Page 111 of The Sign for Home

“No, Snap. In fact, I don’t. Any ideas?”

She doesn’t answer, thank God.

Hanne and Molly update me daily. Social workers and lawyers are involved, including a disability rights lawyer Tabitha had suggested. Weirdly, Tabitha’s interpreter, Flirty Zach, also texted me, offering support, and suggested we grab a coffee when he’s back in Seattle in October. I haven’t responded yet.

Everything is in a holding pattern. But as long as I get Arlo to the Laura Bridgman Center by this afternoon, I will probably not face any charges, or that’s what people tell me. Arlo’s other school friend, Martin Van Ness, is planning to help me get Arlo and Shri connected to services in Seattle, so they can start looking for housing and get set up with the right equipment, including an iPhone with a brand-new portable refreshable braille display for Arlo. While there may be some kind of pushback from their families in the future, for the moment Arlo and Shri are okay. Birch, it turns out, left as scheduled for his mission to Ecuador. The lawyer said this “abandonment” of Arlo will work against him if he ever does try to exercise his guardianship rights. It seems Birch’s concern for the next life clearly outweighs his concern for this one—or, as Molly suggested, maybe Birch really did see the light about Arlo’s right to independence.

This was the good news. The bad news is all the money I have saved will be gone in a matter of weeks, and I am still set to lose my certification if Clara Shuster has anything to say about it. Molly is trying to help with that, but the outcome is definitely not certain. Now my future is one big messy question mark. What will I do if I’m not an ASL interpreter anymore? Stay in Seattle? Go back to the East Coast? To what? Hanne has sent me phone numbers for a couple of her AA friends out in Seattle, so I plan to check out some meetings. I haven’t had a glass of wine in thetwo weeks of traveling and getting out of bed has been a lot easier. Bruno would have been proud of me.

Those of us who can see look at the sun’s rays reflecting off a flock of geese alighting on a field in the distance. Those of us who can hear listen to the whoosh of the air and the hum of the engine and the silence that fills the car. Arlo watches the streaks of light across the car’s ceiling and feels the warmth of his love’s hand on his face. Shri can feel the cool morning breeze with the warmth of the rising sun on Arlo’s cheek. They probably know, just like I do, that our freedom is precarious and everything still might fall apart. It could, right? In real life, things don’t end so happily, right? But, at the moment, we are just moving forward, swinging our white cane right, then left, dodging obstacles, taking one more step, finding our way.

ARLO

Shri is curled up in your arms, and every once in a while you place a kiss on that thick mane of black hair, you stick your face into the space between Shri’s head and neck and breathe in the smell of her body, holding it inside your lungs, wanting it to become part of you. Jehovah’s Witnesses believe Judgment Day is coming soon, that all of us who will be left behind, and all those who have died and are not the chosen 144,000, will sit before Jehovah God and Jesus and be judged. Those who refuse to come to Jehovah God, or those who have done red star sins their whole life—people like you—they will cease to exist. No more body. No more spirit. Just gone. Oblivion.

You don’t believe in this anymore.

You reach up to the front seat and scratch good-dog-Snap on her head.

You sniff the air of the mountains that Cyril says are S-U-B-L-I-M-E.

There are so many ways you could signthe sublime. One day you will realize even the English words fail to fully contain that which truly fills your body and mind with awe. A complete understanding of the sublime will always be just beyond your grasp, but still you will reach for it.

But today, the word that fascinates you is much simpler. That word ishome. A number of places in your life have worn that name: Mama’s small apartment, your room at the Rose Garden School, Brother Birch’s house, the city of Poughkeepsie. Molly once told you the sign forhomewas originally a combination of the signs forfood(bring your hand to your mouth, fingers closed, as if you were putting food in your mouth) andbed(hands in prayer position lifted to the side of the head as if you were sleeping on them).Homewas the place you ate and slept. That old sign was like your previous homes. But ASL signs evolve, often foreshortening or migrating on the body for ease of use. Frequently they will be replaced by a brand-new sign altogether. Today, the sign forhomeis done by gathering the fingertips, but instead of bringing them to the mouth as before, the signer just touches the side of the chin and then, keeping the same hand shape, touches the top of the cheekbone. The funny thing is that same hand shape (the gathered fingers touching your face or body) is almost exactly like the sign forkiss. So the sign forhomeis like someone kissing you twice, once near the mouth and once on your cheek just below your eye.Homewent from being a place where you eat and sleep to the place where someone loves you. You take your fingers and make the sign forhomeon Shri’s face.

Home.

STORY FINISH (END)

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