The Sound of Us

by Sarah Willis

  Larissa thinks a while, as if she’s contemplating all the alternatives. “That’s good,” she says, and copies the sign.

  The doorbell rings.

  I introduce Larissa to Ed, Shaun, and Joey, and she signs her name perfectly, proudly, not stepping behind me as she usually does when she meets new people. They smile and nod to her, showing her how they spell their names, and she smiles and nods just as if she understands.

  Pretty smart girl, Ed signs, and I interpret for Larissa.

  Larissa blushes and starts to put her thumb into her mouth, but stops and lowers her hand back down. Then slowly, carefully, she signs Thank you, and I know if I ever have to give this girl back, I will die.

  We go outside and get into my car. The boys follow in the truck.

  “They smile a lot,” Larissa says to me in the car.

  “Yeah, they do. They’re happy, so they smile.”

  “They’re happy they’re deaf?”

  Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to ask simple questions like that? “Ed, Joey, and Shaun are happy with who they are,” I answer. “And they should be. They’re nice kids.”

  Larissa nods. “Do you think they’ll like my mommy?” she asks.

  I look at her in the rearview mirror, buckled in the back as Michelle has taught me to do. “Sure,” I say. “Of course they will.” And they will like her. Michelle has a happy, friendly personality, when she wants to. It’s people with clipboards she seems to piss off. And me, but not as often as she used to. Still, no matter how she acts, I can’t shake the image of her shouting Baby stealer! at me across a wide busy street. I can’t get rid of who she thinks I am, and who I thought she was.

  We park out front of Michelle’s apartment. You can park in front on Saturdays and Sundays. Larissa hops out of the car and runs to the front door. She’s pressed the buzzer and is standing there holding the door open for us by the time we all get there.

  “Come on,” she says. “Come on! This is where I live. Tell them to come on.” Has she forgotten I’d been here before? I sign Come on, and we all follow as Larissa dashes up the steps.

  Three floors, no elevator. And Ed’s truck is not all that big. This will take several trips, and most of the day. I rub my hands through my hair, thinking I could just pull it all out right now, hair by hair.

  Michelle stands in the doorway, holding Larissa in her arms. She’s dyed her hair. No more black stripe. “Thank you,” she says. “Thank you for doing this.”

  “They are, not me,” I say. I sign what she said, and what I said, then introduce everyone.

  Larissa pokes me with one finger on my hip. “Tell them my mommy’s sign.” I make the M to my chin, and explain what it means.

  Michelle smiles almost shyly. “Well, that’s sweet of you. Thank you. Come on. Come on in.”

  We move into the dining room. The table does have strong legs. It probably weighs a ton. How the hell will it even fit out the door?

  All around the apartment are boxes, taped shut and labeled with black marker. TAKE TO TEYA’S some say, with a list underneath of what’s in the box. FOR LARISSA, with more lists. STORAGE, and a list. STORAGE is me. I’ve moved a few times in my life and never been this organized.

  “Let me show you guys what you can have if you want it,” Michelle says, waving them into her living room. She’s wearing tight jeans and an open jean jacket over a striped T-shirt that shows her bellybutton. She’s still wearing too much eyeliner for my taste, but the deep mauve lipstick she has on makes her pale face look like porcelain. I see Shaun eyeing her and think You’d better not.

  With me interpreting, the guys decide what they’d like, which is everything Michelle offers them.

  “They’ll take the stuff you’re giving them on the last trip,” I interpret, “so they can just go home with it. They’ll take the table first, and fit the other stuff around it.” Shaun nods, then signs, and I voice for him. “Do you have tools to take the table apart?”

  Michelle grins and nods, goes into the kitchen, and comes out with a socket wrench and two screwdrivers. “I looked underneath already,” she says to Shaun. “I think this’ll do it.”

  Larissa runs out of her room. “There’re seven boxes for me!” she says.

  “I’ve got root beer and donuts for everyone,” Michelle says. “They’re in the kitchen if you want some.” When I interpret this, all three guys nod. Donuts, Joey signs, then kisses the back of his hand.

  “I love donuts,” I say to Michelle, interpreting for Joey.

  “Who doesn’t?” she says. I realize she thinks I love donuts. God, this is going to be a long day. And how do I tell her now that I hate donuts, now that she has established that everyone loves donuts. I don’t always want to be the odd man out. Odd woman.

  When they finally get the table into two pieces, Ed and Joey carry it down while Shaun gets the doors. Larissa, Michelle, and I are left standing in the dining room, half the table lying upside down, its legs sticking up like a dead animal.

  “They talk with their hands, Mommy,” Larissa says, interrupting the silence.

  “I know they do, honey. Do you want some pop and donuts?”

  Larissa nods. “Can you come to her house and see the little house I made for Sampson?” Larissa says as she and her mother head for the kitchen. Their backs are to me, but I hear everything.

  “I don’t know, honey. That’s up to Miss Marlowe.”

  I stay in the dining room, standing by one thick upside-down table leg.

  Michelle has borrowed her aunt’s car, and we load that up, and my car too. Back at my house, Ed, Joey, and Shaun take the bed in Larissa’s room and move it to the basement. Michelle and Larissa carry in boxes. I’m trying to catch Sampson and lock him in the attic before he gets out, but he knows something is up and hides under the couch, so I just stand by the front door, a cat guard, opening the door for Michelle and Larissa as they carry in boxes.

  “He’s really a nice cat,” Larissa tells her mother as they pass by me. “He’ll like you a lot.” My jaw gets even tighter. I’m going to have a hell of a headache. It’s lunchtime by now. Am I expected to feed all these people?

  Well, we’ll have to eat. But first I have to catch the damn cat. The front door closes for a moment, so I get a broom and sweep Sampson out from under the couch. He runs into the basement. I can’t close the basement door—it has to stay open for the guys to carry stuff down there. At least I’m in the kitchen now. I pull everything that I can find out of the fridge.

  Michelle comes in. “They’re trying to tell me something,” she says. “About my bedroom bureau? Should they take that to the basement too?”

  “Sure,” I say. Hell, maybe they should just move my stuff down there so Michelle can move in, I think, banging the lid of the jelly jar on the sink. It’s stuck tight. The fact that she’s being quite nice, treating the guys great and pulling her weight with carrying stuff, only gets on my nerves.

  “Oh, you got food out! You didn’t have to do that.”

  “We’ve got to eat,” I say, still banging.

  She reaches out, and automatically I hand her the jelly jar. She gives a quick twist and hands it back to me. “There.” She looks around the kitchen. “Nice place you got. I’ll pay you back for this someday, really. I can’t believe how nice you are.” She says this like she really can’t believe how nice I am.

  “Thanks,” I say, and get the Excedrin out of the cabinet.

  “You know kids can’t have aspirin, right?” she says, turning to look behind her as if Larissa might come shooting around the corner and grab the bottle out of my hand.

  “Yes, I know that,” I say. But I don’t know what she’s talking about. I make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for everyone.

  It takes two trips to get everything to my house, and by the time we’re done it’s four o’clock. The guys are heading back to Michelle’s apartment to get the couch and things they want. They say I don’t have to come this time, they’re doing pretty wel
l with Michelle all on their own.

  Yeah, I bet, I think.

  “Can I go?” Larissa asks.

  Michelle picks her up and they nuzzle noses. “I’ll bring her back as soon as the guys get the stuff in the truck. I promise.”

  I say sure. They leave, and the house is wonderfully quiet. It would feel good, this silence, except the sight of Michelle’s rocking chair in the corner is like a loud sign, a red flag, something I can’t quite interpret but I know it’s not a good thing.

  By nine o’clock at night, they haven’t returned. I call Michelle. Disconnected. I try Ed, but he isn’t answering his TTY. I try to stay calm. What could I tell Children and Family Services anyway? Her mother asked if she could take her and I said yes?

  I pace. I swear with my hand, then out loud. At ten, the doorbell rings.

  “Sorry, sorry,” Michelle says, holding a sleeping Larissa in her arms. “I got pizza for the guys, and then they showed Larissa how to play pool, and we took my—”

  “You took Larissa to a pool hall?”

  “No, no. They got themselves a pool table. That’s about all they got! And mattresses on the floor!” She laughs. “I like them. It’s so nice they did all that moving. What took so long was I decided to give them my bed, too, ’cause I’ll be sleeping on the couch at Teya’s. I was going to sell my bed and bedroom stuff to the landlord, but screw him, I’d rather give it to the guys. So we went back and got it, and then they said they’d take my stuff over to Teya’s for me. Well, they didn’t say it, you know. We did a lot of writing stuff down. Can I take her up and put her in bed?” She shifts Larissa in her arms.

  “Sure,” I say.

  Michelle carries her up, knowing just where Larissa’s room is. I stay downstairs. She’s up there ten minutes or more. I stop myself from going to see if she’s rifling through my jewelry box, but I keep my ears open and pretend I’m cleaning up the stuff on the table by the bottom of the steps. When she finally comes down, her eyes are bloodshot.

  “Sorry,” she says, and this sorry has none of the vigor of moments before. “It was real hard to walk out of that room,” she offers, when I don’t say anything. “Her old bed, her sleeping.” She wipes at her nose. “Sorry.”

  What the hell can I say but, “That’s okay.”

  “You’re very nice,” she says and heads to the front door. “It’s been a long day. Thanks for letting me take her.”

  “Sure,” I say.

  I watch Michelle walk down the front walk to the car parked on the street. It’s dark now, and windy, a cold front moving in. She has to be freezing in that T-shirt and thin jean jacket. I wonder what she has left, now that she’s given everything away.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Larissa is a little witch for Halloween. In early November, she catches strep throat. Michelle and I both show up at Larissa’s fall concert at school, and she comes over and sits next to me, elbowing me when Larissa files out with her class. They sing “Catch a Falling Star” and “It’s a Small World.” Larissa wets her bed only two or three times a week now. Sometimes I go into the donut shop when I take Larissa there, and talk with Michelle, ask her how her classes are. Sometimes I eat a donut and drink bad coffee, sitting at the counter. Nothing makes Larissa happier than when I do this.

  One evening as we eat dinner in the kitchen, Larissa asks me if her mom can come for Thanksgiving. My parents are driving to Arizona to visit Bruce and Dylan.

  “Isn’t she going to have dinner with Auntie Teya?” I ask.

  “She’s going away. My mommy will be all alone.” She looks so sad about her mom being alone that I say yes.

  “As long as she doesn’t bring donuts. No more donuts.”

  “Yes! Yes! No donuts! Can I call her?”

  “After you do your homework.” This is standard now, and Larissa nods.

  “Yolanda Walker’s coming for dinner tomorrow,” I remind her as I get up and carry my plate to the sink. I had a vegetable burger; Larissa had a regular hamburger.

  Larissa frowns. She still doesn’t like Yolanda. Yolanda is one of the people who held her down on the doctor’s exam table. She puts her thumb into her mouth.

  “No thumb,” I say. She takes her thumb out, but those eyebrows lower. She wants to stop sucking her thumb—kids tease her—but she still gets mad when I remind her.

  “Can we make apple pie?” she asks.

  “For Thanksgiving?”

  She nods. “My mommy loves apple pie,” she says, crossing her arms when she says the word love. We don’t uses signs as much anymore now that Larissa talks so much. Really, she can just be a gush of words and open longing, that wariness of exposing herself forgotten for the moment. These times, I see Michelle so clearly in Larissa: Michelle’s innocent energy, her need to be loved and give love, a raw way of exposing herself that would make me cringe. Still, I envy that in both of them, that they can let loose those boundaries I have made for myself.

  “When you say you love something, like a pie,” I tell her, “you kiss the back of your fist instead. Crossing your arms against your chest is usually meant for a person, and maybe animals. You could say I love Sampson by crossing your arms, but if you were going to say I love pop, you would make the other sign, kissing the back of your fist.”

  “I do love Sampson!” she says, making the sign for love across her chest. “I do! And my mommy loves apple pie!” She kisses the back of her fist. I hardly ever have to teach her a sign twice anymore. She’s a smart kid. I want to tell her that I love her, ask if she loves me. These limitations stand like an electric fence between us.

  “Can we make apple pie?” she asks again.

  “Sure.”

  She smiles and runs off. “Sampson!” she calls. “Sampson! My mommy’s coming for Thanksgiving! We’re going to make apple pie! Do you like apple pie?”

  I decide to invite Ed and his friends. I really don’t relish the idea of sitting around the dining room table with just Larissa and Michelle, especially since it’s her table. A few weeks ago, I’d had Ed and Joey come over and switch the tables, and now mine is in the basement. I like her table better.

  Larissa has me teach her how to sign Happy Thanksgiving and You want apple pie? Ed, Shaun, and Joey bring potato chips and four cans of cranberry sauce. Michelle brings green beans.

  I spend much of dinner interpreting. The guys make silly jokes and Michelle and Larissa laugh. “Hey, hey, I got one,” Michelle says, “Okay, there’s this blonde, a real blonde, not like me, who’s driving somewhere, Connecticut, I think, yeah, a place starts with a C, and this blonde don’t know how to get where she’s going so she pulls over at this gas station, and . . .” She stops, squints her eyes, and chews at her bottom lip. “No, not first. First she goes to a Seven-Eleven or something, and asks where’s Connecticut, and the guy, he points down the road and says, ‘Just keep going that way,’ then she gets lost again and pulls over to a gas station and . . . Fuck. I forget. I missed something.” She laughs, rolling her eyes. “There’s supposed to be this bear.” She holds up both hands, still laughing. “Sorry.”

  Shaun watches Michelle, smiling ear to ear. I’m so busy interpreting that I’m the last one to finish eating.

  “I think Shaun likes me,” Michelle says as we wash the dishes.

  “You picked up on that, huh?” I say. The friendliness in my voice shows and I rub harder at the cutting board I’m drying.

  “So he does? Really?”

  “Yeah, I think so. He’s younger than you, though, I think. How old are you?”

  “Almost twenty-four.”

  “I think Shaun’s twenty-two. So when do you turn twenty-four?” I’m trying to figure the math out in my head, how old she was when she got pregnant.

  “December twenty-fifth.”

  “Christmas? Your birthday is on Christmas?”

  “Yeah.” She shrugs one shoulder and hands me the turkey pan she just washed. The drainer’s full. Her nails are chipped.

  “Oh.” This is
going to get complicated—her birthday on Christmas.

  Michelle brushes the bangs out of her face. “I like him,” she says. “But it would be weird.”

  I nod.

  “Not just ’cause he’s deaf. That, too, but I don’t know. I haven’t gone out with a guy since Charlie died. That mistake I made, that wasn’t going out. That guy was such a shit.” She picks up one of the wineglasses that’s drying in the drainer. “These are so pretty,” she says.

  “Thanks,” I say.

  “He’s nice, though, don’tcha think?”

  “Shaun? Yeah. He’s sweet. But being with a deaf person is going to be different because of the language barrier.”

  “You think I shouldn’t?”

  I think about it for a minute. “No, you should. If you’re ready.”

  “I might be.” She puts the glass back. “I still wear my wedding ring. I don’t know if I could take it off. Am I supposed to?”

  “I don’t know,” I say, putting the pan down on the stove. All that’s left to do is wipe the counters. We’ve done a good job of cleaning up. We work well together. “I don’t know about stuff like that. You’ll know when you’re ready. I told Ed some about you, and he probably told Shaun. I’m sure he knows your husband is dead. Leave your ring on, if it makes you feel better.”

  She dries her hands on the dishtowel I hand her. “Thanks,” she says.

  “Sure.”

  She wipes the counter one last time and we go back out to the living room. Larissa and the guys are watching It’s a Wonderful Life with the sound turned off and the captions on.

  “Okay, Larissa,” I say. “It’s time.”

  She gets up off the couch and stands in the middle of the room, facing Shaun, Ed, and Joey. You want apple pie? she signs. I didn’t teach it to her in ASL. One step at a time.

  Yes, they sign. Apple pie. Love.

  Larissa claps. “They said yes!”