Listen!

  Listen!

  FRANCES ITANI

  Listen!

  Copyright © 2012 Itani Writes Inc.

  First published in 2012 by Grass Roots Press

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.

  Grass Roots Press gratefully acknowledges the financial support for its publishing programs provided by the following agencies:

  the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and the Government of Alberta through the Alberta Foundation for the Arts.

  Grass Roots Press would also like to thank ABC Life Literacy Canada for their support. Good Reads® is used under licence from ABC Life Literacy Canada.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Itani, Frances, 1942-

  Listen! / Frances Itani.

  (Good reads)

  ISBN 978-1-926583-81-5 (Print)

  ISBN 978-1-927499-40-5 (ePub)

  ISBN 978-1-927499-41-2 (Kindle)

  I. Readers for new literates. I. Title.

  II. Series: Good reads series (Edmonton, Alta.)

  PS8567.T35L58 2012 428.6’2 C2012-902308-6

  Printed and bound in Canada.

  For Lisa, Terry, Dakota, and Sam,

  all part of this story-telling family

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Acknowledgments

  Discover Canada’s Bestselling Authors

  Good Reads Series

  Coyote’s Song

  The Break-In

  Tribb’s Troubles

  About The Author

  Chapter One

  Listen and Worry

  “Listen!” said Roma. “Listen! Keep your ears and eyes open. You have to know what’s going on.”

  But she was talking to herself.

  She looked out the train window at the night rushing by. When she spoke, her own face looked back at her from the dark window. She travelled by train because she liked to have time alone. She had booked her own tiny bedroom, a roomette, in a sleeping car. During the day, her bed folded up against the wall. In the evening, the bed pulled down. Her roomette also had a toilet and sink. An hour earlier, she had eaten dinner in the restaurant car of the train. Now, at nine-thirty, Roma was tired.

  Four hours earlier, she’d waved goodbye to her husband and their daughter, Katie. Her husband had held Katie up to the train window. Katie had pressed her hand against the glass from outside. Inside the train, Roma had fitted her palm to Katie’s. The train had pulled away, and Katie’s face had disappeared.

  Roma knew that her daughter would be fine. Sometimes, she brought her along on trips. But now, in October, Katie had to stay home to go to school.

  The trip would take sixteen hours total. In the morning, Roma would arrive in Montreal. Her sister, Liz, would meet her at the Montreal station. Roma planned to stay with Liz for the next five days.

  Roma had taken time off work for this trip. She worked at an outpatient clinic in a small hospital. She also interpreted for deaf patients who came into the hospital. Roma knew American Sign Language—ASL—a language she had learned as a child.

  Liz had a special reason for inviting Roma to Montreal. She wanted to introduce her to two friends. The four women would meet for dinner at Liz’s home the next evening. They planned to share some of their stories.

  *

  Because she had little space, Roma undressed while sitting on the bed. She checked the lock on the sliding door of her roomette. She didn’t want anyone walking in during the night. The train gave a jerk, and she lost her balance for a moment. She changed into a nightgown and placed her shoes on an overhead rack. Her purse hung on a hook beside the shoe rack. Every bit of space was used in this tiny roomette.

  She stretched her legs and wiggled her feet under the covers, hoping to soften the crisp sheets. With two pillows behind her back, she sat up in bed and tried to relax. But she knew she couldn’t sleep. She kept thinking back to her childhood. Had she ever had a childhood? Maybe not.

  Roma tried to remember her life when she’d been Katie’s age. Seven years old. At seven, Roma had duties that her daughter would never have. At seven, at four, even at two years of age, Roma had to be responsible. Her ears had listened for two people because her mother’s ears did not hear.

  Roma and Liz were hearing daughters of a deaf mother. Mam, as they called her, had suffered an illness as a baby, and that is when she’d become deaf. Roma was her first-born child. When Roma was nineteen months old, Liz was born. Not long after that, Roma began to report. Every time Liz cried, Roma had to let Mam know.

  “Mam. Baby crying.” The first sentence Roma ever spoke. She pulled at Mam’s skirt to get her attention. She already knew that she had to face her so that Mam could read her lips.

  “Mam. Baby crying.”

  Her mother walked to the crib and picked up the baby.

  From her earliest childhood, Roma had to listen. She listened, and told Mam what was going on. That was her job. Mam needed her.

  Roma’s father was not deaf. A hearing man, he worked out of town Monday to Friday, and came home on weekends. He worked for the railroad, but he died in an accident when Roma was only seven. After his death, Mam relied on Roma even more.

  Roma and Liz grew up in Ontario, on the edge of a town called Manor. Their house was old and small, and close to the Manor River. A dirt path along the side of the house led to the shore. As children, the two girls spent hours beside the river. Playing, laughing, arguing, sharing secrets. All the things sisters do.

  But somehow, at some time, Roma began to worry. She grew up being worried. How did that happen? When Mam was alone, Roma worried. She worried when she left home, and even before she left. Would Mam remember to lock the front and back doors? What if someone tried to break into the house? Would Mam remember to add coal to the stove? Had someone ordered the coal for her?

  Who worried about Mam after Roma finished school and left town? Who became the listener after Roma and Liz both moved away?

  *

  Roma loved to travel by train. She liked having her own private roomette. Dark shadows flew by in the night. She pulled the stiff blind down so no one could see in from outside. When the train rocked from side to side, Roma rocked with the motion. She listened to the clack-clack of the wheels.

  As she thought of the sound, she thought of Mam again. During Roma’s childhood, her family did not own a car. Mam sometimes travelled by train to visit deaf friends in Belleville. She always took Roma and Liz with her on those trips.

  One summer, the train took them as far as Toronto. Roma remembered how the train had chugged forward. And how her body had rocked back and forth when she walked in the aisle. She remembered the seats, with their high backs. She had sipped cool water from small paper cups. Travel by train was a huge adventure for a child.

  Roma tried to imagine how Mam might have described the train. Mam couldn’t hear sounds, but she had felt the train. Her entire body would have sensed the turning wheels. She’d have felt every shudder and shake. Through her hands, her arms, her feet, her legs, her skin. Sometimes, the train made a loud bump. Mam did not look outside to see the reason for the bump. Instead, she looked to Roma’s lips for an explanation. She expected her daughter to have the information.

  Mam had always stayed silent during train trips. She feared that she would speak too loudly. Many years before, at a special school for deaf children, Mam had lear
ned to use sign language and to use her voice. Her teachers had told her, “You can’t hear yourself speak. You must learn to keep your voice low.” When Mam travelled, she was afraid she would forget to control her voice.

  So Roma listened for her. She told Mam the station stops the train conductor called out. When the conductor asked where they were going, Roma stepped forward to reply.

  *

  The motion of the train was finally making Roma sleepy. She smoothed the wrinkled bedding and looked up. Her purse swung back and forth. Inside the purse was a small white envelope. In the envelope she had placed an old black and white photo.

  Liz had asked Roma to choose one photo to bring with her to Montreal. The next evening, Liz’s two friends would also bring photos to the dinner party. They would all tell stories about growing up and about deafness in their families.

  Roma’s photo used to belong to Mam. It had faded, and one edge was torn. When Mam died, just six months earlier, Roma and Liz had taken care of the funeral. They’d cleaned the old house to get it ready for sale. In a drawer in Mam’s bedroom, they’d found the photo. Roma’s childhood face peered out of one tiny corner.

  Roma couldn’t remember her parents taking pictures. They had owned a Kodak camera, but they had no extra money to buy or develop film. Even so, one family album had been filled. Someone must have taken photos. Roma wished she’d asked questions about the album when her mother was alive. Now, both her parents had died, and there was no one left to ask.

  “Listen!” Roma told herself again. This time, she could hear Mam’s voice in her memory. Exactly the way Mam used to speak. Hundreds, thousands of times, Roma had heard the same word: Listen!

  Chapter Two

  Reporting

  As a child, Roma often spoke for her deaf mother. Most strangers could not understand Mam’s voice. But Roma could understand every word Mam spoke. Hers was the first voice Roma ever heard.

  Roma also became Mam’s ears. As soon as she could talk, she told her mother what was going on.

  She told Mam when footsteps walked up to the front of the house.

  When someone knocked at the door.

  When Mam’s dog raised his head and began to bark.

  What the minister said in church.

  When the phone rang, Roma picked up the receiver. She listened to the caller’s voice and passed on the message. She told the caller Mam’s reply.

  Roma was always in the middle. Listen and tell. Tell and listen. She became her mother’s ears and voice.

  When the kitchen sink leaked, Roma phoned the plumber.

  “I am four years old and my mother is deaf,” Roma said into the phone. “Our sink is broken and we need a plumber.”

  She gave the plumber the house address. At an early age, she had to memorize her address and phone number.

  Roma also went shopping with Mam. “A pound of sliced baloney,” she told the grocer. “Sliced thin, please. A small jar of mustard and a can of beans.” The grocer did not understand Mam’s voice.

  At Woolworth’s lunch counter, Roma ordered a cup of tea for Mam.

  In the shoe store, she told the clerk the size of Mam’s feet. “Size eight, please. My mother wears size eight.”

  Sometimes, a sales clerk said, “What’s the matter with your mother, little girl?”

  Roma replied, “There’s nothing wrong with my mother.” And there wasn’t. To Roma, Mam’s deafness was normal.

  When hearing people visited the house, Roma had another job. Her mother told her to remember what everyone talked and laughed about. She did not want to miss anything.

  “Listen!” she told Roma. “Listen to what the others are saying.”

  Mam and Roma both knew that visitors often spoke quickly. Or changed the subject suddenly. Or turned away, and their lips could not be read. A man might have a beard or a mustache that covered his lips. A woman might put a hand up to her face when she spoke.

  Later, after cousins and aunts and uncles went home, Mam sat Roma down. “What did he say? What did she say? Tell me the news,” she said.

  And Roma tried to remember and report.

  Mam wanted to know everything.

  If visitors knew how to use sign language, Roma did not have to be in the middle. Mam had learned to lip-read and to use American Sign Language as a small child. The special school she had attended was the Ontario School for the Deaf in Belleville. Back then, deaf children lived at the school ten months of the year. They were allowed to go home during summer, and sometimes at Christmas. They studied the same subjects as all Ontario students, but they had special classes, too. Some deaf students learned to use their voices and to lip-read. All had to learn sign language. For ten years, Mam lived in the girls’ residence and made many good friends.

  When Roma and her sister, Liz, were born, Mam taught them to sign. The two sisters used their hands to create language from the time they were babies.

  But most hearing visitors who came to their house did not know American Sign Language.

  While Roma was growing up, she was the bridge between hearing and deaf worlds.

  “Listen!” Mam said. “Tell me what is happening.”

  Roma reported back. If she wanted to help Mam, she had to know what was going on.

  Chapter Three

  On the Train

  Roma heard a loud blast from the train’s horn and stretched her legs again. The train was slowing, maybe stopping at a small station. She lifted the blind to look and saw nothing but darkness. She pushed the blind back down and sank into the pillows again. The trip had begun to raise memories of events she hadn’t thought of for years. Maybe she should phone her sister. She and Liz talked on the phone every week. They always had. Ever since they’d left home and married and had children of their own.

  As the train began to move faster again, Roma punched in the numbers on her cell phone. Liz sounded sleepy when she answered. A buzzing noise could be heard through the phone.

  “Roma?” said Liz. “Is that you? It’s late. Where are you calling from?”

  “I don’t know,” Roma said. “I’m on the train, but I don’t know exactly where. There’s nothing to see outside but the night. The train is speeding along the track, and I’m sitting in my bed.”

  “I’ll be at the station to pick you up,” said Liz. “But not until morning.”

  “I know. I’m just thinking about things.”

  “What things?”

  “I’ve been thinking of Mam and how much I miss her. I’ve been thinking about you, too. And of all the times I worried about Mam.”

  “I know you worried. Even after we left home, you used to phone me,” Liz said. “You’d say: ‘What if Mam lets the stove go out? What if the pipes in her house freeze in winter? What if? What if?’”

  “Well, I couldn’t change overnight,” said Roma. “I also worried that someone would break into our old house.”

  “Mam always had a dog,” Liz said. “You know that. When one dog died, she got another. When you and I weren’t home, the dogs acted as Mam’s ears. She loved every one of those dogs.”

  “Her first dog was Chip,” Roma said. “A mutt Father brought home one summer. You weren’t very old at the time.”

  “I remember Chip. He became Mam’s special dog,” said Liz.

  “He didn’t look dangerous or mean,” said Roma. “He wasn’t even very big. He only reached as high as Mam’s knees.”

  “He looked like a dog pirate,” Liz said. “He had a black patch around one eye.”

  “Chip didn’t like you and me,” said Roma.

  “But he loved Mam,” said Liz. “She was the only one allowed to pat him.”

  “Chip threatened to bite everyone else,” Roma added. “Even us.”

  “Father trained him to scare strangers.”

  “You and I weren’t strangers,” said Roma. “But Chip was Mam’s warning signal. If anyone came up the walk, he raised his head and barked.”

  “Then he ran to Mam and brushed
against her leg,” said Liz.

  “Why did he try to bite us?” Roma said. “We lived there.”

  “Mam kept telling us not to be afraid,” said Liz.

  “We were afraid.”

  Liz started to laugh. “Chip chased us up onto the kitchen table. Do you remember?”

  Roma started laughing, too. “That happened a few years after Father died.”

  “Mam went for a walk with Aunt Helen after supper,” said Liz.

  “And Chip stayed behind to guard us. Mam never believed that Chip hated us, but he chased you and me up onto the table. Once he forced us up there, he wouldn’t let us down.”

  “You reached over and grabbed the broom that leaned against the wall,” said Liz.

  “I shook the broom and tried to scare him,” said Roma. “But no one could scare Chip. He stayed there, barking, baring his teeth. We finally had to sit on the table and wait.”

  “Mam was back in five or ten minutes.”

  “She blamed us,” said Roma. “She said that if we’d stop being afraid, Chip would leave us alone.”

  But Roma and Liz had hated Chip, and the dog had hated them.

  “The next dog was better,” said Liz. “He was a collie, wasn’t he?”

  “A smart collie,” said Roma. “He always knew when Mam was alone in the house.”

  “He knew she couldn’t hear him bark,” said Liz. “So when he was outside, he learned how to get back in. He jumped up near the kitchen window and scratched at the glass and moved his paws. Mam saw the movement, and opened the back door.”

  “If he didn’t show his paws, he didn’t get in,” said Roma.

  “All of Mam’s dogs had to be smart,” said Liz.

  “I sometimes wonder how any of us survived,” Roma said. “Including the dogs. How did Mam manage all those years? Especially after Father died.” “She managed. And you and I couldn’t stay home forever. We went to school and studied hard and got jobs and moved away. Now we have families of our own,” said Liz.