“She was deaf. Completely,” Elsie whispered, the volume of her voice almost non-existent, like she didn’t know if she should be confessing.

My hold on her grew tighter.

“She was born deaf, to hearing parents. They never understood her. But worse, they never helped her. They kept her hidden away, their dirty little secret. Until they sent her out on her own trapped in her silent world. Pushed into a world where people didn’t understand her.”

“Elsie,” I whispered, not knowing what else to say.

“She fell pregnant with me—I don’t know my father. You see, my mom got involved with people that weren’t good for her. They made her take things that she wouldn’t ever shake.”

“Elsie—”

“But she loved me. Her half-hearing girl. The little girl she managed to get at least some help for. To get a hearing aid for, so I could at least understand some of what was happening the world,” Elsie’s voice hushed. “Sometimes I wish I’d never been given the miracle of hearing. When you can hear, you can hear what people say about you. You can hear their savage words. If you listen hard enough, you can even hear your fragile heart tear apart.”

Needing to see her face, needing to show her that I was here, that I was here for her, I pushed her back and our gazes collided.

Her bottom lip was trembling. “They never taught her to sign, Levi. She could barely read lips. They gave her no tools to survive, so she had to make them up.”

My muscles froze, waiting for what came next. I didn’t know what she had to say would crush my soul. “So we had to make our own sign language. We had a secret language all to ourselves. It was ours, our secret language hidden in plain sight from the world that didn’t want us. That had no place for us—at least that’s what she’d tell me. We at least had our own language. We at least had that…” she trailed off. I was seeing Elsie in a completely different light.

Because it was from the heart. She was confiding in me. I could tell by the tremor and wariness in her voice that she just didn’t talk about this stuff.

Like me.

A flicker of a smile hit her face, and Elsie said, “My mom didn’t talk much. She’d been told her entire life that her voice was horrible, embarrassing for those in her company. She’d been laughed at and mocked mercilessly until she would speak only to me. Even then it was rare. But she often told me she loved me. Even through the drugs that dominated her life, she often told me she loved me.”

Elsie’s arms dropped from my neck and she rose from my lap. I immediately felt the loss of not having her close, but the thought faded when I watched her walk toward my mamma’s statue, the one displaying the broken version of her life.

The guilt I always felt began to rise. When Elsie kneeled down and pressed her palm to my mamma’s marble cheek, I felt something unfamiliar ignite inside.

“She couldn’t tell me she loved me,” Elsie suddenly explained, talking about her mamma, “but she could show me. In our own way, she did.”

I was transfixed as a blush crept up Elsie’s chest and neck, to land on her cheeks. Her blue eyes turned to the sculpture and holding her breath, she leaned in, pressing her forehead to Mamma’s.

“Just like this,” she explained. “My mom would put her hand on my cheek, I would put my hand on hers, and our foreheads would touch. That was my mom telling me she loved me. It was how I told her I loved her back.”

I watched Elsie’s eyes close and a distant smile tug at her lips. Then she drew back, sitting down on her heels, her hands on her thighs. She looked as if she were in prayer. Elsie sat this way for a few minutes, gathering herself.

Her hand drifted to the locket on her neck and she held it in her clenched fist.

When a bolt of lightning grounded outside the warehouse, eschewing the darkness, Elsie’s eyelids fluttered open. She rose to her feet and walked over to me. Bending down, Elsie tilted her head to the side and regarded me.

I waited, waited for her to speak, when she finally said, “What a blessing.”

My eyebrows pulled down in confusion. After everything I’d told her, I couldn’t see how I was blessed. She must have seen it on my face, because she said, “Your mom died, but your brother created for you a blessing. You get to visit her whenever you want.” Her eyes drifted to the statue and she sighed. Her face paled and pain shattered her pretty smile. “I wasn’t with my mom when she died. Nobody was.” On hearing these words, pain griped in my stomach.

Elsie’s finger pointed to the locket. “All I have left of my mom is this small picture, inside of my locket. There’s nothing else. No photo albums for me to remember her by,” she pointed at the sculpture of my mamma, “no sculpture for me to smile at every day. To hold her cheek and press my forehead to… to show her our ‘I love you’.” Her eyes met mine. “It’s a blessing, Levi. A true blessing to have this in your life.”

I would have argued that it was this sweet blonde who was the blessing. My blessing that was stitching together the hole in my heart, healing the hole that I’d carried at its center for too many years.

Elsie kept watching me, until I inched forward, taking her by surprise. Pushing a loose strand of hair back that had fallen over her eyes, I said, “I’d really like to kiss you right now.”

Elsie turned her face toward my hand that still remained on the side of her face. Her cheek nuzzled my palm, and she whispered, “I’d really like that too.”

I fought a smile. Before I allowed it to form, I pressed forward and took Elsie’s mouth with my own. This time there were no nerves. We’d smashed through those barriers tonight. She’d spoken. I’d shown her this place. She’d started to open up about her past. Our walls were coming down.

Elsie’s hands threaded through my hair, just as another crash of thunder sounded up above. It was quieter this time, the storm beginning to pass. Wrapping my hands around her waist, I pulled her on my lap, Elsie’s surprised cry separating our kiss.

Elsie’s gaze was locked on mine, and swore I heard her heart racing as fast as mine. Nothing was said. I couldn’t think. I needed to have her lips back on mine. I needed it so bad.

I smoothed my lips back over Elsie’s, a soft sigh sounding in her chest. Taking a chance, I tentatively pushed my tongue inside her mouth, Elsie’s shy tongue, sliding softly against mine. As every minute passed, I felt more and more at ease. And as every minute passed, I felt myself letting her in.

She was becoming my girl.

Elsie shifted, and our mouths broke apart. Elsie’s head fell against mine, as our breathing came hard.

“Elsie,” I whispered tightly.

Elsie’s eyes momentarily closed. When they opened, she pressed her fingertips over my lips, and confessed, “I really like your accent.” I stilled, surprised by her words and the feel of her fingers on my lips. She smiled. “I love the way you say my name. It’s probably the best thing I’ve heard since I could hear.”

I stared, dumbfounded, until my cheek twitched, and I laughed. She’d made me laugh.

I hadn’t laughed in years.

Elsie laughed too, her high-pitched tone sounding so cute to my ears. My laughing eventually stopped as I strived to hear more. Then Elsie forced herself to stop—rapidly.