Page 28 of Tameron

Or…

I hit the FaceTime button before I could talk myself out of it. The house was quiet, so communicating shouldn’t be an issue. “Tameron!” my mom said, joy in her voice. “It’s so lovely to hear from you, honey.”

She put her phone on the little tripod, then looked over her shoulder. I could see the logo of their plumbing business behind her on the wall. “Harold! Tameron is calling.”

“Are you still at work?”

“We were about to leave,” she said, ensuring her face was turned toward the camera. She was better at that than my dad, who tended to forget when he got excited about something. I didn’t always have the heart to interrupt him, so every now and then, I missed parts of what he was saying. Frustrating but minor in the bigger scheme of annoyances in my life.

My dad sat next to my mom, and she adjusted the camera so it captured both of them. “Hey, kiddo,” my father said. “How have you been?”

I wiggled my hand. “Same old, same old. Not much changes in my life. Still primarily focused on learning ASL.”

“We’re learning too,” my mom said.

I blinked. What? I must’ve misheard them. “Sorry, what was that?”

“We’re taking an ASL course for beginners,” Mom said. “Look, I can finger-spell my name.” She painstakingly slowly fingerspelled Margaret and tears formed in my eyes. “And I’ve learned the signs for ‘mom,’ ‘dad,’ and ‘son.’”

Her movements were slow and awkward, but she did the signs correctly, and holy shit, my parents were learning ASL. “That’s…” My voice croaked.

“Honey, are you okay?” Mom asked.

I nodded, barely able to see through my tears. “It means a lot that you’re learning ASL.”

My father cleared his throat. “We should’ve started sooner. We’ve been…waiting, I suppose. Waiting and hoping for you to get better.”

“It’s not gonna get better, Dad. It’s only gonna get worse.”

“Yeah, we realize that now. It took us a while to accept it. It was such a hard blow for us that I can’t even imagine what it must’ve been like for you.”

I wiped my eyes, not even caring that they could see me cry. “It’s okay, Dad.”

“No, it’s not. Your mom and I have been talking about it a lot lately. About how we’ve been so focused on what we lost—your hearing—that we forgot to celebrate what we still had. You’re still here with us, and that’s what matters most.”

Mom nodded emphatically. “We’re so proud of you, honey. The way you’ve handled everything… You’re so much stronger than we ever gave you credit for.”

Damn, now I was really crying. “I don’t feel strong most days.”

“But you are,” Dad insisted. “You keep going, keep trying.”

“And you’re making new friends,” Mom added. “Like that firefighter you mentioned last time. Nash’s friend.”

Heat crept into my cheeks. Had I mentioned Dayton? “Dayton? He’s…he’s actually my yoga teacher now.”

“Is he the one who’s fluent in ASL?” Dad asked.

I nodded. “He’s what’s called a CODA, Child of Deaf Adults. Both his parents are Deaf, and so are his brother and sister. He’s the only hearing one in his family, actually.”

I’d known this all along, but for some reason, saying it aloud made me realize how hard that must’ve been for him. He’d been the odd one out, the one who was different. Like me.

“So you practice ASL with him?” Mom asked.

“I do. He helped me with an assignment the other day, giving me feedback on a talk I had to do. It was super helpful.”

“We’d love to practice with you sometime,” Mom said. “Once we’re better at it, I mean. Right now, we’re still terrible.”

“You’re not terrible. You’re learning. That’s what matters.” I swallowed hard. “Actually, I wanted to ask you guys something.”

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