Hey, Austin said with his mouth.
You talk with your mom?
Yeah.
You have a little Workman celebration?
What? No.
Sorry. That was outta line.
Mom said you’re upset.
No excuse.
Austin looked at his feet.
Of course it doesn’t matter, deaf, hearing. But when the nurse came in that first day, I started thinking of songs my mom sang to me when I was a kid. Things I couldn’t give to you.
Mom said you sang to me.
His father smiled.
I did.
Mom said she’ll hear well with the aids.
She will.
She’ll be o-k.
His father motioned for him to come around to his side of the desk, hugged him one-armed. A feeling of pride swelled in Austin, that he could comfort his father for once.
You know something?
What?
That pot roast you were eating was really old.
Great.
Like, REALLY old.
Austin groaned and shrugged off his father’s arm.
Think we can convince Mom to go for burgers? She’s usually game for takeout before a big cooking holiday.
If we both give her sad puppy eyes at once?
Wait till we can teach Sky, too. Poor woman will be defenseless against three of us!
Austin and his father returned to the kitchen in good spirits, and his mother brightened at the sight of them together. Skylar was craning her neck to get a look at everyone, and in the wake of her tiny, crooked grin, he even stopped pining for Charlie, at least for a while.
charlie was always ambivalent about the holidays. On one hand, she took more than a little pleasure in seeing her mother frazzled at the prospect of her own mother’s arrival. On the other, this meant she, too, had to be in the presence of her grandmother.
Charlie’s mother’s mother was, unsurprisingly, overbearing in concentrate. Her scent was sickly, almost funereal, lilies in lieu of her mother’s lighter, citrusy smell. Her hair, also bleached and bobbed, was teased higher at the crown, her shoes （fuchsia, kitten heel） less practical than her mother’s favored loafers. And then there was her personality.
Charlotte! her grandmother twanged when Charlie answered the door.
She clutched Charlie’s face, insisting on a pair of French-style cheek kisses, knocking Charlie’s processor from her ear and sending it skidding across the foyer floor.
What’d you do to your hair?
Nothing? Charlie said.
Her grandma tugged at a faded turquoise strand at the base of her neck, a summer experiment Charlie had forgotten was there. The woman was good.
Oh, that.
Charlie twirled the dull blue strip around her finger, tucked it back beneath the rest of her hair. Her grandmother had already lost interest and was clacking her way into the kitchen. Charlie hung her grandmother’s coat—a burgundy fur she really hoped was fake—on the hat rack and followed her in.
Smells good, said her grandmother as she ran her hand along a sill, then inspected her fingers.
Mother, please. It’s a little early for the crime scene investigation.
Her grandmother tucked her hands behind her back.
I haven’t said a word.
I cleaned the house.
Of course, dear. Is Wyatt here?
Charlie’s mother nodded her head in the direction of the living room, where her boyfriend of nearly a year was standing too close to the television, watching football. Wyatt, Charlie had decided upon careful inspection, was a schmuck. Technically there was nothing wrong with him, besides his being attracted to her mother, though of course, her father had been, too. But Wyatt was doughy, pale in both complexion and temperament, and she had once seen him watch an entire evening’s worth of March Madness while still wearing his tie all the way up, tight around his neck. Still, he might come in handy, if only as a warm body to deflect some of her grandmother’s attention. Across the island, Charlie could see her mother having a similar thought, albeit with different bait: What time’s your father coming? she said.
Not sure. I can text him.
Charlie pulled her phone from her back pocket, sent her dad an SOS.
Need help? Charlie said to her mother afterward.
Potatoes?
Sure.
Charlie took the peeler from the side drawer and watched her grandmother interrogate Wyatt about something she couldn’t understand. She peeled the whole bag’s worth, quartered the potatoes, and put them in a pot of salted water, then moved on to set the table. Her mother’s grateful eyes caught hers as she slipped the linen napkins through their rings. This was the thing Charlie liked most about her grandmother’s visits—she and her mother were a united front, at least momentarily.
* * *
—
It was only a matter of time before her grandmother turned her inquisition to Charlie. Her father showed up right as they were sitting down to dinner, and attracted surprisingly little attention beyond the signature sweep of her eyes, designed to decimate any remaining ounce of one’s confidence, and the question, though trussed in Southern politeness, of why he was still hanging around.
Charlie lives with me.
Well that’s very admirable. To be honest I always assumed you were _______ on Lynnette.
Umm, no? said her father. No ya _ing.
Mother—
What? Y-a-r-n-i-n-g? Charlie said.
Y-a-r-d-i-n-g, her father said. Cheating…I think?
Charlie hadn’t meant to do it. She had been planning to avoid the topic of her new school entirely. Her mother wouldn’t have mentioned it—that would mean admitting defeat—and her father wouldn’t have spoken about anything at all if he could’ve gotten away with it. That had left Wyatt, oblivious to controversy, as the only person who could have spilled the beans.
But Charlie had gone and blown her own cover. How quickly she’d become accustomed to understanding what was happening around her, where for years, she’d been resigned to drift in a low-tide quiet, letting conversation wash over her. She knew it was a change for the better, she just wished she could have let this particular exchange go. She steeled herself for the inevitable barrage.
Charlotte? said her grandmother, raising her own hands slightly. Where on earth did you learn that?
The internet? Charlie said.
But both her parents gave her a look.
And—at my new school. River Valley.
Private school? said her grandma.
Well, said Charlie’s mother.
School for the Deaf, Charlie said finally.
Her grandmother froze, her wine halfway between the table and her lips, then reversed course and set the glass back down.
Really? she said.
Charlie nodded. Her mother nodded. Wyatt, who at some point had swapped his own silverware with the serving spoon Charlie had laid out, was shoveling large scoops of stuffing into his mouth without looking up. Her grandmother stood.
Well, Charlotte, I think that’s wonderful! How do you say “wonderful” in your language?
Charlie blinked hard to clear away the shock.
Wonderful, she said.
Her grandmother copied her motion, then pulled Charlie into a sideways hug. Charlie raised her eyebrows at her parents over her grandmother’s shoulder.
It’s about time, her grandmother said. Why are you all looking at me like a hair in your biscuit?
I’m not, said her mother. I’m just surprised by your reaction.
Well come now, Lynnette. It’s not as if she was fooling anyone.
Mother!
That’s more like it, said Charlie’s dad.