The Silence Between Us

by Alison Gervais

  Nina pulled me into conversation then, so I didn’t have the opportunity to do much else besides wonder what on Earth was going on with Beau.

  CHAPTER 27

  Slipping away from the party when Beau didn’t reappear after ten minutes was simple after I signed to Nina that I was going to the restroom. It was a little strange no one else seemed to be wondering where Beau was, but I was more than happy to go look for him.

  There wasn’t much else on the first floor of the house besides what looked like Dr. Watson’s study, a guest bedroom, and a bathroom, and Beau was in none of those places. I felt marginally creepy tiptoeing my way upstairs, but the desire to locate Beau and make sure he was okay won out.

  Upstairs there were more bedrooms and bathrooms, decorated in the same style as the rest of the house, and one of these rooms had to belong to Beau. Rather than go around calling out his name, I took a chance on the closest bedroom to the stairs and peeked inside.

  This was definitely Beau’s room, and almost exactly how I imagined. Two pristine bookcases that looked as if they’d come right out of a university library took up most of the space in the room. Books were strewn all over the bed, this time mostly school texts instead of novels. Next to the bed was a neatly organized desk with an open laptop and various homework assignments.

  Beau was sitting at the desk, leaning over with his chin in hand, and I could see his acceptance packet from Yale spread out in front of him. I could only see part of his face from where I stood in the doorway, but I was pretty sure he was frowning.

  I rapped my knuckles on the doorjamb, and Beau quickly spun around in his desk chair, looking surprised when he saw me standing there.

  SORRY, he signed quickly.

  FINE, I signed back, then said, “Is it okay if I come in?”

  Beau nodded, motioning for me to enter, and I took a seat across from him on the bed.

  “So,” I said after a beat of tense silence. “When are you going to tell your dad you don’t want to go to Yale?”

  The flush I was expecting to come rushing into Beau’s cheeks didn’t show up. He raised an eyebrow, a rather wry smile pulling at his lips.

  “. . . that obvious?” he said.

  EASY READ, I signed, pointing a finger at him.

  Beau’s smile widened for one second before it disappeared completely. He leaned back in his chair, running his fingers through his hair. It was strange to see him looking so crestfallen. He never let anyone see him that way at school. But he didn’t have to put on a show for anybody here.

  FINE WITH Y-A-L-E, Beau signed suddenly, his shoulders rising and falling with a heavy sigh. GOOD SCHOOL. Then he said aloud, “But . . . don’t want . . . medicine.”

  “Yeah, I figured,” I said. “So, what do you want to do?”

  Beau gestured to something behind me, and I glanced over my shoulder at his bookcases. When I looked to Beau again, he said, “. . . study . . .” and followed up by finger spelling, L-I-T-E-R-A-T-U-R-E.

  That response was so classically Beau it made me smile.

  YOU MAKE GOOD TEACHER, I signed to him.

  MAYBE, Beau signed. DON’T KNOW. He made a sweeping gesture around the room and said, “But . . . don’t want . . . trade my books for . . .”

  “Med school?” I supplied, and Beau signed back, YES.

  I could understand that, even if med school was my end goal.

  YOU TELL YOUR FATHER? I signed to Beau curiously.

  He winced at this and quickly shook his head. He looked repulsed by that idea.

  I didn’t say or sign anything, waiting for Beau to respond in his own time. There was obviously something else behind his not wanting to be upfront with his father.

  “. . . can’t,” Beau finally said, and before I could even ask why, he was suddenly on his feet, his walk uneven as he went over to his bookcase.

  When he sat down on the bed beside me, he was holding out a small picture frame for me to take. Carefully holding the frame, I bit down on my lip to keep from smiling as I looked over the photo. It was of Beau, maybe seven or eight years old, and a woman who was obviously his mother. She was very pretty with a bright smile, her long brown hair falling around her face in pretty waves. Beau had clearly gotten his brilliant green eyes from her.

  YOUR MOTHER? I signed, passing the picture back to Beau.

  YES, Beau signed back. His eyes were a little brighter than normal as he set the picture face down on his pillow. “. . . my fault she died.”

  My mind went blank at Beau’s words. I couldn’t even come up with anything to sign or say. Even if I was having difficulty stringing words together, Beau wasn’t. He was in the middle of something here, and I wasn’t about to stop him.

  Beau held up a finger, signaling me to wait a second, and bent over, carefully rolling up his right pant leg. I leaned over to see that scar of his up close, and then I sort of wished I hadn’t.

  He started signing once his pant leg was carefully rolled up to his knee. His first sign was, CAR, followed by finger spelling, C-R-A-S-H.

  BROKE, he added, tapping the side of his leg. TIME THREE. BAD. A LOT . . . S-U-R-G-E-R-I-E-S. “Spent . . . time . . . hospital,” he finished aloud.

  My mind zipped back to that day when Connor was in the hospital and I’d found Beau in the waiting room chatting with a nurse. He must’ve spent a fair amount of time in the hospital if he was still friendly with the nurses.

  When Beau signed, MY MOTHER, next and a tremor ran through his hand, my breath caught. I really hoped I was wrong about what his next sign was going to be. I knew it was coming, but a wave of sadness still threatened to suffocate me when Beau signed, DIE.

  Beau and his mother had been in a car crash. Apart from his leg, Beau apparently made it out relatively unscathed. His mother hadn’t.

  It was good my preferred method of communication was sign language, because I couldn’t trust myself to speak. But just signing, SORRY, didn’t seem like enough.

  It clearly was not fine when Beau signed back, FINE.

  REALLY, I signed next.

  What else could I say?

  “Is that why you, um . . . I mean, in the cold, you have trouble walking? Because of your leg. You sit with your leg all stretched out in front of you too.”

  Mom broke her wrist one time in a tennis match during a company barbeque back in New Jersey, and she always complained about the tight pain in her wrist the cold caused. If Beau had surgeries on top of the breaks, that probably didn’t help at all.

  Beau nodded, signing, YES, then said, “. . . have rod . . . my shin. Nina . . . tells me . . . take medicine for . . . but . . . never remember.”

  There’s the reason Nina was so annoyed that day we studied at the café, I thought distractedly.

  “Okay,” I said. “But I don’t see how this makes it your fault your mom died.”

  Beau waved away my words like they were nothing and went on signing, HAD S-O-C-C-E-R PRACTICE. LATE. WANT MOTHER DRIVE ME . . .

  I held up a hand to stop Beau before he could finish signing. I didn’t need him to finish. I knew exactly where this was going.

  “No. No way. No way is that your fault, Beau.”

  “But—”

  “If you think your father blames you for the car accident and this is the way you have to make it up to him, stop right there.”

  Beau’s face slipped, and he paused with his lips parted, taken aback. “But . . . don’t . . .”

  “Remember the first day of school when you were so surprised I can talk?” I said, choosing to use my voice.

  Beau didn’t seem so happy recalling that particular memory as he gave a short nod.

  “Well, I can speak fine because I wasn’t born deaf. I became deaf when I was thirteen because I got sick.”

  This wasn’t a sad story to tell anymore. These were just the facts, and even now I didn’t think I’d go back and make any changes. Everything had a way of working out in the end.

  WHAT HAPPENED? Beau signed curiousl
y.

  “Meningitis,” I told him. “Came down with it when I was visiting my grandma in Louisiana. Could’ve happened to anyone, and I’m actually really lucky I came out of it just having lost my hearing. It could’ve been a lot worse. But you know what? My mom blamed herself. She thought it was all her fault because she was the one who let me go on that trip and I ended up getting sick.”

  It was interesting seeing the emotions flashing across Beau’s face as he took in my story. I think he knew the direction this was headed, and it was fairly obvious he didn’t want to hear the rest of what I had to say.

  “But it wasn’t really my mom’s fault, was it?” I said.

  Beau shook his head, signing, NO.

  RIGHT, I signed back at him. “That car accident wasn’t your fault, Beau. And you’ve got nothing to make up to your dad. So why are you going to make yourself miserable becoming a doctor?”

  As good as I was at reading faces, I couldn’t get a read on Beau after that. He was deep in thought, maybe about Yale or his parents or maybe what I’d just said. Whatever it was, though, he didn’t say or sign anything.

  OK? I signed shakily when this silence stretched on between us.

  Beau didn’t respond. He kissed me instead.

  The first feather-light brush of his lips against mine had every little thought or worry I had rapidly slipping out the back of my head. I wasn’t sure where this was coming from, especially right now, but Beau was kissing me, and it was hard to think about anything else.

  I had my fingers laced in his hair and he had his arms around my waist and then suddenly he was jerking away from me, leaping to his feet and moving away.

  I would’ve fallen flat on my face if I hadn’t thrown out an arm to grab at the bed to keep myself upright. I was about to ask Beau why he’d jumped away from me like he’d been electrocuted—when I was pretty sure neither of us wanted that kiss to end anytime soon—but the reason became obvious when I saw Nina standing in the doorway.

  Her arms were crossed, and she had this bemused expression on her face as she looked back and forth between the two of us.

  NOT MY FAULT, I signed to Beau, hopefully too quickly for Nina to understand. YOU START KISS, NOT ME.

  Beau scrubbed his face with his hands, his shoulders slumping with one of his regular sighs. He must have been saying something to Nina because her amused smile was turning into a full-blown smirk. She looked like she was about to start laughing. She did the palms up gesture and said something like, “. . . your . . . business.”

  “. . . want . . . ?” Beau started to say, then pointed downstairs.

  I didn’t even think twice about signing, NO. NEED STUDY, I added when Beau’s face fell in disappointment. BUT I SEE YOU TOMORROW.

  RIGHT, Beau signed with a nod. TOMORROW.

  I kept my head down on my way out of the room, a little afraid to meet Nina’s gaze, because I knew an interrogation was waiting for me as soon as Nina got the chance.

  Everyone was still assembled in the living room over drinks and food, so there weren’t many eyes on us as we came down the stairs. I only stopped to wave good-bye to Dana, who smiled back from where she stood in conversation with someone who looked like a colleague of Dr. Watson’s.

  Beau put on shoes and a jacket and followed me outside to walk me to my car, though I was pretty certain it wasn’t for another kiss.

  “Thanks . . . coming,” Beau said, pulling open the driver’s side door for me.

  “Sure,” I said. “Congratulations on Yale. If it’s really what you want.”

  Beau stood there in the driveway and waved me off. The conflicted expression on his face was impossible to miss when I peeked at him in the rearview mirror.

  CHAPTER 28

  Winter break probably should’ve been called spring break in the end. Once finals were over and school was out for two weeks, unseasonably warm weather arrived out of nowhere, melting the snow and bringing almost seventy degrees every day. Whenever I would marvel about this, Nina would sign, HAHAHA, and tell me to get used to it, because this apparently wasn’t anything out of the ordinary for Colorado.

  I got two days into the new semester before I finally broke down and told Mom, “I want to get a job.”

  She did a double take, looking up from her dinner plate like I’d grown another head.

  REALLY? she signed.

  YES, I signed back. I THINK GOOD FOR ME.

  YES, Mom agreed quickly. BUT . . . SCHOOL IMPORTANT.

  I KNOW, I signed. BUT JOB IMPORTANT, SAME.

  It wasn’t like I wanted to pick up full-time work at a credit union or a department store, but something simpler, like a cashier or hostess at a restaurant. Nina worked part-time at a nearby Target, and she had at least double the workload at school.

  The more time I spent with my hearing friends, the more I realized I needed to be out in the hearing world—even if it made me uncomfortable—so I could get used to communicating and handling certain situations. I needed to be ready for anything college and beyond might throw my way. I knew being Deaf wasn’t going to hold me back, and I was ready to prove that, even if it wasn’t in a hospital just yet.

  OK, Mom signed hesitantly. YOU WANT JOB, I SUPPORT YOU.

  The expression on her face was a little less than pleased, but she knew as well as I did that sooner or later I was going to have to get a job. We both knew that just because I was Deaf did not mean I couldn’t work. I didn’t just want to sign up for social security payments after graduation and call it good. I wanted more than that.

  THANK YOU, I signed.

  Connor cut in right after Mom signed, WHERE? and tapped the table, wanting to know what we were signing about.

  “Later, squirt,” I said. “Finish your dinner.”

  I pulled out my laptop after I helped Mom clean up the dinner dishes, got Google up, and dove right into my job search. Chances were a lot of businesses might be letting their holiday workers go now that we were a couple weeks into the new year, so I didn’t know how many job openings I might find. The sooner I got applications out there, the better off I’d be.

  Browsing through the Google results of my “Parker, CO jobs” search, I found a site with job listings and started doing some clicking around. Concessions clerk at the movie theater in town was an idea and so was part-time stocker at the King Soopers grocery store.

  I was onto the third page of job listings when another promising one caught my eye. The opening was for a part-time barista position at the Steaming Bean Café, that cute little place where Beau, Nina, and I had gone to study before finals. The café had been cozy and welcoming. I didn’t know much about making coffee, but it seemed like the perfect place for a first job.

  Mom came wandering into the living room from the kitchen and set a cup of hot tea on the end table beside the couch where I sat working.

  APPLY FOR JOB? she signed, tapping the lid of my laptop.

  I nodded, signing, FOR COFFEE STORE.

  The spark of excitement that lit up Mom’s eyes seemed genuine as she signed, YAY!

  YOU WONDERFUL. She took a seat next to me on the couch. LUCK.

  THANK YOU, I signed back. Probably I would need all the luck I could get.

  REMEMBER SCHOOL IMPORTANT, Mom added as she glanced over the job listings pulled up on my laptop.

  I KNOW, I agreed. PROMISE.

  Mom’s brows pinched together. WHY YOU WANT JOB?

  THINK . . . MAYBE TIME FOR NEW THINGS, I told her.

  GOOD, Mom signed, giving me a nudge with her shoulder. PROUD, she added, squeezing my hand.

  THANK YOU, I told her.

  ALWAYS, she signed back.

  The email came three days later. I’d been obsessively checking my email ever since I submitted those job applications and was hit with disappointment every time I saw there were no new messages in my inbox.

  Beau had offered to drive me home from school, but I’d declined thanks to an after school doctor’s appointment with my new ENT, so we wer
e waiting outside in the cold by the pickup loop. I think I let out a shriek when I saw I’d gotten a response from the Steaming Bean.

  WHAT’S WRONG? Beau signed in alarm while I stood there, gaping at my phone.

  HEY. Beau waved a hand near my face when I didn’t answer.

  I didn’t think I could answer. I was suddenly terrified to open the email and see some kind of politely worded rejection there, something Mom told me I should prepare for just in case.

  WHAT’S WRONG? Beau signed again.

  NOTHING, I signed automatically. I . . . APPLY FOR JOB. THEY EMAIL ME.

  He looked taken aback by the unexpected news, but he was smiling a second later and signing, READ!

  I took in several deep breaths as I forced myself to click on the email. Once the words settled the right way on the screen, I carefully read and reread the email. I started mouthing the words as I read, trying to process the information.

  “Well?” Beau said when I finally tore my gaze from my phone.

  “They want to interview me.”

  Even if I were able to hear my own voice, I know my words would’ve sounded funny coming out of my mouth. That was a sentence I’d never said or signed before. My first round of filling out job applications, and already I got a response asking for an interview.

  WONDERFUL, Beau signed to me, followed by a, YAY!

  When I didn’t sign anything back, Beau’s excited face became concerned, and he reached over to curl his hand around my own, signing, YOU OK?

  SURPRISE, I signed honestly. DON’T KNOW IF I . . .

  When I just lamely gestured to my left ear, Beau caught on to my line of thinking and signed, DOESN’T MATTER.

  Actually, in some cases being Deaf kind of did matter.

  EMAIL THEM, Beau signed, gesturing to my phone. SAY YES.

  I WILL, I signed, and because it was going to be impossible to hide, I added, NERVOUS.

  WHY? Beau signed, looking confused.

  “Sometimes it can be hard getting an interpreter on short notice,” I said. “And they can be kind of expensive too.”