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

our relationship. I tried to help make things right, so I booked a series of appointments for us with Dr. Foreman starting in two months, his earliest available slots.

At lunchtime, I bought a dozen red roses and wrote on the gift card:

Pearl, I love you.

Please, get help.

You need it.

Love, Derrick.

I cared enough for Pearl to say what had to be said, and no one else seemed to say. I drove to Jodi’s. She opened the door, magnificently pregnant.

“Congratulations! Is Pearl here?”

“Pearl is not here,” said Jodi.

“I need to see her. Please give her these flowers.”

Jodi smiled. “Pearl doesn’t want to see you.”

“Tell Pearl I love her.” I handed the bouquet to Jodi and left.

That weekend, I drove the jeep to my parents’ home.

Over dinner, my mother said, “I wanted to help, so I called Pearl’s mother today. I’d never called her before. She would only say Pearl’s first marriage ended the same way. It was the shortest call I ever had.”

I was stunned—none of Pearl’s family members had warned me about her past behavior. I accepted they didn’t want to cut off any opportunity for her, but their failure to advise me only made life worse for everyone, including Pearl.

Two weeks after Pearl left, on Friday night, I received a TTY call:

DERRICK HERE GA

PEARL HERE HA GA

I LOVE YOU GA

PLEASE COME AND GET ME GA

YES WHERE ARE YOU GA

AT MOTHERS HOUSE I MUST LEAVE TONIGHT PICK ME UP GA

THE LAST FERRY IS ALREADY GONE I WILL ASK MY FATHER TO PICK YOU UP YOU CAN SLEEP WITH THEM OVERNIGHT AND THEN COME HOME TOMORROW GA

OK I WILL WAIT FOR YOUR FATHER GA

WONDERFUL I LOVE YOU

SK

I was overjoyed! I called Father. He was happy to collect Pearl. After two hours, my mother called.

“Pearl’s here! Your father drove so fast, he was stopped for speeding. He told the cop he was rushing to help a mentally-ill woman, so he let your father off!”

“Did he speak to Pearl’s mother?”

“No. Pearl was standing outside in a leather jacket on a winter’s night. She was still shivering when she arrived here. I made her some Ovaltine, and we had a short conversation. ‘Why are you doing this?’ I said. ‘I don’t feel safe,’ she said. ‘Derrick loves you,’ I said. I said you aren’t dangerous, but she didn’t believe me.”

“If she thinks I’m dangerous, then why did she call me tonight?”

“Because her mother threw her out! I said you’re like us; we can’t hurt anybody. She started to cry, so I hugged her. I lent her a nightgown, and when she came out of the bathroom, I kissed her and tucked her into bed. She seemed relaxed.”

“What was the look on her face?”

“Distant.”

In the morning, Father called to say he was about to drive Pearl to the ferry terminal, and she did not want me to pick her up when she arrived on Bowen Island. I tossed all the Paladin books into the stove.

Two hours later, Pearl walked in the door. I hugged her, but she felt limp. She was wearing a new, expensive sheepskin bomber jacket. Despite her haggard face, I told her how beautiful she looked.

“Gavin told me to leave. Then Mother told me to leave. I was curious if you would help me.”

Curious! Her words hurt. I realized that she had come home because she had nowhere else to go, and it was free.

“Are you back home to stay?”

“I need to think about it. It is my turn to do the chores.”

My office Christmas party was the next day. Pearl came with me, but she ignored me except when she needed an interpreter, and she avoided having her photo taken. Everyone could see our marriage was on the rocks, even though I had told no one.

We worked on the house with renewed vigor, especially Pearl.

I did my best to calm her and show my love. I sat next to her while she watched television. I held her hand while walking. I took her on a Bowen Nature Club cruise to see the seals, puffins, and whales. But her behavior had changed. She slept with her purse and kept it in view at all other times. She delayed depositing her paycheck into our account until the day before the mortgage was due. She removed the telephone bills from our mailbox.

Pearl mentioned casually, as if it were none of my business, that she had an appointment with “a counselor” that her friend had recommended. I needed to drive to Vancouver, so I offered to drop her off. She wouldn’t give me the address, only an intersection; then she stood on the corner until I drove out of sight.

The telephone rang. I picked it up, heard a TTY, and signed that the call was for her. I put the handset on the kitchen counter because she had to pick up the second phone before I hung up the first phone, or else the connection would drop. Pearl walked to the visitors’ room to use the TTY, and, for the first time, she closed the door. Her purse lay on the counter. I had only to glance in it to see a card for a Resource Centre for Abused Women along with the missing telephone bills.

When Pearl came back after her call, she saw me sitting at the kitchen table and looked at the counter.

“Why didn’t you hang up the telephone?”

“I forgot. Please hang it up now.”

“You were listening to my conversation!”

“No one can understand TTY tones. You need a machine.”

“I know you listened to me! How much did you understand?”

“Call your interpreter friends. Ask if they can understand TTY tones. Do it now!”

Pearl took her purse to the visitors’ room and returned a few minutes later, now calm. “I called the Message Relay Centre. They said normal people can’t understand TTY tones. But you are not normal.”

The telephone rang again. “May I speak to Pearl?”

“No, you can’t. She’s deaf.”

“I’m so sorry. I’m calling about the house for rent.”

“A woman is calling about a house for rent.”

“I’m not interested,” signed Pearl.

“She’s not interested.” I hung up. “What was that call about?”

“That is my business.” Pearl crossed her arms.

Pearl surprised me with a visit to my office. She didn’t come to my desk, as usual, but stood at our reception counter.

“Why did the bank downstairs refuse to talk to me about our time deposit?”

“Our deposit certificate is at home. What do you want to know?”

“I wanted to discuss it with them, but it is in your name only.”

“Of course. Otherwise, you would need to come to the bank to sign a new one every time the old one matured. We’re married, so it doesn’t matter whose name is on anything.”

“You must prove it. Come to the bank with me now!”

I went to the bank with Pearl to satisfy her that our deposit, worth less than her ring, was there. It was obvious she was preparing to separate.

On her thirty-fourth birthday, I took Pearl to the sushi restaurant near my condo, where we had eaten when our adventure began.

She rubbed her hands together.

“It is so cold outside, the streetlights have halos like angels.”

“This restaurant reminds me of past happiness. Remember when we ate here, motorcycled, scuba dived, and made love on the carpet?”

“Everything is different now.”

“I don’t understand why everything is different.”

“Yesterday, I was shocked when I discovered everyone in your office knew we had a marriage problem. Everyone was staring at me to see which hand I was wearing my wedding ring on.”

“I told my boss, but no one else. I’m sorry I didn’t buy you a birthday gift, but you didn’t deposit your paycheck, and you bought $2,000 worth of clothes.”

Most of the expense was one purchase at a leather boutique five days after she ran away, probably for the jacket she was wearing.

“I accept the clothes I bought for myself as your gift. You can buy me matching shoes and chocolates.”

After dinner, we drove to Robson Street, but we had to park far from the shopping area. We walked back in the icy air, holding gloved hands as we wandered from shop to shop, gazing at luxury goods we couldn’t afford.

I bought Pearl a box of chocolates, and she took me to the boutique where she had bought the jacket. She chose a matching pair of shoes. I paid with our credit card and told Pearl to wait while I fetched the truck because it was far away, it was freezing, and we had a ferry to catch. When I drove back to the shop, Pearl climbed in and slammed the door.

“You are clever. Fuck—Fuck—FUCK!” She was livid.

I couldn’t understand what I had done wrong. Everything I did caused conflict.

“I’m trying to be nice. I wanted you to be warm.”

“You can’t fool me. You set this up to search my purse!”

“You always have your purse with you.”

“I left it under the seat so I could walk with my hands in my pockets to keep them warm.”

“That’s a stupid place to leave a purse! Your car was broken into before. You’re not thinking straight.”

Pearl turned away from me and crossed her arms.

“Do you want to go to the Bowen Island New Year’s Eve party? Let’s try to be happy on New Year’s Eve.”

“I already bought tickets for Jodi and me.”

I was stunned. “You bought tickets without your husbands, and you didn’t tell me?”

“Gavin’s busy. And you won’t understand us when we sign fast.”

“I want to be together on New Year’s Eve. I’ll buy tickets and invite my sister Lydia and her husband, Shawn. They can stay overnight.”

“I don’t care what you do.”

“Can we dance?”

“We can decide later.”

On New Year’s Eve, Pearl picked Jodi up from the ferry and drove directly to the party. I picked Lydia and Shawn up from the next ferry. The ferry, dusted white by snow, sparkled in the dock’s floodlights.

By the time we arrived, there were no empty tables, so we sat down with Pearl and Jodi. They ignored us and signed in high-speed ASL at one end of the table while we talked at the other end.

“This is how Pearl looked the night Dad rescued her,” shouted Lydia over the din.

“Be careful talking when you face that way. Jodi lipreads.”

“Did you know Mom and Dad signed up for a sign language course?”

“That’s wonderful!”

Lydia leaned her head on her hands to cover her mouth. “Does she still think you are trying to kill her?”

“I don’t know. Ask her tomorrow, woman-to-woman. I’m sure she won’t talk to you tonight.”

At midnight, to the song “Auld Lang Syne,” I hugged Pearl and Jodi, but they pulled away and danced together. Lydia, Shawn, and I left first, Pearl and Jodi a few minutes later. We had to park at the bottom of the driveway and walk up through the snow with flashlights. Lydia and Shawn slept in the visitors’ room. Jodi slept on the sofa.

New Year’s Day was beautiful. While Pearl and Jodi were in the barn doing the chores, Lydia and Shawn walked into the kitchen.

“Shawn jammed a chair under the doorknob for security and stayed awake half the night,” said Lydia.

His eyes were bloodshot. “I don’t mind meeting the reaper, but I want to see her coming.”

Pearl and Jodi ignored us, so Lydia and Shawn left without ever talking to them. Pearl invited Jodi to stay another night and asked me to sleep in the visitors’ room so they could have the king-sized bed.

At bedtime, while they watched TV, I took Jodi’s coat from the visitors’ room and put it next to her. Pearl exploded.

“Look how he controls me! You are my witness!”

Jodi, like all Pearl’s friends, did nothing to help us as a couple. We had no network of common friends, so we had none to help us through tough times as a couple but plenty to help us survive on our own.

The telephone rang the next morning. “Are you alone?” said Father.

“Jodi and Pearl are in the bedroom,” I whispered.

“Lydia and Shawn filled me in. Listen, Pearl could shoot you with your gun and say it was in self-defense. She’d have a good story after the allegations she’s made. Your mortgage and insurance would pay out, and she’d have it made. Get rid of your guns!”

“I never thought of that. But if Pearl notices