A Painful Truth
On Saturday evening, Meghan filled the better half of a composition book with her thoughts. She wrote page after page telling of the afternoon with Lucas, detailing each action, explaining her discouragement when she feared her plan might not work, and telling of the overwhelming joy she felt when at long last it did. She expressed confidence that Lucas would one day speak as clearly as Gabriel Hawke and that he would grow to be a handsome and intelligent young man. Giving a nod to the challenges that lay ahead, she swore to stand by Tracy and see that the boy got all the help he needed.
Partway through the pages, she set the book aside and tapped out a lengthy e-mail to Gabriel Hawke. In it, she said he probably wouldn’t remember her but that she certainly remembered him. She told of Lucas and how because of Gabriel’s story she had taught the boy to say his first three words. At the end of several paragraphs, she wrote that she was hopeful Tracy would see fit to have Lucas attend Gabriel’s learning academy.
She clicked “Send,” then returned to the composition book. After nearly three years of writing about her and Tracy’s lives, the growth of the Snip ’N’ Save, and loveless dates that left her uninspired and unimpressed, Meghan was now bubbling over with thoughts of Tom Whitely.
“His face is narrow,” she wrote, “with hazel eyes that sometimes appear to be a mix of gray, green, and blue with flecks of copper circling the edge of the iris. Although you could say his hair is a sandy brown, it’s more the color of a wheat field in the waning hours of sunlight when the stalks radiate a golden glow. He’s tall like Daddy and has the same gentleness in his voice, but his shoulders are wider and his waist narrower. I look at him and can almost picture his arms around me, his lips pressed against mine.
“Last night when he walked me to my car, I thought he would try to kiss me, but he didn’t. Instead he touched his fingers to my mouth and whispered, ‘Tuesday.’ That may not sound like much, but, truthfully, it sent a shiver up my spine. If the touch of a finger can do that, I can’t begin to imagine what will happen when he actually kisses me.”
When Meghan had emptied her heart of words, she pulled the box of ribbons from the closet. Choosing the strand of metallic gold she had saved for just such an occasion, she wrapped it around the composition book and looped it into a bow. This time she didn’t knot the ribbon as she usually did. Already she knew this book was one she would return to, and when she did, a small tug on the end of the tie would allow it to fall open.
Meghan waited until Sunday evening to share with her mama and Tracy just how she had taught Lucas to speak the words. As they gathered at the kitchen table, she said, “There’s something I need to tell you.”
She began with reminding them of Gabriel Hawke and explaining the magic of his music. At first Tracy and Lila eyed her with a curious look, wondering if perhaps Gabriel was the reason for this strange new gleam in her eye.
“Are you dating this Gabriel?” Lila asked.
“No,” Meghan replied, “I’m not. I’m only saying how much I admire what he’s done with his life. Look at the challenges he’s overcome and how he reaches out to help others.”
Tracy turned her head, and she eyed her sister with a suspicious glare. “Does this have something to do with Lucas?”
“I suppose you could say that.” Meghan drew in a shallow breath. “Gabriel runs a school that teaches deaf children—”
Tracy slammed the palm of her hand against the table. “I don’t want to hear about it!”
Lila chimed in. “Tracy’s right. I’ve told you a dozen times boy babies are—”
“Get real, Mama!” Meghan’s voice was louder now, more emphatic. “I taught Lucas to say those words the same way Gabriel’s mama taught him to speak—by letting him feel the sound of the word in my mouth.”
As Meghan began to explain the process, tears welled in Tracy’s eyes and spilled out onto her cheeks.
“You’re my sister,” Tracy said. “How can you do this to me?” Her voice cracked, and when the words came out, they were raw and splintered like razor-thin shards of glass. “How can you sit there telling me my child is deaf? That he’ll never hear the sound of—”
“Stop it!” Meghan shouted. “Stop feeling sorry for yourself! Denying the truth won’t help Lucas.”
“I’m not denying anything! I know Lucas is having a hard time adjusting, but it’s only because—”
“It’s because he can’t hear!”
Lila watched the exchange the way one watches a tennis match, with eyes flicking back and forth from one daughter to the other.
“Girls, please!” she said, but they both ignored her.
“I can’t say for sure he’s deaf,” Meghan argued, “and you can’t say for sure he’s not! But I do know his hearing is not normal. Gabriel says—”
“Gabriel, Gabriel, Gabriel! I’m sick to death of hearing what Gabriel says! He’s never even laid eyes on Lucas, so how can he know?”
Meghan lowered her voice. “Maybe you’re right, Tracy. Maybe Gabriel can’t do anything for Lucas. Maybe nobody can, but you’ll never know unless you have him tested and get the kind of help he needs.”
A sob caught in Tracy’s throat, and there was a moment of nothingness before she spoke.
“Don’t you think I’m already trying to help him? I’ve got an appointment with the pediatrician. What more can I do?”
“He needs to go to a pediatric audiologist. Someone who can test a baby’s hearing and tell us what steps we need to take.” Meghan went on to explain Gabriel’s website indicated that in most cases where the problem was caught early on, a child’s hearing impairment could be corrected with either a hearing aid or surgery.
Tracy pushed back the tears and listened to Meghan’s tales, not of tragedy but of success. Recounting the stories she had taken from Gabriel’s website, Meghan told of children who were born deaf and before they were five years old had hearing sharp enough to catch the tick of a clock or hear the crunch of leaves beneath their feet.
Later that evening, Tracy and Lila sat in front of the large computer screen in the Snip ’N’ Save office and watched as Meghan pulled up Gabriel Hawke’s website. Reading aloud, she retold the story of how Gabriel had been born deaf and now wore hearing aids. A tear came to Tracy’s eye as they watched the video of him telling how his mother struggled to teach him to feel the vibrations of sound and how he could still remember the touch of his hand to her face.
And there were other videos. A professor who spoke of the need for patience while a child learns to listen, conversations between students and teachers, pictures of children studying at the Hawke School. They watched and listened as the children called out names of animals and objects the teacher pictured.
Lila pointed at a boy who looked to be near Lucas’s age. “It seems almost inconceivable that child was born with a hearing impairment,” she said. “His words are completely understandable.” She held back the remainder of her thought but couldn’t help weighing the child’s ability to talk against Lucas’s shrieks and keening.
After the videos, there were testimonial letters filled with the heartfelt gratitude of parents who claimed that because of Gabriel their child could now pull words together into a sentence and differentiate a request for soup versus sock. The letters held words such as compassion, understanding, devotion, miraculous. There was only the muffled whoosh of Lila’s sigh as Meghan read about how a cochlear implant placed in a toddler would last a lifetime.
It was after midnight when Meghan finally clicked off the computer and went to bed.
Tracy had leaned close to the screen and listened to every word but said nothing. At the end of it all, she’d walked away with her shoulders hunched and her eyes focused on some distant thing no one else could see.
It was hours before Meghan fell asleep, and when at long last she did, she dreamed of a baby crying, a baby she could neither find nor comfort. Throughout the night she tossed and turned, and it was near daybreak when she finally fell into a deep sleep.
She woke late, and by the time she came downstairs everyone else had already eaten breakfast. A plate of French toast was warming on the back of the stove, but she passed it by and poured herself a cup of coffee.
Standing there, she heard Tracy’s voice coming from the Snip ’N’ Save office. Although Tracy’s tone was insistent, Meghan couldn’t make out the words. She tiptoed toward the office and stood outside the door, listening.
“Yes, I realize you don’t have any new patient openings before October, but Gabriel Hawke is a close personal friend of my sister, and he felt certain you’d be able to work us in.”
The conversation went back and forth a few times, then Tracy said, “Sure, Thursday would be great. Thank you so much.” After a moment of quiet, she said, “Yes, I will certainly mention it to him,” and hung up.
Meghan stuck her head in the office. “Everything okay?”
Tracy turned and gave a slow nod of resignation. “As okay as it can be. I cancelled the appointment with Dr. Driscoll and got Lucas an appointment with Dr. Mallory on Thursday.”
“Dr. Mallory?”
“A pediatric audiologist in Barrington.” With a guilty grin tugging at the corner of her mouth, Tracy said, “I hope your Gabriel Hawke doesn’t mind, but I used his name to get an earlier appointment.”