BY ROSS SHOWALTER
When the father arrives at the deaf school, he keeps himself in the car, counts off the empty spaces in the visitor’s lot and wonders about the parents not here. He supposes some people may not have gas money, may not have time to drive across Texas to the state institute for deaf kids. He still doesn’t understand those people. He thinks of his Aaron away and fear emerges hot from the home behind his heart. But the school principal had said Aaron would grow well within the community, the institute’s dorms. The father couldn’t find anything else buoyed with more promise; he knows community is better than eighteen years alone, eighteen years of fumbles. The father hadn’t heard of sign language until Aaron was born.
But now five months have passed since they drove away from their son on the building steps. The father had clamped his lips together, trying to ward off the inevitable blurring of vision, the sorrow heavying in his mouth. And then his son, his Aaron, was behind the horizon.
He swore then to keep going with sign language classes. He would keep up with what the school would teach. He mouthed a promise to behind the horizon: We’ll come back for you.
The boy’s mother, Martha, had been on call today, and was called, phone buzzing on the bathroom counter, steam already rising behind the shower curtain. Heat was rolling between the two of them when she hung up. He hadn’t had time to ask how things would change—she hopped out of the shower before him, dressing in scrubs, taking her keys, pouring coffee in a travel mug; actions meant for a workday, not today, not today.
The only sign of Martha now is Aaron’s gift, the electric-blue bag wilting under the May sun. Inside was a stuffed animal, the closest replica of the family Labrador Martha could find. The black fur on the gift and the dog’s own were indistinguishable even up close. A little piece of home, Martha had said. A little home to hold on to.
Now he can’t count empty parking spaces. He wants her here. He wants Martha to scoop up the gift like she could scoop up their boy. She had told him, car keys in hand, to text her pictures until they were all home. It was an inadequate compromise. Pictures only frame memory, note physical changes. Pictures still remain better than nothing.
He takes long strides half-filled with purpose deeper and deeper into shadowy school hallways until he encounters a sheet of paper stuck to the wall. Black capital letters spell out SUMMER PICK-UP! Beyond is a double set of doors. He moves the bag handle from his fingers to his wrist, wiggles purpose into his hands. He needs to practice.
He curls both sets of fingers towards palms, rubs right knuckles against the left knuckles, moving away from himself. Then, he points at the paper, imagining his son.
“How are you?” he signs. “How are you?”
Tips of his right fingers free-fall from his chin into open palm. Middle and index finger below the right eye. Point towards imagined son again.
“Good to see you. Good to see you.”
He knows more than that, he only wants to warm up before he goes in. He wants his hands to be ready for what’s to come.
The gymnasium is full of kids, little bodies weaving, ducking. Shouts hurl through the air with surprising frequency. The smell of bleach stings the back of his throat. It all cleaves his vision of a secure, disciplinary environment. He stops his approach towards the storm seconds before a rascal runs in front of him. A woman mouths sorry at him several blinks later, in pursuit.
He lifts his legs high towards the check-in table, trying to avoid little limbs, trying to be a lighthouse, hoping his son will spot him amongst the strangers. He wonders if the children are all here even if their parents aren’t. He remembers counting off about twenty empty parking spaces.
At the table, recognition sputters relief in him; he smiles widely at the lady in front of him: the school principal, looking twice as harried as Martha had before the school.
She mouths name at him. He scoops his extended pinky up, makes an O, sticks his first two fingers out together, then those two fingers curl over his thumb.
“John,” the principal signs, mouthing the words too. “Last name?”
Insert the thumb behind his first two fingers—make sure to point the fingers down. O. Middle three fingers pointed upward. Then all the fingers folding into themselves, towards the palm. Then the index finger and thumb sticking out, a right angle. A right angle again.
“John Powell…” she stares at the boxy laptop in front of her, “for Aaron?”
He nods eagerly. She holds up her index finger. She leaves him at the table, he tries to follow her head of yellow hair and loses her. All around him is calls, calls and hands and lurches and sprints. The grown-ups fight to keep up.
The school principal comes back. Her hand drapes over a boy’s nape. He doesn’t recognize the boy at first, the munchkin blinking slow and quiet at him. The Aaron he dropped off is an excitable, fidgety human, full of holler. But the eyes’ shape in this boy reminds him of Martha—then does he drop and crouch, pull his son from the principal’s hand.
Aaron doesn’t smile. Aaron’s blinks come like warnings, sonar blasts in the father’s belly. He still persists, tries to dangle the gift in front of Aaron’s cloudy eyes. The father’s hands are too slow now, the rest of him is too slow, too old. He should tell Aaron to slow down his signing, but his hands won’t obey him. The words toss about in his head. Stop signing so fast, my son, he wants to say, when did you get so fast? Stop going so fast, slow down for your old man.
Slow down, it’s your father, your home isn’t here. Slow down, don’t give up on me just yet. Slow down, don’t run off, don’t go to your friends. Slow down, they don’t love you like I love you.
Ross Showalter is a deaf queer writer whose work has appeared in Strange Horizons, Monkeybicycle, Hobart, Portland Review, and elsewhere. He is a recent graduate of Portland State University’s BFA program in creative writing.