Free Listen! by Frances Itani Page B

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. Backthen, 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