“Orange ones? Check my backpack,” Ethan offers.
I dig around in the front pocket until I locate the pack.
“You good?” Ethan says and signs.
“Where are we going?”
“Around.” He waits for me to get my hearing aids back in before we drive off, following the path around the outskirts of the campgrounds.
I can hear more sounds now. The rumble of the wheels over the gravel. The loudest birds in the trees. The snap of my fingers as I stretch out my hands to crack my knuckles. The world is noisier, but I’m not sure I really missed any of it.
I ride along, silently at first, until I can’t hold back the question I’ve been dying to ask. “So, Isaac’s okay?”
“He and his mom are going to sort some things out,” Ethan explains. “He went home last night. I think his mom’s also talking to a lawyer to see what their options are. She was grateful for the statement you wrote.”
“The statement? You mean the accident report?”
“Yeah.”
If I’d known it was going with Isaac and his mother, I might have paid more attention to what I was writing. I thought it was going to be shoved into a folder somewhere for camp records. “Well, it was my fault. I should’ve been wearing my freaking hearing aids. Then this never would have happened.”
“Hey.” He stops the golf cart and turns toward me. I’m staring at my shoes. He waves his hand to get my attention. “Look at me,” he says and signs.
“What?”
“When you are wearing your hearing aids, can you always tell what people at the register say?”
“Well . . . no.”
“It’s not crystal clear, right? Aren’t you often guessing what you think you may have heard?”
“Yeah.”
“So how would it have been any different? Maybe you’d have heard, but it’s also still very likely you wouldn’t have.”
“But maybe I would have—”
“Did the cashier point at the card reader? Or wave her hands frantically as you walked off? Should you have announced your hearing loss to the random service worker at Super Mart? Should Isaac have to wear a pin on his shirt that screams to the world ‘I’m deaf’ everywhere he goes?”
I shrug, unsure what he’s getting at exactly.
“This was a shitty situation, Lilah. It happens.” He takes a long, deep breath. “Miscommunication is a fact of life. We just have to deal with it more often than most people.”
“Sure. And now Isaac hates me. I’ll probably never see him again.”
“I promise, Lilah, the person he’s mad at the most right now isn’t you. Or the cashier, or the guard, or even the officer. It’s himself.”
“But he didn’t do anything wrong.”
“I know.” We don’t have anything else to say until Ethan adds, “He might come back.”
“I wouldn’t.”
“Do you want to go home, Lilah?” Ethan asks gently. “I’d love for you to stay, but only if you want to.”
I shrug. Of course I want to stay. But I want to stay at a Gray Wolf where last night never happened. One where we can all enjoy our Deaf haven and not give a second thought to the dangers of the outside world.
But Ethan wants me to stay. Max would probably be mad if I left early. And staying here is maybe my best chance to see Isaac again.
“I’ll think about it,” I tell Ethan.
“Okay. We do have to call your parents, though, to let them know what happened. Do you want to come with me and do it now?”
Yeah, I’m sure they’ll be thrilled to learn what happened. “Let’s get this over with.”
Chapter Twenty-five
The rainy day suits my mood. Phoebe can tell something is wrong and sits with me in the dance barn, stringing together friendship bracelets.
I didn’t give my parents all the details during our call, knowing they’d be mad to learn I hadn’t been wearing my hearing aids out in public. They asked if I wanted to come home after everything that happened, and honestly, I thought I did. I was going to take the day to decide, but I made up my mind as soon as I saw Max this morning. Our time here is important. I’m going to stay.
Ethan shows a movie on the projector. The Disney film is playing with both closed captioning and audio description. There are also card games and friendship bracelets and crayons to keep the kids entertained. Meanwhile, all the counselors are walking around like zombies. It was a late night.
Max walks over and stands, with his arms crossed, in front of Phoebe and me. “What’s wrong?” he asks me.
I don’t want to answer. I put the string aside for now, blankly staring around the dance barn, watching the various activities. I already have too many bracelets.
Is Isaac still wearing the bracelet I gave him?
“Are you mad because Isaac’s gone?” Max is perceptive.
“How do you know?”
“Because at breakfast some campers were asking where he was, so Gary and Ethan announced Isaac had a family emergency and went home for a little bit. So . . . what happened?”
“You’re nosy,” I say. Phoebe chuckles beside me. I’d never really heard her laugh clearly without my hearing aids in.
“Sure,” Phoebe agrees. “Well?”
“Um. What Ethan said—an emergency. Hopefully he’ll be back soon.” I don’t want to get into it with my younger brother right now. So I tell Max, “I think Bobby’s looking for you.”
“Is he gone?” Phoebe asks as Max walks away. “Now can you tell me what really happened?”
“Okay, fine.” I push a button on my hearing aids to lower the volume and reach into my backpack to look for some medicine. Phoebe must hear the rattling from the small plastic container.
“Are you taking pills or something?” she asks.
“Yeah, my head is killing me.” I wash them down with a sip from my water bottle.
“Is it ’cause your hearing aids are bothering you? Why’d you put them back in?” she asks. “It’s raining, after all.”
“Because I should, I guess. Wait, how could you tell I’m wearing them?”
“You haven’t needed me to repeat as much today,” she explains, as if it were obvious. “But if they’re giving you a headache right now and we’re just sitting here—”
“I don’t know. Because I feel like I should, honestly.”
“That’s not a good reason,” Phoebe says.
“Okay, maybe because I’m scared.” In as few words as possible, I explain what happened the night before.
Phoebe, for the first time all summer, doesn’t have a quick response. After thinking for a minute, she asks, “Did I tell you I want to go to college in the city?”
A little surprised by what she says—but happy for the change of subject—I say, “No, I don’t think so.”
“My parents don’t want me to because there’s a lot to navigate, like city streets and being on my own for the first time. So because they’re scared, I can’t admit that I am, too.”
“You’re afraid?” It usually seems like nothing can faze Phoebe. She’s not the kind of person to throw a vulnerability out there.