If a Tree Falls

by Jennifer Rosner

  The surgery could take up to five hours. As we searched for an empty cluster of chairs in the waiting area, we recognized a mother and daughter from a pre-op appointment two weeks earlier. I looked on as Bill engaged the daughter, played Pacman with her. I filled with admiration for Bill, for his kindness toward this worried little girl—her twin brother was in surgery—but it only punctuated my loneliness.

  I called Sophia on my cell phone. She was watching cartoons. I told her I’d call again when Juliet was out of surgery.

  “She’ll have a big bandage on her head?”

  “Yes, like in the pictures I showed you.”

  “Because they’re making a cut in her head?”

  “Yes.”

  “Will it hurt?”

  From Sophia’s tone, I half suspected that she hoped it would.

  “I need to go now, Sophia. Have fun with Grandma and Grandpa. I love you.”

  I hunkered into a seat, and I started to open a skein of wool. I was going to use my hands, crochet a scarf, allow the rhythm of my movements to calm my bursting head. Somehow, though, my opening of the skein yielded an immense tangle of wool. I looked at Bill, now sitting beside me, reading the newspaper. I asked him if he would help me unravel the mess of knots and he said “No,” he couldn’t bear to, it would unravel him. Next to him, but alone, I sat for the next several hours, trying to untangle the wool, my eyes burning.

  The attending nurse cheerily updated us with: “they’re still drilling” (into Juliet’s skull, that is) at the forty-five minute mark, at the one and a half hour mark, and unbelievably, at the two hour and fifteen minute mark. I couldn’t help overhearing conversations about cancerous tumors and heart defects. Another mother, sitting a few seats away, burst into tears.

  Sometime during the fourth hour, I looked down and noticed that my wedding ring was not on my finger; it must have slipped off. I searched the waiting room, then I searched the bathroom, the cafeteria, everywhere I had been that morning. How could it be lost? I rummaged through my bag, then dumped the entire contents onto the chair next to me. My ring was nowhere among the papers about implants, the sticky notes with friends’ cell phone numbers, my wallet, random coins, paper clips, and the sparkles fallen from Sophia’s barrettes. With quaking fingers, I squeezed my hand into the narrow inside zipper pocket. There, my fingers twisted tight around the cool braided gold. I put the ring on, reassembled my bag, stowed the skein of wool, and pressed my back into the chair for the remainder of the wait.

  From down the hall, I saw the surgeon loping toward us. His blue scrub mask was pushed back on his forehead, and he was grinning a toothy smile. Bill and I had liked him since our first consultation. He told us that his own son had needed ear surgery as an infant—a surgery that he’d had to sit out. Now he came to lean against the arm of a nearby chair, his legs stretched out in front of him.

  “The surgery was extremely successful. We were able to thread the electrode array very high up along the curvature of Juliet’s cochlea. She is going to have access to all channels. We tested the implant mechanism and it’s working. When the surgery wound heals, in about a month, the audiologist will program her external processor. I’d like to see Juliet in about three weeks.”

  I was elated, and suddenly embarrassed that in the same time it took the surgeon to give Juliet a cochlear implant, all I accomplished was unraveling a skein of wool.

  In the recovery room, Juliet’s head was bandaged thickly, her face swollen, her eyebrows pressed low. Asleep, she looked agitated, like a boxer in a fight. She awoke in a fury, screaming and punching, a detoxifying maniac as the anesthesia worked its way out of her body. I gathered her up but the weight of her bandage threw us both off-balance. She nearly flipped out of my arms, she was so top-heavy. I jostled her into a cradle position, careful not to stretch the many tubes and wires connecting her to monitors. Juliet raged inconsolably, then suddenly, abruptly, fell asleep. Twenty minutes later she awoke again in a fit, her arms and legs flailing, then she tumbled back to sleep. I held her through the night, through countless ragings and sleeps, cramped in the hospital crib-cage meant only for her. In the early dawn, I perceived the smooshed and crooked beginnings of a smile. Juliet stood herself up, lifted her blanket to cover her face, and resumed our earlier game of peek-a-boo.

  A month after the surgery, we drove back to the hospital so that the audiologist could “turn on” Juliet’s sound. An external processor would be programmed by computer, first very softly, then later with gradual increases in volume. Like a dimmer switch on lights, it was important to be gradual with Juliet, so that she would like sound, since she could take her processor off (and stop hearing) if she didn’t. Before we got into the car to go, the phone rang. It was Jan, from Clarke.

  “Are you ready?”

  “ I don’t know,” I said.

  “You should be prepared for Juliet to cry. Lots of babies cry.”

  “I know.”

  “Or she might become agitated.”

  “OK.”

  “ I just want you to know, Juliet is not going to respond today the way you want her to. What you want is for her to hear her first sound, turn to you, and say: thank you so much!”

  In fact, Juliet’s reaction to sound was far more wondrous. In the cochlear implant mapping room, its door marked with a child’s geometric drawing of a cochlea, Bill and I wrapped our arms around Juliet as the audiologist programmed the external processor on the computer. The external processor consisted of an earpiece, shaped like a behind-the-ear hearing aid, with one wire attaching to a magnetic disk the size of a quarter and another wire attaching to a small box with a control panel. Juliet’s earpiece was blue, like Sophia’s hearing aids, and now the audiologist attached a snazzy pink stripe to its top. The magnetic disc was brown, and it glommed onto Juliet’s head like a magnet onto a refrigerator: glup.

  The audiologist instructed us to be completely silent. She turned the system “on,” then handed Juliet a drum and a stick. Juliet whacked the drum, then jumped back like a startled animal at the sound of the boom. She searched our faces with wide questioning eyes. She beat the drum again. Boom! Then, with a wild thrust of her head, Juliet laughed.

  Juliet used the drum stick to beat other things: the audiologist’s pant leg made almost no sound, the metal file cabinet made a loud clanging boom, the wood chair back sounded different from the thick wood table top. Juliet, at thirteen months, was a scientist, studying and experimenting with sound.

  According to the audiologist, all sounds would come in as beeps and blips at first. It would take months before the neural pathways between Juliet’s auditory nerve and her brain would be forged and able to translate the input into meaningful sound. Months before “moo” could be distinguished from “quack” and pinned on its rightful farm speaker. And months before Juliet would turn at the calling of her name. But Juliet’s excitement carried us through. At home, she was thrilled to hear the sizzle of an egg in the frying pan, the rush of water through the faucet. She prompted us to sing songs, to “moo” and to “quack,” to turn on music, to attend to the many noises we ordinarily delegated to the background and ignored.

  We poured milk into Rice Krispies cereal, and we bent our heads low to the bowl. Snap! Crackle! Pop! We jingled bicycle bells: Jing, Jing! Rang doorbells: Ding Dong! Honked horns: Beep Beep! We placed and received calls on our toy phone: Rrrring Rrrring Rrrring! We bought and sold stuffed animals with our toy cash register: Ring; Bonk (the money drawer sliding open). We played “Jungle”—Roar!—and “ Farm”—Cockadoodledoo! We sounded off harmonicas, drums, recorders, a kazoo. A whoopy cushion.

  Juliet reawakened us all again to the wonder of hearing. Her joy chased away our worries that our decision was selfish or presumptuous. Even if it was these things, it was not wrong. Juliet reveled in sound.

  We hunkered into our work. And we hunkered into our wait. Who knew what Juliet was processing? Or what she might sound like when she had heard enough to venture into speech
? I thought often of that computer simulation I’d heard: that croaky sentence, “ I like to play tennis.” Was Juliet’s hearing really like that? For a week, when I had laryngitis, I was especially curious. Perhaps through an implant, my raspy voice was inverted, so I finally sounded like my usual self?

  Each morning, we put on Juliet’s implant processor. I also stuck a high-volume hearing aid into her non-implanted ear. Set at highest volume, the hearing aid might give her access to some sounds—most likely low frequency sounds and sound patterns. If it worked at all, she’d hear these through the normal hearing process, rather than the implant’s electronic one. Juliet objected to the aid, but I persisted in putting it in. Through her fits, I rasped in my best Demi-Darth-Gulch voice. Any chance to round out Juliet’s auditory experience was worth it.

  Bill made us breakfast—the girls liked his “crispy” scrambled eggs—and then went upstairs to work. He was telecommuting now, working in our attic for a national child advocacy organization based in Seattle. Sophia put on her own hearing aids, and got ready for preschool. Then, I whisked Sophia and Juliet down the block in our double stroller to Sophia’s school. Once Sophia was settled into her classroom—having shown us her paper weavings, her popsicle stick fairies, her plastic cup of grass on the windowsill—Juliet and I ambled our way home, missing Sophia already. Back inside, to keep things cheery, I chased Juliet around our house. “I’m going to get you, Juliet,” I yelled. And with exaggerated, booming steps, I ran after her, as she scuttled ahead of me, squealing.

  We had the perfect house for a chase: an 1800s New England house built around a central staircase. One day in snowy February, we ran round and round, through the dining room, the kitchen, the family room, the living room, then back into the entry—the “foyer” as the realtor had called it. Every time I raced into the kitchen, my toes knocked into the slightly raised threshold, bruising even through my chunky blue socks, while Juliet galloped over the rise each time with the precision of a cat.

  At one point the tea kettle whistled and I broke the chase for a quick hearing lesson. I stood still in the kitchen until Juliet knocked into me, catapulted from her whole lap lead, and as she caught her breath I pointed out the high-pitched whistle, blowing on and on, thick steam shooting up at the kitchen cabinets. “I hear it,” I said, pointing to my ears. Then I switched off the stove, moved the kettle to a cool burner and resumed the chase, offering Juliet the lead, trailing in the sea of squeal and laughter that floated in from the room ahead.

  The run became a blur of changing colors—blue in the living room, gold in the kitchen—and a dance of white as we passed the wavy window glass. Time-out had to be called several more times because Juliet’s processor magnet slipped off a lot, dragged down by the weight of her processor, flapping in a pocket I’d hastily sewn onto her t-shirt.

  Juliet took the Time-outs like a puppy halted mid-nip to scratch an itch. Her eyes sparkled each time the chase resumed, her reddish hair wispy and loose, slipping out of her top-knot. At one point, as I gained on her, sock skating down the burgundy stretch of dining room, I called out “I’m going to get you, Juliet!” and she turned her head to look at me.

  I stopped in my tracks like Roadrunner.

  “Juliet?” I ventured again. By now Juliet was smiling a huge smile—she had heard and recognized her name.

  “Juliet!” I choked and I scooped her into my arms. “I got you, Juliet. I got you. I’ve gotten you.”

  Juliet nuzzled me with her flushed cheek. Then she squirmed out of my embrace, and resumed running.

  Massachusetts, February 2005

  TO SUPPORT US IN OUR WORK with Juliet, we had a team of clinicians, many of whom had worked with Sophia, all by now our dear friends, our de facto therapists, our lifelines, our heroes.

  Marilyn, Juliet’s audiologist, checked and updated Juliet’s implant mapping programs to ensure that she was hearing. Jan worked with Juliet on listening—attending to sound, discriminating, imitating, turn-taking. Jean worked with Juliet on all manner of communicating—vocalizing, signaling, and gesturing. Kathie worked with all of us on Signing.

  Just as we’d done with Sophia, we focused our speech work with Juliet on single power words: UP, DOWN, OPEN, CLOSE. We talked incessantly. “Do you want to come UP? I’ll pick you UP. Now you’re UP! UP, UP, UP . . .” When Juliet had enough, we settled her into the center of a big blue blanket, took up the corners and swung her back and forth, back and forth. She squealed with added delight when Sophia climbed in too, and we swayed them together in a heavy heap, steady and low. Their laughter drowned out our expertly articulated counting, our overlyannunciated “wheeees.”

  No matter how eagerly we awaited Juliet’s first spoken word, it would (evidently) come in its own time, regardless of our prompting and prodding.

  At nighttime, when I wrote in my journal, I could see my uncertainty steering the way. We’d crossed worlds for Juliet, yet with no sense of what lay ahead. No sense of what she was hearing, or when she might speak, or how she experienced this new world of sound that we turned on and off with the flick of a magnet. In the universe of my ancestors, of Nellie and Bayla, I had no more certainty about what they experienced. Only my hopes and my fears. My need to forge on.

  New York, 1885

  NELLIE CLASPS HERSCHEL’S HAND and yanks him out of the way of the morning stampede as men in black hats and coats, white fringes billowing at their sides, rush through the streets to work. When the foot traffic slows, Nellie and Herschel resume their walk, dawdling down Union Street. Herschel is calmer when they are outside. Inside Lill’s apartment, he rages: “Mama, Mama, Mama.” He fusses and cries; he even kicks the little wood blocks that Samuel gave him. Nellie can’t seem to calm him.

  Now just a few feet from Lill’s building, Nellie thinks: perhaps one more time, they can walk around the block. But no more buying! They already spent on a little cake at the bakery and a bag of roasted chickpeas from a pushcart peddler. She’d have to steer him away from the steaming sweet potatoes, the open cracker barrels. Just fresh air this time around.

  At the street corner, a mail carriage passes by. Nellie wonders how long it will take for a letter to arrive, how long before she will get word that Bayla and the others are journeying to America. Nellie imagines Bayla in a cramped dormitory room with unknown schoolmates and strict schoolmasters. No one like Rayzl, with a writing tablet tucked under her arm.

  Instead of looping back to the apartment now, Nellie lifts Herschel and carries him on her hip, past the butcher, past the tailor, and even past the bookbinder. Elish told her of a factory several blocks to the east with lots of girls, sewing. If she can get work there, and do a fine job, perhaps Bayla will be welcome, too, when she arrives. Nellie rushes along, her eyes fixed on the tiny metal shards embedded in the sidewalk. At the edge of a small park, in the center of the next city block, Nellie looks up, then stops abruptly. Herschel nearly falls from her hip.

  Up on a park bench, a girl stands at her mother’s shoulder height. Her hands soar in fast, intentional flight. Nellie can see that the girl’s movements are not just gestures accompanying speech, but signs, a language. Nellie stands unmoving. She watches for several minutes, trying to decipher the dialect of the girl’s hands. But now the girl stops. It is the mother’s turn and she seems to be chastising her daughter: the girl mustn’t throw the crumbs they brought for the pigeons upon storefront steps, nor should she throw them at dogs being walked in the park. The mother’s young face is kind but stern as she sets out the breadcrumb rules, and the girl signals that she understands. Growing restless, the girl turns away, pivoting nearly in a full circle, when her eyes brush past Nellie and lock onto Herschel.

  Nellie takes a breath and sets Herschel down. The girl jumps down from the bench and faces him. Together, but almost as if they are carrying bundles between their legs, the children inch closer until they are just a few feet away. The mother turns to them now, and as the two children stare widely at each other, Nellie signs
to the woman. The woman signs back—her name is Sylvia, and she is pleased, very pleased, to meet Nellie!

  When they part, Sylvia invites Nellie to meet them again later in the week. With Herschel re-hoisted up on her hip, Nellie reels. She feels larger in her body than she has in months. She tightens her clasp around her little brother, inhaling the sweet oil of his hair, the soft floury smell of his cheek.

  Approaching the factory door, Nellie sets Herschel down and motions for him to wait outside. A saggy man with tired grey eyes and unkempt grey hair looks Nellie up and down as she walks in. Nellie pantomimes sewing. She points to the tiny, delicate stitches on her shirt, then at her own hands and again gestures a stitch. The manager begins talking, but Nellie cannot follow what he is saying. She scans the room helplessly. Girls look up from their tables, then glue their eyes back to their work. The man is used to immigrants. He takes Nellie’s arm, squeezing a little too tight, and walks her to a sewing table with an empty chair. He hands her a scrap of lacy cotton and a threaded needle. Nellie carefully stitches a seam in close, even stitches. The man nods and motions for her to remain seated. Nellie settles into the seat, then abruptly she stands, suddenly remembering that Herschel is waiting outside for her. She must go. Boldly, Nellie shakes her head apologetically and rushes out the door. The man watches from the doorway as Nellie sweeps Herschel into her arms and runs down the block. In heaving breaths, she returns twenty minutes later, and claims her seat. The manager frowns, but places a large wire frame and a bolt of white cotton fabric on her table. Nellie will learn to sew corsets.

  Late at night, Nellie practices writing Yiddish words in a loopy hand. She longs to tell Bayla all about her new job and about Sylvia—how they meet at the park most evenings; how Herschel chases little Sarah around the fountain. They throw crumbs at the silvery blue pigeons that approach haltingly, never blinking their sharp, pea green eyes. In those dusky hours, with fountain water misting Herschel’s black curls and flushed cheeks, the glaze lifts from his eyes, and his heart isn’t so heavy with longing for Mama and Papa. And Nellie is hopeful then that things will be all right, that she can manage until they arrive.