On Thursday, they fitted the new hearing aids.
Dr. Nguyen put them in Dad’s ears in her little exam room with the pictures of mountains on the walls. She plugged them into her computer and adjusted the settings while Dad sat very still in the chair, hands folded in his lap.
“Mr. Lowery,” she said in her normal voice. “Can you hear me?”
Dad’s whole face changed.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said. And for the first time in five days, he said it at a normal volume. He didn’t have to shout.
“How does my voice sound?”
“Sounds like you.” He laughed, and his voice cracked. “Sounds just like you.”
Dr. Nguyen spent half an hour showing him how to charge them, how to clean them, and how to connect them to his phone. Then she showed him something new.
“These have a ‘find my hearing aid’ feature on your phone,” she said. “If you ever lose one, the app can show you the last place it was connected.”
“Wouldn’t have helped in the pond,” Dad said dryly.
Dr. Nguyen laughed. “No. But you might want to keep them out of ponds from now on.”
“Wasn’t my idea to go in,” he said.
At the front desk, I asked about one more thing. I’d called Mr. Kessler at Farm Bureau again on Wednesday.
“You can add the new hearing aids to your dad’s homeowner’s policy as scheduled personal property,” he’d told me. “Then they’re covered for loss, even if they get dropped in a pond. It’ll cost him about forty dollars a year. All I need is the receipt.”
I got a copy of the receipt from the clinic, and that afternoon I emailed it to Mr. Kessler. By Friday the hearing aids were listed by serial number on Dad’s policy, covered for $4,300 against any kind of loss.
I’ll tell you, I’ve never been so happy to pay forty dollars in my life.
When we walked out of the clinic into the parking lot, Dad stopped under the oak trees along the sidewalk.
He tilted his head.
