Page 74 of Point of Contact

Trevor glanced at the card in his hand. Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors. Caring for the families of our fallen heroes. There was a website listed, along with various numbers, including a hotline.

“There’s a local chapter, and it’s very active. In fact, that’s where I met Jesse.”

Surprised, Trevor glanced at Jesse waiting patiently on the curb. “Really?”

“Yep. There are support groups for battle buddies as well as family members.” Karen paused. “A lot of Kellan’s teammates are involved. My brother’s,” she clarified. “Combat relationships can be as intense as romances, Trevor. Those guys would all die for each other, and when they lose someone...it hurts.”

Just then a car waiting behind them beeped its horn.

“Okay, go,” Karen urged him. “If you ever wanna talk more about TAPS, just call me. My number’s on the back of the card.”

Trevor thanked her and hastily got out of the SUV, both he and Jesse waving goodbye to her before they grabbed their bags and headed inside the airport. Their commuter flight to Denver was short and sweet, the connecting flight to Los Angeles uneventful, and before Trevor knew it, they were taking off in a wide-bodied jet bound for Honolulu.

“Why did you pick Hawaii for leave?” Trevor asked when they leveled off. “You didn’t have any other family to visit?”

Jesse shook his head. “No. My parents were only children, and they weren’t close to any of their distant family.” He hesitated. “They actually met in a residential school for hearing-impaired children.”

“What, like a boarding school?”

“Yeah. They were sent there when they were six or seven, something like that. Started dating when they were teenagers and got married right after graduation. They’d been told they couldn’t have kids, and I was the ultimate late-in-life oops baby.” Jesse chuckled.

“So they were both Deaf?”

“Yes. Both poor, from rural Georgia, sent to a state-run school to learn sign and lip-reading. It was the best thing that ever happened to them.”

Trevor was fascinated. “Really? That young, being sent to live away from home?”

“If you think about it, yeah. Learning to communicate, making friends. Being Deaf is isolating when you’re surrounded by hearing people, when you’re considered ‘deaf and dumb’ or ‘a mute,’ which they were in those days.” He grimaced. “A lot of people have this misconception that being Deaf equals mentally challenged. You’d be surprised at the stuff people’d say to me when I was out somewhere with them.”

“So did you, like, translate for them?”

“I learned to sign before I could talk,” Jesse said simply. “And yeah, sometimes. I was the one who went with them to doctors’ appointments, that kind of stuff. Nowadays they’re starting to make texting apps for the hearing-impaired, but back when I was a kid...”

The flight attendant stopped to ask if they wanted anything. Trevor declined but Jesse asked for a Coke, accepting a few packets of pretzels the woman handed him with a murmured thank you.

“Were you close to them?”

“Oh, yeah, I adored them.” He paused, toying with the packets on his tray table, making them crinkle. “Looking back, though, it was kind of lonely at times. I had friends, but my parents would sometimes make their parents uncomfortable. It was weird for adults to communicate with each other through a little kid.”

Trevor thought about that, about a young Jesse sitting in a doctor’s office translating personal, private matters between adults. “Couldn’t they have, I don’t know, written stuff down on a piece of paper?”

“That’s another thing. When someone is born Deaf or loses their hearing in infancy, they don’t have a basis for the nuances of language, so even their written stuff was sometimes hard to understand. It was easier for me to translate for them.”

Trevor stared at Jesse’s hands, picturing them moving in the shape of sign language like they had that day of the baseball game, imagining him bridging the gap between his parents’ world and his own.

“Riley was curious about it, too,” Jesse said softly, and Trevor flushed when he realized he was watching him. “Asked me what his name was in sign.”

“What is it?” Trevor whispered, drinking in the sight of Jesse’s right hand flashing Riley’s name, the movement too fast for Trevor to comprehend. “Again.”

This time Jesse did it slower, so Trevor could see each individual letter. He smiled, and Jesse signed a different combination.

“That’s yours,” he said softly, and the flush on his face made Trevor feel warm inside.

“Like I’ve said before, you’re amazing.”

“Well, I didn’t know any different,” he mumbled. “To me that was a normal childhood, and it was a happy one, even if it was a little lonely sometimes.” He blew out a quiet breath. “My dad died of a heart attack when I was sixteen, and my mom of one two years later.”

Trevor squeezed his arm in sympathy but didn’t say anything, and when the flight attendant brought Jesse his Coke, Trevor let his hand fall away. Jesse sipped his drink for a moment. “What about your family?”