Shaking the Sugar Tree (6 page)

“Then we wish you the best,” Mr. Warren had said, steering his wife out of the hospital room and refusing to listen to her protests.

Standing there now, with the two of them, I couldn’t help but think of that night.

True to their word, they had nothing to do with Noah. No birthday cards, Thanksgiving dinners, Christmas presents. They did not call and ask how Noah was doing. They did not ask to have Noah for a couple of weeks over the summer so that I could have a break from parenting and they could spend quality time with their flesh and blood. They were not concerned about his health, his progress at school, his grades, his hearing aids, what his favorite sport was, who his favorite superhero was, what it was like to experience the world as a deaf child.

Noah looked up to me, sensing the tension in my body, his eyes asking what was wrong. I shook my head in a way that suggested something was wrong but he was not to worry about it.

He put his arm around my waist.

We waited for Kayla’s release in silence. The camera was a reassuring weight against my chest.

At about five minutes to eight, another car pulled up, parking at some distance from us. It had modified rims, tinted windows, was rather showy. It was dark blue, almost black. The young man who stepped out wore sunglasses, a tank top, and baggy shorts that were almost falling off his skinny ass. There were tattoos on his arms, a cigarette in the corner of his lips.

He was a man going somewhere in this life. Where, well, he probably had no clue.

He did not look at us.

I saw Mr. and Mrs. Warren exchange a worried glance.

Who is that?
Noah asked me.

I don’t know.

He bit at his lip.

I held him to me, my arms over his chest, as though I were telling him that whatever happened, we were in this together and he was safe with me. He put his hands on my arms, and I saw Mrs. Warren glancing uneasily at his left hand with its extra pinkie. I put my hand on it to cover it. She looked up at me, realizing I had caught her looking.

She looked away, embarrassed.

Mr. Warren glanced at me, a look of disapproval in his eyes that I knew only too well. Noah and I were too friendly, too affectionate, too touchy-feely. I did not bother to explain that touch is an important part of a relationship with a deaf person, especially a deaf child. It’s one of the ways they connect with others. They can tell a lot about you just by touching you, holding you, connecting with you. Your body is a map as far as they’re concerned.

At precisely eight o’clock that Monday morning, under cloudy skies that promised rain, a door opened at the end of a long, fenced-in corridor, and Kayla appeared, escorted by a female prison guard. Kayla wore street clothes, carried a duffel bag. She was still pretty, in a way. She would always be pretty to me, I guess. She had gained weight, but not much. She looked healthy for a change. Had cut her hair really short.

Noah broke from my arms and ran to the locked gate on this side of the walkway.

“Ma!” he exclaimed happily. “Ma!”

He had spent a great many hours practicing that one syllable. It rang out across the parking lot. It was too loud; he couldn’t judge how loud to speak. It sounded awkward, more like a grunt or a honk than a word. It was not a word he used often.

She glanced at him, frowning.

The guard led her to the gate, unlocked it.

“Good luck, Miss Kayla,” the guard said, setting her free.

“Ma!” Noah repeated, going to her, putting his face against her chest, his arms around her waist, smiling with a crazy happiness.

She looked bewildered, uncomfortable.

No one moved, so I went forward, took the duffel bag from her hand.

“How are you, Kayla?” I asked.

“I told you not to come,” she said through clenched teeth.

“He wanted to see his mother.”

“Goddammit, Wiley,” she said. “Will you get him off me?”

I dropped her duffel bag, glad to hear something or other break when it hit the concrete. I pulled Noah away, held him back.

She snatched up the bag, looked down at him. She did not know what to say.

“Hello, Noah,” she offered at last, her voice stiff.

“Ma,” he repeated.

“So what’s happening?”

“I fine,” he said, offering his brightest smile.

He was still learning to read lips, could work out some of the basic interactions. He knew the first question someone would most likely ask was how he was, so he automatically said he was fine.

Kayla’s lower lip trembled and she pulled her eyes away from him and looked around, the expression in her eyes dazed.

“I know it’s not good timing, but I was hoping to get a picture of you and Noah,” I said quietly. “He doesn’t have one, you know.”

She rolled her eyes and exhaled rather sharply.

“I want him to have at least
one
,” I said softly.

She gave me furtive look, as if she couldn’t believe her ears.

“Ma,” Noah said, pulling on her shirtsleeve, trying to get her attention.

“What?” she snapped, looking back to him. Her face was tense. Noah was sure to notice it.

“I love you,” he said. It came out sounding like “Ai of ewe.”

“Oh,” she said, frowning.

Her mother and father came forward.

“Come with us, Kayla,” Mr. Warren said in a voice that was obviously used to being obeyed.

“I’m not going with you, Daddy,” she said firmly, glancing at the young man who had propped himself on the hood of his car, watching us.

“Kayla,” he said in warning.

She looked at us with uncertain eyes. She was close to tears. I could sense that. Flustered. Unhappy. Wringing her hands together nervously.

“I’ve got to go,” she announced suddenly, her decision made.

She turned away from us and headed for the young man with the cool car.

“Kayla!” her father shouted angrily.

She shook her head but refused to look back.

“If you go with him, don’t you ever come back!” Mr. Warren shouted. “I’m warning you!”

“Ma!” Noah called in alarm.

He broke free from my grip and ran after her.

I went after him.

“Don’t you dare come back!” her father screamed.

“Kayla?” her mother called. “Kayla!”

Noah ran around to the front of her, grabbing her again, squeezing his arms tightly around her waist, hugging her with all his little might. She struggled with him, trying to push him away.

“Ma!” he sobbed.

“Stop it!” she exclaimed angrily.

“Ma!”

“Let me go! Goddammit!”

He wouldn’t let her go, didn’t understand what she wanted.

She shoved him roughly, fearfully, and he fell backwards on the concrete, throwing out a hand to break his fall.

“Jesus!” Kayla exclaimed loudly, smoothing out her shirt as if she had been covered with little-boy cooties.

She hurried to the car, got inside, and slammed the door shut with a terrible finality.

The tattooed man got in, started the car.

They roared off.

I crouched down, took Noah in my arms, inspecting the cuts on his hand. Bright blobs of blood appeared on his skin.

“Ma!” he sobbed, looking confused and bewildered at this fresh rejection.

The word was now a long moan filled with agony.

“Maaaaaaaaaaa!”

“Hush, baby,” I said, holding him.

He put his face against my chest and cried.

“Maaaaa?”

The sound became a question, a cry of astonishment, confusion.

“It’s okay, baby,” I said, stroking his hair.

“Aaaaahhhhh,” he sobbed, opening his mouth wide, groaning. “Aaaahhhhh!”

“Hush, sweetie,” I said.

Mr. and Mrs. Warren got into their SUV and drove slowly away.

The female prison guard stood at the gate, watching us.

I got Noah to his feet and we walked in her direction.

“Could we use your bathroom?” I asked.

She looked at Noah’s scuffed-up hand, the snot dripping from his nose.

“I’ll get a first-aid kit,” she said, leading us inside.

T
HAT
EVENING
,
we had a quiet dinner of pizza and salad, Noah’s favorites. I had even bought Coke to go with it, though the Cantrell boys were not soda drinkers if only because we couldn’t afford to waste money on food-like products that were high in calories but had no nutritional value to speak of. On KUDZU, Elvis sang about cold Kentucky rains.

Dinner did little to cheer Noah, and when pizza fails to bring a smile of pleasure to my little boy’s face, I know the weather inside his mind is dark and stormy.

Your food is getting cold
, I said.

“Why, Daddy?” he asked plaintively. It came out sounding like “ai dah eeeeee?” He had spent countless hours in speech class just to learn those three sounds, which he could only approximate but not yet master. He spent many evenings with a straw stuck in his tongue trying to figure out the “S” sound.

I don’t know.

“Why?”

I’m sorry.

She thinks I’m dumb.

No, she doesn’t.

She thinks I’m dumb because I’m deaf.

That’s not true.

She doesn’t want to be friends with a stupid dummy.

Don’t call yourself that!

I’m a big stupid deaf dummy.

Stop it!

I hate her!

No you don’t.

She thinks I’m stupid! She wouldn’t hate me if I wasn’t deaf. Why do I have to be deaf? It’s not fair!

Stop it!

I hate her!

I stopped answering. I only shook my head and offered him a look that showed how much his words upset me.

“Haaahhhhhhhhh,” he moaned, tears springing suddenly to his eyes. He got up from the table and ran to his room. “Aaaaahhhhh!”

I went after him.

I heard crashing and banging as he threw things about in typical meth-baby fashion. He had grown out of the worst of it, but there were times when it came back with a vengeance.

When I went into his room, a Rubik’s Cube went flying past my head, sailing out the door and landing in the hall behind me.
Robinson Crusoe
was next, followed by
Huckleberry Finn
. He went to his dresser, yanked on a drawer, spilled its contents. Then he began to bang his head on the top drawer, slamming his head with such force that I rushed over and grabbed him, afraid he was going to bash his brains in.

He beat at me uselessly with his small fists, wailing and moaning all the while, in complete, unbridled rage, carrying on the way he had as a child in the throes of meth withdrawal. He keened in the back of his throat, which sounded like a “hmmmmm!” Then he opened his mouth wide and groaned, which came out as an “ahhhhhh!” His body was like a bag of snakes. I grabbed him up in my arms and sat down on the bed with him, hugging him to my body, waiting for the anger to pass.

After a couple of minutes of useless struggling, he settled down, burying his head against the crook of my neck, sobbing, his arms wrapped around me tightly as if he were afraid to let go.

“Hush now, baby,” I said into his ear.

I knew he couldn’t hear me. But he could feel me. His ear was against my throat, and he could feel the vibrations of my voice in my throat and chest. So I did lots of loving on him. I said “hush” and “shush” and “be quiet” and “it’s all right” and called him “sweetie” and “baby” and “honey” and “my little man” until he fell silent. Then I laid him down on the bed, got a tissue for his snotty nose, and turned on his fan to get the hot air circulating. I sat with him, watching him as he lay there looking up at the ceiling, avoiding my eyes. When he didn’t want to talk, all he had to do was not look at you so he couldn’t see you signing or speaking.

I lay down on the bed next to him and stretched out, feeling incredibly tired. I took his hand in mind and held it and said nothing.

Five minutes later, he was fast asleep.

I
N
THE
morning I padded to the kitchen in boxers, opened the kitchen window, and switched on the overhead fan. How we were going to get through the summer without air-conditioning, I did not know. It seemed to get harder each year. I didn’t think Noah noticed it as much as I did.

I got a pot of coffee underway, flipped on the radio to listen to KUDZU, sat down at the table, thought—briefly—about getting my laptop off the counter and getting back to work on my latest novel.

I wasn’t in the mood for writing. The novel wasn’t going to write itself, unfortunately, but it wasn’t going to be written that particular day either.

Our kitchen table, a cast-off from someone or other, had once sat in a garage where the legs had been chewed by a rodent. One had been chewed so badly it was missing a couple of inches, and I had to put a cinder block beneath it to keep the table even.

“
You can’t tap your feet to the songs on the other stations
,” KUDZU said. “
Why? Because no one’s feet can tap that fast! Keep it here on Classic Country KUDZU 104.9!
”

Bobbie Gentry began to explain about Billy Joe McAllister jumping off the Tallahatchie Bridge. There really was such a bridge over in Greenwood, Mississippi, I knew, but Gentry said she made the song up. The bridge itself collapsed in 1972.
Rolling Stone
did a famous expose on it, deciding it wasn’t a very promising spot to commit suicide since it was only a twenty-foot drop.

I sighed.

I should not have taken Noah to see his mother’s release from prison. She had told me not to, had made no bones about it. I had refused to listen. I’d gotten his hopes up, and she had dashed them. Might as well have thrown a bucket of ice water in his face.

I should have known. I thought time or circumstance might have changed her mind, or just the happiness of finally getting out of prison, or….

I don’t know what I thought.