Emily was released from the hospital two days after collapsing due to low blood sugar, stress and dehydration. Jane took her home. I kept my distance. I can't readily explain why I felt that I needed to stay away but I did. Perhaps I felt guilty for letting Eunice hurt her or because I didn't stop Eunice. Perhaps I blamed myself and thought that Emily might blame me too. I don't know but I found that after the first day I was afraid to see her. So I stayed away.
It wasn't the first time I had distanced myself from her. There had been times before the pregnancy that I felt she didn't want me around, the times when I found myself talking non-stop with little interaction from her. It was those times I questioned what I meant to her if anything or was I just a pain in the ass student. She did little to change my perception of what was happening. She wasn't one to say what she thought ever unless you pried it out of her. So at times when I was negative about myself and felt like she didn't really care, she didn't make an effort tell me otherwise. Those times hurt.
I didn't feel like I was like the other students at Wolf Lake. I wasn't there to learn the language for professional reasons. I was there because I needed to learn about my Deaf World and Culture. But I had little interaction with the Deaf World save Emily and Jane and the laboratory requirements that sent me to places like the bowling alley to observe Deaf Community members bowling. These observations were all well and good in that I had to use their language but as long as they saw me as a student and not a Deaf person that was all I would be, a student. The minute I gave the Wolf Lake initials they no longer cared if I was hearing or if I was Deaf. It didn't matter. I was a student. The door to the Deaf World would change in that instant. They showed their world to a student not another Deaf.
What I wanted and needed was a go between. Someone to help me find my way through this new maze of thoughts and ideas. I needed someone to help me learn the cultural values and mores. But as long as I was a student then Jane and Emily treated me as such just like the rest of the Deaf Community, leaving me to remain an outsider looking in and yearning to belong.
It was because I didn't feel like I could really think of Emily as a friend before the pregnancy that I hesitated to call her when I needed help. What happened was I had gone to a shopping center in early April. When I left I hit a gigantic pothole. I had no clue what I had hit at first but I knew that I had totally taken out a tire in the process. My car was lopsided. I drove a little ways because of road construction and lack of opportunity to get off the road and pulled into a car dealership. At that point I was struggling to know what to do. Did I call on someone I trusted to come help me change the spare or what? I wasn't sure.
I looked through my school bag and purse for phone numbers of friends. The only 2 I could find where Emily's and a girl in my ASL 2 class, Deidre. Deidre is hearing and very sweet but I didn't really know her at all. Then there was Emily. If I called her I had to use relay. I wasn't sure how to call relay using my cellphone. Then I was scared that if I called her that she'd say that she couldn't help me. I was very torn about what I should do. In the end I gave up trying to call either Deidre or Emily. I went into the dealership. One of the salesmen approached me and I explained what happened. He then said they could fix my car there but it cost $90.00 and take an hour and half at the least. I said, "Fine. Fix my car." But that put me back in my quandary. I was still stuck at the dealership with no one I felt I could claim as a true friend to call.
I finally called the school and tried to get the phone numbers for a few people I did think would help me but that didn't work out very well. After a bit I gave in and tried Deidre's number again. She answered and came to my rescue. I just find it ironic that Emily is always saying for me to let go of the Hearing World and come into the Deaf World yet I didn't feel that if I had called her she'd have been there for me. I turned to a hearing person instead, one I really didn't know at all. Interesting! I am glad things changed between Emily and I. I do wish the circumstances had been different but I don't regret our friendship as it has become.
It was with these apprehensive feelings that I went to classes the next week. At first Jane said nothing to me but as the week wore on I could see her looking at me in a strange way. Like she expected me to say something, do something. I wasn't sure what she was wanting but I had a feeling it had to do with Emily. After class on the Thursday, a week to the day after Emily was hospitalized Jane finally approached me, "Emily you see not, why?"
"Maybe I afraid. Maybe me Emily blame," I answered not able to meet her eyes.
"No, stop. Fault yours Not. See you she wants," Jane answered putting a hand on my shoulder. It was only the third or fourth time Jane had stopped being a teacher long enough to live up to the Deaf Cultural standard of touching within the school walls. Outside the school she was just Jane a member of the Deaf Community and Culture, within the school she was Jane, ASL teacher first and far most. Of the two Jane's I preferred Jane the Deaf Community member to Jane the teacher.
"Class today finished. Maybe visit I go," I replied
"Not Maybe. You go," Jane instructed more as a command.
"Fine, I go," I said with a smile. I dreaded going but I had to. Jane had made sure I would. She would send a pager message to Emily to say to expect me. There was no way I could wiggle out of going.
I pulled into Emily's driveway feeling very uneasy. I wasn't sure I could face her. When we'd gone to the hospital Cherry and Jane had been with me. This time I had to face her alone. Why I felt so guilty when it wasn't my fault? I can't explain. I felt like some how I had let her down. Because of me she could have lost her other baby. The thought terrified me that I had done nothing to protect her. How could I claim to be her friend when I just sat and let Eunice rip her to shreds? How could I claim to be her friend when my inaction could have cost her, her life and her baby's life? How could I face her?
Before I even made it out of my car and up her side walk she was standing on her porch smiling at me. She signed, "Hello."
"Hello," I returned.
"Last week you where?" she asked me giving me the perfunctory hug.
"Hiding, I guess," I replied, as I was besieged by her animals as they greeted me.
"Why?"
"Afraid you," I answered not looking her in the eye instead I looked at Max, the yellow tabby.
"Me? Why me?"
"Eunice I stop not. Afraid me you blame," I tried to explain.
Emily bobbed her head up and down in understanding but didn't say she didn't blame me. I'd dubbed her a bobblehead before because of her nodding without stating her thoughts. "Talk, please for me!" I signed.
She looked startled, "Blame you not. Too much you think."
"I know. Sit. You relax," I commanded.
"Hard relax. Too much Time. About Jack I think. Away I need go. Here I worry. Stress better not," she explained.
"Relax, baby need," I signed knowing that it wouldn't matter as long as Jack was her every thought and worry.
"Bathroom," she signed letting me know she needed to go. For a woman whom Jane laughingly called a hamster for being able to drink and drink and not go to the bathroom, things were sure to be different as she moved closer to the last trimester. The baby would start doing the hula on her bladder. Soon the bathroom would once again be her best friend...not for hugging the toilet bowl either. Then again her Hyperemesis Gravidarium could return as it some times does in the last weeks of pregnancy but considering it was probably related to the twin pregnancy I tended to doubt that it.
"Better?" I asked when she returned to the living room a few minutes later.
"Yes, more go I need," she explained.
I nodded using her bobblehead approach to statements. She looked at me expectantly knowing that my mind is always going and that by leaving me alone with my thoughts for more than 10 seconds meant I would have thought of something that was weighing on my mind. She knew me well in that regard. But as before I was timid. Because of my own guilt I felt I had to be guarded in what I said. I didn't ever want to do or say the wrong thing. I had a feeling that too many times in the past I had. Times that she wasn't about to acknowledge openly but kept in her mind. I sat looking at her trying to find the words. Afraid to use the words that did come to me. She waited and I squirmed under her gaze. "Today home I go. With me come, want?"
"Your home, south?" she asked.
I signed, "Yes."
"Ask me, why?"
"You away go. Alone not. Time relax. Walk woods. Breathe," I tried to explain in ASL. I've been trying hard to write in ASL format. It's not perfect. I'm not sure I have the word order correct at all times but it is closer. There is one thing I know I am not doing that I should. I am not capitalizing what is said in ASL. Technically ASL is always capitalized when written. But given the format in which I am writing I choose to leave that aspect out.
"Maybe," she replied.
"No, you come. My parent's home you stay. Sunday here we come. Okay?" I asked
"Okay, My animal keeper I call. Babies I miss, I go," she answered before she stood.
"You pack. Gas I need. I come back," I said before I went to my car and headed for the nearest gas station.
I called my parents on my cellphone from there. "Hey mom."
"Hi Ray, you coming home?"
"Yeah, I'll be home in 3 maybe 4 hours. I hope you don't mind a houseguest. Emily Wesson is coming home with me. She needs to get away from things here."
"Your teacher?"
"Yeah, my teacher. It's a long story. I'm sure that if you ask her when we get there she will tell you what you want to know. Um, there is one thing maybe I should tell you before you see her since it's been over a year. Emily's pregnant."
"How in the world did that happen?" my mother asked purely rooted in the closed mindedness of her era. It didn't help that her youngest brother was born with Down Syndrome because of her mother's age.
"Same way most babies happen, mom," I laughed knowing perfectly well what my mother's hang-ups were.
"Any other surprises that I need to be aware of?"
"No just break out the pencil and paper. Don't expect her to read your lips like you do me. She won't appreciate it. You might want to actually try signing a little."
"Ray, don't start! I'll talk to you tonight. I guess I better take a bulldozer to this place."
"Yeah I guess you better."
"Why did you invite her here instead of your place?"
"You have king size beds and a spa. Why else?"
"Love you, Ray. Drive safely."
"Love you too, mom. Cya later," I replied before I switched my phone off. As usual my mother and I had left the tension standing between us. Her refusal to even attempt to sign with me after more than a year of taking Sign English class was a sore spot of contention between us. The same went for the fact that instead of signing or writing what she wanted or needed from me she always forces me to lip read leaving me to feel inferior because I never could understand everything that she would say. I love her with all my heart but hate her for the oppression she keeps me under.