had she changed? And what was it about the people inside that house she envied?
The answer came almost immediately: confidence.
She sat up straight, as if she’d been prodded. It wasn’t their clothes or education or the material trappings of their lives, but the self-confidence they all radiated. They knew who they were, what they were about, what their purpose was in life. And it didn’t matter, she realized, what that purpose was. Just that they had one. A purpose of their own choosing, whether it be family or career or whatever.
At that moment, Galen didn’t know whether it had been family interference or just plain old-fashioned circumstances that had robbed her of the drive and focus all those people inside that house had in spades. But without it, she was faceless, a non-entity.
With it, she’d never have to run from a man’s presence again, would she?
She got up from the steps, hugging herself as she walked toward the sound of the children’s voices. The wind snatched at her hair, tugging it out of its clasp; she pushed it back as she watched the impromptu game of tag in front of her. A couple of the older children, particularly a tall, spiked-haired blond girl of about eighteen, kept watch over the toddlers while the middle-aged children raced away from whoever was “it,” their voices shrill and clear. Galen recognized Elizabeth’s and Guy’s two boys in the pack, their shirts untucked from their pants, their faces flushed with cold and laughter. She folded her arms against her ribs, pushing back the pang of melancholy that still, no matter how hard she fought it, swept through her from time to time. She’d told herself, when Vinnie died, it was for the best they never had those babies they’d planned on.
But then, she’d at least have that purpose, wouldn’t she?
Someone—a gangly boy with glasses, maybe fifteen or so—yelled out to one of Elizabeth’s boys, blindly headed toward a little girl with white-blond hair, a doll of a child in a rust-colored jumper and white tights. Del’s daughter, Galen realized, only a second before she also realized the child, who’d bent down to scratch the huge dog, now lying in the leaves, couldn’t see that Elizabeth’s boy had lost his balance and was about to land right on top of her.
“Hey!” Galen shouted, wishing she could remember the child’s name. Leaves flew in all directions as she took off toward her, yelling “Watch out!” at the top of her lungs. She dove for the child, snatching her out of the way a split second before the boy tripped over the dog. Both of them tumbled into a pile of leaves, the little girl landing, her mouth open in shock, on top of Galen.
“Hey, sweetie,” she said, more winded than anything else. “You almost got creamed. Didn’t you hear us calling you?”
She noticed the child’s gaze, riveted to her lips. Gently, Galen brushed back the little girl’s wispy hair, revealing a large two-piece hearing aid wrapped around the tiny, delicate ear.
Del had seen what was about to happen from the side living room window, nearly going straight through the glass in his panic. How many times had he told her not to get so close to large groups of children when they were playing rough like that? She was so impossibly little, built like her mother…it wouldn’t take much for a heavier kid to flatten her like a bug. He hit the side yard just in time to see Galen take that flying tackle, sweeping his daughter out of harm’s way.
Seconds later, the child was in his arms. “You okay?” he signed, one-handed.
She nodded, that wicked grin pushing up her cheeks. “The lady caught me,” she signed. She brushed the first two fingers of her right hand against the tip of her nose, twice. “Funny.”
“Yeah.” Del let his butt drop to the ground. “Hilarious.” Wendy angled her head, not understanding. He echoed her “funny” sign, then scowled at her. “I thought I told to you to be careful playing around the other kids?”
She scowled back, pointing toward the far side of the yard. “They were over there,” she signed. “I was being careful—”
“Really,” Galen said, apparently picking up on the gist of Wendy’s protest, “she wasn’t in the thick of things.” Del glanced over, his breath catching at the earnest expression in those clear blue-green eyes. Then she smiled, pushing a floating strand of hair from her face. “The thick of things found her.”
“Yeah. They usually do,” he muttered, then pivoted Wendy around to face Galen, hands on her slender waist. She looked back. “This is Galen,” he said, finger spelling Galen’s name. “Say ‘thank you’.”
Wendy turned around, touched her lips with the fingertips of her right hand, then extended her hand outward. “Thang you,” she said slowly.
“You’re welcome,” Galen said, her eyes darting from Del to Wendy, then back again. She’d gotten to her knees, her sweater and hair—which had come loose from its clasp, twin sheets of copper against fair cheeks—embellished with bits of leaves. “What’s your name?” she asked, pointing to Wendy, an instinctive sign that got the desired response.
“Wen-dy Fah-wan-dino,” she said with a huge smile. She’d just learned to say her last name a couple of weeks ago, in fact, and the glow of accomplishment hadn’t yet faded. Then she turned back to Del, whacking leaves off her bottom. “Can I go back and play?” she signed.
Del looked out at the raucous gang of kids hurtling themselves at each other with great abandon, then felt Wendy tug at his loose shirt. He looked down, wincing at the devilment in her dark brown eyes.
“I’ll be careful,” she signed, then touched her right index finger to her lips, opening the hand to bump her wrist against the top of her other hand. “Promise.”
He let out a resigned sigh. “Hold on…” He reached up to check that both aids were securely seated, then sent her off with a pat on the behind.
“She’s absolutely adorable,” Galen said at his elbow. “And I bet Daddy’s already plotting on how to keep the boys at bay.”
For several seconds, all he could do was stare at Galen, unable to breathe, let alone move. His daughter’s handicap was perfectly obvious—the hearing aids, the signing, the denasalized, almost mechanical speech. Yet, the first words out of this woman’s mouth were to remark on how adorable his daughter was. But what had him momentarily unable to function was not so much the words—politeness, an unwillingness to hurt his feelings, could just as well have produced the comment—but the ingenuousness of her statement. The sincerity. Heaven knows, he and Wendy had met enough well-meaning people since her birth, people who’d say “What a pretty little girl” with that catch in their voice, smiling at Wendy with eyes full of pity. Or fear. Or embarrassed gratitude that their child wasn’t “like that.”
Not this time. He knew, as well as he knew his name, that Galen Granata had looked at his child and seen…a child. The child he loved. Not the child that made so many people uncomfortable or nervous.
“I had a deaf friend, growing up,” Galen said quietly, looking back over the yard. “And the one thing she most hated was the way everyone always saw her as deaf first, a person second.” She turned those impossibly turquoise eyes to him. “That stayed with me.”
Del got to his feet, held out a hand to help Galen up, which, not surprisingly, she refused. “Did you learn to sign, then?”
Hugging herself, Galen shook her head. “Her parents wouldn’t let her. She was being taught by the…Oral method, I think it was
