FascinatingRhythm

by Lynne Connolly

  “You would be surprised. You’ll use it without realizing, for instance when negotiating heavy traffic. By the way, because of the possible effects on your balance, we would rather you didn’t drive for the first month. After that, you will regain your equilibrium. But you plan to stay here, yes?”

  She nodded. “I’m staying in Stockholm with friends.” She paused and then said something else. She’d probably remembered, as he had, the situation with his mother. “I can get the train.”

  “Good. Best you stay where others can cater to you. The aftercare program can be rigorous. It will tire you, because you’ll be using a sense you haven’t used in years.”

  Maybe good enough to travel with him? No, although the band’s improved financial situation had helped enormously with comfort, touring still wasn’t an easy option. But…but it could be done. A month. His mind went rapidly through the tour dates. All Europe. Possible to get around on rail and road. No flying needed. Only when they came to cross the Atlantic in the fall— He had a lot of questions for this doctor and not much time to ask them.

  Let her get the operation over with first. Nothing was more important than her coming back to the ward alive and healthy.

  After she’d gone behind a screen and changed into the gown, she took her place in a wheelchair and Hunter and Adela went with her to the door of the prep suite, where they both kissed her goodbye. Farewell, Hunter told her firmly. He wouldn’t go anywhere until she’d come to. Even if it meant missing the plane to Beijing, he swore to himself silently. He wouldn’t leave her.

  Chapter Eleven

  Coming around was like coming up from a deep dive. Slowly, blurred images began to make sense and Sabina blinked, focused and saw Hunter. Still here, he’s still here. But she couldn’t hear anything. She’d expected to hear something, at least.

  Hunter smiled, a reassuring, professional smile, then he said something, but her vision was too blurred to make out what it was.

  Oh fuck, she was deaf. Stone deaf. It had gone wrong and she’d lost everything. She felt as if someone had dropped a stone through her head. It plummeted through her, lying heavily in her stomach. Trying to wrench her mind back to her attitude before the operation, she found only fuzzy certainties and the one sure conviction that she’d made a terrible mistake. She blinked and her vision cleared.

  Lifting his big, beautiful hands, Hunter signed, “Your ears are filled with plugs and covered with dressings. They want them to stay like that for an hour, then they will take the plugs out and apply lighter dressings. You are hooked up to a monitor and you’re receiving a drip for hydration. They’ll remove those soon too.”

  She tried to sign, failing miserably, the tubes and wires flapping against her bare arms. Her throat was sore, scratchy, filled with filth. She cleared it and almost choked. Hands behind her back lifted and held her. When she was leaned back, it was against a bank of pillows and the support all hospital beds tended to have. The world reeled and then steadied itself. She closed her eyes then opened them again quickly. Without anything to focus on, she felt even sicker.

  Her mother, Hunter, the surgeon and a nurse stood facing her, all within her sight so she didn’t have to turn her head. The surgeon signed, his style fluid and efficient. “You will feel better when we take off the dressings. Then we will see what we have. You have small cuts behind each ear, which will leave scars. Your hair will cover them in time. We shaved the smallest patches that we could.”

  “But was it a success?” Easier to sign now, when she sat upright and didn’t have to move her head. “Will I hear?”

  “Too early to tell,” the doctor signed back. “The operation went well. You have been asleep just under an hour. You may wish to sleep some more. You will be tired for a day or more, while the effects of the anesthetic wear off. We will prescribe some painkillers for the first day, then you can manage on over-the-counter ones, and only if you need them. There should not be much pain. So far we are pleased with your progress.”

  Memories filtered back. Her mother, Hunter. Shit, Hunter. “You have to go soon,” she signed to him.

  “I will not. I will stay here.”

  He had to appear at those press conferences; otherwise they might not let him play at the concerts. Might cancel the whole thing. She’d gathered enough from what he’d told her to read between the lines and get that part. If he let the rest of the band down, they’d resent him, might even fire him. After all, they’d fired people before. Matt, V’s partner, used to be their vocalist. They’d announced that he’d left, and he did remain friends with the band, but at the time the rumor went around that he was fired because of his substance abuse.

  “You have to go,” she signed.

  “No.”

  “I have my mother. I am not going anywhere.” She forced a smile. Nothing was more important than this right now. She’d had the procedure, come around, heard the operation had gone well. Now all she could do was wait. “May I have a drink?”

  “Of course.” The nurse, who’d been silent up to now, walked across to her, temporarily obscuring her sight of Hunter. She handed Sabina a glass with two straws and lots of lovely ice floating in the water. In a few days she might be able to hear the ice chinking in the glass. The doctor signed as the nurse helped Sabina hold the glass and drink. “Do not gulp. Sip slowly.”

  Sabina did as she was told. Not always good at that, this time she knew it was for the best so she obeyed. Maybe Hunter should do the same. When the nurse took the glass away, she tried not to sit up and strain after it. It had felt so fucking good, like the finest of chardonnays, the most refreshing citrus drink. Better. “More,” she signed.

  “In a moment.” The nurse had put the glass down and signed the words. Sabina liked the look of her. She had a nice smile. “My name is Birgit, and I will be your personal nurse. When they have gone, you may sleep if you wish.”

  “Yes. That sounds good.” She almost laughed as relief swept through her but kept her face steady, knowing they’d think she’d lost it if she burst into the giddy laughter.

  Deaf people used “sounded” the same way everyone else did, but they didn’t mean it the same way. In a few days, it might, just might, mean actually sounds. At that moment she realized the truth of something Emmelie had told her. A person turned from deaf to hearing by artificial means too early might not learn the techniques of signing, the beautiful language of the world of the deaf, and the language could be lost. Or if that person lost their hearing again, it would be they who were lost. Without the skills of lip-reading and signing, she’d be desperately isolated.

  As it was, without any hearing at all she felt strange, alone. Did Emmelie feel like that all the time?

  The answer came quickly. No, because she’d learned the skills she needed to communicate. The system of lights in her home told her where people were. All the phones had flashing lights, the security alarms had insistent, un-ignorable lights.

  Sabina was old enough to remember what texting had done to the deaf community. Revolutionized some aspects of it. They could communicate without special devices with the hearing and deaf alike. It had drawn them closer into the mainstream, if they wanted to take that course.

  It wasn’t sour grapes or a sense of disadvantage. A strong sense of community drove Emmelie.

  So what drove her son? Sabina met his gaze and knew he’d give up his opportunity of playing at one of the most staggering venues in the world for her. But if he did that, he might lose what he held dearest. She still wasn’t sure of his motives—guilt at walking out on her six years ago, the excitement of the sex they shared? Sure, they were both factors, but there was something else, something she couldn’t work out. Well, she’d have a few days to do it.

  A thought came to her, a way of driving him away happy. It might work. She lifted her hands and signed to him. “You must go. I want to see that concert. You said it would be televised, so I want a TV in this room.” She glanced at the TV suspended from a bracket attached to t
he ceiling at the end of the bed. “A big one.”

  That would give him something to do for her. “I want you to sign me ‘hello’ from Tiananmen Square, and then from Red Square. I want a computer so I can Skype you.” Her lips curled when she recalled that amazing call, but the ones she’d make in the next few days wouldn’t have that level of thrill. “Can you arrange that?”

  He smiled back. He knew what she was doing. “I hear and obey. But I want to stay.”

  “I don’t want you to. I want to sleep and shower and look awful if I want to. I don’t want to worry about you.”

  His chest heaved as he sighed. “I understand. You want me gone.”

  She paused, stopped herself shouting “No!” no matter how weird it sounded. She didn’t care; she wanted him to stay so badly, she’d have done anything, but she couldn’t. He had to go. She’d cope.

  It wasn’t as if she didn’t have people to look after her. Her mother had taken three weeks’ leave from work, the longest she could get, and by then Sabina hoped she’d be more independent. Even driving again in four weeks. She’d never enjoyed driving in an adapted car, but forced herself to learn it, unwilling to depend on others to get around.

  Her new understanding of Emmelie’s position made her want to talk to her once-mentor. Not that her son would understand after Emmelie had canceled the operation on her behalf. Sabina didn’t understand that herself, and she wanted to. None of that was possible with Hunter around. She wouldn’t tell him what she planned to do though. He might argue.

  “When does your plane leave?” she signed, as if it were a done deal.

  “In six hours from Stockholm.”

  She reached out to him. “Then we still have some time together.”

  He got to his feet and came over to the bed as if he’d suddenly grown old, his muscles creaking, and took her hand with the gentlest of touches. Then he spoke. “I’m glad you’re through this. However this turns out, I’m here for you.”

  He still didn’t say anything more. They’d shared a bed and she’d given him much more than her body, but she didn’t know if he wanted more. Her pride wouldn’t let her ask, or tell him how much he’d come to mean to her. She knew she meant more to him because he’d promised to keep in touch, but he’d never said, never intimated, that he wanted anything else but friendship and sex. At first, that had been fine by her, but now—now she wanted more.

  Squeezing his hand, she smiled up at him then released it. The nurse found him a chair and he took it with a smile of thanks, settling down in it and resting his hand on the covers. His presence strengthened her, made her happier, more secure.

  She loved him. The notion didn’t come to her as a revelation, more a confirmation. If he stayed like this, refused to go, she doubted she’d have the strength to send him away again.

  Her nausea receded as the doctor explained the implications of the procedure. Sabina didn’t like to interrupt him, but she’d heard it before, read it, researched everything she could before taking this step, but her mother and Hunter needed to know.

  “Apart from the bandages, I don’t feel any different,” she signed suddenly.

  The doctor gave her a smile. “That is a good sign. We have implanted fibers, artificial ones. If your body chooses to reject them, then you will be given drugs to help, and you will have to take medication every day for the foreseeable future. There is, however, a chance that your body will accept them without drugs.” She nodded and let her mind drift as the doctor told her mother and Hunter what they needed to know.

  Hunter’s hand reached for hers and he squeezed it again before releasing it so she could talk if she wanted to.

  What if she remained stone deaf?

  Yes, she could do it, because she had no choice. Not doing it meant giving up. It meant relying on other people. At ten years old she’d sworn a solemn oath to herself never to allow that. Already she’d known she needed her independence.

  But she hadn’t realized the difference between residual hearing and nothing. Even lip-reading had proved more of a strain, another reason she’d wanted a big TV. She could practice with that easier than she could with the smaller model suspended from its bracket. Maybe she’d start drawing again. She’d spent hours as a teen drawing imaginary creatures and imaginary worlds, places where she could hear, until the last regret had seeped away and she’d given up. Even then she’d known she wasn’t a great artist, wouldn’t ever be, but it gave her pleasure.

  After an hour her mother left with the doctor, ostensibly to ask him more questions. Really, from the look she’d given them, to give them some time together.

  Hunter sat on the bed and gently enclosed her in his arms. Sabina laid her head on his chest, feeling completely safe and completely loved, however much of a fallacy that might be. His chest rumbled as he said something, but of course she didn’t know what, so reluctantly she lifted her chin to watch his lips.

  He spoke slowly, as if he realized she’d been having problems. “I will stay if you want me to.” He used English.

  “No. I want to relax for a few days.” Somehow, she wasn’t shy of speaking to him, although she had been with the other people in the room. She had no way of knowing how loud or softly she spoke, or if she was injecting her voice with that nasal quality she’d heard that the deaf often used. And she hadn’t. Ah well, perhaps something else she’d have to get used to. “You can come and see me after Red Square.”

  “I thought I’d come back after Beijing.”

  “Your manager says not. Where do you play after Moscow?”

  He paused, dropped a kiss on her forehead while he thought. Then he brightened. “Berlin and somewhere else in Germany. Then Prague, then The Hague. I think. Not long flights at all.”

  “I can’t fly.” If she was left deaf, then the doctor would let her fly in a month or two. If it took, not for a year, to give the little bionic fibers the chance to embed and grow. Her hearing should exponentially increase over the next year. Exciting, if it worked.

  Too tired to think, she sank her head back onto his chest and closed her eyes.

  Chapter Twelve

  Leaving Sabina had been like tearing off an arm and leaving it behind, but he knew she wanted it. She’d have grown distressed if he’d insisted, he could see it in her eyes. If not for that, he’d have told everyone to fuck off and stayed with her.

  Driving back to Stockholm along the broad, beautifully kept road, so typical of his country, her face swam before his eyes as he’d last seen it.

  That expression, so quickly masked, could mean only one thing. She loved him. Maybe as much as he loved her. But could he tell her? Their enforced separation would be rendered even worse.

  In a year, maybe—but who knew what would happen in that time? Things were happening so fast for the band, they couldn’t be sure of anything. It was all very well for the poets to go on about love, how it lasted, how it was forever, but Hunter was less sure. He didn’t write lyrics, he created heartbeats, and they ran along more practical lines.

  He liked it here. One day he’d come back to live and maybe then he could call her and they’d get something going. No, by then she’d have married, with a passel of kids around her. He couldn’t let her wait for him. Apart from anything else, the responsibility would kill him.

  Why did everything come back to Sabina?

  The outskirts of the city came into view. He had to concentrate, because his turnoff for the airport was coming up. Oh fuck, he’d missed it already, he realized when he saw signs for the city. So fucking distracted, he’d have to turn around and go back.

  Except he had four hours before his flight. Sabina had sent him away so she could sleep and the doctor had confirmed it. He’d rather she slept in his arms, but she’d made it clear she didn’t want that.

  Love, lust, infatuation. What he wanted more than anything else was time with her, but he couldn’t have it. He’d nearly had it when they’d canceled the operation.

  That reminded him. They
didn’t cancel. His mother had done that. Making a swift decision, he took the next right, the road leading to the suburb where she lived, instead of the airport. He wouldn’t have to show for a couple of hours yet. Plenty of time.

  He arrived to the usual silent hubbub. Like a lot of things about the deaf community, contradictions ruled. They used typical hearing words like sounded when they meant something in their heads. Something he took for granted for the first twenty years of his life, but now, involved in a world where sound meant everything, he noticed.

  Just another facet of his fucked-up existence.

  Pulling into the drive, he didn’t bother to use the sheltered areas put aside for cars. He wouldn’t be staying too long. Just long enough. He strode into the large, cool hall and headed for the office wing. Someone gestured at him, someone new. He waved her off and carried on.

  Surely the fact that he knew all the security codes to get past the main gate outside and the front door meant something. The lights would have alerted them, but only to him entering the building. Not an alert. Fool.

  Before she could alert the authorities, he turned around and faced the woman. Beautiful in a tall, blonde way, but nowhere near as lovely as his Sabina. Typical that he noticed. Not typical that he decided not to use his easy charm to get his way. He signed instead. “Ms. Ostrander is my mother. I’ve come to see her. Is she alone?”

  Bewilderment crossed the woman’s face as she signed. “She didn’t say her son was here.” She peered at him, frowning. “Oh yes, you’re the musician, aren’t you?”

  “Some people would question that,” he answered with a smile, figuring that charm wouldn’t go amiss. “I’m a drummer.” He kept to verbalizing, in no mood for soothing ruffled staff.

  Turning, he headed for his mother’s office. The woman hadn’t answered his question but he’d take his chances.

  She looked up when he came in, smooth blonde head moving slowly, secure in her own domain. Her smile was polished but he detected a hint of concern in her eyes. She put down her pen so she could sign. “Hunter, I thought you were in Beijing.”