Chapter Nine: It Gets Easier

(It's a bit choppy, and I'm sorry for that, but this chapter was giving me a huge case of block, so I had to just get it out so I could move on.)

Mary spent the first few days of Vincent’s toddler years happily. The two played and had a merry time, but a dark thought still lurked in the back of Mary’s mind. Vincent still wasn’t responding to noises as he should. Although she didn’t want to believe Amary, Mary knew that he was more than likely impaired. Amary had a license in the medical field; Mary did not. As much as she didn’t want to, Mary had to let go of her pride for her son.

Another week passed. Mary finally had enough money to take Vincent to the doctor. She dressed him and then called a cab. The ride to the hospital was short—too short. She eased carefully out of the cab and then took a good look at the hospital. She sighed, “It’s now or never.”

Once inside the waiting room, Mary set Vincent down in the play area. She then went to sign in. The attendant handed her a clipboard, some paperwork, and a pen. It was all pretty basic—name, address, parent name, patient name, so on and so forth. Most of what she would write down would be a lie though. “Patient name . . . Jonathan Snow,” Mary whispered quietly to herself as she wrote everything out. If this had been two years ago, Mary wouldn’t have fathomed the idea of lying on paperwork. Doing it now didn’t faze her at all.

Mary handed the paperwork back to the attendant and then sat down near Vincent, who was playing with another little girl. The waiting room as primarily empty—a sick child here, a pregnant mother there, the attendant in her corner. Mary felt herself relax. She had been rather tense ever since she stepped inside the hospital, but she soon found no reason to be. Paranoia really gets to you sometimes . . .

“Jonathan Snow?” Mary looked at her watch. It had been fifteen minutes since they signed in. Not bad. She picked up Vincent and then walked back to the examination rooms with the nurse. She was quite a simple woman. She had long black hair and pale blue eyes, and she was somewhat pale. What is it with doctors and nurses being so pale? Mary thought.

Mary explained the problem to the nurse. She nodded and then began to perform small tests on Vincent. They were simple little tests. All the nurse did was make noise with different objects. Sadly, Vincent didn’t react to any of them. She took some notes and then left the room. Mary sighed and stroked Vincent’s hair. The doctor would be in soon, and then things would get serious.

The doctor took Vincent to another room and ran some more advanced tests. An hour or so later, the doctor returned with Vincent and sighed. “Ms. Snow, I’m afraid your son is impaired,” but Mary expected that. Still, she couldn’t help but feel disappointed. “Since you probably don’t have any experience with sign language, I’ll need you to come back here every Thursday for therapy and guidance. Now, I know it seems hard right now, but things will get easier.”

* * *

And things did get easier. Mary took more time off from work to raise Vincent, and although he couldn’t hear, he caught on quickly. In almost no time at all, Vincent was walking. Well, more like stumbling, but walking nonetheless. His stumbling improved as time went on through, and soon he was walking almost perfectly.

Vincent caught onto sign language quickly as well, faster than Mary, actually. Just as the doctor said, he and Mary went to therapy every Thursday. They both learned simple signs, but for Mary, it was a little less than simple. She was learning a second language. She didn’t mind though. It was somewhat fun, and it was keeping her from remembering her guilt every second of the day.

Mary got better at signing. They practiced every day until Mary was confident that they both had the signs burned into memory. After that, they still practiced, but not as much. Mary could see that Vincent was just as relieved as she was. Relieved to have some free time, that is.

The guilt returned after they were finished with life skills. Mary had had a little more time not to think about her problems because of potty training, but that wasn’t much time at all. Soon, she slipped back into being haunted by her memories, and she had a feeling that she was only going to feel worse very soon.