Love for a Deaf Rebel - Derrick King (top 100 novels .txt) 📗

and I could talk using hand-spelling, but it is faster to have Derrick interpret. It is hard for me to imagine life without ears. What do you feel when you hold a cat that is purring?”

“When I hold a cat that is purring, I hear it purring in my mind. When I take my hands off, then I don’t hear it purring. This morning, I heard the bacon frying in the pan, but when I looked away, I didn’t hear it. If I watch a television show that’s captioned, I hear the words, but if I look away, I hear nothing. Get it?”

“I think so. When people are talking, I see them in my mind, but when they are silent, they disappear. Can you speak?”

“A little, but I gave up. It frustrated me that most hearing people can’t understand my speech after I learned it in school. It is hard to talk when you can’t hear what you are saying.”

“Deafies believe deafness is only an inconvenience,” I signed and said.

“Yes. For example, I can drive, but I can’t use the telephone,” signed Pearl.

“I can use the telephone, but I can’t drive!” said Adele.

“Could you ever see?”

“I had a normal childhood, but I went blind through illness. My ex-husband was sighted.” Adele held Ralph’s hand. “The kids helped me after he left me. I don’t know what I would have done without children. Do you love Pearl because she is quiet?”

I laughed. “No! She doesn’t realize how much noise she makes.”

“Why didn’t you join us outside for a longer time?”

“You enjoyed looking at the fire, and we enjoyed listening to music. We enjoyed ourselves in our own way,” Adele said.

“Say, since you have only a two-wheel-drive truck, why don’t you get a four-wheel-drive jeep, too?” Ralph said. “I know where two grand will buy you an ex-military jeep that will climb a seventy percent grade, pull stumps, and haul logs.”

“That’s a good idea,” signed Pearl. “No more up-and-down trips to pick each other up. No more hitchhiking. Let’s see one.”

I came home while Pearl was doing chores and saw the lamp flashing on our answering machine. I pushed the button and heard a missed-call message, so I reset the machine.

At dinner, I took a book from my briefcase. “I got this at the used bookstore: the Blaster’s Handbook. Ralph and I are going to blow up the stumps in the field with dynamite.”

“What was the message on the answering machine?”

“There was no message on the answering machine.”

Pearl exploded. “You lie! I came home, and I played it. No words appeared on the TTY, so I put my hand on the speaker and felt a voice. I felt it! I demand to know your message!”

“It said, ‘This is a recording. Please hang up your set. If you need assistance, dial your operator. Please hang up now.’ Why? Don’t you trust me?”

I was always looking for gifts for Pearl, so when I was flipping through the Paladin Press catalog that came with Get Even, I read an advertisement for Slash and Thrust, a book. The catalog recommended it for self-defense for women. Pearl had a dog, a gun, and an autodialer, but these only protected her when she was at home, and her past assaults had all taken place away from home. If she felt feel less vulnerable, then she might feel less paranoid. I ordered it, along with a survivalist book Jeff had suggested, a book on how to make a silencer as Ralph had suggested, and a first-aid book.

Pearl bought a children’s ice-cream maker shaped like a penguin. Age three and up, it said on the box. I was astonished when Pearl told me it was for our children. I smiled and said nothing.

A few weeks later, I discovered Pearl had changed her dentist. I showed her the charge on our credit card bill and said that if she had found a better dentist than the one we were both using, she should tell me so I could change to the best one, too.

“I have the right to have my own dentist,” was all she said.

I wondered if Pearl was planning to leave and hide, as she had done before, and she didn’t want to share suppliers lest they leak her whereabouts to me.

Summer faded into autumn. I hired a helper to help me slaughter our three pigs. Then Pearl and I butchered 200 kilograms of pork. After sixteen hours of cutting and wrapping, our freezer was full and our arms and backs were sore. For the rest of the week, we made bacon and sausages.

Alan took the lambs to be slaughtered and butchered. Pearl spread rye seed in the fields while I stacked ten tons of hay delivered by semi-trailer into the hayloft. Working on our property minimized the growing tension between us, for every conversation seemed to end in a quarrel. Our sex life was fading away. I knew something was going to happen but didn’t know what to expect. We lived from day to day.

Pearl and I met Ralph and Adele at the four-wheel-drive garage and test-drove army jeeps. All had open sides, canvas tops, and camouflage paint. We bought one. I drove it home, laying a trail of blue smoke, and Pearl followed me in our truck.

I was astounded when Pearl refused to drive it.

“A jeep is not for a woman.”

“Why didn’t you say you would never drive it before we bought it?”

“I will drive the truck while you drive the jeep.”

“I need the truck to go to classes. I can’t drive a jeep in my suit.”

“I will hitchhike when you go to class, the same as now. This is your last MBA year.”

The way Pearl wanted us to buy a second vehicle with no intention to drive it herself reinforced my concern that she was planning to leave—with the truck.

“Then we should not have bought the jeep. I think we should have the marriage counseling you suggested.”

“It won’t help. You have to be honest. You were not like this before.”

“You wanted marriage counseling, but now you say no. Why?”

“We can only go after you are honest with yourself. I am watching you.”

We drove our jeep to my parents’ house on a cold afternoon. Its heater warmed only our feet, and we were shivering by the time we arrived. Father offered to lend us his spare car for the winter, a rusty, twenty-year-old Oldsmobile. We now had a pickup, a jeep, and a two-ton tank. Pearl drove it home behind me.

Alan sold Yarby. With only four sheep, three horses, two goats, and a cat in the barn, and all the pigs, lambs, kids, and ducks in our freezer, our farm chores eased for the winter.

I was astonished again when, on Halloween, Pearl brought a pumpkin and candies home. “You empty the pumpkin. I will carve the face. We will put it by the driveway next to the road. Children will ask for our candies if we have a good pumpkin.”

“No kids came for trick-or-treat in the past two years. The driveway is steep and dark with Beware of Dog and No Trespassing signs.”

Pearl carved a Jack-o’-Lantern and put a candle in it. I carried it down the driveway and put it next to the road. It looked wonderful, but no children paid us a visit. Pearl ate the candies.

While doing morning chores, I heard the Oldsmobile rumble into life as Pearl left to go to work. An hour later, I drove the truck to the cove, expecting to park it by the Oldsmobile, but I didn’t see the car.

That evening, during dinner, Pearl signed impassively, “The car broke down this morning near our driveway. I hitchhiked to the cove and asked the gas station to tow it there. They fixed it. I am telling you so you are not upset by the credit card bill.”

“What was wrong with it?”

“The battery wires touched together.”

“A waste of money! I could have fixed it. Why didn’t you walk back and get me?”

Pearl stared through me. “It was dark.”

“It’s always dark. That’s why we have flashlights!”

On the weekend, I drove to the gas station in Snug Cove. “Don, on Wednesday, Pearl had the Oldsmobile towed here and repaired. What happened?”

“Your battery cage rusted, so the battery tipped and shorted. I welded a new cage and charged her seventy-five bucks. That’s what I reported to Laurent. Pearl didn’t have enough money, so she charged it.”

“What did the police have to do with this?”

“Laurent asked me to do a safety check.” Don lowered his voice. “He asked me not to tell you, but you need to know: Laurent wanted your car checked for sabotage.”

“Sabotage! What did you say?”

“No sabotage, but only God knows what rusty part will fall out next.”

I saw Laurent’s jeep near the store and parked beside it. He asked me to get in. “Derrick, Pearl’s car broke down. She saw sparks under the hood, the headlights went out, and the engine stopped. A commuter saw her waving a flashlight. He stopped to give her a lift and then saw the car blocking the road. With help from another car, they pushed it out of the way. He gave her a lift to the first ferry but, instead of walking to it, she came to me to report the breakdown and asked me to have it towed. Then she went to work on the second ferry.”

“I was on the second ferry! She must have been hiding.”

“She asked me not to tell you, but you need to know: Pearl wanted your car checked for sabotage.”

Pearl put our mail on the table, opened. There were the paperbacks I had ordered—postmarked a month ago.

“You didn’t tell me you ordered these books.”

“You spoiled my gift. Slash and Thrust was for you, for Christmas. It teaches you how to protect yourself with your pocketknife if a man assaults you. Home Workshop Silencers is for shooting deer by the barn; I told you about Ralph’s idea. Jeff mentioned Life After Doomsday, and it looked interesting. The Medical Handbook is first-aid.”

Except for the Medical Handbook, they turned out to be mail-order swindles like Get Even.

I drove the truck to work so we could buy groceries and grain on our way home. Although her behavior was increasingly odd, I continued to speak to her normally, as if speaking normally would guide her to thinking normally.

“Shall we eat dinner in Horseshoe Bay tonight?” I signed. “It’s so cold that the ice cream won’t melt in the truck.”

“We can eat out if you want.”

We ate in the upscale Bay Moorings restaurant, at a table with a view of the marina. I ordered margaritas.

“How did you know about this place?”

“Leo and I used to eat here for half price when we were on patrol. Is something bothering you?”

“Your ASL does not improve. Your eyes wander. When you look away, I look there too, thinking something is happening over there. You never ask me, ‘How was your day?’ You don’t take the time to explain to me why you are doing things. You expect me to follow you.”

“I am avoiding arguments. We need to sign like we did before we got busy.”

“I often wonder what you are thinking.”

“I will try to communicate more, but we have to love each other as we are.”

“Why didn’t you choose a hearie wife who can communicate with you in big words? It makes me suspect why you chose a deafie wife.”

“Because I love you, not big words.”

Pearl watched a ferry disappear around the point. She was still gazing at the ripples of water when the meal arrived.

“Is something bothering you?” I said again.

The question hung in the air, and we ate without signing. When our ferry rounded the point, she signed. “Let’s go. We must unload the truck and put wood on the fire.”

On the way home, I paused at the Oldsmobile parked in the cove so Pearl could drive it home. I drove the truck home, changed, did the chores, and unloaded the sacks of grain in the barn. It was just above freezing.

When I walked back to the house, Pearl wasn’t home, so no fire was burning, and the house was cold. I worried that the Oldsmobile had broken down again, so I drove to the cove. The car was gone. I drove home slowly, looking for it at the sides of the roads. There were no streetlights on Bowen Island.

Suddenly, the flashing blue lights of the RCMP jeep