Deafening by Frances Itani Read Free Book Online Page A

lungs did not seem bothered at all. The afterbirth slipped into the basin Mamo held for it, and it was then that Mamo began to pray. She prayed silently that Agnes’ life would not be taken away by the bleeding. Her warmed hands felt the ridge of fundus high up through the softness of Agnes’ abdomen. She waited, and checked again, trying not to show fear on her face. When she felt the ridge come down, felt it harden a little, she prayed again that her daughter’s life would not be taken. The baby made a small noise in her throat, as if to remind them that she was there.
    “You name her, Mother,” Agnes said. “You helped her into life. You name her.”
    Mamo thought for only a second. Gráinne. But unless people were Irish they wouldn’t know how to pronounce the name when they saw it written. “We’ll spell it the English, the Canadian way,” she told Agnes. “Grania.” As she spoke, she saw Agnes’ colour come back. She saw the flush through her cheeks and she felt the sense of well-being in the room. Agnes dropped into a heavy sleep.
    “Mamo?” Grania’s fingers were tapping at her sleeve.
    “I named you because your name means love. I felt the love coming right at me. From you to me and back again.” Mamo made her sign for baby, rocking her arms. She wiggled her fingers to show the love that moved into her heart and went back and forth between them.
    “Did my ears hear when I was a baby?” Grania knows the answer to this.
    “Your ears heard every sound. I sang to you that first night and many nights after. You liked me to sing ‘I don’t want to play in your yard.’ That was the song you liked best.” Mamo sings the title to herself as she speaks, and nods, remembering, Yes.
    Grania likes this part best, the naming, and the ears hearing, and the song, and especially the love wiggling like fingers, back and forth between them.
    “Graw-nee-ya!” she shouts, louder than she should have. Mother comes to the door of the laundry and stands looking at the two of them. Mamo knows she is there because she has heard the steps behind her back. Grania knows Mother is there because she can tell from Mamo’s face. Neither turns around to look.
    “I’m telling the story of her name,”‘ Mamo says to her own back. “Again.”
    And Agnes, who knows the story well because it is her story, too, has her own rush of remembering while she stands behind them at the laundry door. Her memory is of the long, deep fear during gestation that ended in the unexpected wave of strength and happiness that washed through her after the child was born. It was the night of the Great Fire and she remembers having difficulty breathing, and then joy at seeing her red-haired child. Her husband was away, not even in the house when Grania was born. An emptiness there. And after that, milk fever, which kept her low for weeks; and then, work, the move to the hotel, three children to care for—despite the help from Mamo—fatigue, more fear with another pregnancy, her survival of the birth of Patrick, and then Grania’s illness, the cold open passageway in winter, the scarlet fever that robbed the child’s hearing. Grania’s deafness was Agnes’ fault. She could do nothing but throw herself into work; there was always work. All of this, in seconds, sweeps the initial flush of happiness away.
    Mamo hears her daughter’s footsteps recede.
    “More,” Grania says. “More fire story, Mamo.”
    But that is as far as Mamo will travel into memory today. Instead, her lips say, “Monday’s child.”
    “Fair of face,” Grania blurts—a verse she once knew by heart.
    Mamo looks at her and smiles but she is not surprised. She says only, “Ah, it’s still there.”
    What she does not describe to Grania is the flood of images that comes to her now. Before Agnes’ labour had begun, Mamo threw a shawl over her shoulders and walked rapidly through wind and dusty streets to the eastern section of town, thinking she might beof help. An