A Book of Thoughts
At the dinner table that evening, Meghan was quieter than usual. She had a million thoughts bubbling through her brain, but they were cloudy and mixed up, not something she was ready to talk about. Shortly after they’d left McDonald’s, she’d remembered something their former classmate Gabriel Hawke had once said, and now she couldn’t get it out of her mind.
Gabriel had been born almost completely deaf but played the guitar as if his fingers had their own special magic. One summer evening when the smell of jasmine was in the air and a light breeze carried a whisper for miles in any direction, she’d heard the sound of Gabriel’s guitar. He was strumming a country song about a lost love. She followed the sound of that song to Claremont Street and found him sitting on the front porch.
When she stopped to listen, Gabriel invited her to sit. That evening she listened to him play for nearly an hour, song after song, with each one sounding more beautiful than the one before.
Everyone considered Gabriel deaf, but that evening, as Meghan watched his expression, she could have sworn he actually heard the music.
Later on, when he set the guitar aside, she stayed, and they talked for a long while. She asked him how it was possible to play an instrument so beautifully when he couldn’t hear the sound of his own music.
He gave a broad smile and said, “I don’t have to hear it. I can feel it.”
As they were clearing away the supper dishes, Meghan said, “Mama, do you remember the Hawke family who used to live over on Claremont?”
Lila glanced across with a puzzled expression. “Hawke?”
“They had a boy named Gabriel.”
Lila’s face brightened. “Oh, Miriam and Frank. Yes, I do remember. Their boy played guitar in a group at church.”
“They moved away a while back, and I was wondering if maybe you knew where they went.”
Lila wrinkled her nose and shook her head. “That was six or seven years ago, and I didn’t know Miriam all that well. I believe she was close with Sally Smith, so if you’re looking to find Miriam, you might try asking Sally.” She slid the container of leftover chicken into the refrigerator, then asked, “Why are you so interested in the Hawkes?”
“No reason,” Meghan said nonchalantly. “I passed by their house the other day and was just thinking about them.”
Lila laughed. “I swear, Meghan, you come up with the strangest things.”
After the counter was wiped clean and the plates loaded into the dishwasher, Meghan grabbed the leash and whistled for Sox. In the four short weeks he’d been with her, the after-dinner walk had become a ritual just as it had been with Clancy. Most evenings Meghan walked the same route she’d taken with Clancy, but tonight she turned right at the corner of Elk Lane instead of going straight.
Five blocks later, she made a left onto Claremont. When she came to the house where Gabriel Hawke had once lived, she stood for a moment and listened. She foolishly hoped to hear the sweet strains of Gabriel’s guitar, but there was only the sound of a squirrel scurrying through the bushes and laughter from a nearby television.
On the walk home, Meghan found herself wishing she could hear Gabriel play just one more song or again hear him tell of how he could feel the music in different parts of his body.
As she turned left onto Elk Lane, Meghan picked up the pace. Tonight she was anxious to sit down with her black-and-white composition book. There were nights when she felt compelled to write, and this was just such a night.
Her head was filled with thoughts, but thoughts were like dandelion puffs. They could drift away and be forgotten. Written words were different. They were solid and long-lasting. She could touch her finger to them and recall the emotion with which they had been penned. Written words remained in place, and she could revisit them time and time again until their meaning became clear. Tonight clarity was what she was searching for.
That night, when Meghan opened her journal to a fresh new page, she began with thoughts of Sox and how she was certain he had been trying to show her Lucas couldn’t hear him bark. After she detailed the events of the afternoon, she moved on to wondering why Sox had chosen to show her instead of Lucas’s mama. Before she got to the end to add a question mark, she knew the answer. Tracy would never see what she didn’t want to see.
It had taken her two years to see the flaws in Dominic’s character, and even now, after all that had happened, there was still a part of her mind that doubted the truth of what she knew.
Even as Meghan penned words of hope, she was almost certain this time she could not count on either her mama or Tracy. They both wanted to believe Lucas was simply a late talker and were not likely to change their minds without something more than her suspicion.
“Whatever has to be done,” she wrote, “I must do by myself.”
When there was nothing more to say about the situation, she moved on to writing about the new vet but stopped short of telling all her thoughts. It was too soon. She would wait. Perhaps after she met with him on Friday, there would be a story worth telling.
With only a scant half page about Dr. Tom Whitely, Meghan went back to thinking about Gabriel Hawke.
Recalling the evening they had sat together and talked, she pulled the box of journals from beneath her bed and dug through them. She scanned three other books before she found the one she was looking for. In it there were four pages about Gabriel and how he’d described feeling the pitch and tone of a song in his body, the low sounds in the large muscles of his legs, the higher notes in his face and neck, and the thunderous melody in his chest. There was also the story of how his deafness had gone undetected for more than two years. In loopy letters stretched across the page, it told how after two years of nothing but babble, Gabriel’s parents discovered his deafness and taught him to talk.
Meghan reread the entry three times. Once the details were settled in her mind, she retied the green ribbon around the book, placed it on top of the others, and slid the box back under the bed.
It was well after midnight when she climbed into bed, but still sleep wouldn’t come. Even though Sox was snuggled next to her, Gabriel Hawke was at the forefront of her mind. She kept remembering the story of how his mama placed his hand on her throat to teach him the vibration of words.
The pale gray of morning was filtering into the sky when Meghan finally drifted off, and by then she had made a decision.