Page 110 of The Sign for Home

Snap, looking for her human, anxiously scratched at the window.

“I’ll go back,” I said.

But then Snap started going crazy, and when we turned around to see what she was barking at, there was Arlo, still carrying Shri. Shri was slapping Arlo’s back, creating a tactile experience of applause. Hanne started clapping. Molly held a hand over her mouth to contain her sobs of joy. Snap was wagging the lower half of her body, whimpering and joyously licking everything she could, the seats, the door, the window.

“Okay,” I shouted. “Let’s get them in the car and get the hell out of here!”

I got into the driver’s seat while Molly and Hanne helped Arlo and Shri get settled in the back. Once they were buckled in, Hanne jumped in the passenger seat, and I signed to Arlo to move over so Molly could get next to them. He did, but then Molly closed the door instead, reached through the window, and started interpreting to Arlo as she spoke to me.

“No. It’s too crowded. I’ll take the train back. But you better get going.”

“Are you kidding?” I said. “You need to come with us!”

“I’m going to head back to the nursing home. When they see Shri is missing, they’re going to figure it out. I can be a witness when the police get there. I want to tell them about the abuse—the unprescribed medicine.”

“But you just kind of committed arson?” I reminded her.

“Oh please, it was a little trash fire. They’d never be able to pin it on me, anyway. And if we all just run away then for certain it will look even fishier. No matter what, it will buy you some time and at least persuade them not to shoot you.”

Arlo grew upset and begged Molly to come with us.

“We escape to Seattle,” he signed. “We get house. All live together with Martin and Big Head Lawrence!”

“I’m tempted.” Molly squeezed her eyes closed. “But I can’t.”

Then Molly kissed Arlo on the cheek and embraced him long and hard through the window. When they broke the hug, Arlo signed:

“I sorry you get into trouble. I love you.”

Molly kissed his hands, then signed, “I love you too. You are a good man.”

“We better hurry,” I said. “Thank you, Molly. We couldn’t have done this without you.”

Molly stepped over to my window.

“I know you thought I was just an old, stupid JW who had no heart. But I do have a heart. I also have Jehovah God, who woke me up. Just get Arlo and Shri somewhere safe. I’ll try to smooth things over. I can’t promise there won’t be a disaster ahead for all of us, but let’s all just try our best. And please don’t tell me where you’re going so I don’t have to lie anymore. I think I’ve committed enough sins today.”

I reached up to give Molly a hug, but she pushed me away and waved for me to go. But then Hanne got out of the car as well, taking the tote bag filled with Shri’s file, and came around to my window.

“I better stay with Molly,” she said. “She’ll need help explaining. I have no problem lying. Also, I have things I can say to blackmail the hell out of that place.”

She lifted the tote bag. I looked at Hanne, my eyes begging her to come. Hanne kissed me on the lips, and then reached through the back window and stroked Arlo and Shri on their cheeks, her sad, shimmering eyes trying to smile.

“Come on, Hanne,” I said, my voice catching in my throat. “Please.”

“Cyrilje, you know I have a kid who has to graduate high school, not to mention my mess of a husband. And, of course, I still intend to be the greatest world-traveling artist-slash-nurse this country has ever seen. But not today. What an adventure this all was. I love you, my little red-haired gay Viking. Now go!”

Then I did the next right-wrong-ethical-unethical thing: I stepped on the gas and left.

EPILOGUESTORY FINISH

CYRIL

For the first two days after we left New York I constantly looked behind us, waiting for the police to stop us any minute. But it never happened. Somehow, thanks to Hanne and Molly’s intervention, plus calls to Shri’s family, and the investigation by APS social workers, it looked like there would be no great chase scene, no DeafBlind Bonnie and Clyde, with Arlo shooting bullets out the window indiscriminately. At least not yet.

For much of our trip west, Snap sat in the passenger seat, her nose sticking out the window, sniffing the cattle ranches and ripe earth. Sometimes she’d look over at me with curiosity, toss her gray muzzle in acknowledgment, just one support animal to another. Then, just like me, she would periodically peer into the back seat at Arlo and Shri, who were either chatting or wrapped in each other’s arms. Cleaned up and off the unprescribed meds, Shri, the stunning soul that Arlo had first been able to discern in the darkness merely through her hands, turned out to be an all-around beautiful human being, loquacious, funny, and smart. While driving through Cleveland we got her a checkup at a free clinic. Shri’s bedsores were healing nicely. We were also able to score a used wheelchair at a thrift store and Shri began tooling around in it like she had owned it forever. Eventually she worked out a system where, if she got tired, Arlo could push and steer while she gave directions via tapping on his hands. Arlo explained about Protactile, but their hands rarely left each other’s bodies anyway. It was and is an unending dance of communication.

At four in the morning on the day we are to arrive in Seattle, the twolovebirds are sleeping in the back, and I reach over and scratch Snap’s head. The old girl looks up at me with those big brown service dog eyes as if to say,You have no idea what you’re doing with the rest of your life, do you?

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