If a Tree Falls Read Online Free PDF Page A

for the deaf. Nellie and another sister, Elish, married two brothers from the same family, both printers by trade.
    I wondered if those brothers were deaf, too. There were no marks by their names on the family tree, but from the reading I’d done, printing was a likely profession for the deaf because it was solitary and the noise of the working press wasn’t a bother to them.
    Why didn’t my father ever talk about all this? Why didn’t he say something when Sophia failed the hearing test?
    My father’s brown eyes peered at me over the thick horn rim of his eyeglasses. “Jenny, your mother and I found out all we could about the family’s deafness before having you children. We brought the family chart to a geneticist. We were told that the family branches with deaf relatives
on them were too distant from ours to indicate a genetic transfer. That’s why I didn’t mention it to you when you called from the hospital.” My father unrolled his leather tobacco pouch, packed his pipe and lit it. I stood, looking at him. His hair was peppered gray. His eyes were cloudy, soft. I clutched the white painted banister.
    “There’s one other detail, Jenny,” my father’s voice was slightly hoarse. “It’s always stayed with me. Tante Nellie and Tante Bayla—they tied strings from their wrists to their babies at bedtime. When the babies fidgeted, they would feel their tugs and wake to care for them in the night.”
     
    Strings, wrist to wrist: ties in the darkness to combat disconnection! I reeled with this image, this innovation of hearing. I stepped toward my father and bent slightly. He kissed me on the top of my head, like a small child.

California, October 2000
    HOME IN CALIFORNIA, with my toes nestled beneath Lucca’s soft fur as she lay at my feet, I scanned websites, studied American Sign Language hand forms, and read what I could about deafness. Every fact, every anecdote cast new shadows in my mind, bouncing into my fears, my hopes, for Sophia. I figured out how to nurse Sophia, even change her diaper, while using the phone, dialing still more relatives rumored to have worked on our shared family tree. I didn’t leave the house much. It felt like a relief, one Friday evening, to dress myself and Sophia in fancy clothes and drive to a party at Bill’s office.
    Cradling Sophia in my arms while clutching the Styrofoam edge of a cup between my fingers, I weaved my way around the crowded reception room. Bill was mingling, beaming with pride as people rushed and fawned over Sophia. I sipped my iced tea.

    Bill explained to some coworkers that we were considering high-powered hearing aids for Sophia. The audiologist thought they might give Sophia usable access to spoken language. She could be fitted for them within a month. Bill’s manner was upbeat, undaunted. I still spent my days and nights tripping over piles of loss and worry, but Bill leapt right over these.
    “Why don’t you let her be who she is?” The man standing to my left was admiring Sophia and speaking to me.
    “What?” I asked.
    “Why don’t you let Sophia be who she is?”
    “Who is she?” I looked at Sophia. She was two months old. Did she have an identity yet?
    “She is deaf,” he answered. “She was born without access to sound. Why not let her live that way?”
    Deaf. That couldn’t be who Sophia is , could it? Just as I started to object, he excused himself to chase a tray of stuffed mushrooms.
    Was it one hundred degrees in here? I gulped my iced tea and scanned the crowded room, noticing for the first time how low the ceiling was. I switched Sophia to my shoulder and peeled off my sweater. I didn’t want to mingle. I didn’t want a curried chicken skewer. What I wanted was to be connected with my baby.

    I felt my face flushing. My Styrofoam cup didn’t transfer any cold to my cheek.

    At home, later that night, I walked into the nursery to check on Sophia. She was swaddled cozily in her lavender striped pajama suit, sleeping