told what your grandmother was called."

  Then, before I know what she's going to do, Aunt Emma pulls me to her in a hug. "Poor kid," she says.

  "I am not," I say, stepping back. "Don't call me 'poor kid.' I am not poor."

  "I didn't mean you are, Mandy," says Aunt Emma.

  "Then what?"

  Aunt Emma steps away also. "I guess that I feel sorry for Gwen, and for your mother."

  "You didn't know my mother." I'm furious that Emma thinks it's OK to pity her.

  "Of course not," Emma says. "You're right."

  In my room I try to bring to a standstill the turning pieces of what I've learned. Try to make them into a new picture.

  I go to the dressing table, find Mom's photo, move my hand to the picture next to it. Remember how it was blurred and shadowy and that, really, the only detail was a young man's grin. "So, if you're my grandfather, and if Gwen was my grandmother, then maybe you're Paul."

  I imagine Paul in an airman's jacket. Imagine him grinning. Bring that together with what I remember of the picture I am holding and know I can make the two faces merge.

  But it's too uneasy a shift to make, and I try to put it out of my mind. Gwen and Paul, my grandparents—suddenly they're real and I don't think I want them to be. I shouldn't know what my grandparents were like when they were dating.

  I make sure the window is closed tight, push the lace curtains back, and catch them behind hooks on the sides of the window frames.

  And what's more, I want to be angry with Gwen, tell her I don't want to see her again. Tell her that if she didn't want to have anything to do with my mom, then I don't want to have anything to do with her. But what I really feel is bewildered. I want to ask what happened, why she did it. But not today.

  I press my forehead against the cold glass. I don't want to hear more, not today.

  I get out homework, but after a few minutes I put it away again. I can't do schoolwork, not through hot tears.

  I pick out what I'll wear in the morning.

  Then I turn on my notetaker. It's equipment that rehab got for me, sort of like a laptop computer only it's really a combination word processor and calculator with speech, and it has a typewriter keyboard. I type in Christmas List, and hit the key for audio feedback.

  "Christmas list," a voice says.

  But I can't get Gwen out of my thoughts. She's with me, a grief someplace inside that I don't know how to make go away.

  I can't get away from Christmas, either, not with every place I go smelling of Christmas trees and with radio stations playing Christmas music and everybody talking about gifts. Everybody.

  "Forget the presents," I want to tell people, but they'll think I mean that Christmas isn't about gifts, it's about Jesus, and that's not what I mean at all. What I mean is that gifts are a burden, and I dread gift-giving times.

  Like Tuesday, at lunch. I'm sitting with Hannah's group, thinking partly about Gwen, partly about the sandwich I'm trying to eat neatly. Trying to close my ears to the cafeteria racket, which is impossible to sort into anything meaningful.

  Suddenly I hear Charla's voice cutting through the noise. "I've gotten all your gifts, and they're all the same thing."

  I freeze in my seat, wishing I was somewhere else. It's like hearing people talk about a party you haven't been asked to, or phone calls you haven't been part of.

  "Have you all bought your presents for me?" Charla says, with a little giggle to show she knows she shouldn't ask.

  Hannah says, "Not yet," and the others answer.

  I pull my arms in miserably, hating gift exchanges.

  I take a tough piece of chicken from my sandwich, try to look like I'm not paying attention to everybody around me talking about how they're going to shop for each other.

  Then Charla says, "Mandy, what about you?"

  I'm slow realizing she means I'm being included.

  It's Hannah who answers. "Mandy's going shopping with me."

  Chapter 9

  I KEEP my window closed now, the curtains bunched behind their hooks.

  Before, seeing Gwen really was like reading a book. I wanted things to turn out OK, but if they didn't it wouldn't matter, not really.

  Now, knowing she is my grandmother, what happens does matter. I'm afraid to see it, afraid for her and for me.

  So I keep the closed window and still curtains between us. I concentrate on being Mandy, which is difficult enough.

  School's getting harder, and my teachers seem to think I should be able to keep up with all the other kids. I am not going to tell them that twenty minutes of homework for the others means at least an hour for me.

  More like two hours in English, where the teacher gives notes nonstop. Sometimes I spend my whole homework time going back and forth on tapes, trying to find something she's said.

  No geography, anyway.

  One morning the first week in December the geography teacher meets me at the door. "Mandy," he says, "you've been rescheduled and won't be in my class any longer."

  He sounds so satisfied, it's all I can do to hold in my anger. Don't hold it in.

  "You, you..." I'm alm
ost sputtering with the effort it takes not to call him some awful name, not to use words I don't want anyone to know I know, not to let on I care. "I was keeping up!"

  A hand rests on my shoulder, just long enough to get my attention. "Mandy?" says a man's voice. "I hear you could teach this class." Somehow I know he's really saying it to the geography teacher.

  The man turns out to be an orientation and mobility instructor named Mr. Burkhart. For the next couple of months I'll be seeing him twice a week during third period and having study hall the rest of the time. "O & M," he says, "that's the name of the game."

  He's nice and kind of jokey-loud, and pretty soon I'm thinking of him as the Great Om. I learn more in an hour from him than I can pick up on my own in days.

  Big stuff, like how to identify street intersections, deal with traffic, ask people for directions when they don't have a clue where north and south are.

  He has me practice things like trailing, following a wall, listening for the water fountain outside the library.

  "Snap your fingers, Mandy," Mr. Burkhart says, and I hear how the sound changes as we pass by an open doorway.

  He asks questions like "Mandy, how do you search for something you've dropped?"

  The answer is very carefully, curved fingers ready to pull back at the first touch of danger, or before I break whatever I'm looking for.

  "Mandy," he says, "what are you going to do when you're all alone in a strange place and you don't have your cane?"

  He won't settle for "sit down and cry," and instead makes me learn how to feel my way forward, one arm protecting my face, a hand in front of my lower body.

  The Great Om. My guide to moving through space.

  He says not to try to remember it all, but after he leaves I put as much as I can think of into my tape recorder. The things he teaches, they're not like math or history lessons. I do have to remember them all.

  So, yeah, school's getting harder.

  And at home Gabriel keeps asking if I've shopped for Aunt Emma yet. Sooner or later I'm going to have to tell him I don't know what to buy. And I will feel so dumb, but it's a big thing, to get it right.