To Watch These Woods Fill Up With Snow
My parents sit in the living room, gazes fixed on the blaring television game show that actually doesn't need any sound at all. It doesn't matter that the sound is too high for them to talk; they couldn't hear each other anyway. Dad can only wear a hearing aid in one ear and Mom's hearing aids don't work. Dad has never learned any sign language and Mom has forgotten every sign she ever knew, even the ones she taught me. (I was careful to still my face when I realized she had forgotten "I love you".) It is too dim for lip reading. Both would protest the cost of a higher wattage bulb, let alone the electricity.
I stand in the kitchen, mobile to my ear, knowing I have as much privacy as I need. My sister-in-law is on the line; we are trying to sift crucial information from the fragments we've been given.
She asks "Doesn't anyone in your family ever communicate anything to anyone else in your family?"
"No," I reply. "Not as such."
I stand in the kitchen, mobile to my ear, knowing I have as much privacy as I need. My sister-in-law is on the line; we are trying to sift crucial information from the fragments we've been given.
She asks "Doesn't anyone in your family ever communicate anything to anyone else in your family?"
"No," I reply. "Not as such."