By John Newton
My mother cuddled her beautiful newly born little girl without realising she had brought me into the world without hearing of any kind.
‘It must be a genetic condition, passed down in families,’ said several experts.
‘But we have no history of deafness in our family,’ protested my mother, many times.
‘Then it’s from your husband’s side,’ said the clinicians. ‘Nothing we can do. You’ll have to live with it.’
‘Not me,’ said Mother. ‘You are talking about my daughter. She’ll have to live with it.’
I grew up in dead silence, never hearing my mother’s voice; never hearing the wind or dogs barking or birdsong or music or the voices of friends and relatives, or the many sounds of nature that I understand make life so magnificent. And, of course, I never learned to speak,
Growing up I let nothing stand in my way. At a special school I learned the use of movements of my hands, body, face, and head to express myself. And, when needed, used a pen and pad to write questions and answers.
I became so proficient that, by the age of twenty, I began teaching at a special unit for children with the same affliction. I fell in love with the unit leader, a handsome young man of full hearing and speech and a renowned specialist in sign language.
After several years happy marriage filled with love, laughter and long, signed conversations, he stood up at dinner in a restaurant and signed, ‘Only be a minute.’
But he never came back.
The police came with a sign language interpreter and asked me many questions. “Has he done this before?’
I tapped two fingers to thumb to say, ‘No.’
‘Have you any idea why he should go?’
‘No.’
‘Describe him.’
I fingered his name and signed a detailed description with both hands moving at speed, followed by a history of our time together and they took me home to my empty house.
Neither of us had family I could turn to so I remained at the school and continued teaching.
For three years I searched, wrote letters, used private detectives and various authorities to check ports and airports, hotels and holiday destinations in my hunting for the man I loved and married. Many tear stained letters went out across many countries. The internet proved useless. I had plenty of sympathy and offers of suspicious companionship from both men and women, including marriage.
For three years I wept each night in my lonely bed, remembering ‘Back in a minute.’
My loving husband had disappeared completely. After five years I gave up the search, stopped weeping and divorced him using a presumption of disappearance or death and married a lovely man with full speech and hearing. To make our life complete he learned sign language and we started our wonderful life together.
One sun-filled holiday on a Sardinian beach, I studied through binoculars a graceful yacht sailing in light winds on impossibly blue sea.
I turned my gaze to move slowly along the waterline at the bronzed young bodies in tiny trunks or almost invisible bikinis, when I saw him. My first husband. Walking hand in hand with a typical Italian beach beauty. Long black hair, flawless golden skin, a body of perfection barely covered by a few expensive strips of bright material.
He walked and whispered.
She rubbed against him, nodding; small subtle smiles flicking across immaculate pouting lips.
Jealously gripped my heart.
I must have grunted my surprise.
Fingers tapped my shoulder.
“Are you ok?’ signed my lovely but now illegal second husband.
I nodded.
‘Perfect.’ I replied.
I looked again and decided to let the finding of my first husband pass.
If I don’t I’ll be a bigamist.
Forget the crushing burden of abandonment. Forget the years of tears. Forget the treacherous bastard. Let him go to hell. For ever.
Let little Miss Perfect have him.
I’ll keep dead silent and stick with this one.
This is one of the short stories from the book John Newton’s Short Stories Volume One, which is available on Amazon – Click to buy
Author Bio:
I’ve been writing books and short stories since the age of 9 with reasonable success. Two of my 14 books sold all round the world. My main successes have been WHITE SUNRISE a modern historical novel from 1902 t0 1932, with the action taking place in Kenya and Germany, plus Hungary, Austria and Berlin during the Weimar Republic with my characters woven into the history of those countries, during and after World War One. Every item of history is impeccably researched and precise.
My second success is The KENYA POLICE – A LIVING HISTORY, a Trilogy compiled in three volumes of experiences of Policemen’s stories between the 1940s and 60s. I insisted that my Policemen avoided sending only blood and thunder I also asked Police wives and widows, sons and daughters to send in stories as well. This resulted in three Volumes that sold, to my astonishment, all round the world and brought in a lot of money that I insisted was donated to the Great Ormond Hospital for Children in London. The Trilogy has been turned into film scripts and is being considered by several producers of cinema and television series. I found my colleagues’ personal stories fascinating. I also asked wives, widows, sons and daughters to send me their experiences of being in Police families and received a series of excellent tales.
Both books are available on Amazon along with my 12 other completed books among a mixture of novels and non-fiction.
In addition have written around 500 short stories which are starting to appear in Amazon Books entitled “John Newton’s Short Stories Volume One”, based on my writing style of telling the stories through my characters. This works by each character being different with their own individual style of speech. I find this technique interesting and enabling me to present characters who sound like real people.
Contact Author:
Email: nbi.john@gmail.com
