The Color of Silence (12 page)

Chapter 23

“Blue.” The word slips out between my lips before I can catch it. It doesn't matter because Shawna isn't listening to me. She only has ears for the computer that somehow says what Joanie is looking at, what she's thinking about, wanting to say. I think Shawna and I said the word at the same time, about a split second after the robot voice did.

I never knew a single word could be so cool. I've known the word blue since I was about two years old, but it never sounded like this before. My stomach actually did a flip thing when the word came out into the air, like I just heard my name announced on the radio for winning some big prize.

It's such a little thing—telling us that she's looking at blue instead of yellow. But Joanie's so excited after the big word break that her chair can hardly hold her. She's moving everything that isn't tied down. Her arms are flapping around, moving back and forth like she's in a parade and waving at the crowd. Her mouth is twisting her face up into that strange expression that I figure is as close as she can get to a smile.

“That's a wonderful start, Joanie! Shall we try again?”

The waving gets more frantic, and I start to worry that she's going to have a seizure or start to choke or something. Shawna doesn't know her very well, and maybe she doesn't realize how crappy her lungs are. I've been in her room when the nurse has had to run in and use some gross looking suction thing to clean her out so she can breathe. She has all of these machines that make oxygen for her when she can't. I don't know if getting too excited can hurt her or not, but I don't think Shawna knows either. I want to say something, but I don't know if I can do it.

“Hey. Slow down.” I make the words and force them out right beside Joanie's ear, figuring that Shawna's distracted enough not to notice. Joanie looks me in the eye, and I imagine that she's nodding, even though I know she can't. She closes her eyes and seems to try to take a deep breath, even though I don't know if she can. I don't usually touch people, but her arms are moving so quickly that I can't think of anything else to do. I reach out and gently put one hand on each of her arms. I have no idea if that will help or hurt, so I only keep them there a couple of seconds.

Joanie opens her eyes at my touch. Her arms seem to be slowing down to their usual gentle underwater ballet.

“Thanks, Alexandra. I'm glad you're here. I guess I got a little too excited myself.” Shawna is looking at me. I didn't think she would be and I don't know what to do. No one's been glad to have me around for a really long time.

“We'll add one more and then that'll be it for today. This time, Joanie, focus on the green square.” Shawna touches the screen for a second and then sits back. This time there are three squares lit up. The green and yellow are separated, one at the top left and the other at the bottom right, while the blue square has stayed in the middle of the screen.

Joanie keeps her eyes open, almost as if she's trying to force herself not to even blink. Her head is held tightly by her chair so only her eyes can move toward the screen. I catch myself sucking in a breath, trying to stay afloat as I watch her face. As Joanie's eyes move over the screen, each square they land on lights up for just a piece of a second. The computer doesn't talk unless she stops longer than that, so we just have a light show for a minute or so while she tries to get her eyes on the right square. I'm all tensed up, my eyes wide open and glued to the screen, but at the same time I'm trying to stay back enough that I don't accidentally get into the act and screw everything up for her. I wish I knew more about how this works so I could figure out what to do for her. How long does she have to look at it? What happens if she can't do it? What comes next if she can?

I want this to work so much, I feel like I'm jumping out of my own skin into hers so I can make her eyes do what they need to. Finally, I see movement to the left where green is waiting much more patiently than I am. The square lights up and stays lit long enough for the computer to figure it out.

“Green.” The robot gets it in one. My own eyes sting for a second, probably from staring so hard, and I feel my face crack as I smile in relief.

“Green.” Shawna smiles also. She's probably seen this sort of thing hundreds of times, but she looks totally thrilled.

Joanie's face literally lights up from the inside somewhere. Her eyes seem brighter, and her cheeks seem flushed. She's smiling all over her face. Her hands start picking up speed again, but this time it doesn't seem as scary.

“We have the system on loan for the next several weeks.
It's a portable one, so we can keep on working down here, and after a couple of weeks, Alexandra, you can come down when you are here and take it up to the ward. If you could come in some time on your own, I'll try to find the time to show you how it all works. Joanie, you did wonderfully for your first day. I was so hoping this would work. We still have a lot of work to do, but this is such a great start.” She looks almost teary eyed, and my eyes sting again. I rub them a little and shake my head. I'm not thinking about crying, am I? I haven't cried for hundreds of days. Not going to start now.

I wheel Joanie back out into the hall. I know I'm supposed to take her straight upstairs, but it seems like kind of a letdown after all the excitement in Shawna's office. I can't take her outside without permission. What else can we do? I stand with my hands on the handles at the back of the chair, looking at all the people moving around us. No one notices us much. Once in a while someone smiles, but mostly everyone has somewhere to go, and it seems that they're all in a hurry. I scan the words printed on the signs littering the top of the walls, looking for inspiration. Cafeteria? No, not too exciting when you can't eat. Promenade? What's a promenade? I've heard that word before. I search through the mess that has become my brain to see if I can dig it out. I used to have a very organized brain, nice rows of information waiting for me to retrieve whatever I need. That all got scrambled along with the rest of my life. Maybe not scrambled. Fried. Boiled. Burnt.

A “promenade” sounds nice, regardless of what it means, so I head in the direction of the sign. About a four-minute walk later, we arrive at what is basically a very small shopping mall. Promenade is a much nicer word than mall. I lean over Joanie's chair to see if she's OK with the change in plan. She looks cool with it, so I keep walking.

I'm probably not supposed to do this without permission, either. Cali would be proud.

It's not much of a mall, but I figure it's more than Joanie's used to seeing in a day. There's a coffee shop with a long lineup of nurses in colorful scrubs; they look like an impatient, caffeine-starved rainbow. I want to say this to Joanie, but there are too many people floating around us who might hear me. There's a magazine store and a baby-clothes store. Nothing I'm too interested in, and likely nothing Joanie is interested in. We walk a little more. The next store is a flower shop, with all kinds of weird little crafty gifty things in it. Joanie seems interested, so I head over.

We spend a few minutes wandering around looking at bunches of strong-smelling flowers. Joanie seems to think it's all pretty wonderful at first, but then I notice that her eyes have changed. It's like the light suddenly went out, and I wonder if that means she's tired and has had enough.

We haven't been here that long, but I guess it's time to head back up to her room.

“You're back. Good. It took a little longer than I thought it would. I was about to send a search party.” Patrick is waiting at Joanie's door. I feel a little panic flutter in my gut. Am I in trouble? Did I mess up? I make myself look at him. He's smiling away at Joanie. It doesn't look like I'm in trouble.

“So, how did it go?” He asks the question of Joanie as he quickly and efficiently moves her out of her chair and back into bed. He doesn't seem to realize that he didn't even wait for me to come and be the second “man.” Before I have a chance to even step forward and offer, she's tucked away comfortably.

Well, tucked away anyhow. I'm not so sure she's ever comfortable.

Joanie looks up at him as best she can. Her head is out of its restraints, so it's moving on the pillow, which makes it hard for her to focus. She still manages one of her smiles in Patrick's general direction.

“I take it from that face that it went well?” He looks at her and then turns to look at me, eyebrows raised. I nod at him. He seems like a nice man, and I wish for a second that I could figure out a way to talk to him. But it's better this way. If I started to talk, he would find out who I really am, and he wouldn't be so nice to me anymore. So I keep my mouth shut.

“I'll be back in a few minutes, Joanie. It's supper time. See you next time, Alexandra.”

I go over to the bed. She looks at me for a second and kind of half smiles. Or maybe she grimaces. I can't tell because her eyes are too tired. She closes them, and I wonder if she's going to fall asleep before he brings her supper. I wonder if it matters, or if Patrick will just pump her full anyway.

I stand there looking down at her. I don't want to leave without her knowing I'm gone. I don't know why it matters, but it just feels like it does. I lean down so she can hear me.

“Bye, Joanie. You did great today.”

I walk home quickly.

For the first time, I'm not thinking about Cali.

I'm not imagining the thoughts of all the people who look at me as I pass them in the street. I'm not listening to their voices pounding darkness into my head.

All I can hear is a robot telling me about the color blue.

Chapter 24

When I woke up this morning, my first thought was of my Wizard.

I wish I could go down to see Shawna right now and try it again. I want her to put every color of the rainbow into those little squares so I can talk about pink and purple and orange and red. I want her to put other things in the squares, too, so
I can try to say other things. Like
yes
or
no
. If I could say yes or no, I could maybe start to tell people how I feel. If I could say yes and no, and people asked the right questions, I could have a conversation.

“Do you feel OK today, Joanie?” Patrick might ask. I could look at a Yes square, and he would know I was fine.

“Do you want me to leave now?” Alexandra might ask. Well, she probably wouldn't ask, but if she did, I could look at the No square, and she would stay. If my eyes looked at the wrong square though, Alexandra would go when I want her to stay, and Patrick would think I felt sick when I was feeling fine.

I wonder how I can make my eyes always look at the right square. I wonder how many kinds of squares there are.

Are there squares for all my inside words? Will I be able to tell people how I think and feel about everything?

What would people think of me, I wonder, if they knew how I was on the inside. Would I seem like the same person to them, or would I become someone different? How would people treat me if I could tell them what I want? Would I become a whole person to them?

Will people find me intelligent and interesting if the Wizard can help me share all of my thoughts? I sound intelligent and interesting to myself inside of my own mind, but I don't know if other people will find me so. What if I find out I'm not interesting to other people? I'm not sure I would like that.

I wonder what it would be like to have a disagreement with someone, an argument where I have a different idea than they do. I hear arguments out in the hallway sometimes—two people, each with their own idea, somehow sure that it's the only one worth listening to. If I could share my words, would I be the kind of person who has to push her ideas into other people's minds?

What would it feel like to have someone tell me that I am wrong about something that I believe?

Will I stay the same person if I can use outside words? Will my inside stay the same, or will it change along with my outside?

When I woke up yesterday morning, I was Joanie. Silent and filled up with thoughts and dreams that no one but me was ever going to know.

When I woke up this morning, I was someone who can tell Shawna and Alexandra that the square has a name, and that the name is Blue. And that it is different from the color yellow or green.

When I woke up this morning, for the first time in a while, I didn't think about where I wanted my rainbow to take me today. I didn't spend my first few minutes thinking about all of my yesterdays and trying to find one that I wanted to visit so that I didn't have to be here. Instead, I started thinking about lights and squares and Wizard voices. I thought about Alexandra and wondered when she's going to come again so we can go and see Shawna and find out what exciting things I can learn next. Then I thought about Shawna and wondered what made her so interested in me that she decided to work with me in the first place.

I spent some time wondering what my life would have been like if I had met the Wizard a long time ago. How would things have been for me if I'd had words to share with all of the people who now mostly live inside of my rainbow? Would things have been very different?

Would Ms. Blaine have found even more things to teach me because I would have had questions for her to answer?

Would Mike have found me more interesting if I had been able to have a conversation with him about which books
I wanted to read and why?

Would Brenda and I have had conversations about rainbows and loons and fairs and movies and what I did at school?

Would Debbie have talked a little less if I could have talked a little more?

At least I could have told her when I wanted her to stop so that I could get some sleep.

How exciting it would be to find all of those people again and talk to them with the Wizard attached to my chair. We would have so much to say to one another!

Here in the real world. Not in the rainbow.

For the first time in a long while, all I want to do is to stay here and think about today things, the ones that are happening today, right here in this hospital. I don't want to look up and find a color that will take me away. I want to be awake and ready in case Shawna decides to come and get me and take me down into her office where my words might be waiting for me.

Maybe, if I find all of my words, I won't go into my rainbow anymore at all.

Maybe my rainbow will come into me.