Chapter 3 - Thirty-Seven Signs
Sunday afternoon, Claire arrived at Mason Reed’s duplex in a black SUV that occupied almost the entire curb.
Mason opened the door, looked past her at the vehicle, then at Claire’s jeans.
“Those yours?”
“The jeans?”
“Yeah.”
“Yes.”
“You look uncomfortable.”
“I am.”
“Good. Means you’re learning already.”
Sadie slipped past her mother, laughing silently.
Inside, Mason’s home was small, warm and unmistakably lived in.
A basketball rested beneath the coat rack. Children’s drawings covered the refrigerator. A battered upright piano occupied one corner beside framed photographs.
One photograph showed a teenage girl with Mason’s eyes.
Lily.
Claire stopped.
“She was sixteen there,” Mason said.
Sadie approached the picture.
Mason signed.
My sister.
Sadie touched two fingers to her chin and moved them outward.
Beautiful.
Mason swallowed.
“She would’ve liked you.”
Owen appeared carrying flash cards.
“Dad made homework.”
Claire stared at the stack.
“You made flash cards?”
Mason shrugged.
“You’re paying me.”
“You refused payment.”
“I reconsidered after seeing your car.”
Claire laughed.
It surprised both of them.
The first lesson lasted two hours.
Claire was terrible.
She confused coffee with make.
She repeatedly signed Tuesday when attempting bathroom.
At one point, she accidentally told Sadie that Owen’s pizza smelled like a grandfather.
Sadie collapsed against the couch laughing.
Claire stared at Mason.
“What did I say?”
He was laughing too hard to answer.
“Tell me.”
When he finally explained, Claire covered her face.
Sadie tapped her shoulder.
Claire looked up.
Her daughter signed slowly.
Again.
So Claire tried again.
And again.
By the end of the afternoon, her wrists ached.
She had learned seventeen new signs.
More importantly, she had learned three things about Sadie.
Sadie hated peas.
Sadie wanted to become an astronomer.
And Sadie believed her mother worked because she preferred the office to being home.
That last discovery came without warning.
Mason had given them an exercise.
Ask each other one question.
Claire signed clumsily.
What makes you sad?
Sadie went quiet.
Then her hands moved.
Too quickly.
Claire looked helplessly at Mason.
He did not translate.
“You asked her,” he said. “Watch her.”
Sadie repeated herself more slowly.
Claire caught fragments.
Mom.
Work.
Always.
Me.
Not understand.
Then a sign Claire didn’t know.
She looked at Mason.
He finally supplied it.
“Lonely.”
Claire felt the room tilt.
Sadie’s hands continued.
Mason’s expression grew uncomfortable.
“What?”
“She says sometimes she stops trying to tell you things because waiting for an interpreter makes them feel unimportant.”
Claire stared at her daughter.
“Sadie…”
Her voice was useless.
She lifted her hands.
Sorry.
Sadie looked away.
Claire repeated it.
Sorry.
Then she added the signs she had practiced all morning.
I want to know you.
Sadie’s eyes filled.
The little girl answered.
Then learn.
“I will.”
Claire signed it too.
I will.
From then on, Sundays belonged to Mason.
Then Wednesdays did too.
Within six weeks, Claire’s thirty-seven signs became nearly three hundred.
Business dinners became less frequent.
Her executive assistant learned not to schedule meetings after six on Wednesdays.
Victor Landry hated it.
“You’re reorganizing your calendar around sign-language classes?”
“I’m reorganizing my calendar around my daughter.”
“There are instructors for this.”
“I have one.”
Victor leaned against Claire’s office desk.
His investment firm had moved into final negotiations with Whitmore Systems.
The partnership should have been Claire’s greatest professional victory.
Instead, every conversation with Victor left something cold behind.
He wanted layoffs.
He wanted to outsource customer support.
He wanted Claire to license a voice-recognition platform Whitmore had developed for emergency dispatch systems.
Most troubling of all, he wanted control of the accessibility division.
“It loses money,” Victor said.
“It serves people.”
“We are not a charity.”
Claire looked at him.
“My father created Whitmore Systems because my grandmother lost her sight.”
“And your father is dead.”
The room became very quiet.
Victor smiled.
“Which is why sentiment cannot run the company.”
Claire’s phone vibrated.
A message from Mason.
A photograph appeared.
Sadie and Owen stood in Mason’s garage wearing oversized safety goggles beside a homemade model of the solar system.
Under it, Mason had written:
Your daughter says Pluto was robbed.
Claire smiled.
Victor noticed.
“The electrician?”
“His name is Mason.”
“You need to be careful.”
“About?”
“People who suddenly appear when someone wealthy is vulnerable.”
Claire’s smile disappeared.
“Mason had no idea who I was when he spoke to Sadie.”
“He does now.”
That night, Claire mentioned Victor’s warning during her lesson.
She expected Mason to laugh.
He didn’t.
Instead, he walked to a drawer and removed an envelope.
“What’s this?”
“Every check you’ve given me.”
Claire opened it.
Six uncashed checks.
“You haven’t deposited any of them?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because I stopped teaching you for money after the second lesson.”
Claire looked up.
“Then why keep coming?”
Mason glanced toward the kitchen.
Sadie and Owen were making hot chocolate.
“Because she started waiting by the window every Wednesday.”
Claire’s heart shifted.
“And because,” Mason added, “you keep showing up.”
Their eyes met.
Something changed.
Small.
Quiet.
Dangerous.
Then Sadie came running into the room.
Her face was pale.
Her tablet was in her hand.
She shoved it toward Claire.
An email filled the screen.
Claire read the subject line.
WHITMORE SYSTEMS ACCESSIBILITY DIVISION — CLOSURE PLAN
Her stomach dropped.
Attached was an internal memorandum.
It proposed eliminating forty-two positions.
Canceling three accessibility projects.
And selling the underlying patents.
The author listed at the bottom was:
Claire Whitmore, CEO.
Claire had never seen the document before.
Mason read her face.
“You didn’t write this.”
“No.”
“Who did?”
Claire scrolled farther.
The proposal was scheduled for board approval Friday.
May you like
And beneath her forged digital authorization was another name.
Victor Landry.
