Laura Anderson - Song of Summer

I walk over to my computer and she sits next to the guitar on my bed, her back against the wall, engrossed in whatever article she’s reading.

“Maybe I’ll unblock him.”

“It’s up to you.”

“We’ll see.” I wiggle the computer mouse and the screen wakes up—YouTube. The videos that are recommended for me are lining the side of my screen. Among all of my favorite music videos I see, “Cochlear Implants: A Simulation.”

I’ve seen that video recommended for me before—must be from all of the CI activation videos I watched before. I don’t know why I haven’t watched it. I guess I just thought that it couldn’t be that different from hearing the way I hear. After all, Trina’s chirpy little voice sounds just like every other nine-year-old I know. How could she be hearing different things from all the rest of us?

I click Play. It’s not really a video; there are no people in it. There aren’t even any pictures. It’s just a sound bar with words. “Sentence, voiced,” it reads, “1 channel.”

One channel? What does that mean? Evidently not much, because what comes out of my speakers sounds like sandpaper or static.

“What’s that?” Jenni looks up from the magazine.

“Some video about cochlear implants,” I say. “This is supposedly what it sounds like to hear with one.”

“It doesn’t sound like much,” she says.

“I think it gets better,” I reply as “4 Channels,” scrolls across the screen. But the sounds coming from my speakers still don’t sound human, let alone like speech. “8 Channels,” and I can kind of understand a few words. “12 Channels” sounds like words, but I don’t know what they are. Finally, “20 channels” comes up. “A cat always lands on its feet,” says a robotic voice that sounds something like a multivoiced chorus of Borg aliens from Star Trek: The Next Generation.

“That’s it?” Jenni says. “It doesn’t really sound human.”

“Yeah… ,” I say.

Then the sentence plays again, just a plain recording of the person. Like every other recording I hear. And what I thought was a Borg chorus is a child’s voice.

What?

I shoot a look to Jenni. “Whoa… ,” I say.

I click on Replay Video and listen again. This time I catch the words earlier, at the twelve channels mark, because I know what the kid is saying. But it still doesn’t sound like a kid. This time when the kid is done talking, I realize that the video hasn’t finished yet.

“Jenni! They’re going to play music!”

She puts down the magazine and watches the screen from across the room. “What’s it say?” she asks, as text appears on the screen.

“Just that this kind of music is the easiest for CI users to understand. It’s a solo instrument that’s not too high or too low, with a strong beat.”

But the first track, played on four channels, sounds nothing like that. I laugh. It’s not a single-note instrument at all! This song is a rocking industrial piece that sounds like something out of Stomp. Poles bang against sheet metal and electronic static distorts the percussion.

I turn around and laugh to Jenni. “This is awesome! Too bad the description’s wrong.”

She smiles and nods but avoids my eyes.

Eight channel sounds a lot like four channels. The beats are cleaned up a little, but it’s still the same rhythmic industrial piece. The song continues on into twelve channels. If anything, it sounds worse. The beats have developed some deep, strange, sonar-like echo. It sounds like somebody’s breathing into a microphone with the pickup turned way too high.

I shoot a confused look at Jenni. “It’ll get better,” I say. “It’s not at twenty channels yet.”

“How many channels does Carter have?” she asked.

“I don’t know. Probably as many as they make. He can afford it, after all.”

I let the music play on to twenty channels. The strong, steady beat gets higher, sounding kind of like a tambourine or a hi-hat. The deep, sonar-like sounds change pitch slightly, but there’s still no discernable melody.

“See, that was a little better,” I say to Jenni. “Now it’s supposed to play the normal music recording. It’ll probably be so close. Like the voice was. Just maybe sound more… unplugged.”

She nods at me, eyebrows creased, but her worry is unwarranted. I mean, it’s an electronic industrial piece. How different can it be?

And then a tambourine starts playing, clear as day. My brain barely has time to register its surprise when another instrument starts: a guitar.

This song is folk music. Scandinavian folk music. I would know it anywhere. It’s a country dance played by a guitar and a tambourine.

It can’t be possible. This song sounds nothing like the cochlear implant translations of it. Tears prick my eyes.

“Robin… ?” Jenni asks. “Are you okay?”

I nod and I replay the whole thing. Yes, the speech makes more sense as more channels are added. But the music? The music through the cochlear implant is nothing like the music that I hear. Nothing. There is almost no comparison.

All I’d ever seen about CIs were the miraculous activations—the people who started crying at hearing their own voice or their mom’s voice or their spouse’s voice. The little kids who smiled and clapped their hands. I play the video again. I try desperately to hear any inkling of the guitar. I close my eyes. I play it again. I try again.

By the end of the third time through, Jenni is crouching by my side.

“You sure you’re okay?” she asks.

“Yeah,” I say, wiping a couple tears from my cheeks. “Yeah, I’m okay. I just… I didn’t think it would be like this.” I turn to her. “Did you know it would be like this?”

She shrugs and shakes her head and looks away. “Not really. Not that bad. But I didn’t think it would be perfect either.”

I start clicking around. I search everything. I watch countless videos and read all the comments: hateful, supportive, experienced, ignorant… I learn about a deaf family who is deciding whether or not to get an implant for their daughter. I see tears of frustration and read stories of heartbreak. I see interviews and read about debates and notice that sometimes the word “deaf” is capitalized and I don’t really know why.

Somewhere in the middle of all this, Jenni left. I don’t even remember saying good-bye.

After probably two hours of video after video, I see an interview with a doctor on a big-time news station. She’s a fancy doctor with a fancy name, and she studies hearing and music. She says that music changes your brain. Like, it physically changes the brain’s structure. And she touts the amazing advances of the cochlear implant. And I feel the hope begin to rise within me. Yes, music changes you. Yes, cochlear implants are amazing. Yes, this could happen. With enough practice and listening maybe Carter will come to love it the same way I do.

But then the doctor says it: “If a person is listening with a cochlear implant, they cannot glean any beauty out of music.”

No, that can’t be right. I play it again. “If a person is listening with a cochlear implant, they cannot glean any beauty out of music.” I pause the video. What?

In the next few sentences, the fancy doctor tries to take it back. She says that a person can enjoy music but they’re not even close to “hearing the whole story.” She says that since there is no clear meaning to derive, the brain doesn’t know what to do with it. Speech has a clear meaning and music doesn’t, so the brain can translate speech signals more and more clearly with time, but it can’t translate music signals. It just can’t.

I watch the video seventeen times.

Carter will never, can never, hear music the same way I do.

Never.

Carter

I swing my leg down over the bike and my boot strikes the pavement. Hard. I reach up to take off my helmet, curls stuck to my head with sweat. I cradle the helmet under my arm and begin to take off my gloves, glancing up at the Grape Country Dairy sign one last time. Between my nerves and the heat, sweat has practically melded my gloves to my fingers, causing me to wiggle them, one at a time. It’s excruciating because I need every second I can get to talk to Robin—we’re leaving for NYC. I’ve only got fifteen minutes here.

My right glove is finally off, allowing my hand to breathe. I run my fingers through my hair and a breeze ruffles it; cooling me, calming me. I feel the rough edge of my scar and set my jaw. Time to do what I came to do. Time to give it one more chance. After unsticking my left glove, I unlock the bike’s lockbox and remove the handmade teak peace offering from its nest of blankets. Safe. No scratches. Tucking it under my arm, I walk toward the door. The sun is glaring off the huge windows—I can’t tell if Robin can even see me, but her car is one of the four in the parking lot, so I know she’s here. The flowers in the little flower garden are all sprawled out—like they’re reaching for the sun instead of letting it come to them.

I push the glass door open and stand by the please seat yourself sign, smelling pancakes and malted waffles and bacon. She emerges from the kitchen and a smile lights my eyes, if not the rest of my face. She looks the same as the day I met her—same white button-down, same black pedal pushers, same ponytail—but I see her so differently. There are dark circles under her eyes—she hasn’t been sleeping. There are more freckles sprinkled across her pale cheeks—she’s been outside. There’s a wiser tilt to her head, a more sympathetic look in her eye. Not pity; understanding.

“Hi,” she signs, looking like she wants to smile but can’t yet.

“Hi,” I sign.

She gestures to the tables. The corners of her mouth turn up slightly and she pushes a curl back behind her ear and into her ponytail.

That used to be my job.

I swallow and shake my head, pointing instead to the counter. She walks to the server side and I sit on a stool, settling my helmet on the seat next to me and the teak box on the countertop.

“Coffee?” Robin signs.

I shake my head. “Water?” I sign.

She nods. She turns around to get it and I glance back in the kitchen. Violet and Fannie are throwing us glances and whispering by the milkshake machine. I feel a half smile on my face and wave at them. They bustle back into the grill area and look over their shoulders at me. I’m shaking my head, a smile on my face, when Robin brings me a glass of ice water. I take a sip.

“How are you?” I sign.

“Good.”

“Good.” There’s a pause. I take another sip. She looks out into the parking lot and a minivan pulls up. She nods at Violet who nods back.

“How’s Trina? Your parents?” she signs.

“Good! Trina’s sad to leave.”

She nods. “You?” she asks.

I shrug. “Yeah…” I look into her blue eyes. “I’ll miss you,” I sign.

She smiles at me, her eyes sad. “It was a good summer,” she signs.

“Yeah.” The family of four from the minivan comes into the restaurant. Violet struts over with menus and two more cars pull up. No. No. God, no. Not now. Of all times. Robin throws her a look and Violet nods twice. She’ll take those groups, too. She was born for days like this, right?

I need to do this now before any more people show up.

She glances at me and before she can look away I sign, “I’m sorry. For the way our relationship ended.”

She signs, “Sorry… write?” and I sigh and pull out my trusty little notebook—the one that’s been in my pocket since that very first day.

“I’m sorry for how we ended,” I write.

She looks up. “Me, too,” she signs.

I push the teak box over to her. “For you,” I sign.

She shakes her head. “Carter, no…” seeing my name on her hands again makes my eyes smart.

“Please,” I sign. I nod at her, encouraging her to open it. I take up the pen again. “I want you to have it. I’m not trying to buy my way back into your good graces.” I hesitate, then look at her face. It’s all corners and edges. Her arms are crossed. I glance up, the two cars from before are seated—a couple and another table of four. That’s three tables, ten people, at once. Tough for even a veteran like Violet. Then the unthinkable—two more cars pull in.