Sign

by Colin Dray

  Just as Sam had finished reading the same comic for the third time in a row, his door was elbowed open, and Dettie slid inside, the halo of her hair glowing above her silhouette like a match. She snapped on the light and Sam shielded himself from the glare.

  ‘You’ll ruin your eyes if you keep that up,’ she said, and gently kicked her way through the toys on the floor. Easing down onto the bed, she tapped his foot. ‘What are you reading?’ She lifted the comic from his hands and flicked through the pages.

  Sam scrunched his blankets into a knot. He shrugged.

  ‘Hmm, looks exciting,’ she said, unconvincingly. She flattened out its creases and placed it on the floor.

  ‘So how are you feeling, Sammy?’

  Motionless, he sat staring down at his empty lap.

  ‘Yes, I know,’ she said. ‘It’ll be sore for a while, but it’ll keep getting better. Soon, you won’t even feel it.’

  Sam knew he was glaring, but he didn’t care. He was grinding his teeth and he didn’t mind that it pulled against the stitches.

  ‘You’re probably feeling like things are different now, aren’t you? That you’re not the same? That a piece of you is gone?’ She shook her head, slowly. ‘Maybe you feel like someone took something from you? Something that was yours.’ She leaned in, and reaching over, flicked on his bedside lamp, turning it towards herself. ‘And it’s okay to feel like that, Sammy,’ she said. ‘They did take something from you. They had to.’

  Dettie was undoing the top two buttons on her blouse as she spoke. Sam wriggled away, staring over at the closed curtains.

  ‘See, I know how you feel,’ she said, pulling open her collar so that he could see the top of the long scar left over from her heart operation. It was flushed pink and stretched down her chest like a strip of barbed wire.

  ‘You might have a scar like this for the rest of your life too, but that doesn’t mean that you’ve changed. You’re still who you are. No matter what.’ She was still holding her arms up. Her elbows started to tremble. ‘You’re not broken, Sammy,’ she said. ‘Remember what I said? People like us—we don’t break. We get fixed, and we get stronger.’

  Sam still didn’t know what to say to that. And he remembered suddenly, almost disinterestedly, that he couldn’t say anything anyway. He nodded.

  Dettie nodded too, fixing up her blouse and pulling back his bedsheets. ‘Now why don’t you come out and sit with us in the lounge room?’

  He wilted, but she took his arm and led him to the door.

  Outside, his mother was putting away the shopping. ‘Did you have a good talk to Aunty Dettie?’ she smiled. ‘Did she tell you about how impressed all the nurses were?’

  Sam shook his head, but felt Dettie’s hand squeeze him gently on the shoulder.

  ‘Wonderful,’ his mother said, smiling, and turned back to the pantry to shelve two more soup cans.

  Sam shrugged, wandering over to sit on the floor by the couch.

  8

  His mother needed to get back to work as soon as Sam returned home. He was taking a couple of weeks off school to recuperate, but after the past year of tests and doctors’ appointments and procedures she had no leave left, so Dettie offered to drop over each day from her apartment and watch him. Sam was meant to use the time to relearn his daily routine. How to bathe without getting water in his stoma. How to clean and strap his vent in place. He would dab the incision point with antiseptic, as the nurse had shown him, and clear it out with the suction squeezer. He’d rub ointment on the skin that was inflamed and blotchy red, and before re-wrapping it all, he would stare into his reflection, at his exposed neck. Into the hole. Without the vent in place. The hole open to the world. Dark and open and quiet. He would put his hand up to his neck and feel the warm air on his palm as he exhaled.

  Mostly he stayed in bed. Dettie had given up trying to coax him out. He read comic books, listened to the radio. Katie brought him packages of homework from his teachers that he would skim through and leave unfinished on his bedside table. The few times he did sneak out of his room it was to use the bathroom or get a spoonful of ice cream from the freezer. Ice cream had become his primary pleasure. It was slick and cool on his tongue, dissolving against his teeth, all the sweeter for having been pilfered from behind Dettie’s back while she sat on the couch humming whispery old tunes to herself, smoking and stitching colourful new scenes into ever more squares of cloth.

  One afternoon, hunting through the laundry cupboard for batteries, Sam found a yellow cassette that looked strangely familiar. Back in his room he found that it was a recording of him and his father singing ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb’. Sam must have been about two years old at the time. He was slurring a lot of the words and was wildly off-key. Between the drop-outs of the sound, and Sam continuously thumping on the microphone (his father kept breaking the melody to ask him to stop), it was difficult to listen to, even huddled close to the speaker so that Dettie couldn’t hear. The voices seemed to belong to other people. Strangers, from another time and place. Sam’s was garbled and alien, oddly nasal and squeaky, but even his father’s seemed strange. Higher-pitched than he remembered. Somehow thinner and metallic. At one point he coughed and it sounded more like a small sneeze.

  Sam stopped the tape, slipped it back in its case, and stuffed it under his bed.

  ‘You had the sweetest little voice,’ Dettie said that evening as they sat watching television.

  Sam was balled on the couch under a blanket. She peered over at him with a gentle smile. He tried not to look up at her, feeling himself tense, pretending he was transfixed by the commercials. Was she talking about the tape? Had she heard? He’d hidden himself away. He’d only played it once. Barely above a whisper. How could she know?

  ‘Like a little bird,’ she said. ‘Chattering all over the place. Gabbing away all day. But heavens, you’d shout the house down if you couldn’t find your toys.’ Dettie hummed happily. ‘Oh, the noise. Remember that, Joanne?’ she called out towards the kitchen.

  There was no reply.

  ‘Joanne?’

  Sam’s mother called out, ‘What?’

  ‘Remember when Sam was little? All that running about? The noise?’

  Sam stayed transfixed by the flickering television screen. A pizza was twirling in a haze of steaming cheese. Katie, lying on the floor with colouring books, was rolling her head on the carpet, sighing.

  ‘What, Dettie?’ His mother appeared in the doorway. She was clutching a fan of papers and brochures. ‘Pardon?’

  Dettie chuckled. ‘Just reminiscing about when Sammy was a toddler. Remember? All that shouting about—oh, what was it? Robot Boy?

  His mother shook her head, blinking. ‘Um, I don’t—Astro Boy? Is that the one?’

  ‘That’s right! Yes! The funny little robot. Flying around everywhere. Remember that Christmas—you and Donald trying to find a toy with the robot on it?’

  Sam’s mother exhaled. Loudly.

  ‘Sorry, Dettie,’ she said, firmly. ‘I’m just,’ she waved the papers in her hand, ‘I’m just a little busy trying to deal with some things in here.’ She turned, digging her shoulder into the doorframe as she pivoted, and left the room.

  Sam knew what she was busy doing. He’d seen the letters from his school, noticed the business cards for advisors and private tutors splayed on the table. Sam’s school was arguing with his mother about whether they had the facilities to take him back. None of their teachers were trained to teach children with disabilities.

  ‘He’s not disabled!’ he’d heard his mother shout into the phone at his principal. This was the day after he’d come home from hospital. His mother had called to give the school an update on his progress. ‘He’s not deaf! He can hear and see perfectly well.’

  The principal had said something in reply, but whatever it was, Sam’s mother was unimpressed.

  ‘Well, that’s not really our problem, is it? He can write and play and participate. He’s smart. He can take care of himself.
The only one who seems incapable of anything here is you.’

  Somewhere more suitable seemed to be the common refrain, but eventually she had convinced them that it wouldn’t be a problem. Sam would be allowed back to his same class in the same year, and she would arrange for a private tutor, at her expense, to help him regain some sort of speech.

  Dettie seemed unfazed. ‘Your father never did find that toy, did he, Sammy?’

  Sam kept staring at the television, through the screen. He shrugged. He remembered the show, but not any toys. Not running about pretending to be flying.

  Besides, he thought, Astro Boy was a robot. He could be rebuilt. Good as new.

  9

  The glass in the front door only looked dark brown from a distance. Up close, as the sunlight played across its rippled texture, streaks of yellow and swirls of orange lit up before dispersing back into a beer-bottle gloom. Sam could see no movement on the other side of the pane. It was quiet. A soft breeze nudged the leaves of the surrounding trees, and Dettie’s car idled out on the road, where she and Katie sat watching him through their windows, waiting. He looked up again at the doorbell, shifting back and forth, more eddies of light bubbling forth and receding away. Around the button, painted onto the weatherboard of the house, a tangle of light green vines and pink roses had been shaped into a love heart. His palms were sweating.

  Dettie honked.

  The sound made him jump. As he turned to look, she pointed at her wrist and then the door. It was time.

  Dettie had agreed to drive Sam to the appointment with his new speech therapist, but it was clear she wasn’t enthusiastic about the arrangement. She had refused to get out of the car, not letting Katie, whom she’d just picked up from school, out of her seat either. She’d even kept the motor running. Perhaps, Sam thought, Dettie considered visiting someone to help with his voice a form of indulgent ‘carry-on’, and was only going to offer the minimum support.

  Katie, oblivious to her aunt’s impatience, smiled and waved at him.

  He turned back and, holding his breath, pressed the doorbell. The electric chitter of ‘Greensleeves’ sounded behind the glass. For a moment longer the rumble of Dettie’s engine promised escape, until a darker shadow of brown emerged from the murk and the door opened.

  The woman who greeted him was one of the tallest people Sam had ever met. With long, tanned limbs and a puff of curly hair, she reminded him of a coconut tree. She smiled, warmly.

  ‘Samuel?’ she said, leaning over, eye-level, her hands on her knees, her floral dress pinned to her thighs.

  He shrugged. Nodded.

  She extended a hand. ‘I’m Tracey,’ she said. ‘Your mother and I spoke on the phone.’

  Sam lifted his arm and she took his hand, pumping it twice and smiling broadly again.

  ‘Did you come all the way on your own?’ She straightened up and noticed the car. She appeared to be about to manoeuvre around Sam and down to the footpath, until Dettie gave a curt nod and drove off.

  Tracey watched her go and blinked. She started to say something, and smiled instead. ‘Well, Samuel, why don’t we go inside and get started?’

  She gestured into the hallway.

  Slouching, Sam stepped over the threshold and followed Tracey down a hall of polished floorboards, into a carpeted lounge room and onto a purple sofa. As he settled himself as far back on the cushion as he could, she sat in an armchair facing him, one leg crossed over the other. Somewhere, off in another part of the house, a television was playing. It sounded like sports. There were announcers and the occasional cheer.

  ‘Now, Samuel,’ she said. ‘When your mummy and I spoke on the phone she said that she was too busy to come today, or for our first few appointments, but that she’ll be coming later. But that’s really good, actually. Because it will give us some time to get to know each other and to work through a few things on our own first. Won’t it?’

  Sam could feel her attention on him, so he stared at her foot, peeking out from under the hem of her dress. The sandal she was wearing was dangling off her heel.

  ‘So why don’t I introduce myself properly, and maybe explain the process, and what we’re going to do today?’

  He knew she was smiling again. Her eyes crinkled, head tilted sympathetically.

  ‘So, again, my name is Tracey. I’m called a speech therapist,’ she said. ‘And that just means I’m trained in a number of different recuperative techniques for a variety of speech-related issues. Everything from stuttering—I have some people who need help with that—to people such as yourself, looking to regain their voice entirely, perhaps with the help of some voice prosthesis tools. And we can look at some of those options later.’

  She gestured to a few devices laid out on the coffee table, but Sam left them in the corner of his eye.

  ‘I also teach sign language,’ she said. ‘Your mummy mentioned that there might be some interest in the two of you learning that together. Which I think would be very nice. So we could do that.’

  She hummed. She took a breath. The television in the other room crackled with a roar of applause.

  ‘Can I tell you a secret?’ she said. ‘I don’t know if you’re feeling nervous.’ Her voice remained soft, measured. ‘But I am. Just a little.’

  She was still smiling. He could tell from her voice. She moved in her seat and the sandal snapped on her foot.

  ‘I usually work with older people,’ she said. ‘Not always, but mostly. So you’re the youngest new friend that I’ve gotten to help. Which is exciting, isn’t it?’

  She seemed to be asking a lot of questions that didn’t really need a reply. Sam waited, but nothing happened, so he offered a tiny nod.

  A crowd, their voices thinned by the television speaker, cheered again.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Tracey said. ‘Could you just excuse me a moment?’

  She stood and swept across the floor, opening a sliding door and stepping through. The television, which was in the very next room, was louder with the door ajar, and Sam could make out the rhythmic sway of a tennis match, the pock and grunt of a rally playing out, and the swell of spectators escalating with every returned shot. Tracey was talking to whoever was watching the set in a heightened whisper, far sterner than the smooth tenor she was keeping with Sam. He heard a man’s voice in reply, also talking low, but clearly annoyed. Tracey said something about the ‘appointment’ and the man groaned.

  While she was gone Sam scanned his surroundings. It appeared to be a cross between a lounge room and an office. Several framed certificates adorned the wall beside a large bookcase. There were pamphlets and business cards on the mantle above a closed-off fireplace. Like the glass on the front door, the carpet, walls and ceiling were all shades of brown, but the space was busy with colour. A painting of a misty waterfall disgorging a rainbow hung by the window. Another, of a Native American man staring at the sunset, faced it on the corner wall. Multiple beaded dreamcatchers hung from the ceiling. There were small ornaments, of horses and dolphins, on every shelf, and a crystal unicorn sat in the centre of the coffee table.

  Tracey’s whisper rose to a hiss and the television quietened slightly. Sam could only hear the thock of balls on racquets if he strained to listen. She returned, smiling with her lips pressed tight together, and resettled in her chair, smoothing down the wrinkles in her dress.

  She began talking him through the ways that people like himself could learn to speak again. She drew a diagram of his throat—a cross-section of his neck—and talked about the way it worked now. How he worked. Now.

  She described the breathing technique that the doctor had mentioned. It was called ‘oesophageal speech’.

  ‘Did you and your friends ever burp out words?’ she said. ‘Swallow air and burp funny sounds?’

  He didn’t respond.

  ‘Because it’s a bit like that. Sort of,’ she said. ‘You swallow air into your oesophagus and shape your mouth and tongue and palate as you let the air out.’

  Sh
e gave him a small demonstration of the process, just to get the idea. After sucking in through her nose she made a series of short grunting noises: tah, pah, tie, kah. It sounded peculiarly raspy, and Sam felt a quiver in his stomach.

  ‘We do some exercises like that together,’ she said, back to using her normal voice, ‘and gradually we work up to saying full words, then sentences. Did you want to try a little now?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘Just a little go?’

  He pressed back into the couch.

  ‘That’s okay. No hurry. Don’t worry. We’ve got plenty of time.’

  Next she showed him the handheld devices. She held one out to Sam, but he didn’t take it. It was a black tube, about the size of a small flashlight. An electrolarynx.

  ‘Nothing to it,’ she said. ‘It just creates the vibration that your voice box used to produce.’ She raised it to her neck and pressed it against her throat. It made an angry humming, and when she opened her mouth, a sizzling noise came out. ‘And it sounds just like this,’ she said, her voice gnarled and robotic.

  Sam felt lightheaded. The room seemed smaller all of a sudden. The dreamcatchers and dolphins pressed in on him. He was breathing faster.

  ‘You just have to make sure that you’re clean-shaven so that it has a tight surface connection. But that’s not really a problem for me.’ She looked up at Sam trembling in front of her. ‘I guess that’s not really—’

  She adjusted herself in place, setting the devices out of sight on the floor. ‘Why don’t we—What if we learn a little sign language? A couple of things you can show your mummy?’

  She demonstrated some words; ran through the alphabet. She spelled out Samuel with her finger and palms, and showed him very simple things like Yes and No and Hello.

  ‘Hello, my name is Samuel,’ she said, waving in a firm, practised way, and signing out the letters in a quick succession of gestures. He pretended to look while actually staring past at one of the flowers on her dress.