Mandy seems to sense his discomfort and gives him another note: It’s okay, I can read lips.
They talk that way for a few minutes and then Mandy gives Alfred a note that says: It’s been lovely talking with you, Alfred. My sister is waiting at the curb, I should go. She worries too much. She’s drawn a little face with crossed eyes and its tongue sticking out. He still has the note. He still has all of them.
Alfred tells her he hopes he’ll see her again. She smiles more widely than ever and nods her head. Then she is gone.
Alfred realizes now he has a new duty at his job. It’s a promotion, really. His job is to make sure Mandy is all right whenever she comes through the airport. She’s told him she travels twice a month to an ear specialist in Los Angeles, always at the same time and always with Alaska Airlines.
Sure enough, two weeks later he sees her in the terminal. It’s raining and her sister is stuck in traffic so they have more time to talk. They sit in the terminal while people hurry this way and that. She says the doctors in Los Angeles say they’ll be able to restore at least part of her hearing. It’s the first time she’s told him she wasn’t born deaf. It makes him feel closer to her, because he wasn’t born the way he is now either. He doesn’t tell her that, though. She’s so happy about her doctors’ news he mostly listens to her and watches her beautiful smile. Then her phone buzzes and she has to go meet her sister.
The next time they meet they go to lunch at the Red Robin. Mandy has told her sister to pick her up two hours later than usual so they can have a proper, unrushed conversation. The sun is shining and they can see Mt. Rainier out the window. The forest around the airport is so green the trees look like they’re made out of stained glass. The airplanes gleam as they taxi, takeoff, and land. Mandy and Alfred talk and talk and talk. Sometimes Mandy speaks but she’s ashamed of how she knows her voice sounds so mostly she writes even though Alfred tells her she has a beautiful voice, which she does. They discover they have a lot in common. Alfred tells her about the accident and settlement (it’s a short story because the details are so hazy). Mandy tells Alfred she lost her hearing seven years ago because of a rare degenerative condition. She says the doctors are doing amazing things and she knows she’ll get her ears back. She says it that way and Alfred laughs with her. Then the check comes and Mandy goes to meet her sister.
The fourth time they meet Mandy brings Alfred a present. It’s a box of sign language flash cards. At lunch at the Red Robin Alfred told her his parents say he’s always been good with languages (what he doesn’t remember is that before the accident and settlement he not only flew airplanes but he was a Ph.D. candidate in linguistics at the University of Washington and spoke five languages including Latin).
Sure enough, when he takes the cards home he discovers he can memorize them almost immediately. Alfred is ecstatic.
Better still the mental exercise starts to wake up other parts of his brain, and he begins remembering snippets of other languages. One night at dinner, instead of saying Please pass the scalloped potatoes, Mom, he says, Aio, mater, quantitas magna frumentorum est. Which actually means, Why, mother, that is a very large amount of corn. Still, when she hears the words, instead of passing the potatoes his mother leaps up and hugs him.
Two weeks later when Mandy comes through the terminal and they go to lunch he has a surprise for her. He signs out: T-H-A-N-K Y-O-U F-O-R T-H-E C-A-R-D-S. I H-A-V-E B-E-E-N S-T-U-D-Y-I-N-G.
Mandy claps her hands to her chest and then leaps up and hugs Alfred. He never realized speaking other languages was good for so many hugs. He’s going to have to study a lot more. She puts her hands on his shoulders and looks straight at him, still smiling. He doesn’t see clouds in her eyes anymore. He only sees the most beautiful person he’s ever encountered.
Mandy asks Alfred to her house for dinner. She’s been living with her sister for the last year, since living alone finally became too challenging. That Saturday his father gives him a ride all the way up to Ballard, where Mandy’s sister Laura has an apartment.
As Alfred unbuckles his seat belt and opens the car door his dad says, I don’t give a damn what your mother or the doctors say. This kind of thing is good for you, son. You go in there and be a gentleman, and you’ll charm her right out of her knickers, as your grampaw used to say. He says since they’re all the way up here he’s having a drink with an old friend. See you at nine on the nose. Go get her!
The dinner doesn’t go so well. Mandy’s older sister Laura is protective and doesn’t think she should be hanging around with men these days, much less strangers from the airport. She doesn’t say as much but Alfred can tell she’s also thinking, Much less this particular stranger. It’s the first time he’s felt something come between him and Mandy, and it does a number on his nerves.
A few weeks later they go to his house for dinner and it doesn’t go any better. His mother seems embarrassed and hardly says a word. His dad seems to think that he can cure deafness if only he yells loudly enough.
Alfred and Mandy stick to the airport for a while.
Months pass. The doctors and specialists and therapists say that Alfred is making much better progress but still hasn’t eased back into the real world. The ear doctors in Los Angeles restore 10 percent of the hearing in Mandy’s right ear but she still can’t hear Alfred talking. Which is okay, because Alfred is nearly fluent in sign language by now.
After a while Alfred and Mandy start spending time together outside the airport. Laura comes to accept Alfred and sometimes they have movie nights at the apartment and Alfred sleeps on their couch. They go to Sea Fair and watch the Blue Angels. Alfred doesn’t tell Mandy about the big house where he watched the Blue Angels and he doesn’t tell her about the girl he barely remembers. They go to a Mariners game and to the museum and the library. After a while Mandy says Alfred can sleep in her bed with her. Alfred can tell that Laura, who otherwise seems to actually like him these days, really doesn’t like that idea. Mandy tells her to butt out and, to Laura’s credit, she does. Nothing happens between them in bed except they talk and sometimes cuddle before they fall asleep. Alfred discovers Mandy’s bed is the safest place he’s ever been. It’s the only place where the accident and settlement don’t linger at the edges of his thoughts. One night in Mandy’s bed he dreams in French, and when they wake up the next morning he says, Salut, jolie fille.
Then one day Alfred sees Mandy at the airport and he knows something is wrong. They’ve gotten close and neither of them can keep a secret from the other. She walks up to him and throws her arms around him. She doesn’t sign but says, Laura and I are moving to Los Angeles. She got a job that pays double what she makes now and I can see the doctors twice a week instead of twice a month.
Alfred doesn’t understand why Mandy starts crying. He feels her tears soak through the shoulder of his shirt. After all, LA isn’t so far. He tells her he can probably do the same job at LAX he’s been doing at Sea-Tac. He’s got loads of experience at this point. Most importantly, if it will make her hearing coming back faster he’s all for it. Instead of comforting her it only makes her cry harder.
She says Laura is waiting outside and she has to go. She kisses him on the cheek and tells him they’ll have him to dinner before they leave.
At dinner that weekend Mandy cries again and even Laura says how much she’ll miss him. He tells them not to worry, he’ll get a job at LAX and they can see each other all the time. After dinner they both hug him and tell him they’ll write and call. He reminds them he’ll be working at LAX soon.
Standing on the little walkway in front of Laura and Mandy’s apartment Mandy tells Alfred she loves him. He says he loves her, too. He realizes they’ve never told each other that. He says, Canit enim vobis cor meum, which means, My heart sings for you.
It’s the first time Mandy kisses Alfred on the lips. It’s a real kiss, too. He kisses her back and when he closes his eyes he feels like he’s back in her bed, in the safest place in the world.