Girl in the Shadows Read online

  "We're doing her math problems first this morning," he announced. "Just sit on the sofa there and don't do anything to distract her."

  I quickly sat and he opened a textbook, pointed to something on the page, and began. Most of his communication with her was through very quick signing that I couldn't follow, so that pretty soon I felt totally left out. Finally Echo began working on problems and he sat back. He was staring at me so hard. I felt like I had food on my face.

  "What?" I asked.

  "I'd hate to learn that you are taking advantage of these people," he said.

  "I've only been here three days," I said, fixing my eyes sharply on him the way my sister. Brenda, could fix her eyes on someone who challenged her. "but I. too, would hate to learn that anyone was taking advantage of them,"

  He seemed to like my reply and softened his eyes.

  "What about your parents? Why would they let you leave school and travel around the country in a motor home?"

  "They're both dead."

  "You have no one, no other immediate family?"

  "I have an older sister but she is a professional basketball player and off on a tour in Europe. After my uncle's death. I was going to go live with a cousin I hardly know, but Mrs. We stington wouldn't hear of it."

  "What did your uncle die of?"

  "He suffered from alcoholism." I reluctantly revealed.

  "So you traveled about with a drunk?"

  "It wasn't like that. He drank privately. Alcoholism is a sickness."

  "Do you drink, too?"

  "No," I said, practically shouting. He looked skeptical. "I don't. and after I've seen what it can do to someone. I doubt I'll ever get anywhere close to that, and before you ask. I don't do drugs either."

  He grimaced skeptically. "How can you just drive in here and move in with people you don't know?"

  I took a deep breath. Why was this so important to him?

  "Mrs. Westington was kind enough to care about me. I really am trying to be as much of a help to her and to Echo as I can be."

  He stared, considering me, his face although handsome, cold and unrevealing,

  "Well, I suppose if you're going to be here a while you really should learn how to sign. I'll help you with that, too. when I can." he said. relenting. "You have the ASL book here. right?"

  "Yes, I've begun to study it. Thank you for agreeing to help me."

  "It's for her," he countered quickly, nodding at Echo. She certainly doesn't need an added burden."

  What a strange young man. I thought. He could sound friendly one moment and unfriendly the next.

  "I don't intend to be any sort of added burden nor will I make her life any more difficult.-' I said.

  "Good intentions are not always enough.'

  "Maybe they're not, but they're a good start," I shot back at him.

  He nodded, finally offering a small smile. 'Okay. Perhaps you won't be as difficult a case as I thought. Who knows? I might even enjoy tutoring you. I might enjoy the challenge."

  Did I dare smile back? Was he being sincere or sarcastic when he called me a challenge? How hard it had become to trust anyone's smile. I thought. Sometimes a smile was just another mask hiding the truth.

  Neither of us had realized that while we were talking. Echo had been reading his lips. She signed something quickly and he signed back. Then they both looked at me and laughed.

  "What's so funny?" I asked.

  "She said she could be your tutor, too, by helping you learn "

  "And what did you tell her that made her laugh?"

  "I told her I doubted you were as good a listener as she was."

  "Oh, that's very funny," I said.

  "Exactly," he said. shrugging. "It's very funny."

  He reported our conversation to Echo and they both laughed again. I stared at them a moment and then I laughed as well. I wasn't going to let him think he had hurt my feelings in any way. I wouldn't give him the satisfaction. That pleased Echo and he even smiled.

  "I'm glad you have a sense of humor at least,' he said. And I thought perhaps we would be all right.

  Perhaps.

  2 Silent Conversations

  . I sat as quietly as I could and continued to observe how Tyler used different methods to communicate his instructions and comments to Echo. At times, he relied more on lipreading than the signing. He would speak slowly and exaggerate the formation of his lips. Only as an absolute last resort did he write something and have her read it.

  While she worked quietly on problems, he wrote things in his notebook or sifted through textbooks to mark places he wanted her to read. He looked my way occasionally but said nothing. Perhaps he was hoping I would soon get bored and leave, but his patience with her and her obvious determination to please him intrigued me. At times they communicated with each other as if there were invisible wires between them. The movement of an eyebrow, the twist of a lip, or even a small nod was quickly translated and understood. It made me consider how often we speak to each other through posture and gesture. Words were almost unnecessary between them anyway, lipreading or not.

  Finally however, he reached that point in his schedule when he worked on her speech. I saw that previously he had given her a list of words to practice and now asked her to take it out of her notebook and begin.

  She looked back at me and he tapped her on the arm to 'act her to pay strict attention to him. He lifted her hand and placed her fingers on his own neck. Then he nodded at her and she began. When she spoke, he either shook his head or nodded. If he shook his head, he repeated the word and then had her do it again and again. The intensity of concentration was impressive. She not only reacted to the vibrations in his throat, but the tiniest movement in his lips.

  Finally, Mrs. Westington appeared in the doorway to announce that lunch was ready.

  "Thank you," Tyler said, and told Echo. He also complimented her on her work. She smiled with pride when she turned to me.

  "Are deaf people more sensitive to people's expressions,gestures." I asked him as he rose from his seat. He looked at me as if I had made a discovery it normally took years to make.

  "Yes," he said. "When you lose one sense, you compensate with the others. Blind people depend more on hearing. Deaf people on seeing. feeling. I even have her listening to music."

  "How?"

  "By having her place her hand on the speaker so she can sense the beat, the bass. You'll see. She can actually identify tunes."

  "You're very good with her," I told him as we started out. "I can see why she's learning so well with you."

  As if he was distrustful of all compliments, he searched my face before replying. "She's a very bright girl and that makes it easier, believe me. She also has an unrelenting determination to bridge that gap between herself and other people. If she had been given instruction properly during the earlier ages when she should have been instructed, she would be far ahead by now."

  I wasn't deaf. but I could read his gestures and demeanor clearly. He spoke down to me as if he were sitting on some high throne of authority and intelligence, and I were some lowly commoner there to pay him respect.

  "She should be in a more regular classroom situation," he continued. "I worry about her not having interaction with other young people her age."

  "I think that is Mrs. Westington's concern. That's why she wants me here."

  He didn't look convinced. In fact, he shook his head and smirked. "That's hardly a substitution. First of all, you're not really her age."

  "She's fourteen. right? I'm only seventeen."

  He stopped in the hallway, drew his head back, and lifted his chin. "You're not seriously suggesting a girl of fourteen has much in common with a girl of seventeen, are you? Especially a girl like you."

  "What do you mean, a girl like me?"

  "You've been on your own. Who knows what you've seen and done on the road and before? Your level of sophistication is generations away from her. C'mon, you aren't out of school that long that you have
forgotten the differences between a ninth grader and an eleventh grader, especially when it comes to girls. Girls," he lectured. "'move up the social ladder much faster than boys." He nodded toward Echo, who was walking on ahead of us. "She's like a boy, a boy in elementary school at best. You should be very careful about what you say to her, what you show her," he added sharply.

  I nodded, but his words and the cold way in which he spoke to me made me feel more and more like an intruder. I fell behind him as we entered the dining room. Mrs. Westington had put out a nice spread of cold cuts, cheeses, breads, and a jug of homemade lemonade. There were homemade cookies as well. I watched as Echo and Tyler signed between them, holding their private little chat. Then Tyler pointed to things on the table and had her pronounce them. If she didn't do it clearly, he put her hand on his neck and repeated it, making her repeat it until she pronounced the word better.

  Mrs. Westington stood by watching and listening with a smile on her thin lips. I slipped into a chair, conscious of doing anything that might distract Echo from Tyler and his constant tutoring. His way was to make everything they did together, every situation and activity , part of the learning experience. The world was her classroom. No bells rung in her school to end the session or the day, but Tyler was right about her-- she had an insatiable appetite for learning,

  "Echo has improved so much since Tyler came to teach her," Mrs. Westington told me.

  I glanced at him, but he was busy fixing himself a sandwich and dipping into the cole slaw and potato salad.

  "I'm sure she has," I said. "He'll do wonders for you as well," she said.

  Tyler looked up sharply. "Let's wait and see how she does on the evaluations. Mrs. Westington. As I told you before. I have no idea what kind of a student she was when she was in school."

  "Oh, she must have been a good student. She'll do well." Mrs. Westington insisted.

  Tyler ignored her, and me, for that matter. He and Echo continued their private conversations. I felt like someone who didn't know she was invisible and wondered why no one paid any attention to her. I could see that even Mrs. Westington wasn't able to follow their signing that well. They moved their hands and fingers with lightning speed. It brought back memories of Uncle Palaver humorously imitating a southerner trying to understand a New Yorker who spoke so quickly. Mrs. Westington nodded at me and shrugged to indicate she was lost when it came to following them. She returned to the kitchen.

  "How long does it take to communicate that well with someone who can't hear?" I asked him.

  "It takes as long as it takes," he replied dryly. "Obviously, it depends on your ability to learn yourself and, as I have said repeatedly. I have no idea what you're capable of doing and what you aren't capable of doing. It might take you weeks or you might not get proficient at it for months or maybe you'll never succeed at it. School and learning have obviously not been a priority in your life. Why should it suddenly be now?"

  I felt the heat that accompanied my rising blood travel up my neck and into my face. "You don't know what has and what hasn't been a priority in my life."

  He shrugged. "No. I don't. That's the point."

  "Well, perhaps you'll know very soon then." I replied, and ate my sandwich. I had intended to avoid the bread and cookies, but his arrogance and his aloofness riled me up and I ate more out of frustration. He watched me reach greedily for the food. I thought he looked so smug in his evaluation of me and his expectations. He thinks I'm just some fat, lazy girl taking advantage of these people, I concluded. I couldn't say why what he thought was so important to me all of a sudden, but as much as I hated to admit it to myself, it did.

  I didn't return with them to the office to watch him finish his lessons with Echo. Instead. I located the book on signing and went up to my bedroom to read it and practice before a mirror, determined to impress him the next time I saw him. I was up there so long and concentrating so hard. I didn't realize how much time had gone by nor did I hear him leave. A little while after he had. Echo came looking for me. I had left the bedroom door open and suddenly realized she was there watching me go at it in front of the mirror. I heard her laugh.

  "Oh," I said. turning. "I didn't hear you come in."

  How silly that sounded. I didn't hear her? Lucky Tyler wasn't present. He would surely make me feel like some sort of an idiot.

  She came over to me and began to help me with some of the signs, moving my fingers so they would be more accurate in depicting words and phrases. I worked with her for a while, looking into the mirror at the both of us as we practiced. She had sweet lips and tiny freckles under the crests of her cheeks. Her face was tightening and shaping. Those high cheekbones will make her stunning one day. I thought, and looked at my own bloated cheeks. My face should be in the dictionary next to pIump, I thought.

  Echo assumed I was growing bored. She began to look again at some of Uncle Palaver's magic tricks. The ones I had brought in were collected in the corner by the windows. I showed her the self-tying handkerchief, the cut and restored string, and the coin through an elbow. It all delighted her and she asked me to do each one again. Finally, I communicated the idea that she should learn them herself. I thought she would enjoy performing them for her grandmother and especially for Tyler Monahan. She didn't seem to understand when I explained and when I referred to Mr. Monahan, even when I pronounced his name slowly so she could read it on my lips.

  Why was it so easy for her to read his lips and not mint?

  I flipped through the book and found the sign for tutor: both T hands with the palms facing were to be placed against my temples and then moved forward and back several times. It said to add the sign for individual. which was to open my palms and trace my body down to my hips. She finally understood and laughed. Then she signed back. but I didn't

  understand. Frustrated, she wrote on the pad on my table: "I call him Ty. not Mr. Monahan."

  Oh, so that's it. I thought.

  "He wants me to call him that." she wrote. and smiled proudly.

  Having a more personal relationship with him was obviously very important to her.

  I watched her look about the room and then reverently touch things that had been her mother's. Even something as ordinary and simple as a hairbrush intrigued and fascinated her. She fingered a strand of hair in the bristles and I wondered what the separation had really been like for her even at that young age. She couldn't recall her mother's voice, but I was sure she could recall the scent of her hair, the image of her face, and the warmth of her touch. After all. I knew what it was like to lose your mother and cling to such memories. Sometimes, the sound of similar laughter, the familiar scent of a perfume or even some familiar gesture brought back a movie fill of sweet

  remembrances.

  Gazing about the room through Echo's eyes. I suddenly realized that there were no pictures of Rhona, either by herself, with Mrs. Westington, or with boyfriends or girlfriends. Surely there had been some. Where were they? Had Mrs. Westington removed them in a fit of anger? Did Echo have any pictures of her mother in her room? I thumbed through the ASL book on signing and located the word for photograph. If I avoided writing things out and forced myself to use sign language. I would learn it much faster.

  To say photograph the right C hand was to be held in front of the face with the thumb edge near the face and the palm facing left. The hand was to be brought sharply around to the open left hand and struck firmly against the left palm, which was held facing forward with the fingers pointing straight up. I pointed to the brush and then did the sign again.

  She understood immediately and reached for my hand to lead me out of the bedroom down the hallway to her room. I scooped up the ASL book on sin language and followed her. Although it was smaller than the room I was in, it had a similar canopy bed and matching dressers. I saw she had placed Mr. Panda on her bed exactly as I had the teddy bear placed on mine, between the two pillows. I smiled and nodded my approval.

  There was a school desk in the left corner with
books and notebooks on it. I saw a few dolls on shelves and some treasured souvenirs from places she probably had visited either with her mother or with Mrs. Westington. I didn't see any pictures of her mother on the shelves, dressers, or her desk, but she opened the bottom drawer in one of her dressers, cleared away the socks, and produced a four-by-eight photograph of a pretty, dark-haired woman in an abbreviated two-piece bathing suit holding a beach ball on some beach and posing like a model.

  Echo handed it to me and distinctly pronounced the word "moths,"

  "Mother," I repeated. Did I dare take her hand and put it on my neck to get her to say it better? Not yet. I thought. Maybe I'd do something wrong.

  I gazed at the picture. "She's very pretty." I said, and then realized I wasn't facing her when I had said it. Immediately. I thumbed through the ASL book and found the sign for very pretty. I put the fingers of my right hand over my right thumb, held it just under my mouth, and then made a counterclockwise circle, ending in the same position, and pointed to the picture.

  That brought a smile to her lips. I thumbed through the book again and then I put my two outstretched forefingers together, pointed to her and to the picture, and did it again, telling her she was like her mother. I meant just as pretty.

  She shook her head. I nodded emphatically, but she shook her head again, this time just as

  emphatically as I had nodded, and then she cried, "No," and looked like she was going to burst into tears.

  I hadn't meant she was like her, but just that she looked like her. Had she misunderstood?

  "You look like her." I repeated, and she continued to shake her head. Language is so complicated and signing so imperfect. I thought. This could be very frustrating. From what well of tolerance did Tyler Monahan draw the patience? I was sure what he did took years and years of training. Perhaps I wasn't up to this and he was right. I would grow tired and disgusted and leave sooner than I planned. I sat there, musing about it, considering my options. How long could I last out there on my own? What would I do to earn money? Would I go back to live with Brenda?