Page 18 of Interpreter

Anniston tugs at my shirt, and I pull up slowly, giving her a “this is bullshit” look.

“This is a new beginning. Don’t waste it.”

I can still walk the fuck right out of here.

I can.

But I won’t because the woman that places a kiss to my cheek before she turns and walks down the hall means too much to me.

Sighing, I pull myself together by taking a deep breath and putting one foot in front of the other until I’m in the center of a brightly lit classroom full of artwork and helpful hints. I think some of the graphics are of Costa Rica. I wonder if that’s where she’s from. Methodically, I analyze the room. Milah is definitely organized. Every pen and every poster on the wall is categorized with matching color schemes.

Great. Not that I’m a slob but organized is probably not my best quality. I don’t really care where I put my shit just as long as I can find it later. So labeling a marker box—not that I have one—seems a bit uptight to me.

My head is two seconds away from exploding, and I pretty much begged my commander not to leave me like I was some four-year-old being dropped off for his first day of school. Granted, that sentiment doesn’t feel too far off from the way I’m feeling.

It’s not that I’m scared. Well, maybe I am—a little. But it just feels like it’s too soon. I’ve perfected the art of grieving. I’ve also perfected the art of doing absolutely nothing with my life. So this—getting a real job again—doesn’t feel like the “me” who has been waiting for his deafness to arrive like it was some kind of finish line. And now that I’ve crossed it and haven’t been completely consumed by the grief, I’m being forced out of my comfort zone. Because life goes on or some shit like that.

Either way, I’m in a shitty mood and it only grows when I realize Milah and I are not alone in the classroom. A little boy, I would guess around six years old, is sitting at her desk with his head bent and his tongue sticking out to the side while he focuses on whatever he’s working on.

He’s definitely not a fifth grader. Is he her son? They don’t look alike, but what could he be doing at her desk while she was out of the room? I can’t imagine she trusts just any student around her things. I watch as she leans over, patting the kid’s back affectionately.

“Great job, Oliver. I really love the colors you used.”

Milah signs her words, and I want to tell her that it’s not necessary to sign for me. It’s not like she was speaking to me anyway. But when I take a closer look, my feet carrying me closer to the hot teacher and the little boy, I notice the hearing aid tucked away under the length of his hair.

She wasn’t signing for my benefit.

She was signing for his. Apparently, Ms. Iglesias has more than one pet project. Okay, that’s a shitty thing to say, and honestly, I don’t mean it. I think it’s great that she goes above and beyond her teaching duties.

“Oliver,” she taps the little boy’s shoulder. “This is my friend, Tim. He’s going to be helping me out for the rest of the year.”

The little boy looks up at me with his big brown eyes, and it’s like looking in the mirror. “Hi, Mr. Tim,” I think he says. It’s not as easy to read the lips of children. They aren’t clear enunciators, and Oliver didn’t sign along with his words, so I’m taking an educated guess here.

“Hi, Oliver,” I return. I wonder what his voice sounds like. Do we sound similar? Does he sound younger or older for his age? “It’s very nice to meet you,” I add at the last minute when Milah stares at me, tilting her head expectantly like I should keep going.

“Are you learning sign language too?” I think he asks, but it’s hard to tell since he’s now swiveling in Milah’s chair.

His question should be cute and a matter of light conversation, but it hits me right in the soul, digging up old wounds that I buried years ago. Suddenly I’m the college student with an ASL book in his hands trying to learn sign language in between classes. It took one call from her. One.“Tim, sweetheart, I can’t read lips well enough to do the FaceTime thing. Maybe just text me and tell me how your day went?”Her face as she pretty much hung up on me felt like a screwdriver to the heart. My own mother, divorced and alone, had becometrulyalone. The next day a book was in my hand and I had blown off a week’s worth of classes.

I never texted her ass again.

But that doesn’t stop the pain from bubbling to the surface. It didn’t matter that I learned American Sign Language. It didn’t matter that I took time off to stay with her. The results were the same.

“No, sweetheart,” Milah steps around the chair, jolting me from the memory. “Tim doesn’t need my help. He can sign better than I can.”

I swallow hard, tugging at my collar as Milah’s eyes ask if I’m okay.

I’m not.

I am far from okay.

This was a mistake. A colossal mistake. Dread seeps through my skin as an invisible weight pushes down onto my shoulders. Penelope’s fate will not be mine. I won’t make the same mistakes she did. I won’t retreat from the world. Except… I already have, haven’t I? I’ve already taken the first step. I shut out the world. I’m in denial just like Dr. Parker suggested. Somewhere, in this countdown to silence, I lost my fight. Just like she did.“And what if you can’t fight it, Timaeus? What if it’s too strong to fight alone? What if I lose?”she had asked, her words ringing out loud in my head. I remember grabbing her hand and wrapping it in mine. At the time, I didn’t realize how monumental my advice would be, not only for her, but for me too.“Then you build an army and go down with honor.”

The twenty-year-old man who gave her that shitty advice couldn’t understand how she was feeling. He could hear. He could still play the piano. He still had an invite to the New York City Orchestra. He didn’t just lose his Las Vegas show that he had for five years. He didn’t just lose his husband and manager because he could no longer hit a high note. No, that man had no idea how it felt to Penelope Lambros, Grammy Award winner and current nobody.

My breaths turn shallow, and my chest fights for oxygen. “I can’t breathe,” I choke out to Milah whose eyes have widened. A bead of sweat drops onto my shirt. “I need to go,” I pant. “Excuse me.”

I rush from Milah’s and Oliver’s worried faces and barrel through the mostly empty hallway, pushing past the couple of teachers that linger.Breathe, Tim. Breathe.But I can’t. My lungs won’t inflate, and that scares the hell out of me. Outside of the fifth grade hall, I take the first turn I see and pray there is a bathroom or somewhere I can get myself together. No one needs to see this. An exit sign at the end of the corridor sends me into a sprint, but when I find it locked and alarmed, a pain rips through my chest. “Fuck!”

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