My Sister's Voice Read Online Free PDF Page A

scrunched-up faces of incomprehension, and disgusting sticky white rice instead of the French fries she’d tried to order.
    Funny, she could understand what they said to each other after she tried to speak. What did she say? I didn’t understand her, did you? She’s deaf and dumb. And when they did understand her, it was even worse. They would make a humiliating fuss as if she should be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for enunciating “I want milk.” Lacey had an urge to bark like a dog whenever anyone told her she “spoke well.” Well, guess what. She signed well too, she had absolutely beautiful ASL, her classifiers were flawless. American Sign Language was her language, her birthright, not some subpar substitute for English.
    But tonight wasn’t about her identity as a Deaf woman, it was about identity period. This wasn’t about expelling myths about Deaf people, this was confronting a face thief. And for that, she was going to need an interpreter. Unfortunately, she knew just who she was going to have to ask.
     
    Kelly Thayler came to Hillcrest when she was thirteen, after a car accident that took her parents and her left leg. Her parents were killed on impact but her left leg lingered until the doctors had no choice but to amputate. Kelly had been at Hillcrest only three years when an aunt who was a tango dancer in Argentina swooped back to the States and took Kelly to California with her. But until then, Kelly stuck to Lacey like glue. All it took was Lacey teaching her the signs for “bitch,” “cookie,” and “lesbian” (all used to talk about Margaret Harris, their house mother, behind her back) for Kelly to be hooked on the secret finger talk.
    In addition to her wheelchair, Kelly had a metal prosthetic leg that had a funny way of disappearing in the middle of the night and showing up in the oddest places, like in the center of the dining room table on Thanksgiving with dandelions and wish flowers from the backyard sticking out the top like a Frankenstein vase. Lacey told her she should blow out the wish flower and wish her leg would stop disappearing.
    But no matter what Lacey did to Kelly, Kelly loved her. And apparently, it was the kind of love that never wore off. A few years ago, Kelly looked Lacey up and e-mailed her. When Lacey didn’t respond, Kelly started an all-out campaign. She sent Lacey recipes, pictures, jokes, chain letters, e-cards, and umpteen album links with pictures of a smiling Kelly in different settings with the same purple turtleneck, until Lacey finally relented and e-mailed her back.
    Kelly had Googled and Facebooked everything she could on Lacey, and was quick to congratulate her on all the parts of her life she had missed out on: graduating with a Master’s in fine arts, learning to ride a motorcycle, skydiving, and establishing herself as a Deaf artist. Kelly raved about how beautiful Lacey still was, and how lucky they were to live in an era where technology could help disabled people like them. Kelly proudly announced she had a cutting-edge prosthetic leg that allowed her to run her first 5k and chase after her children. Then Kelly dropped one final bomb, the one she’d probably been waiting to drop all along, that she’d grown up to become a certified sign language interpreter and that she too was living just outside Philly. If Lacey wanted an interpreter at this late notice, and didn’t want to pay, it looked like she was going to have to pay a visit to her stalker.
     
    “Can you interpret for me tonight? Book signing.” They were sitting in Kelly’s crowded living room on a flowered couch. Lacey and a Tickle Me Elmo were sitting at one end, Kelly on the other, and sandwiched in between them was a four-year-old Korean girl who giggled every time either of them signed.
    “I’d love to,” Kelly said. “But I won’t be able to get a sitter this late, so I’ll just have to bring the kids.” Becoming an interpreter and getting a fancy new leg weren’t the