I knew the number by heart.
The receptionist, a woman named Deb who’s been there as long as we’ve been going, picked up on the second ring. I told her who I was. I told her Emma’s aids were unavailable for the week. I asked whether they had a loaner pair.
“Unavailable how?” Deb asked. “Lost? Broken? Is she all right?”
“She’s fine,” I said. “They’re just not with her. Somebody else has them, and I can’t get them back today.”
There was a short pause on the line.
Deb has been answering phones at a pediatric clinic for a very long time. I think she heard every single thing I didn’t say.
“We have loaners,” she said. “We keep a few pairs for when kids send theirs in for repair. Her test results are on file. Come now. Doctor can program them to her numbers while you wait.”
“I’m sixty miles out,” I said.
“Then you’d better start driving, honey,” Deb said. I could hear that she was smiling, a little. “We’ll be here.”
I hung up and went down the hall to Dr. Olson’s operatory. He was leaning over a patient with a mirror and a scaler.
I stood in the doorway in my fleece and said, “I need to leave for a few hours. It’s Emma.”
Dr. Olson is 62 and has been fixing teeth in our town since before I was born. He didn’t ask a single question. He just waved the little mirror toward the door.
“Go,” he said. “Kim can run the desk. Drive careful.”
Out in the waiting room, Mr. Peterson looked up from his magazine. “Everything okay with your girl?”
“It will be,” I said.
He gave me a thumbs-up.
I drove out past the grain elevator. Chad’s blue pickup was parked in its usual spot by the scale house. I didn’t slow down.
I took the two-lane west to the interstate and turned south toward Sioux Falls. The fields were bare and brown on both sides. Tractors were out here and there, working the ground with long clouds of dust trailing behind them.
It’s a drive I’ve made more times than I can count. Every audiology appointment. Every earmold fitting. Every time a battery door cracked or a tube split.
Emma and I used to play the license plate game on that road. She liked finding Minnesota plates best, because she said they looked friendly.
That morning, I drove it with both hands on the wheel and the radio off.
Somewhere around Madison, I pulled over at a gas station and called the woman who’d handled my divorce. Linda Haugen. Her office is above the hardware store on Main, and she charges $200 an hour and is worth every penny.
I didn’t want to start a war. I just wanted to know where I stood.
Linda listened without interrupting. When I was done, I heard her pull a file drawer open.
“I’ve got your parenting plan right here,” she said. “Page seven. Section four. ‘Each parent shall ensure the minor child has continuous access to all prescribed medical devices, medications and treatments while in that parent’s care.’”
She read it slowly, so I’d hear every word.
“Hearing aids are prescribed medical devices, Amanda. Prescribed by a doctor, fitted to her specific hearing test. What happened this weekend wasn’t a house rule. It was a violation of a court order.”
I sat in that gas station parking lot and stared at a sign advertising two-for-one hot dogs.
“So what do I do?” I asked.
“You’ve got options,” Linda said. “You could file a motion. You could ask the court to modify the plan, maybe add language that names the stepparent. Some people would.” She paused. “But I’ve known you a long time. What do you actually want?”
“I want my daughter to hear,” I said. “Today. And I want it to never happen again.”
“Then go get her those loaners,” Linda said. “And write down everything. Dates, times, what Emma said, what the teacher said. Every word. If it ever happens again, you call me, and we’ll walk into that courtroom with a stack of paper so thick the judge won’t need to hear from anybody else.”
“And if it doesn’t happen again?”
“Then you’ll have a notebook you never needed,” she said. “That’s the best kind.”
I got back on the interstate.
I kept thinking about Emma sitting at her desk with the spelling words floating past her like smoke. I kept thinking about how she’d walked into school that morning without her aids and without me. And how she must have known, right from the front door, exactly what kind of day it was going to be.
And I kept thinking about Kendall.
I tried hard to be angry at her, and I was. But underneath the anger was something else. Something more like confusion.
Kendall wasn’t stupid. She was a careful woman who processed other people’s mortgages for a living. She checked every signature line. She read every fine print.
How could she look at a child who couldn’t hear, and take away the very thing that let her hear?
I didn’t have an answer by the time I pulled into the clinic parking lot. I just had a sore jaw from clenching it for an hour straight.
Deb met me at the window. She’s somewhere near sixty, with reading glasses on a beaded chain. She came all the way around the counter and squeezed my arm before she said a single word.
“She’s ready for you,” Deb said. “Go on back.”
