"I don't... I don't understand," Roseanne stammered. Though the pamphlet's pastel images were labeled with things like "sound processor," "hearing nerve," and "internal implant," she wasn't sure exactly what they meant. What exactly did "allow the deaf to hear" mean?
"Of course." Jaqueline nodded with a slightly exasperated eye roll. "A local otolaryngologist has become a good friend of mine, and he assures me it's just a little surgery to help our... shall we say, situation?"
"Situation?"
"That's what I said, Roseanne, don't play daft."
"So, wait." She knew that she was wearing on Jacqueline's patience, but she just couldn't wrap her head around this idea. "This little thing here, this internal implant would make her hear?"
"Yes."
"How?"
Jacqueline tsked. "The pamphlet explains. Really, Roseanne."
"Sorry," she mumbled and read through the pamphlet again, growing more concerned as she did. "It goes inside of her body?"
"That is why they call it internal, Roseanne."
Roseanne scowled, put-off. "Isn't that kind of invasive?"
"I think you are missing the point. Lisa will be a normal person when this is done."
"She is normal."
"And yet..."
Roseanne opened her mouth, not sure at all what she was going to say, her mind still a swirl of thoughts. "I just—"
A knock at the door silenced her before she could begin.
Leigh's head popped through the gap, a detached smile on her face. "Ms. Manoban, Mr. Ken is looking to speak to you."
If Jacqueline responded, then Roseanne didn't catch it, too busy staring at the pamphlet. Her mind felt crowded, like too many questions were trying to shove their way out at once. A roadblock had formed between her brain and her mouth.
"So," Jacqueline stood, "I would like you to think about this. Think of how it could change Lisa's life."
Mouth still open, Roseanne looked up at Jacqueline and realized that she was standing over her, a hand out to lead her back downstairs.
"Err, right." She pushed to her feet.
"Hide that for now, please. It would be a terrible gift if Lisa already knew about it."
"Don't you think—"
But Jacqueline's hand sliced the air, her look sharp enough to cut glass. "Not a word."
The surge of questions doubled, and Roseanne grimaced, realizing a sharp headache was forming behind her left eye. She watched as Jacqueline took the pamphlet, folded it, and pushed it into Roseanne's back pocket
"I assume you've heard of the audition in Louisville?"
"Uh." Roseanne cleared her throat. Though the change in subject was abrupt, this topic was easier to digest. It didn't short-circuit her brain. "Yeah. Yeah, I have."
"Have you received your audition time yet?" she asked as she led Roseanne down the long flight of stairs.
"What? Oh, no. I'm not taking it."
Jacqueline gave a laugh, one that would have sounded rich and warm had Roseanne not known better. "Don't be obtuse! Of course, you will take it. I fully expect you to take it, Roseanne."
Roseanne's feet stopped of their own accord on the bottom step, her mouth pulled down into a deep frown.
A moment of annoyance passed over Jacqueline's face, the same look her daughter often wore when speaking to members of the board. "It should help you get into better shape for the Lyric audition."
The way Roseanne's brain was processing three times slower than normal was beginning to make her feel stupid. She wasn't sure if she had ever been told she had to take an audition before. She wasn't sure how to take the command. She looked into Jacqueline's politely vague face and understood the implication, understood what she was really saying. Take the audition, or else your other audition is in jeopardy.
"Okay," she finally sighed, popping her fingers one by one.
A hand covered hers. "Oh, please don't do that, Roseanne. Such horrid treatment of your knuckles."
Roseanne bit her lip, agitated. She was beginning to wish she had never left the kitchen.
Roseanne's mind was buzzing as she drove her crew back to Lisa's downtown loft that night, fingers tapping anxiously on the steering wheel. The lights of the city passed as they sped down Lake Shore, the ocean-like lake on one side and the wall of light-speckled skyscrapers on the other. It was usually Roseanne's favorite view, the long twists and turns of the drive always filling her with a big-city pleasure. Tonight, however, she barely noticed.
"Are you alright?" Lisa finally asked as Roseanne turned them off of Lake Shore and onto Monroe, plunging them into downtown traffic. She was slumped a little lower in her seat than usual thanks to the wine, one leg tossed carelessly over the other in a casual pose that still rang with such refinement that it would make a lesser woman weep. Still, despite her slightly drunken pose, Lisa's eyes were still sharp.
"What? Me? Yeah, of course." Roseanne laughed, her shoulders bouncing with exaggerated ease.
Lisa eyed her in disbelief. "You've been behaving strangely since my mother pulled you aside. What did she say to you? What has you upset?"
"Nothing!" She jumped a little when Lisa's lithe fingers twirled a strand of hair at the base of her neck. "Really nothing. She just told me about an audition in Louisville."
It wasn't a lie, not fully anyway, and yet the oh-so-confusing and tantalizing pamphlet glowed hot in her pocket as she said it.
They had only stayed at the Manoban mansion for another hour after Roseanne's talk with Jacqueline, and in that time Roseanne's confusion had turned into a warm interest.
Was there really something that could help Lisa hear again? How amazing was that?
Charlie scoffed from the backseat, pulling Roseanne from her thoughts. "Of course, she did."
"What?" Roseanne caught Charlie's hazy eyes in the mirror. "What do you mean?"
Charlie stared back as if the answer were obvious. "Roseanne! Of course, Jacqueline would tell you about something that would –"
Lisa had been watching as well and at that point reached back and made a sudden, sharp sign.
Charlie's jaw snapped closed so fast that Roseanne could hear the click from the front seat. Charlie huffed as she sank deeper into her seat, her arms crossed.
Roseanne hated this about Jacqueline; she never knew where to stand. She felt like that awkward friendless person at a party, forced to step this way and that, trying to figure out where the hell she would best blend in. "Whoa, whoa, whoa, lady!" she protested to her girlfriend. "Clearly there is something there that I need to know!"
Charlie glared at Lisa for a moment. Roseanne could see that they were having another one of those fights with their eyes, the ones in which she had no idea what they were saying to each other. She hated being left out of the club.
Finally, Charlie shook her head, turning her gaze back out of the window, ever the faithful best friend.
Roseanne knew that this was something she needed to pay attention to, really she did, and perhaps if her mind had not still been fixated on the implant, she might have stopped to take note. Instead, the interaction between her girlfriend and Charlie quickly drifted away, her mind returning to strange wires and tiny gadgets.
She was dying to ask Lisa about the implant, to get every bit of information Lisa had on the subject, but Jacqueline had been clear. This was a Christmas gift, and so she wasn't allowed to mention it. She wished she had thought to ask Jacqueline more questions. Why had Lisa never told her this was a possibility? Did Lisa even know?
Roseanne was still buzzing when they arrived back at Lisa's loft. Charlie, in a sour mood, flung her hand up over her shoulder as a goodbye, and disappeared without following them inside.
Upstairs, Lisa poured herself another glass of wine as Roseanne helped Luke into his pajamas.
"I've never seen you drink this much," Roseanne smirked when Luke had kissed them both and been tucked in. "It's fun."
"Mm." Lisa sat with a thump on the stool in the kitchen, nearly tipping backward. "Call it a survival tactic. I drink a little more than normal at my mother's home. I'm sure, knowing her, she is convinced I have a drinking problem. That would be very like her. I don't mind because after I have a few drinks I tend to miss all the little... comments. Or at least I miss them more than normal, that is."
Roseanne scoffed, taking the glass from Lisa's hand and sipping her wine. "I sure as hell noticed. She's an interesting woman. I don't know if I get it." Jacqueline was so cold, but she was Lisa's mother. Something in her gut told her that maybe Jacqueline was more than the cold bitch she seemed. She had to be. No one could be that frosty.
Lisa offered her a glass of her own and, once Roseanne took it, leaned against her with a sigh. A moment of silence passed before Lisa spoke in a small voice. "It makes me nervous that you think she's interesting instead of abhorrent."
Roseanne ran her hand though Lisa's hair, listening to the sound of Lisa's voice. She had grown used to it quickly, to the way she sounded. She had been surprised by it once, by the way it was just a little deeper, just a little constricted. She had even grown used to the way that when they were alone, Lisa's voice grew even thicker, deeper, even more nasal as she released her white-knuckle grip on control.
Would... could her voice change? If this gift happened, would that small part of Lisa be different?
"Why?" Roseanne asked. "I mean I do think she's... abhorrent, I can't believe the things she says to you and Charlie. I just, I don't know, I don't want to think that your mom is a total jerk."
Lisa smiled and pulled her in for a kiss. "I like that you want to see the best in her. Just be careful."
Roseanne gave her half a smile back.
"Come on." Lisa pulled her up. "Let's go to bed."
Hand in Lisa's, she let herself be pulled toward the stairs.
They showered and enjoyed one another for a while, but after Lisa had drifted to sleep Roseanne slipped from between the covers and tiptoed to the second-floor office. Once she was settled in front of the computer, she typed two words into the search engine: Cochlear Implant.
She sipped another glass of wine as she read about the structure, how it works, the way it signaled sound to the brain, the surgical procedure. She studied late into the night, tears rolling steadily down her face as she binged videos of people hearing sound for the first time. She watched for hours, each video becoming the same thing: Lisa. If the video was an old, wrinkled crone then she became a late-in-life Lisa; if it was an infant, then it became Lisa as a toddler.
The longer she watched, the more obsessive her thoughts became. What if this had existed when Lisa was young? What would her life have been? Would she know her as the pianist in the symphony instead of her boss? She wondered what Lisa's face would look like, what would Roseanne see on those beautiful features when she heard her name for the first time since she was a kid. Would she remember what it sounded like? If she helped Jacqueline do this, give this to Lisa, then would Roseanne have the honor of being the one to say it? Would she be there?
The idea of that, of Roseanne's voice being the first that Lisa heard in over twenty-five years pushed her from her chair, making her pace and gasp for a while, overwhelmed. The research online was all very clear: this was a freaking great contraption and it changed lives for the better. Roseanne was in awe of the videos. The more she watched, the more excited she got, the more she knew she wanted to help.
At some point in the night, she switched from wine to coffee but continued to study, to gather all the facts that she could. It wasn't until a pale light was beginning to shine in through the wall of windows that she slipped back into bed with Lisa, jittery and tired.
She had to sleep, she knew she did. Luke would be a handful in just a few hours and she had things she needed to do, but each time she closed her eyes they would pop back open a few moments later, completely out of her control. Her mind was too full for sleep.
"It was the loudest silence I had ever heard..."
- - - -
