Page 91 of The Sign for Home

Lavinia gently raised her hands toward me, less as a protection and more as an attempt to calm me.

“I never said the wordmolest,” she said. “I just described the action and indicated Molly looked suspiciously at you.”

“Molly is suspicious of everyone, especially an agnostic homo who challenges her total control over Arlo.”

“I’m so sorry, Cyril. I will call the dean first thing Monday. No. I’ll go there in person, I promise. I am crushed with guilt, Cyril. Crushed! I will do everything in my power to make it right.”

I could feel my nails dig into the palms of my hands. Fearing my rage would make me do or say something stupid, I walked to the front door and opened it.

“Thank you for the apology, and thank you for doing what you can, but it’s probably too late at this point. Anyway, I really have to go back to bed until it’s a more gentlemanly time to drink myself into oblivion. Um… get home safe.”

Lavinia exhaled a groan of sorrow.

“I understand, Cyril. And I don’t blame you for wanting to wash your hands of all of this. You’ve been treated abysmally! But here’s my problem. Because I’ve been a teacher and avid reader for so long, I’ve got all these other voices inside my head screaming! Gandhi, Anne Frank, James Baldwin! Walt Whitman! All of them calling me to action! Insisting I help others! In elementary school, I memorized a quote from Cicero: ‘Non nobis solum nati sumus’—Not for ourselves alone are we born. I am an educator, Cyril. You are an interpreter and, I’d argue, also an educator, whether you like it or not. Only in tragedies does the hero refuse her call. How will Arlo see Shri without us? They are in love, Cyril! In love! We will suffer if we do nothing to help. It’s our duty.”

“Our duty ormyduty?” I said, silencing Lavinia’s disquisition. “Thisisn’tyourcareer in jeopardy, Lavinia! Do you realize, because of this filthy gossip—gossip you contributed to—I could even end up in jail? Is that what you people want? I’ve already lost so much in my life. Do you want me to lose everything for this kid?”

I suddenly noticed that as I was shouting, I had also been signing the whole time, as if there were also someone Deaf in the room to whom I had to defend myself. Lavinia crossed to me and laid the flats of her warm hands on my chest, calming me.

“Shh. Shh. There, there. I’m sorry. I’m being stupid and selfish. I just can’t bear the unfairness of it all.”

“Neither can I. I’m sorry, but I can’t help him anymore.”

Lavinia nodded sadly, kissed me on the cheek, and left.

41GONE GONE GONE

August 16

Three days after Lavinia’s visit, I received a letter from the Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf stating that I’d been formally reported for “behavior contrary to the code of professional conduct,” and I was required to give a statement to investigators in early September. I would need to get others to vouch for me in writing. Lavinia said I could count on her, but as for professional references, I wasn’t sure who I could ask without making things worse. Most of the agencies in the area had heard about my situation and wouldn’t even talk to me. Not that they could have helped much anyway if Clara, Molly, and Birch stuck to their stories. Arlo could defend me if he was allowed to. But neither Lavinia, Hanne, nor I had any way to contact him. It was like he no longer existed in our world.

August 17

I reached out to a JW terp I knew named Serefina to see if she knew the Birches. The JW thing never stopped her from being a totally cool lady. Serefina and I used to go out and get shit-faced together after gigswhen I first started interpreting. (Getting blasted once in a while is not necessarily considered a sin, or that’s what Serefina told me.) Serefina, who had heard of Brother Birch and Arlo, agreed to do some secret JW reconnaissance for me. After checking with a friend, she said that Birch and all the other “pioneers,” including Arlo, would be flying to Ecuador in just eleven days. It was becoming clear that getting to him would be close to impossible.

August 18

Just before the whole field trip debacle, I had emailed Tabitha about how Arlo might become more independent. Her email arrived three weeks too late.

Dear Cyril:

It sounds like your DB consumer faces a complicated situation with his uncle. It’s not the first time I’ve heard of family trying to limit the independence of someone who is DeafBlind and capable, but this situation seems even worse. According to my lawyer friend, if the courts have already found that Arlo is not able to make decisions or care for himself and have given guardianship to his uncle then it will be hard to get him emancipated. However, the lawyer also said if he can either appeal the ruling or prove abuse of some sort then the court may reexamine his case. I’ll talk to my friend to see if she knows anyone in the upstate New York area. As far as independence goes, yes, indeed, from how you describe Arlo, he definitely can live more independently. That doesn’t mean he won’t need support. That’s why I’m fighting to get mandatorygovernment-funded SSP/co-navigators nationwide. (It’s gonna be a tough fight, but it has to happen.) Meanwhile, if his uncle doesn’t prevent him, there are some great DeafBlind Independent Living training programs.

Yours,

Tabitha

For the hell of it I forwarded the email to Arlo’s old email address, but like every other email I had sent it was returned, indicating the account had been closed. Ten days left until he would be gone. I fantasized about putting on a disguise and sneaking into the Kingdom Hall, hiding the printed email in my palm, along with a letter begging Arlo for his help. After coming to my senses, I deleted Tabitha’s email.

August 19

After weeks of no work, I finally booked a gig through an out-of-town spoken language interpretation agency. That sort of agency tends to be clueless about sign language interpreting, which for once served my purposes. I told them I wasn’t certified in case they checked with RID. That meant getting paid only two-thirds my regular rate. It was a beautician training course with a Deaf Russian woman an hour and a half south in Yonkers. The woman was sweet as hell and tended to mix Russian sign in with her ASL. She asked me to go to lunch with her, but I was too paranoid about the RID investigation, and anxiously snapped that it was “not appropriate to ask interpreters to hang out.” The participant didn’t come back from lunch, and I never got another gig from that agency.

August 20

Hanne called to chat. But just as she had done for the last few weeks, she pretended to start a discussion about nursing school or her family, but then quickly steered the discussion to Arlo. I finally asked her if we could just not talk about him for a while. He was set to leave in just a matter of days, and I was tired of obsessing about it. The next day Hanne didn’t call at all.

August 27

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