Page 86 of The Sign for Home

38TERMINATION

The day after the field trip disaster I woke up at 1 p.m. on my couch, hungover and foggy. The worst part was I remembered everything that happened and everything I had said. When I looked at my phone, there were multiple texts from Hanne and a number of voice messages from Ange. When I called back, Ange told me I had been removed from the job, which wasn’t a surprise. Molly finally got what she wanted. When I said as much to Ange, she said that it was, in fact, Arlo who had requested I be taken off the job. I told her that was either a mistake or a lie. Arlo wouldn’t have fired me. But she said it didn’t matter. I was done. Then Ange insisted I go to the Abilities Institute to meet with Clara Shuster in person. I asked what the point was if I was already fired, but Ange said her agency’s reputation was on the line, and if I ever wanted to earn another dime interpreting, I had no choice. I needed to convince Clara of my version of events.

I hung up the phone. I wanted to get as far away from Arlo and Poughkeepsie as possible. And it was then that I remembered: without any income for the rest of the summer, my whole plan to move to Philadelphia was finished. Whatever escape money I had saved had suddenly become my emergency fund.

On Monday morning I went to the Abilities Institute. As I waited to speak to Clara, I sat in that conference room staring again at the “happy disabled people” photos, thinking about how I would defend myself to Clara, promising myself I wouldn’t grovel.

When Clara finally called me into her office, her usual kind-and-compassionate social worker vibe was nowhere to be seen. Without even looking me in the eye, she gestured for me to sit. While she looked intently at the contents of a manila folder, I inventoried everything she had on her meticulously organized desk, which included three neatly stacked files, tape, a stapler, a snow globe featuring a diorama of Waikiki, and a nicely framed photo of people I assumed were her husband and daughter.

“It’s very hot outside today,” Clara said finally, looking up at me for the first time.

My knee bounced anxiously; my mouth felt like it was filled with ashes. The most important thing was to maintain a calm, contrite tone.

“This is all a complete bullshit lie,” I blurted out, my voice leaping an octave. “Arlo would never fire me. It was his uncle… or really… Molly Clinch! She’s been out to get me since day one!”

“Could you please not raise your voice,” Clara said, wincing.

Again I tried to reel myself in emotionally.

“Sorry,” I said. “My point is, instead of punishing me or Arlo, you should be looking into what’s happening in his home. He’s a competent adult, Clara. Arlo should have the right to visit whoever he wants.”

“Cyril, we’re not here to—”

“His accessibility equipment is completely out of date, for chrissakes,” I said, my voice once again rising. “They severely limit his access to the internet. They told him Shri was dead! You’re supposed to be his advocate! Do your job!”

Clara’s eyes grew furious, and she slapped her manicured hand on her desk, causing the photo of her family to fall over.

“Enough! Stop it!” Her voice cracked as she shouted, which was not the sort of thing Clara Shuster ever did. “You have no idea what I do or don’t do in my job. And for your information, there was a very good reason why Arlo wasn’t allowed… Never mind… it doesn’t matter. It’s not your business. Mr. Birch is Arlo’s guardian. Not you.”

Clara bit her lower lip, but not in that hurt-about-to-cry way. It was more like anI’m going to fuck you up nowway. She reopened the manila folder, and, like some cold, officious TV prosecutor, began to go down a list of accusations.

“Have you been writing Arlo’s essays in class?” she asked, her voice as calm as a glacier.

“What? No! I spent time helping him understand the assignment, and helped him with some definitions here and there, and maybe a little grammar, but he wrote it himself.”

She smiled, mockingly.

“A little grammar? You’re telling me a DeafBlind twenty-three-year-old, without even a high school diploma, wrote an essay on…”

She read from the file:

“The Concept of the Sublime in Walt Whitman’sLeaves of Grass?”

“Okay. Yeah. I helped him with the title too, but the paper and the ideas are his. He’s an extremely bright young man.”

“You’re not supposed to be writing papers for your consumers.”

“I didn’t—”

“Or giving them titles or being their getaway driver on illegal escapades. Your job is to interpret, Cyril. Period.”

Clara closed her eyes briefly, like she was giving someone the bad news about their impending death.

“Arlo is not just any adult. He’s a person the state has deemed needs custodial care, meaning they believe in order to survive he needs a guardian. I shouldn’t say this, but did you know there were accusations of sexualassault in Arlo’s background? Did you know that he had wandered off several times and almost gotten killed? That he had a breakdown?”

“Breakdown?” I repeated, a desperate fog filling my brain. “No, I didn’t know about that, or about the wandering off. But he wrote about the false charge of…”

I stopped myself. I had been assuming I knew Arlo better than other people, that he had told me all his secrets. I covered my reddening face with my hand. My torrent of rage shriveled into a pathetic, embarrassed defensiveness.

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