If a Tree Falls by Jennifer Rosner Read Free Book Online

one-size-fits-all militancy. Now we considered the precise contours of Sophia’s hearing loss, the particular features of our family. Bill and I were talkers. We were constantly debating, questioning, arguing, doubting, agreeing, wondering aloud. And we were hearers, in the hearing world. A soundless, wordless world was unimaginable to us. The audiologist had touted the latest digital hearing aids: they could be set to the exact dimensions of Sophia’s hearing loss, programmed to amplify spoken language and to block out background noise. With this technology and speech work, there was a solid chance that Sophia could be trained to listen and speak. We could start right away.
    Bill and I became convinced—or we convinced ourselves—to try the “oral approach” with Sophia. We could always re-evaluate, or switch to Sign, if we saw delays in Sophia’s language capacities.
    Was it self-centeredness? Could we not fathom our baby in a world other than our own? Or selfishness—was it our own need for intimacy that guided us? We didn’t know. We were Sophia’s parents and our world was hers. We told ourselves that we could afford a trial period.

    I draped Sophia over my still-slackened womb as the audiologist pumped bright blue stuff—gooey silicon that looked like saltwater taffy—into Sophia’s ears to make earmold impressions for hearing aids. “Is it cold?” I pantomimed a shiver. Sophia’s eyebrows splayed wide.
    The hearing aids were huge, and they flopped off Sophia’s tiny, three-month-old ears. The first day we put them in at home, tentatively wedging the earmolds into place and tucking the aids behind Sophia’s ears, they whistled non-stop for an hour, until one of us finally pulled them out. The “feedback” came because Sophia was still too young to sit up, and whenever she leaned against anything—her crib mattress, her infant seat, the couch, the floor—the trapped sound traveled back into the microphone and was amplified again. After much experimentation, we found the baby carrier—with Sophia right up against one of our chests—to be our best solution: it held her head upright, so her hearing aids stopped whistling, and she was in close proximity to our speaking voices. Our first words, as soon as the aids were in: “We love you, Sophia.”
    I spoke into Sophia’s ears—“miked” at top volume—and I wondered, did Pearl try stubbornly, ineffectually, to speak to her girls even after she knew of their deafness? Did she persist in speaking the words she deemed most
crucial into their unfixable ears? And did her girls hear her, if not through the sound waves, then through the contours of her face, through her expressions? I kept my eyes fixed on Sophia so she might read my expressions. Just in case my sound wasn’t getting through.
    In time, our pockets would be filled with toupee tape, strings, clips, and rubber bands—anything that might keep the hearing aids in Sophia’s ears long enough for her to hear a bit of spoken language each day. A read-through of Good Night Moon . A rendition of “When Cows Wake Up In The Morning, They Always Say ‘Good Day’.” Each day, we worked with Sophia on listening with her hearing aids. We no longer ignored the hum of the refrigerator, or the sizzling of a frying egg; we pointed out the crinkling leaves, the approach of footsteps, every faucet run of water. “I hear it,” I’d say and point to my ear, when the bed creaked, or a dog barked.
    Did she hear it? I didn’t know. I was half-reassured just by our having chosen a plan of action; half-terrified that it was a misguided one. I talked to Sophia constantly now. I narrated every activity and named every object in our path.
    I interjected signs here and there. I admired, even craved, sign language the more I learned it. You couldn’t turn away, stare off, do a thousand other things. It required presence and intimacy.

    I took Sophia’s hearing aids out for bath-time. In bathroom