Page 74 of The Sign for Home

With every mistake she would shake her ugly, sweaty hands, blame them for the fault of her brain. Her breath smelled like sour milk.

“Please sign again,” you begged, hoping if you signed slowly that she might understand.

“Okay,” she signed. “TheF-E-T-E-C-T-I-V-E… wants… to… think [she meansknow] why… you… R-A-K-C-E…the… tiny… [unintelligible]…”

After a dozen attempts, you became familiar with her errors, and began to decode. R-A… she used the letter K but maybe she meant P. R-A-P… she tended to sign E like a C… R-A-P-E.Rape? What rape? Had the Deaf Devils raped S?Lightning bolts of rage erupted inside your heart.

“Where S?!” you screamed, pounding on the table. “I want real interpreter!”

But it was no use. Tina either didn’t understand or was refusing to interpret your message. She came at you with another of the “fetective’s” questions.

“Are… you… A… G-A-N-G?”

What was she talking about? You asked her to repeat her signs over and over. When you finally understood, you punched your signs violently in front of you, hoping they might hit the terrible interpreter in the face and silence her.

“No! No! No!”

But your angry answer just prompted more indecipherable signing.

“You… express (or was that the sign forpoem?)… you… sin… bad… boy… other kid… R-O-O-F… September/Autumn… D-O-W-N… break… Bad. Sin sin sin… S-H…”

Then she spelled out a name—the name you still can’t remember—and signed: “You know, Indian girl?”

Your heart started thrashing inside your chest. Something terrible must have happened to S.

“Please,” you signed as slowly as possible in Signed English. “Where is S?! When… can… I… see H-E-R?! Please!”

No answer came. Instead, they put a piece of paper under your hands and gave you a pen with which to sign it. And you did. You were too exhausted to complain about the impossibly small print, and you thought maybe the paper might help you to see S again. After that they brought you back to your room and you fell asleep for a very long time.

It was Molly’s hands that shook you awake. You reached up to hug her, but she pushed you away.

“Come on,” she signed angrily, coldly. “Let’s go. Your uncle is here.”

You explained about the bad interpreter and how the detectives punched you, and you begged Molly to take you to S as soon as possible.

“Stop!” Molly commanded. “No more talk. You are going home to your uncle’s house now. You are never allowed back at the Rose Garden School. Finished.”

You raged and pleaded, but it didn’t matter. On the car ride home you sat alone in the back, staring at the flickering light-dark of the shadows out the window, feeling the cool of the glass against your cheek, the ache of the bruise next to your eye, the wet of your nose, which dripped tearful snot. When you left the school, why did Molly not even say goodbye to you? Whydid Brother Birch not offer his usual handshake when he met you at the car? You tried to puzzle together what must have happened in the Secret Forest, to S, to Crazy Charles, to you. But too many pieces were missing.

When you got back to Brother Birch’s house, he forced you to kneel on the hardwood floor and ask Jehovah God’s forgiveness for an hour. The pain in your knees felt like fire. At the end of your prayer session, Brother Birch lifted you up by the nape of your neck to make you stand up. When you were a child you imagined Brother Birch was the tallest man in the world, with hands capable of crushing your whole body with ease. But that day you noticed how short he had become, and how his hands had become shriveled and creased with thick ropy veins, like someone had pulled the plug from his body and let most of the water drain out.

The smaller, withered Brother Birch shoved you into a seat at the kitchen table. A moment later, Molly, who you hadn’t seen since the detention center, put her hands under yours, telling you Brother Birch called her to Poughkeepsie because he needed to have a serious talk with you.

“Okay,” you signed, grateful that you’d be able to ask some questions. “Okay. But, first, where S? What happen to S?”

She didn’t respond. Was it her not telling you? Was it Brother Birch? Then Brother Birch said, via Molly’s interpreting, “Did the other boys force you to commit that sin? Did you hurt anyone else?”

Other boys? Hurt?Was he talking about the sins you committed in the Secret Forest with S?

“Forced someone… never!” you insisted. “Hurt someone… never! Only me and S there. Long time, we love each other. Tell me! S… where?! I must see S!”

Molly and Brother Birch started talking to each other without signing to you. Telling secrets. After a very long time Molly’s hands returned to yours, and she was finally speaking for herself. She proceeded to tell youa story you’d never heard before. A story about you. She said things like,“You did this… Then you did that…”And the whole time the wordyoudidn’t make sense because the story about “you” matched nothing in your memory.

Molly’s story went like this: You were part of the Deaf Devils gang. You forced the younger and smaller students to go into the Secret Forest and do sex games with you. This is what the detectives meant when they said rape. Another student told a dorm boss that you were part of the gang of boys and you were hurting one of the students. The dorm boss was the one who called the police and sent them to find you in the bushes behind Forsythia House.

“Did you rape S?” Molly asked you directly.

SignRAPE: Your two hands, palms down, mime tearing something apart, one hand moves forward, the other backward.

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