She didn't wait she turned away and quickly hurried out of the motor home. I gazed in at Destiny. I should have left this door locked. I thought, or thrown something over her. How could I have forgotten? Her gla.s.sy eyes seemed to focus on me accusingly. I had left her here, deserted her. She had been so precious to Uncle Palaver and I had left her.

I sighed and closed the door. By the time I stepped out of the motor home. Echo was around the house, hurrying to go back inside, fleeing from what surely had been a most shocking sight. Mrs.

Westington is going to be upset with me. I thought.

She didn't want me to expose Echo to the doll just yet.

She'll surely want me to leave now. Once Tyler Monahan heard about it, he would say. "See. I told you she'd be a bad influence," Mrs. Westington would have no other choice but to ask me to leave.

Resolved to it. I headed back to the house.

Apparently, however. Echo hadn't stopped to tell her grandmother what she had just seen. Instead, she had gone directly up to her room. Mrs.

Westington stepped out of the kitchen when I entered.

"Did you two have a nice walk and go rowing on the pond?" "Yes, Ma'am," I said.

"I know it's terrible that I don't get that child out and about more. Maybe now that you're here, we'll do it. I'll have Trevor take us for a ride this weekend.

We'll go to a nice restaurant for lunch and shop. I need some things myself. I have a roast chicken cooking. Hope you have an appet.i.te."

"That's been my problem. I always have an appet.i.te." I said.

"Well thank your lucky stars you do. A good appet.i.te means a healthy soul. Where's Echo?"

"She came in ahead of me. I guess she went on up to her room."

"Oh, did she? Well, maybe she's a little tired.

Tyler works her hard and long when he's at it. He just loves that girl. He's determined to bring her up to speed. I'm sure he will. He'll do the same for you." she added.

Maybe. I thought, maybe not. but I smiled and nodded.

"I'll just go and wash up and come down to help you," I said.

"No rush now. I'm fine. I've been feeding people for quite a long time without much help."

She stared at me. It was on the tip of my tongue to confess, to tell her what had just happened. but I didn't do it.

"You look like the cat's got your tongue.

Anything wrong?"

My chance to come clean. I thought. but I didn't do it. I didn't want to risk losing her and this home. I shook my head and hurried up the stairs.

You're a coward. April Taylor. I told myself, You run away from everything, even yourself.

I went directly to Echo's room. The door was open. When I looked in. I saw her hovered over the novel Tyler had given her to read. I sat beside her and she looked up at me. Her face was still a little peaked from her fright and her hands were trembling. I took them into mine, squeezed them gently to comfort her, and smiled at her. Then I reached for a pen and some paper.

Here we go. I thought, and began to write about my uncle, his dear a.s.sistant. Destiny, and the doll. I gave it to her in small doses, explaining why my uncle had the doll made and what its purpose was in the show.

She continued to look skeptical and wrote. "But isn't it a real lady?"

Again and again, I told her no but she still looked skeptical. I apologized for not warning her about Destiny. I explained how I hadn't gone into the motor home since I had gotten my things out of it and some of the magic tricks, and how I had forgotten about her in the bedroom. Again. I emphasized how the doll was part of the magic show. helped do tricks, and was used like a puppet, a ventriloquist's doll.

Being deaf, her knowledge of that was nil and I had a difficult time explaining it.

Nevertheless. I promised to show how the doll worked someday and that seemed to calm her, although she still looked quite confused.

Exhausted. I went to my room and prepared for dinner. As soon as I was downstairs. Trevor caught me in the hallway while Mrs. Westington was in the kitchen. He pulled me aside to whisper.

"Something happen with Echo?" he asked, "I saw her running into the house earlier."

I told him what had occurred and I also told him quickly that I hadn't revealed it to Mrs.

Westington.

"Oh, that doll," he said. I recalled how he had reacted when he saw Destiny for the first time the day I had driven up to the house, "I don't think Mrs. Westington is going to be happy about it," I said. "It was my fault. I had better explain."

"For now, let it be." he advised.

Mrs. Westington saw us whispering and looked at us suspiciously, but she didn't ask any questions.

At dinner Trevor and I talked more about the winery, how it had been so successful and why his grapes were so special. He went into a long lecture about methods of cultivating. Mrs. Westington put on a touchy face and complained about his wasting my time now and not just his own, but I could see she enjoyed my enthusiasm. Echo struggled to be part of our conversation, but neither I nor Trevor remembered to explain everything as we went along.

I. of course, had a limited ability with signing. Every once in a while, I did what I could to keep her in the discussion, and then I suddenly got a great idea from watching her struggle to keep up with us.

However, I thought it was a terrific idea. but Tyler Monahan thought it further proved that I was too weird to be around Echo.

When he arrived the next day. I greeted him with, "I want to learn like a deaf person."

He froze in the hallway and pulled in the corners of his mouth. Then he tilted his head and said, "What?"

"I thought if I was deaf. I would be forced to learn how to communicate through signing. It would put the same pressure on me that a person really deaf has on her, and perhaps I'll learn faster."

"Oh, is that so? And how do you intend on becoming deaf, pop your eardrums or something?"

"Wax," I said.

"Wax?"

"Yes, I'm going to fill my ears with wax. My uncle Palaver was once part of a circus act that required him to a.s.sist the man who was shot out of a cannon. He told me he filled his ears with melted wax to keep himself from going deaf and he couldn't hear a thing and that they had to tap him on the shoulder to get his attention."

Tyler shook his head. "Let me understand this.

You not only want me to tutor you for the high school equivalency exam. You want me to do it through signing, lipreading, and all the other techniques I use on Echo?"

"Exactly," I said.

"You're crazier than I thought," he replied. I smiled. "It won't work," he insisted.

"We'll see:" I said. I had spent hours and hours the night before on the ASL book even after Echo and I had practiced for hours. I wasn't proficient yet. but I had come a long way and I was determined he would have a better impression of me and my abilities.

"Look, if you think I'm going to waste my time just to amuse you. you're-"

"I'll be right back." I interrupted before he could warn and threaten me, and I went upstairs and filled my ears with the candle wax I had already melted and prepared in a cup. I tested myself by banging a brush on the vanity counter and then by running water. It was very difficult to hear anything.

With the ASL book under my arm. I returned to the office, where Tyler was already instructing Echo. He looked up suspiciously, and then he produced a packet of tests he obviously wanted me to take.

"This will help me evaluate you." he said. I knew he had said it, but I responded with the signing for "I can't hear you."

He squinted and I turned my head so he could see the wax in my ears. Then he raised his eyes to the ceiling. I saw an impish light come into his eves.

When he looked at me again, he signed. "Let's have breakfast."

I shook my head at him and signed back, "We already ate breakfast."

His eyes widened with surprise. I stepped forward and indicated the tests. For me?" I signed.

He nodded. I took them and sat. "What do I start with?" I signed. "Math," he signed back.

"I hate math." I told him.

"Then that's what you should start with," he replied, signing quickly, almost too quickly. "What is your favorite subject?" he asked. I got thrown by the word favorite for a moment and then figured it out.

"English," I said.

He nodded gently, his eyes bright with his surprise and admiration for what I had already achieved.

Echo had been watching us the whole time. She started to smile, looked at Tyler, who was staring at me now with a lot more respect, and then she looked back at me.

Her smile slowly weakened until it was gone.

She looked at Tyler and then at me again. I think she was afraid my initials might get carved into that heart scratched into the rock.

And maybe she thought that was the reason I had warned her against being too intimate with him or any boy?

Of course. I told myself it wasn't.

I looked at Tyler Monahan flipping through the pages of a book. He was a handsome young man, so self-a.s.sured.

Maybe what I had seen in Echo's eyes was really in my own, I thought.

And if a young, innocent girl could see it so clearly, he surely would.

3.

Distractions .

The tests Tyler gave me took hours and although I wouldn't admit it to him, the wax in my ears made them very itchy inside. Every once in a while, I caught him looking at me with some suspicion in his eyes. I was sure that in his mind I was simply pulling off a stunt to win Mrs. Westington's affections even more, When I saw Mrs. Westington in the door to announce lunch. I signed back at her that I was going to skip lunch and continue doing the tests.

She looked confused and turned to Tyler. He told her about the wax in my ears and she came over to me quickly to look.

"I want to learn like Echo learns." I explained when she opened her mouth in amazement. "I want to be dependent upon the same means she is. It will help me develop the ability to communicate with her faster and better."

She looked at Tyler. who shrugged, lifted his arms, and shook his head with a look that said. "I don't understand her.' They went off to lunch, but Mrs.

Westington wouldn't hear of me not eating anything.

She brought in a turkey sandwich and a gla.s.s of lemonade and put it on the desk. I thanked her. I could see her go off muttering to herself.

I was so involved in the tests. I didn't notice how much time had gone by without Tyler and Echo returning to the office.

Either hoping to defeat me or trying to get me to give up on my own, he had presented me with a great deal of work that included math problems, science questions, social studies questions, and pages and pages of grammar exams. By the time I was finished, it was nearly time for him to leave for the day. I closed the test booklet and looked about, puzzled, but before I got up to leave. Tyler appeared without Echo. I looked at him curiously. He seemed very upset.

"What's wrong?" I asked. "Where's Echo?

Something the matter with her?"

"You'd better sc.r.a.pe that wax out of your ears right now." he wrote on a pad.

"Why?"

"I want to talk to you about what you told Echo." he added. "And also about what you showed her." Of course I knew he meant Destiny.

I asked him where Echo was and he told me she was upstairs in her room working on some a.s.signments he had given her.

"I'll be waiting for you outside." he told me. He tried to keep his emotions under a tight, firm face, but his rage swirled about in the dark pools of his eyes.

I went into the bathroom and began to remove the wax using hot water and a toothpick very carefully. I didn't get it all out. but I knew Tyler was waiting impatiently for me on the front porch.

"Let's take a walk," he said sharply the moment I appeared. He charged dawn the steps.

Trevor was continuing his harvesting of his grapes and watched us walk off toward the pond. We went quite a way before Tyler spoke and when he did, he nearly shouted. blurting. "I knew you were going to create more problems and make things more difficult for me, as if it wasn't hard enough for me as it is. I just knew it!"

"What's that supposed to mean? -What problems?"

He kept walking, paused, changed direction, and continued like someone caught in a great state of confusion.

"Can you please stand still and tell me what this is all about? What problems have I caused you?"

Finally, he stopped and turned to me. "You wanted to help her with her schoolwork," he said, shaking her head. "You wanted to learn how to communicate with her quickly. You put on this whole show about simulating a deaf person's condition so you'd be forced to learn like she does. You did some job on Mrs. Westington when you told her your sad, sad store. Poor April Taylor, an orphan dumped on their doorstep,'" he said, mimicking someone who felt terrible for inc.