If a Tree Falls by Jennifer Rosner Read Free Book Online Page A

surround-sound, I alone heard the droplets of water drip from her short hair, the swishes and waves made by her kicks, the lap-lap of the water at the tub’s edge. Did she wonder what the water sounded like? Could she wonder it? I toweled her off, and put the hearing aids back in her ears. Holding her suspended above the bathwater, I grabbed a handful and let it drip drip drip into the tub.
    At night, Bill and I cradled Sophia in our arms and swayed to the rhythms of lullabies played far louder than lullabies ought to be. We had discs of lullabies from around the world: lilting voices from Tahiti; sharp operatic sopranos from Japan; gentle wooings from Israel.
    When Sophia’s eyes fluttered to close, we plied her with kisses and laid her down. Just before taking out her hearing aids, we’d whisper, “Bye, bye sound,” and wave good night.

California, November 2000
    EACH MORNING, I GENTLY WRIGGLED Sophia’s hearing aids into her tiny ears. It stung me to see other mothers whispering softly in their babies’ ears, their babies responding with gurgles and coos and pudgy fingers tapping at their mothers’ lips. At the library, at the bookstore—mothers reading stories in airy, lilting voices; their children leaning in to listen, ready to catch magic. I couldn’t afford whispers with Sophia. I spoke loudly, with the sharp enunciation of a strict grammar school teacher. The gentlest nursery rhyme, the sweetest lullaby, I now belted out at full volume—a bull in the china shop of motherese.
    Only after Sophia’s birth did I start to view my own childhood through the lens of my mother’s hearing loss. I hadn’t before traced my experience—the feeling that I wasn’t being heard—to the dislocation in my mother’s own upbringing, to the ways she grew up unhearing, and also,
unheard. Nor had I traced it to the constant punking-out of my mother’s hearing aid batteries. I began to wonder, in new motherhood, how it must have been for my mother with her hearing loss. I began to wonder how it was for Pearl—how she managed to moor her girls, so that they could in time tie a string from their wrists to their babies’. Awaken in the silence. How I might manage it.

    Bill and I started researching oral-deaf schools. Several schools had early infant programs to work with deaf babies and their parents on listening and vocalizing.
    We went to a school in commuting distance one morning. We walked through the classrooms, then observed a preschool group through a one-way mirror inside a soundproof booth. Teachers drilled the students military-style. The children were just four or five years old, yet their foreheads tensed with effort. Their eyes pierced with concentration. They sputtered single-syllable sounds like “bah” and “pah”—sounds devoid of meaning. Not a single one of them was speaking . In the play area, they puttered about, lonely, each child in a bubble of isolation.
    In the parking lot, I gasped for cool air and burst into tears.

    “This is not the only school.” Bill said. He must have felt as I did. “We can look around. We can look around the country.”
    “Really?”
    We hadn’t spoken about moving. People in the juvenile court had recently encouraged Bill to apply to be the new commissioner. It was a dream of Bill’s to judge dependency cases. We both knew that if he were to get the job, he would be busy day and night. Now, my head swirled with the prospect of relocating.
    On the computer the next morning, I found sites for every oral school in the country. I followed up with calls. I had an instant rapport with the director of the parent-infant program at the oldest school, the Clarke School for the Deaf in Northampton, Massachusetts. Her name was Jan, and her perspective on deaf education was rooted in a rich study of child development. She asked about our bonding with Sophia, about our style of play. I phoned Bill at work, my voice full of excitement. He suggested we arrange a visit.
    I