The Loudest Silence (Part One)

by Olivia Janae

  Kate wanted desperately to understand, so she took a seat with them and didn’t bother to stop her words, even though she wondered if maybe she should. “Well, usually the parents don’t like me because I’m the woman corrupting their should-be-straight daughter, not that I’ve met any parents since high school.” She ran her hand through her hair, anxious and frustrated. “They never cared that you were gay?”

  Vivian laughed a little. “No, they never cared. They run an arts organization, so having a lesbian daughter was something that they could use whenever they wanted to seem diverse, cool, or cultured. I don’t think they had room in them to care. I think, for them, nothing was worse than the fact that I refused to hear.”

  “Refused to hear?” Kate snorted out a laugh, sure she was joking. It died as neither Vivian nor Charlie joined in. She glanced between the two, baffled. “It’s not as though that’s exactly your choice. You can’t just make yourself suddenly hear.”

  Vivian smiled a little, as if Kate were a small child asking silly questions. “Perhaps we should say that there were always ways that I could be better for them.”

  Time ticked on, all three wrapped in their own thoughts until, feeling all the more frustrated, Kate tried again. “Vivian, what—”

  Charlie let out a loud, obvious sigh, putting her empty glass down on the counter, silently communicating something to her best friend with her eyes before she said, “I’m going to get going.”

  Vivian nodded, but Kate jumped to her feet.

  “Wait, what?”

  Charlie kissed her cheek and Vivian’s before wordlessly slipping out the door.

  Kate just watched her go, baffled. “So, like, is this something that I should just accept that I’m not going to be a part of? Like, I’m just not welcome in this part of your world?”

  She was beginning to feel frustrated. It was as though everyone in the room knew a secret that she didn’t, which was fine – ish. If Vivian told her to let it go then she would, because she could see it was a sore subject, but she really needed Vivian to say that before she could. “Vivian, please. I’m just trying to understand. Why would your mom tell Max not to sign in her house? God, is she always like that?” In truth, spending the afternoon with Vivian’s mother had explained a few things about her girlfriend.

  Vivian played nervously with the rings on her fingers, clearly lost. She settled on the couch, demurely crossing one leg over the other, obsessively perfect in her discomfort. When she was settled, her shirt perfectly smooth, as well as her jacket and her hair, she took a deep breath and reached for Kate. She went, expecting to sit, to talk, but instead Vivian pulled her on top of her and found her lips. Kate could feel Vivian’s sadness, the hurt that went so deep Vivian had no words for it, and her want for a few minutes of freedom from whatever was happening behind those silent lips.

  So Kate helped her escape.

  She made love to her, softly and sweetly, working to soak her adoration into Vivian’s skin, trying to heal the wounds she couldn’t see and only slightly understood.

  Afterward, they dressed, and Kate held her tightly in her arms, Vivian’s face resting against her throat.

  “Thank you,” Vivian soundlessly signed.

  Kate just kissed her forehead and sat in silence for a little while longer before she pulled back so Vivian could see her. “Your mom doesn’t sign to you.”

  Vivian looked so frail, her face pale, her eyes damaged as they welled. She let a finger wander down Kate’s jaw before she gave a small headshake. “At first …” Her voice was rough, and she must have felt it because her words broke off.

  Kate waited as Vivian cleared her throat and tried again.

  “At first my hearing was functional enough that if you were very loud I could hear you, so my parents spent the first five years of my life simply yelling everything at me. My mother used to complain it was damaging to her vocal cords. She used to sing as well as play the harp; she even played Abigaille in Nabucco with Lyric once.”

  “And she blames you for not being able to sing anymore.”

  Vivian let out a small, wet laugh. “You know her so well already. From what my older colleagues have said to me, my mother was always too rough on her voice, but perhaps she was right and having to raise her voice that way was the final nail in the coffin. Either way, growing up, my life consisted of pantomime and raised voices. Around the age of five, they started to notice that method of communication was beginning to fail. It caused quite a few fights. My mother often accused me of not trying hard enough.”

  “Where was your dad in all of this?”

  “Oh. Well, my father was one of those men who knew his wife was ridiculous and therefore just let her have free reign. It kept him out of the line of fire, I suppose.” Vivian cuddled in closer, silent in her thoughts for a long while.

  It was strange. Kate had always yearned for a family growing up, for somewhere she could belong, but listening to Vivian now, she wondered if it really could have been worse for her.

  “I remember feeling my hearing go.”

  Kate’s heart was beating hard in her chest, aching for the little brown-eyed girl Vivian once was.

  “I was just over seven. It was near my birthday. I remember quite clearly that I had wanted to have a themed birthday party that year: The Little Mermaid. I had just seen it for the first time, and I was transfixed by the idea of the evil sea monster stealing that poor little girl’s voice. My mother, however, said no, I couldn’t have that as my theme. How could I know that I liked it if I couldn’t hear it?”

  A painful shiver ran down Kate’s spine at the simple cruelty.

  “I had gone to bed that night thinking about that, so when I woke up in the middle of the night and everything felt different I thought it was just that my ears were clogged because of the tears. At that point, I was only hearing the loudest of things, and my mother had all but stopped speaking to me because she said it was too difficult. I had been hearing something like a high-pitched buzzing for a few weeks. I got up in the middle of the night, and suddenly I felt this little pop, almost like when you fly in an airplane, and it was gone. Everything was just… gone. It was the loudest silence I had ever heard. It terrified me. I ran to my mother, and she screamed herself hoarse trying to force my hearing back, but it was pointless. She put headphones on me and hooked them up to the stereo on full volume, but I couldn’t hear it.” Vivian sucked in a deep breath, her whole body shifting with it. “That was not the first nor the last of my transgressions against my mother, at least in her eyes, but I think it was the worst.”

  Kate stroked Vivian’s hair lightly, imagining the horror that night must have held for her.

  “After the doctor confirmed I was deaf, they hired a full-time interpreter as my nanny. She taught me Sign Language, and after that, they just spoke to me through her. It was easier than learning themselves. In truth, I don’t think it ever occurred to them to learn.

  “I was so happy. It was the first time in my life that I had been able to communicate with someone without limits. Nevertheless, when I was eleven, my mother was passed up for a board seat that she desired. The reason they gave was that she would probably be too busy caring for her disabled daughter. I am sure it was a play to avoid having to deal with my mother’s ego, and yet she took it to heart. She decided that deafness was a sign of weakness, and she would not cater to it.

  “She did some at best minimal research and decided that I could live like a hearing person. So I did. She put me in all of the most prestigious and elite speech therapy programs available, and I was meticulously taught to use my voice and read lips. In truth, even at a young age I never spoke well; I could never hear well enough to speak properly. As a matter of fact, I quickly learned to stop speaking altogether because it made my mother cringe. So relearning was a grueling process.

  “After a while I was good at it; I spoke well and I could get by. They fired the interpreter, and that’s how it was. I wasn’t allowed to speak sign at
home anymore. She had started me on piano when I was young, and at eleven she forced me to pick it up again. It was pointless. I had not been good as a child, and I was worse once I had lost my hearing. My mother only became more disappointed in me as time passed. I’ve told you my entire family are musicians – that is true on both sides and no one knew what to do with me once I could not be like them. It was like I was the family pet. They would pat me on the head, mime a hello, put me in a chair in the corner, and then go off to discuss what they really wanted to: music. I think I finally got involved in the way that I could, in the business side of things, just to stop feeling so left out. I couldn’t play their music, but I could help to run the organizations. As a matter of fact, I proved very early on that I could run their organizations far better than they could.”

  “You must have been so lonely with no one to talk to,” Kate said softly, running a finger down Vivian’s cheek.

  “I was, and it took a very long time for me to learn to control my voice and read lips. People assume that it’s simple, but really it is not. Following a whole conversation, catching emphasis and inflection, or standing in a group… in truth, I still don’t understand as much as I pretend to. My mother, however, had disallowed any sign that I was deaf, whether it was Sign Language, not understanding what was happening around me, or a vocal slip, so I suppose you could say I had plenty of motivation. I learned to lie. I spent years unable to communicate with anyone. Thank god for Charlie. My mother never cared for her, she caught Charlie signing to me too many times, but she was a godsend. She was… is… my only friend.”

  “How did she end up your interpreter?”

  “On the very rare occasions that circumstances required an interpreter, we started hiring her, until it just seemed like the obvious career path.”

  Kate could see it all laid out before her, the lonely childhood that Vivian had had.

  She could sympathize, having been passed from family to family, always feeling different, unwanted. It was not the same as being locked in her own mind, unable to communicate, but she knew what it felt like to be unloved. She felt one of Vivian’s tears land with a soft splat onto her arm and she pulled her tighter, willing the sadness away and thankful that she could hold her in this way.

  “It was never good enough for my mother, though, even once I could communicate with most of the world. See, I could never understand her. My mother has a very particular way of speaking, something she got from my grandmother, whom I could never understand either. There is nothing to read because she barely moves her mouth when she speaks. She says it’s unladylike to ‘flap your lips.’ She always thought I was doing it on purpose, pretending I couldn’t understand her to get back at her. Truly, I think she does it to get back at me.”

  “So that’s why Charlie came today? To interpret for your mom?”

  “Yes. Once I got old enough to realize I would never have her love anyway, I started bringing Charlie with me. It was a pointless fight.”

  Vivian fell silent, her body still tense, until finally she was the one to speak again. “Kate?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Were you lonely like that as a child?”

  The question struck Kate in the soft part of her emotions. For a moment, she worried she would cry.

  Vivian sat up far enough so she could see her face, her hand softly on her arm. “You told me of your history, but you’ve never told me what that was like.”

  Kate swallowed thickly, clearing her throat.

  “I’m sorry, if this is too—”

  Kate laughed a little, but Vivian didn’t take offense. She just quieted, waiting. “It’s funny, because we come from such different places, but I get it. I wasn’t lonely. I think that you have to know something different to be lonely.”

  Vivian shook her head, gently tracing Kate’s lips. “I don’t agree.”

  In the end, Kate knew she didn’t either. She had been lonely. She had been lonely until very recently.

  “I was invisible, too,” she said with a shrug. “No one saw me. In group homes, I was the girl who hadn’t been adopted and probably wasn’t going to be, and in foster homes, I was just the foster kid.” She sighed, comforted by the gentle touches to her face Vivian was still giving her, as though her hands were the ones listening. “When you’re not going to stick around, no one pays attention to you. Once, when I was like seven or eight, I was left at the mall.”

  “What?” Vivian’s hand stilled as she gasped.

  “Overnight.” Kate chuckled, knowing it wasn’t funny. “They had three other foster kids at the time, and they took us for something, I don’t remember. Anyway, we were in the food court getting popsicles or something. I went to the bathroom, and when I came back, they were all gone.”

  “Oh, Kate,” Vivian cooed.

  “It’s easy to get left behind when you’re not important to anyone.” The pain she had felt for Vivian’s younger self was slowly being mirrored on Vivian’s face.

  “What did you do?”

  “Oh, I walked around for a few hours.” Kate said, with a large and very fake smirk, the ache she had felt that day hot in her chest. “I was little so it took me a long time to figure out to go look for the car. When I did, it was gone. I had no idea what to do, so I just sat outside. The mall eventually closed, and I didn’t know where to go so I just stayed on a bench out front.”

  Vivian hummed, a tear running down her face. “Oh no.”

  “I had only been with that particular family for a few days, and I didn’t have any money. I tried to call collect, but I didn’t know the phone number. I didn’t know the address. I didn’t know how to get back. So I just waited. I remember being so scared that eventually I curled up under the bench, worried about homeless people. I don’t think I slept at all. The next day the mall opened, and I just waited. Finally, around dinner time, I was so hungry that I stole a bunch of bananas from a bodega inside. They caught me and took me to the cops.”

  “Thank god!”

  Kate gave her wry smile. “It took another day before they would listen to me. They thought I was just a bad foster kid. Finally a receptionist brought me food, and I told her. She got the cops to listen, and they tracked down the foster family.”

  “I hope you were taken from them immediately. They never even came for you.”

  “Yeah, except I was with them for another three months.”

  Vivian’s face cracked, and she began to lightly cry.

  “Hey, don’t do that.”

  “You were so young, so vulnerable, and you were so alone.”

  “So were you.”

  Vivian frowned. “Yes, I suppose so.” She paused, her eyes searching. “You have a lot of stories like that, don’t you?”

  “Probably about as many as you do.”

  Vivian gave a shuddering laugh that died quickly. Her fingers began to trace again, passing over Kate’s cheek, her eyebrow, her lips. Each gentle caress sent a wave of comfort through her.

  “You’re important to someone now.”

  She said it so lightly that Kate wasn’t sure she heard it.

  She felt it, though; she felt it in the kiss that Vivian gave her before she rested against her again, cuddling in.

  They sat there for a long time, Vivian wrapped in Kate’s strong arms until Max reappeared and shoved himself under both women’s arms and into Vivian’s lap.

  “Viv’n?” he asked.

  “Yes, sweetheart?”

  “If I want to sign to you is that okay?”

  Vivian smiled, her eyes still wet. “Of course it is.”

  “Okay. Viv’n?”

  “Yes, Max?”

  “Why are you crying?”

  Vivian laughed a little, a few stray tears falling again. “Well, because I love you and I know that I am so, so lucky to have you and your mommy in my life.”

  Max beamed, and Kate, touched, kissed her temple.

  “Mommy!”

  Kate woke with a start the next morning, sitting
bolt upright and groaning. The sun shone through the window, piercing Kate’s sleepy eyes, brighter than usual. She glanced at the clock and winced at the early hour.

  Max flew up the stairs, launching himself onto the bed. Vivian gave a small scream as she was woken from a dead sleep, a sudden knee pushing into her ribs as he scrambled to get to Kate.

  “Mommy, Mommy, come on, you have to look! Come on, come on, come on!” Kate grudgingly let herself be pulled from the warmth of the bed, jumping in place as the cold wood bit the soles of her feet.

  “Look!” He shoved her hard into the window, bumping her shins against the dresser.

  She moaned, blinking against the glare and the pain in her legs. What was she seeing? She didn’t… Then her eyes popped open, her features as round as Max’s.

  Her little boy grinned his best toothy grin. “It’s snowing, Mommy!”

  At some point in the night, the sky had opened and delivered half a foot of their first Chicago snow.

  It was one of their favorite things. Kate hadn’t grown up with snow, only encountering it when she had moved to New York for school. Seeing the big, fluffy, white flakes falling still filled Kate with a wonder – a wonder that she had passed on to Max.

  Still in their underwear, Kate and Max blew down the stairs at lightning speed, and throwing the patio door open wide, they plunged into the freezing outdoors. Without hesitation, Max threw himself on the small peaks, his mostly naked body swimming through the icy powder.

  Shivering violently, Kate and Max giggled as they flopped around in the thin layer of white. “Mommy, I’ma catch it! Watch me!” Max bellowed, his jubilant face turned up to the sky, his tongue out. Kate laughed as his body twitched this way and that, trying to stay warm while catching the flakes.

  Vivian appeared at the patio door eyes twinkling as she watched them, both too excited to notice they were going to lose a few toes.

  Kate saw her as she was joyously scooping a handful of snow, a little embarrassed to be caught playing as though she too were a child and yet unable to stop herself. She was sure she looked foolish.