Show Me a Sign Read online

  DEDICATED TO

  THE MEMORY OF

  MY BROTHER,

  PETER GEORGE LE ZOTTE (1968–2016),

  AND TO

  THE FELLOW DREAMERS

  AND ADVENTURERS

  OF OUR YOUTH

  The Deaf … are everywhere …

  They existed before you spoke of them

  and before you saw them.

  LAURENT CLERC,

  DEAF FRENCHMAN, AND THE FIRST DEAF TEACHER IN AMERICA

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Prologue

  PART ONE

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  PART TWO

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Copyright

  If you are reading this, I suppose you want to know more about the terrible events of last year—which I almost didn’t survive—and the community where I live.

  Every small village must think itself perfectly unique. I now know there was not another like ours in America, in the Year of Our Lord, 1805. For those who take hearing and speaking for granted, our way of life may be hard to understand.

  You may be fooled into believing that Chilmark, on Martha’s Vineyard—an island south of Boston—is a fancy of my imagination. Or the lost paradise that the English captain who named the land after his daughter was seeking long ago.

  I’ve tried to be true to every detail and do justice not only to my friends and family, but also to my enemies. It was the stranger invited to our shores who changed my view forever.

  I warn you, there are accounts of great wickedness along with hope in these pages.

  As for my mastery of the language, I will remind you that not every writer comes to English from the same direction.

  My story is built not with brick and mortar, but by finding the right words and making events come to life. If it were a palace, it would have many windows and doors—to see your reflection, peer into, and walk through. I hope you will be brave enough to enter.

  Mary Elizabeth Lambert

  I like to walk early in the morning, before I begin my chores, even in this crisp November weather. I use my birch stick to poke at curious things on the ground, like the tunnels made by moles. They go so deep, they churn up the sand below the soil.

  When I leave home early enough, I can see bright flashes from the Gay Head Light in the distance. But today the sun is up.

  I run my stick across the top of the mossy stone wall that frames the high road and watch the sea glitter behind gabled houses with sloping yards. Sea grass borders the sand, blowing lightly in the cool breeze. Blue crabs burrow into the mud near the shore, where they’ll lay dormant for the winter.

  On the beach, there’s little left of the humpback whale that washed upon our shores four days ago, delivered by the Almighty.

  My closest friend, Nancy Skiffe, and I discovered the whale while playing. It was already dead when we found it, but its smell was not yet putrid. Small seabirds pecked at its carcass. Its sea-worn, mottled black skin was covered in humps and bumps. We were awestruck by its massive bulk.

  Nancy and I walked a large circle around it. I collected scallop shells, moon shells, and quahog shells and put them next to the whale, as a final offering from a human friend. Nancy took a recorder out of her cloak and played a song to guide the beast to its end.

  When Nancy and I ran to get her father, my papa, and the other men, they came with spades, knives, rope, and wheelbarrows.

  As they made plans to dispose of the whale, Papa, sensing my sadness, signed to me assuredly, “Not one piece shall go unused. Meat for the whole town, oil for our lamps, and baleen in the beast’s mouth for brushes.”

  I couldn’t watch as our treasure was flensed, cut, and taken away, piece by piece.

  I stop and write whale in the sand with my stick. I love words, but they confound me too. The way my mind thinks is not just in signs or English words and sentences, but in images and a flow of feeling that I imagine resembles the music I’ve never heard.

  I watch the tide leaping in and out.

  I pass a stretch of high road that I have come to avoid. I circle around it as if it is hallowed ground and head back home. Leaves jump and twirl ahead of me; the wind beckons me toward a small graveyard. I choose to ignore its silent whispers.

  Great warmth and a savory smell emanate from our kitchen. A large, clean brick fireplace dominates the room, along with the kettle hanging from a trammel hook. I step through a beautiful slice of sunlight on the floor and touch my mother’s back.

  “Morning,” she signs, one hand rounded like the sun, the other arm acting as the horizon it climbs.

  “Morning. Cooking?” I ask, mimicking stirring a pot.

  Mama signs, “For supper.”

  She points to the meat pie on the table. I helped her make it two days ago. Today is the last serving. She places the pitcher beside me on the table. I’m to fill it from a shallow well in our yard. “First pie eat.”

  Mama delicately wipes the back of her hand across her sweat-beaded forehead. Even with the dirt smudges, her face is beautiful, with cheeks reddened by the fire. Her black hair and blue eyes are like coal and sky. George had her coloring. Mama glances at his empty chair and blinks away unshed tears. Then she’s back to work, with her spoon dipped in the large kettle.

  I dutifully finish the last piece of meat pie and grab the pitcher. Mama taps me on the shoulder. I turn around to face her.

  “Three,” she signs, holding up as many fingers. I am to fill the pitcher three times, adding the water to the kettle two times. Always, the last pitcher is for cleaning up.

  The task is easy enough. Papa dug a shallow well right next to our house, by the pear and apple trees. On an island, you can’t dig a well too deeply unless you want to drink and cook with salt water.

  Back in the kitchen, I rinse corn, beans, and squash from our garden. These foods grow plentifully in every season. The Wampanoag, the local Indians, call them “the three sisters.” They work together to grow—corn provides height for the bean stalk, squash provides mulch, and the beans provide beneficial gasses to the soil.

  There is much discord between the Wampanoag and us Vineyarders that I know worries Mama and Papa. Papa says that we both lay claim to the same tracts of land, and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts goes back and forth in its rulings. The Wampanoag believe land should be held collectively, rather than as personal property. How can that be?

  Papa is sympathetic to the Wampanoag. Perhaps it’s because he labors side by side with them on the f
arm. Mama socializes only with English women. She is glad early missionaries to the island succeeded in Christianizing so many Wampanoag. I was raised to accept her beliefs. But ever since George died too young and without just cause, I have begun to question everything.

  When I’m done cooking, I’m supposed to wipe the table, but instead I watch Mama wash a dish and wonder at her contentment with her daily chores. She always does them meticulously and with great calm. The last time I stacked the plates, I chipped two of them. I prefer making up stories.

  “I saw a lion on the beach today,” I sign.

  Mama wrinkles her brow as she carefully lays a pan of hot cranberry muffins on a trivet.

  She shakes her head and signs, “You shouldn’t tell tall tales.”

  “But it’s true,” I insist, tapping my index finger against my closed lips.

  “Tell me,” Mama signs. She takes off her apron and sits down at the wooden table Papa built.

  I sweep my hair away from my eyes—it is important that my face shows, even though it is positively dull. I don’t have Mama’s and George’s fine features. My thick hair, which Mama calls the color of sunlight, has cowlicks that don’t curl as smartly as other girls’ hair. It gives me lumpy braids, and I’m too young for a bun. I tuck it behind my ears, and it hangs to the middle of my chest.

  I remain standing so I can express myself with my whole body, not just my hands.

  “When the tide came roaring in today, I saw the lion.”

  Mama frowns. “There are no lions on Martha’s Vineyard,” she signs emphatically. “Ezra Brewer put those ideas in your head.”

  “No, it was Miss Hammond. I love her teachings. She always shares fascinating stories from her brother-in-law who is a sailor. He claims he saw a mermaid once. And Miss Hammond says the lion is ‘the king of the jungle.’ ”

  “We have no jungles, Mary. No lions.”

  Mama’s eyes are watery and her shoulders slump.

  “The dark waves were so high, and the sea spray was white against them,” I sign, my eyes and mouth wide open to show awe. “I stayed back. One wave got bigger and bigger, and it looked like a lion’s head roaring before it crashed against the rocks.”

  “That is fanciful,” Mama signs. “It’s not true life.”

  “But it looked like a lion to me,” I sign.

  I see Mama sigh. She has never had time for fancies. Papa enjoys when I tell a tale, and George was always most excited by my whimsies. His amusement at my storytelling made me perform more energetically. I sometimes even teased a smile out of Mama.

  Mama stands up and begins to remove the muffins from the pan. I help her, then wrap two in a cloth.

  “Walk beach, give to Ezra Brewer,” I sign.

  Mama nods, but I can read a slight look of disapproval in her face. Ezra Brewer is not Mama’s favorite inhabitant of our township, Chilmark. I’m not sure why she dislikes him. Papa enjoys his company and stories. I sometimes wonder if his farmer’s heart longs for the excitement of the high seas.

  “I promise I’ll return later to help you,” I sign, crossing my fingers behind my back.

  As I walk out the door, I think I see Mama call out to me from the corner of my eye. George was hearing like Mama. I am deaf like Papa, and no manner of shouting will get our attention.

  I confess I do not turn back.

  We live up-island. To get to Ezra Brewer’s, I walk down the high road toward our pastures. I do not see Papa or our herding dog, Sam. They must be back at the barn.

  Our sheep farm sits on rolling meadows bounded by stone walls. From the high road to the Atlantic Ocean beyond, Chilmark is a hilly place. I sign, “Good morrow, sheep.” They barely look up.

  Our grazing pastures are part of the much larger Allen farm. With permission from the colonial government, the local sachem sold it to them in 1762. The Allens have rented the land to the Lamberts for generations.

  I pass the timber-framed barn that Papa’s father built. It has large tubs for sheep dipping and space for sheep shearing. In two small, adjacent buildings there is a very old corncrib for storing dried ears of corn, and a stone peat house, where rotting vegetation for conditioning the land is stored.

  When I reach the hallowed ground on the high road, memories come rolling in like dark clouds.

  My brother, George, and I are in the road. We are laughing. He is chasing me in circles, grabbing for a tool in my hand.

  Clouds drift past the sun. I look up, shading my eyes with one hand when George slips the tool out from my other. I look directly into his face. He is smiling.

  But then he pushes me hard. I am surprised by the force of his attack. I land facedown in the dirt with a thud. Then I see the flash of wheels.

  They are fine wheels, black with gold trim. They spin fast. Toward George. Before he can do anything, one cracks, and George disappears underneath. I scream a scream I cannot hear.

  I look up to see the horse’s wild eyes. Even with the bit in its mouth, it seems to be squealing. It bridles, spooked. Where’s George?

  The horse cart swerves and comes to a halt, and that’s when I see him. I scramble to my brother.

  The driver hops off his seat and runs to George.

  George’s eyes are open. His lips smeared with blood. His chest still.

  When I feel a hand on my shoulder, I shake it free. I look up into the face of Jeremiah Skiffe, Nancy’s uncle. He seems twice the size of an ordinary man. He stares at George. He doesn’t move. Was it his cart?

  I stagger to my feet and stumble toward our house. My ankle stings; it twisted when George pushed me out of the way.

  Mama is running from the house toward me. Did she hear my scream? Did she see? I collapse into her arms. “George” is all I sign. I don’t tell her how we came to be in the road.

  A hired laborer must have alerted Papa to the commotion and the yelling because I see him running to the high road.

  Jeremiah Skiffe remains crouched by George’s body but then stands to face Papa. He signs awkwardly. I cannot read his gestures. Papa makes no sign to him.

  I watch Papa gather George in his arms. He slips in the mud as he carries him to the barn. Jeremiah Skiffe follows, attempting to assist in some way.

  Mama lets go of me and runs to catch up with them. She sways as she touches her son. When Jeremiah Skiffe gently steadies her by grasping her shoulder, she turns and beats on his chest.

  I pinch my arm to return to the present moment. That was eight months ago, at the beginning of springtime. But inside me, it feels like fresh dew.

  I turn my attention to the Hillman house. In spring and summer, their yard is full of greensward, and their fence and arched trellises disappear beneath roses of every color and scent. Now all that richness is covered with frost.

  I go to school with the Hillmans’ youngest daughter, Sarah. I can’t say that we are compatible. She cares too much for appearances and wants other girls to follow behind her. She doesn’t mind that we don’t attend school year-round or study as many subjects as the boys do. But I chafe at the unfairness. Though I like our moving school that is situated in different towns for different seasons, I wish I could attend Edgartown Academy, where George boarded for weeks at a time. He learned Latin and was preparing to enter college. I wish I could bring home armfuls of books and pore over them for the secrets they unlock.

  Miss Hammond makes up for some of the unfairness by being such a wonderful teacher. Matthew Pye is courting her. I pass his blacksmith’s forge; its soft-coal fire smoke fills my nostrils. I can feel the sound of the hammer on the anvil ring out through the air. I secretly hope Miss Hammond and Matthew Pye don’t marry so she’ll stay on as my teacher.

  A little farther on, I spot Isaiah Butler standing atop the stone wall, holding his spyglass. When you look through the smaller end, you can see great distances magnified in the larger end. I have borrowed Papa’s to watch for whales and to stargaze.

  “Who?” I sign, curious who he is watching.

 
; “John Skiffe,” he spells with his fingers. Mr. Butler is a short, rotund man who is known to engage in gossip.

  It is common practice for Vineyarders to use a spyglass to converse with neighbors whose houses are far apart. If they are hearing, signals are sent by blowing a large horn. Then both parties take up their spyglasses to read each other’s signs. If the other party is deaf, like Mr. Skiffe, they choose a time.

  “Did you know?” he signs to me. “A young scientist is coming to town! He stopped at Edgartown Harbor first. Look out for his schooner on the beach, the SS Defiance.”

  I have never met a scientist. Very few people stop at the Vineyard for anything more than trading.

  “Why is he coming?” I ask.

  “That I don’t know,” signs Mr. Butler. “Just that he’s a friend of Reverend Lee coming to work on our island.”

  “Thank you for telling me,” I sign, eager to tell Ezra Brewer. “Good day.”

  How exciting to have a stranger in our midst!

  As a rule, our small island community does not take kindly to strangers. When they have docked down-island at Edgartown Harbor to bring us provisions and trade for our whale oil and wool, that’s one thing. But unless they have a relative on the island, or a resident to sponsor or introduce them, strangers are met with suspicion.

  While I walk, I make up a story to please myself. It’s something I’ve done for as long as I can remember. If I’m restless in bed, it helps me fall asleep. If I’m bored, it entertains me. Sometimes it helps me make sense of things that lack sense.

  Miss Hammond says I have a vivid imagination and that I can tell the truth from lies. She says that I’m a natural storyteller. I hope to become a schoolteacher like her one day. Then I would have my own collection of books, and I wouldn’t have to justify the urge to read and write rather than cook and clean.

  I must look funny, walking along signing to no one in particular. Mama tells me it is no different from hearing people who talk to themselves.

  I imagine a girl assisting a scientist with his great discovery. They are looking for a fresh spring. Not just any spring. This one contains sparkling water, and if you drink it, it makes you live forever. There is more than one map to the source. They search high and low, sometimes retracing their steps. They climb mountains and descend into valleys under the setting sun.