Pon-Pon

by Cronk, LN

  Meanwhile I was still playing racquetball with Tanner once or twice a week. One Wednesday night we were stuffing our gym bags into lockers when my phone went off. It was Laci.

  Apparently Ashlyn had just called. She was supposed to watch Dorito for us starting the next afternoon because Laci and I were going to take Lily to a specialist in Minnesota to see if she was a good candidate for cochlear implants. Ashlyn wanted to let us know that Amelia was throwing up and had a fever of 103. She’d still be glad to watch Dorito, but . . .

  No, thanks.

  “Great,” I complained, unzipping my racket cover. “Now one of us is going to have to stay with him in the waiting room every time she has a test or something and miss everything.”

  “Can’t you take him in there with you?” Tanner wanted to know.

  “Have you even met Dorito?” I asked. Not only did Dorito never shut up, but he immediately became friends with every person he ever came in contact with. It would be pretty much impossible for anyone to have a medical discussion, much less conduct any kind of hearing test on Lily, if Dorito was around.

  “Why don’t you have your parents watch him?”

  “My mom and dad have to work and Laci’s parents and Mrs. White are going to a church conference for three days.”

  “I could watch him,” Tanner suggested.

  “Yeah, right,” I laughed.

  “I’m serious.”

  “You hate kids!” I said, making the Pon, Pon signal at him.

  “I don’t hate kids,” he argued, giving me the Pon, Pon signal right back. “I just don’t want to have any of my own. They’re fine as long as I know they’re going to go away eventually.”

  “Are you serious? You’d really watch Dorito?”

  “Sure.”

  “Don’t you have to work on Friday?”

  “I’ll get a sub.”

  The next afternoon we pulled Dorito out of school after lunch and dropped him off at the high school with my mom. She was in the middle of her planning period, then Tanner had planning, then Charlotte would watch him after school until their faculty meeting was over and then . . .

  “I guess they’ve got it all figured out,” Laci sighed as we drove away.

  “Too bad Dorito couldn’t be a little more excited,” I said and Laci laughed. He’d been so keyed up over staying with Tanner that he could hardly be bothered saying goodbye to us.

  We drove along for a few minutes as Lily silently watched the cars passing.

  “Listen to how quiet it is!” I said, and Laci laughed again.

  Four hours later we arrived at Mike’s apartment. We were going to spend the night with him so that we could get up bright and early the next morning for Lily’s first appointment. As soon as Danica showed up we all went out to eat. The wedding was three weeks away and the girls talked endlessly over every detail.

  “I wish you two would come visit more often,” Danica said to both of us. Laci and Danica had only been around each other a few times, but they really liked each other a lot.

  “Yeah,” Mike teased. “The only time you ever come up is when you need something.”

  “You’re one to talk,” I said. “You’ve only been back to Cavendish one time since Laci and I moved back! You’ve even missed both of our lasagna bake-offs!”

  “Tanner warned me about your lasagna,” Mike said. “From what I hear I haven’t really missed anything.”

  “Tanner’s really glad you asked him to be your best man,” I told Mike. “I can tell.”

  “I know,” Mike nodded. “You were right.”

  “Of course I was right. I’m always right.”

  Mike rolled his eyes at me.

  “So what’s going on with him?” Mike asked. “Anything?”

  “Nothing really,” I shrugged. “I mean I see him all the time, but–”

  “Yes,” Laci interjected. “David’s really been sacrificing to spend time with Tanner. He’s had to go hunting and fishing and golfing and skeet shooting . . .”

  “Don’t forget racquetball,” I reminded her.

  “And he’s been playing racquetball . . .”

  Mike smiled at me. He knew I hadn’t had a friend to do stuff with since Greg had died.

  “He’s actually watching Dorito right now if you can believe it,” I said. “If that doesn’t convince him he wants to settle down and have kids, nothing will!”

  Everybody laughed.

  Being doctors, Mike and Danica were both very interested in all of the appointments we had lined up at the Mayo clinic the next day. They had done a lot of research for us about cochlear implants and had asked around about the doctors who would be seeing Lily the next day. Mike had even done rotations under one of the doctors and had nothing but good things to say about him.

  Cochlear implants had been around for a long time, but they kept getting better and better every year. Through a surgical procedure, doctors could attach a series of tiny electrodes to the auditory nerve. These electrodes were attached to a receiver and then the incision site would be closed up. After a period of waiting for the site to heal, patients would get “activated”. A magnet would attach a microphone, processor, and transmitter to the outside of the patient’s head. The sound picked up by the microphone would pass from the processor to the transmitter, then to the receiver and then to the electrodes. The electrodes would stimulate the auditory nerve, and that would hopefully simulate hearing.

  “If you decide to do it,” Danica told Laci, “you should keep a blog about it.”

  “That would be me,” I said, raising my hand. “Laci doesn’t even know how to check her email.”

  “Oh, I do too.”

  No, she doesn’t, I mouthed to Danica, shaking my head and Laci smacked my leg.

  “Well,” Danica laughed. “You should keep a blog about it then.”

  “No, thanks.”

  “Why not?” Mike asked.

  “There’s so much controversy about it . . . I really don’t want to have to justify our decision to anybody. Whatever we decide – it’s our business – not anybody else’s.”

  So many people in the deaf community were completely against cochlear implants. Some felt that we should just accept Lily the way she was, that if we tried to “fix” her hearing we were implying something was “wrong” with her in the first place. Others believed that Scripture taught us to not alter our bodies in the way implants would do. Still others felt that we should wait until Lily was old enough to make her own decision, but we knew that her language skills were developing now . . . .

  Laci had even worried that other kids would tease Lily when they saw the external portion of her implants.

  “Everybody’ll just think she has a Bluetooth,” I’d assured her and she’d laughed.

  Laci had never been vain which is why I was a little surprised that she would worry over something so superficial. But I guess in reality we were both concerned about the challenges Lily was going to be facing in her life. She was a Latino being raised in a largely white community by white parents and she was deaf. I suppose Laci just didn’t want Lily to have any additional hindrances.

  When it came to her looks though, I really didn’t think that Lily was going to have any problems. She was simply the most beautiful little girl to ever walk the face of the earth.

  And I’m not just saying that because I’m her dad.

  After all of the tests and procedures and exams, the doctors told us two things. The first was that Lily was profoundly deaf. We already knew that. This meant that for all intents and purposes she could hear nothing . . . even with hearing aids. The second thing we learned (and which we’d already suspected) was that she was an excellent candidate for implants.

  “So have you decided anything?” Mike asked that evening. We were sleeping at his place again before driving home in the morning.

  “First week in July,” Laci nodded.

  I glanced down at Lily who was sitting on the couch between me and Laci, looking at
a catalogue of medical uniforms. I touched her cheek so that she turned to me and then I signed I love you to her and I mouthed it too. She smiled at me and went back to her catalogue.

  I decided that – given the choice – Lily would want to be able to hear me say that.

  When we got home I called Tanner.

  “So you’re still alive?” I asked him.

  “Alive and well.”

  “Well, we’re back. I’ll come rescue you.”

  “Okay,” he said. “We’re at the high school.”

  “You’re at the high school?”

  “Hi Daddy!” I heard Dorito yell in the background.

  “Yeah . . . down on the football field.”

  “Okay. See you in a little bit.”

  I figured he had some kind of practice going on and I was feeling bad that he’d had to take Dorito with him, but when I arrived it was only the two of them on the field. Tanner had a whistle around his neck and Dorito was wearing a miniature football uniform . . . complete with shoulder pads, helmet and cleats.

  “Where did you get this?” I asked him, peering into his helmet to make sure he was really in there.

  “Tan-man bought it for me!”

  He spun around to show me the back. It said DORITO.

  “Tan-man?”

  “Uh-huh. That’s what I call Tanner,” he explained matter-of-factly. “It’s a nickname.”

  I decided Tanner was right . . . our family had an issue with names.

  “Watch this,” Tan-man said, grinning at me. He blew his whistle and Dorito charged at a blocking sled with all his might. It moved forward three inches and then sprang back about ten. Dorito sprawled to the ground. He lay on his back like a turtle and grinned up at me through his helmet.

  “Did you see that Daddy? I made it move!”

  “Yeah,” I laughed, grabbing his hands and helping him up. “It made you move too!”

  “Oh, it always does that,” Dorito said, and he crouched down into a starting position, ready to go again.

  ~ ~ ~

  WHAT’S ALL THIS for?” Jordan asked me one evening. He had come over for one of our regular tutoring sessions and I was in the kitchen cutting cubes out of gelatin that were the same size as the sugar cubes I’d bought.

  “Don’t eat my science project!” I said, smacking his hand away.

  “This is a science project?”

  “Yep!” I grinned. “It’s Career Week in kindergarten and I get to be a guest speaker tomorrow in Dorito’s class.”

  “You’re taking Jello and sugar cubes in to talk about being an engineer?”

  “Uh-huh!” I smiled at him. He had a skeptical look on his face. “You’re just dying to know how, aren’t you?”

  “If I listen can I have some Jello?” he asked.

  I ignored him and started stacking gelatin cubes on top of one another making a little building on a metal tray.

  “Here,” I said, sliding the sugar cubes to him and tapping on the other half of the tray. “You make the same size building with these.”

  “Okay,” I said when we were finished. “Now watch!”

  I started shaking the tray back and forth until his little sugar cube building collapsed.

  “What’d ya do that for?” he cried.

  “I didn’t do it. It was an earthquake.”

  He glanced at me sideways.

  “See, we both made the same buildings, but they were made out of different materials so only one was able to survive.”

  “So you’re going to teach them to make buildings out of Jello?”

  “No, no, no. I’m trying to teach them that one of the important parts of my job is to make sure that the right materials are selected when it’s being designed.”

  “Why don’t you just have them use Lego’s?” Jordan asked.

  “You’re missing the point.”

  “Are you going to build it or are the kids going to do it?”

  “The kids are.”

  “And you really think they’re not going to eat their buildings?”

  “They can eat after the earthquake.”

  “And then you’re going to go home and leave that poor teacher there with a bunch of sugared-up kids, aren’t you?”

  I smiled and nodded. He shook his head at me and I started cutting another row of cubes into the gelatin.

  “You know,” he said after a minute, glancing at his watch. “I think I should get going. You look kind of busy here . . .”

  “No,” I said. “I’m fine. I’m almost done.”

  “No, it’s okay. I think I’ve pretty much got a handle on what we’re doing right now and you need to get this finished, so I think I’m just going to get going.”

  “Are you sure?” I asked, stopping my cutting and looking up at him. “I’ve really got time . . .”

  “No,” he said again, heading into the living room. “You just keep working. I’ll probably see you tomorrow.”

  Probably?

  “Jordan’s not coming over tonight either,” I told Laci at dinner a couple of weeks later. This was about the fifth time he’d ditched me since I’d shown him my earthquake experiment.

  “How come?”

  “He claims he’s rehearsing with someone.”

  “Claims?”

  “He has like two lines, Laci. How much rehearsing does he need to do?”

  Jordan had refused to be one of the Roman soldiers who had crucified Christ in our Easter pageant, so instead he was playing the thief on the cross who’d asked Jesus to remember him.

  “Well, what do you think he’s up to then?”

  “I’m not sure,” I admitted. “But I’m going to try and find out.”

  The weekend before Easter finally arrived and all of our regular babysitters were going to be at Mike and Danica’s wedding. Fortunately Lydia was able to come over and stay with Dorito and Lily. I had a feeling she knew exactly what Jordan had been up to lately, but if she did, she wasn’t letting on.

  “Hi, Lydia!”

  “Hi.”

  “Glad you could come babysit for us . . .”

  “Anytime,” she said.

  “Usually Jordan helps us out a lot . . . it’s been pretty convenient having him right across the street. He’s really good with the kids . . .”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Absolutely no reaction.

  “Actually he hasn’t been around quite as much lately. He seems pretty busy.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Of course he’s got baseball and play practice . . .”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “You pretty much ready for the play?”

  “Yeah, I guess so.”

  “Been rehearsing outside of practice much?”

  “Sort of.”

  “Any of the other kids?”

  “I guess so.”

  Fine. Don’t be helpful.

  “You look very handsome in your tux,” Laci told me later at the wedding reception. The band was playing a slow song and we were dancing.

  “You don’t look so bad yourself.”

  “Thanks.”

  I smiled at her.

  “This is beautiful,” she said, looking around the room.

  I looked around too.

  “Did you notice that the flowers on the cake match the ones in Danica’s bouquet?”

  “Uh-huh . . .”

  “You did?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Are you even listening to me?”

  “Huh?”

  “What are you looking at?” she asked. We stopped dancing and she followed my gaze across the room.

  Jordan and Charlotte were dancing together.

  “Oh, wow!” she said, turning back to me and smiling.

  “Yeah,” I said, still staring. “Wow!”

  “Quit looking at them, David,” she said, hitting me on the shoulder. We started dancing again.

  “Oh, this is going to be fun!” I grinned.

  “No, David. You are not going to tease th
em!”

  “No,” I agreed. “I’m not going to tease them . . . just her.”

  “Oh, brother.”

  I waited until she was sitting next to her mom and when another slow song started I approached their table.

  “May I have this dance, Charlotte?” I asked.

  “Sure,” she smiled.

  “You’re next,” I promised, looking at Mrs. White.

  “I’d better be.”

  Charlotte walked out onto the floor with me and we started dancing.

  “So what was that all about?” I asked, grinning at her.

  “Don’t start with me, David or I’m not going to dance with you,” she threatened.

  “Oh, come on, Charlotte! Tell me . . .”

  “What?” she sighed. “What do you want to know?”

  “Everything!”

  She rolled her eyes.

  “There’s hardly anything to tell!”

  “Hardly anything?” I grinned.

  “Yeah,” she said, “hardly anything. We’ve been hanging out a bit and maybe we’ve kissed a couple of times.”

  “You’ve KISSED!?”

  “Oh, brother,” she said, rolling her eyes again.

  “Well, well, well,” I said, shaking my head. “So maybe Jordan’s not the icky, disgusting boy you thought he was, huh?”

  “Maybe,” she admitted. “But please don’t make a big deal out of this. Please?”

  “Who? Me?”

  “Yes . . . you!” She tried to glare at me, but wound up laughing instead.

  “This explains a lot,” I said. “Now I see why he’s seemed so happy lately.”

  “Really?”

  “Really. Any guy who’s lucky enough to be with you is bound to be happy.”

  She smiled at me and we kept dancing until the song ended.

  “You’d probably better go dance with my mom,” she said.

  “Yeah,” I agreed, looking past her to where Jordan was standing, watching us. “I suppose I’d better.”

  The Monday after the wedding was a teacher workday and Tanner took the day off. He and Jordan and I had all decided to go fishing. Tanner pulled in across the street to pick us up and I headed over there while Jordan started putting his pole and tackle box into the bed of the truck. Their mom came out and gave Tanner, and then me, hugs.