Page 14 of The Sign for Home

“Then lying—what for?! Wow. Lying very serious sin! Future, when you die, Jehovah God will throw you Lake of Fire! Will!”

For a moment Molly said nothing. You think:Ha! Take that! I have crushed her!But when she spoke again, her signs felt weary and bloodless.

“Okay. Okay. Finish,” Molly signed, her gentleness returning. “I’m sorry for getting upset. I’m just so tired. I promise you’ll have the whole semester to learn new words. Okay?”

You pulled your hands from Molly’s and took out your cane. With your other hand you reached out for the banister and caressed the cold, knobby end. What if Molly was telling the truth? Suddenly you felt such pity for the strange object. Like you, it was alone and had no friends. Worse than you, it did not have a name.

8PROFESSOR LAVINIA BAHR

The three of us made our way toward the classroom in silence. Even the guide dog seemed uncomfortable. I kept ruminating over Molly’s cheap comment:They warned me about you.My mind sorted through all the interpreters I might have offended over the years. The list wasn’t long, but it wasn’t short. It’s like that interpreter joke: “How many interpreters does it take to interpret the changing of a light bulb? Five. One to interpret it, three to complain about the interpretation, and one to be looking at their iPhone.”

With ten minutes left before the class was set to begin, we walked into the room like the smallest of traveling circuses. Almost every seat was full. This worried me. The class title, English Comp 101, section 4, and the name Professor Lavinia Bahr had been written on the whiteboard in cursive so precise it could have been done by a nineteenth-century nun. The professor herself was a fabulous cross between Maya Angelou and a bedazzled tank. She sat behind her desk draped in a royal-blue African-style calico dress, with huge beaded drop earrings and a vibrant blue silk scarf wrapped around her head. I watched as Molly described the professor to Arlo, taking special care with her dress, her earrings, her size, her race, thestrictexpression on her face, everything to paint a full picture for Arlo.

“We’ll wait a few more moments for any latecomers,” Professor Lavinia Bahr announced to the class, her low, sumptuous voice almost British in itsprecision and flavored with what I would eventually learn was a Saint Kitts accent. “Meanwhile, please take out your notebooks and writing instruments!”

Upon seeing Molly interpreting, Professor Bahr raised her dagger-sharp eyebrows and pointed toward us like we were the mistake of some misbehaving child.

“Excuse me, class!” she barked. “Who owns this family? They seem to be lost.”

Both Molly and I grimaced at the suggestion that she and I might be married with Arlo as our son.

“Tell Arlo to show her the drop/add form now?” I signed to Molly.

But while Arlo just stood there, lost inside his head, Molly simply sighed and passed Arlo back to me, with a fed-up lift of her eyebrows. Her meaning:You brought this on yourself; you tell him.

Sniff.

The air of the classroom smells like Magic Markers, pencils, waxed floors, wood and metal furniture, fresh paint, and… books. To read a book made out of paper, you need to put it on a machine that magnifies it so large you are only able to read a few words at a time, or have the book translated into acres and acres of raised paper dots, minuscule mountains of braille.

There’s something else. Your feet and skin perceive other vibrations in the room.

Sniff.

Bodies of other people in the room. Giant unread flesh-books. You try to catch an image of a face, but there are only flickers and shadows. A light flare blinds you when you look toward the window. You close your eyes.

Sniff.

The smell of a woman floats into your nostrils. Perfume, skin, clean. Your mama smelled like soft cotton, orange blossom perfume, and sometimes eggs. Molly smells likeThe Watchtowermagazine and flowery deodorant.And the other one? The one you are forbidden to think about smelled like… Don’t think about it. Don’t think about it. Forget. Forget.

Breathe in deeply.

Other people’s bodies can help you forget.

“Hey!” I said to the professor. “Sorry… um… Professor. No oneownsus. Ha ha. Arlo here is a student. He’d like to ask you something.”

Then to Arlo:

“Hey! Are you paying attention?” I signed with desperation. “You zoned out. The class is starting soon. Show the professor the drop/add form!”

Arlo, misunderstanding the location of the professor, began signing to a large-boned male student sitting right next to us.

“Excuse me, Professor…”

I stopped him, and steered Arlo and Snap toward the professor’s desk at the front of the classroom.

“Go ahead,” I signed. “She’s there.”

“Excuse me, Professor,” Arlo began again, with me voicing. “My name is Arlo Dilly. It’s nice to meet you.”

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