Page 107 of The Sign for Home

“Fuck you. I go myself!”

After walking ten steps down the block with Snap, he stopped and almost howled in sad frustration. Snap joined him. It was the most pitiful lamentation I had ever heard. None of us knowing what to do, we all went to him. Molly rubbed his back; Hanne threw her arms around him andhugged him. I finally approached his shoulder and tapped in Protactile understanding. At my touch, Arlo’s face turned crimson with rage, angrily freeing himself from everyone’s touch.

“Know something? Cyril… Molly… you both cowards! But Cyril… you worst coward ever! You refuse Shri’s plan? Why? Because long time ago your boyfriend die. You hurt so bad. After that you never want hurt again. Cyril so much pain… push it down deep inside! That’s why you drink so much wine every night. I smell it. I smell it on you every day. You drunk! That’s why you lonely, sad man. You same as JWs!Careful, careful, don’t have sex, don’t read books, don’t make friends. Happiness for future. Judgment Day!Bullshit! Your sweetheart dying cancer… You visit? No! Why? Cyril scared everything! Frozen! Understand? Suppose Shri and me try escape and fail? Or suppose we not try at all? Doesn’t matter. Right? Doesn’t matter! Everybody still hurt! Cyril think,Avoid, avoid everything. Stay out of it. That safe. Just wait and see. Nobody get hurt.But you wrong! If we don’t try, then everybody hurt worse! Worse! Forever!”

When Arlo had finished, I just stood there, barely able to breathe, feeling exposed like every centimeter of skin had been flayed from my body. Molly’s eyes filled with pity. Despite not knowing any sign language, Hanne could see that whatever he had said, Arlo had gone deep.

“He’s right,” I said. “I didn’t visit Bruno because I was scared. I couldn’t save him. I couldn’t.”

I don’t recall the exact details of what happened next. I gather Molly described to Arlo what was happening, because it wasn’t until he came over and put his arms around me that I realized I had been crying. I wiped my face on the hem of my T-shirt and looked at Molly and Hanne, both reflecting my heartbreak back at me.

“Are you all right, Cyrilje?” Hanne asked.

“Yeah,” I said, wiping my face. “I’m all right.”

Arlo walked back over to Molly and asked her to interpret, which meant he was starting to trust her again.

“Arlo is right about something else too,” I said. “We work for Arlo, and he says he can’t leave Shri in there tonight. I’m not gonna tell a man what he can and can’t do. But something has to be done.”

Arlo clarified with Molly if he understood me correctly. Molly herself wasn’t sure.

“You mean we’re calling the authorities?” Molly asked.

“Yes, absolutely we’ll call the authorities,” I responded. “But we’ve all dealt with social services long enough to know they won’t do anything tonight, and maybe not for weeks or months. So let’s do what Arlo says. Let’s follow Shri’s plan and try to get her out of there tonight.”

Arlo smiled and punched the air with his fist, speaking a “Yes!”

“We’ll have to figure out a safe place to take her later,” I said. “But I don’t want either of you to get in trouble. My career is already down the toilet, so I’ll take this on with Arlo. Hanne, you should take the train back to Poughkeepsie. Molly, you can just tell Brother Birch you followed us here to try to stop us.”

Molly and Hanne looked at each other and had a very quick wordless conversation with their eyes, the gist of which was:Is he serious?

“Godverdomme, Cyrilje,” Hanne said, rolling her eyes. “Suddenly it’s the two men riding off to war? Fuck that. I’m helping too!”

“Me too,” Molly added nervously.

Molly covered her face with her hands and both Hanne and I assumed she had devolved into tears once again, but then we could see that she was actually laughing, which made the three of us start to laugh really hard. Then, as our nervous hysteria was dying down, we heard the ting of a message coming into Molly’s phone. As she read the text, all sense of joy drained from her face. She passed the phone to me to read. The long, angry message was from Birch, the gist of which was: he knew what Molly was up to, and if she didn’t have Arlo back to Poughkeepsie in two hours he was calling the police. The end of his text, though calmer, was clearly meant to leave some damage.

That you would do this to punish me is clearly the bitterness of a scorned woman. Satan was truly the puppet master of our horrible mistake, and I will continue to pay for it as will you. But we can’t just act like what you’ve done never happened. I’ve spoken to the other elders and we all agree that when Arlo and I return from Ecuador next year you will no longer be working with Arlo and will no longer be welcome at the Kingdom Hall in Poughkeepsie. It’s for the best. Now please bring back my nephew immediately and may Jehovah God have mercy on you.

Molly hugged her thin arms around herself as if she had suddenly been surrounded by a blast of arctic air. I had no idea what to say. Luckily, after also reading the text message, Hanne went to Molly and placed her hands on the older woman’s shoulders.

“Forget him,” Hanne said. “He’s just a selfish prick. In Belgium they’d call him akloothommel, which basically means toilet drum, but it sounds worse in Flemish.”

I interpreted the entirety of Birch’s text message for Arlo. When I finished, he went to Molly and pulled her into his arms. Molly crumbled into a pile of sobs. After she gathered herself, Arlo asked if he could borrow Molly’s phone.

“What for?” she asked.

“Send video message to Brother Birch. Cyril will voice for me so Brother Birch understand.”

“To say what?” I asked. “If we’re going to do this, we already have less than two hours.”

“Just do it!” Arlo demanded. “I’m boss, right?”

And that was that. Arlo asked Hanne to shoot the video sinceshe was the artist.Molly fixed Arlo’s hair. I stood next to the camera so I could be heard. Yes, I was aware I was creating evidence of my violation of the restraining order. I didn’t care. My focus was on matching Arlo’s calm, direct tone with my voice.

“Hello, Uncle Jonathan. I need to tell you something. Honestly, Mollyand Cyril didn’t kidnap me. I made the decision to run away on my own. Cyril and Molly are just working for me as interpreters. I’m an adult now and I have a right to decide. So, what’s my decision? I’m not going to Ecuador with you, and I don’t want to live with you anymore. You’ve been a bad guardian. First, I know you thought you were doing Jehovah God’s will, and that you needed to protect me from the goats, from the internet, from new technologies that would connect me to the world and my old friends. You did this to protect me from the Devil’s influence, right? But that wasn’t protection. Access to the world is not only when hearing-sighted people think it’s okay. Access is my right! Second, you’ve lied to me repeatedly, not telling me my mama was sick, and why I had to leave the Rose Garden School. Third, on more than one occasion you’ve physically not let me leave the house, and two or three times locked me in my room, which is very hot. That’s called abuse. You were also mean to my mother and to Molly. You pretend to be the nice, spiritually strong man that everyone should look up to, but you’re a phony and a bully. My intention now is to go to court and seek…”

I clarified the word Arlo fingerspelled, and when I understood, my voice cracked with emotion.

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