In the Beginning ...

a story I didn't want

* * *

At first it was the little things.

I remember standing outside one warm afternoon, saying goodbye to my friends with their babies and toddlers. We'd spent the morning talking, as women do, about our hopes for our children and what their futures might hold. All the way out to their minivans, we were chatting away animatedly while our children ran in circles, loth to go home to quiet and naps.

Suddenly all my friends were silent, looking at me with question marks where their eyebrows rose.

"What? What's the matter?" I hurriedly inventoried my kids. Had something happened?

"Aren't you going to get that?"

Still confused, I just stared back at my friends, at all those worried eyes.

"The phone! Aren't you going to get the phone?" The incredulous look on their faces brought me up short.

These were the days before cell phones or texting or email or even answering machines. To not answer that phone hanging on the kitchen wall was rude, even risky. It could be important. It might be an emergency. No one ignored that insistent bell tone. Ever.

Suddenly, in the shocked silence of my friends, I heard the barest whisper of a ring. Again. "Oh my!" I dashed off to get it, heart thumping, breathless — not from the run across my suburban lawn, but from the terrible realization that what I'd been hiding could no longer be ignored.

Ever since a bout with pneumonia a few months before, I'd been having trouble hearing. Nothing drastic, just some subtle hints that perhaps my ears were plugged. Yes, I'd missed hearing the phone ring a few times, gotten impatient with everyone's mumbling, failed to wake up when my alarm buzzed. But with all the delightful chaos of my busy household, who could blame me? Babies and toddlers and sleep deprivation could easily explain my fumbles, couldn't they? Surely I was making a big deal out of nothing. The eyebrows covertly raised behind my back by my husband only irked me more, and I lashed out at him in annoyance, a thin veil over my fear.

That ringing phone would become my nemesis, underscoring what I was trying to deny. When I did happen to hear it ring, I couldn't tell who was on the line. All voices began blending into sameness. I couldn't tell the difference between Lynn and Kim and the gym. Once, I carried on a confusing conversation for ten minutes with Stacey, only to discover I was talking to Lucy.

Alarm clocks were becoming useless. Cookies burned in the oven while the buzzer droned silently. The frogs along the creek bed lost their voices. Birds failed to sing. What was happening?

One worn-out Monday morning, I gathered my rambunctious little on