The glass in the front door only looked dark brown from a distance. Up close, as the sunlight played across its rippled texture, streaks of yellow and swirls of orange lit up before dispersing back into a beer-bottle gloom. Sam could see no movement on the other side of the pane. It was quiet. A soft breeze nudged the leaves of the surrounding trees, and Dettie’s car idled out on the road, where she and Katie sat watching him through their windows, waiting. He looked up again at the doorbell, shifting back and forth, more eddies of light bubbling forth and receding away. Around the button, painted onto the weatherboard of the house, a tangle of light green vines and pink roses had been shaped into a love heart. His palms were sweating.
Dettie honked.
The sound made him jump. As he turned to look, she pointed at her wrist and then the door. It was time.
Dettie had agreed to drive Sam to the appointment with his new speech therapist, but it was clear she wasn’t enthusiastic about the arrangement. She had refused to get out of the car, not letting Katie, whom she’d just picked up from school, out of her seat either. She’d even kept the motor running. Perhaps, Sam thought, Dettie considered visiting someone to help with his voice a form of indulgent ‘carry-on’, and was only going to offer the minimum support.
Katie, oblivious to her aunt’s impatience, smiled and waved at him.
He turned back and, holding his breath, pressed the doorbell. The electric chitter of ‘Greensleeves’ sounded behind the glass. For a moment longer the rumble of Dettie’s engine promised escape, until a darker shadow of brown emerged from the murk and the door opened.
The woman who greeted him was one of the tallest people Sam had ever met. With long, tanned limbs and a puff of curly hair, she reminded him of a coconut tree. She smiled, warmly.
‘Samuel?’ she said, leaning over, eye-level, her hands on her knees, her floral dress pinned to her thighs.
He shrugged. Nodded.
She extended a hand. ‘I’m Tracey,’ she said. ‘Your mother and I spoke on the phone.’
Sam lifted his arm and she took his hand, pumping it twice and smiling broadly again.
‘Did you come all the way on your own?’ She straightened up and noticed the car. She appeared to be about to manoeuvre around Sam and down to the footpath, until Dettie gave a curt nod and drove off.
Tracey watched her go and blinked. She started to say something, and smiled instead. ‘Well, Samuel, why don’t we go inside and get started?’
She gestured into the hallway.
Slouching, Sam stepped over the threshold and followed Tracey down a hall of polished floorboards, into a carpeted lounge room and onto a purple sofa. As he settled himself as far back on the cushion as he could, she sat in an armchair facing him, one leg crossed over the other. Somewhere, off in another part of the house, a television was playing. It sounded like sports. There were announcers and the occasional cheer.
‘Now, Samuel,’ she said. ‘When your mummy and I spoke on the phone she said that she was too busy to come today, or for our first few appointments, but that she’ll be coming later. But that’s really good, actually. Because it will give us some time to get to know each other and to work through a few things on our own first. Won’t it?’
Sam could feel her attention on him, so he stared at her foot, peeking out from under the hem of her dress. The sandal she was wearing was dangling off her heel.
‘So why don’t I introduce myself properly, and maybe explain the process, and what we’re going to do today?’
He knew she was smiling again. Her eyes crinkled, head tilted sympathetically.
‘So, again, my name is Tracey. I’m called a speech therapist,’ she said. ‘And that just means I’m trained in a number of different recuperative techniques for a variety of speech-related issues. Everything from stuttering—I have some people who need help with that—to people such as yourself, looking to regain their voice entirely, perhaps with the help of some voice prosthesis tools. And we can look at some of those options later.’
She gestured to a few devices laid out on the coffee table, but Sam left them in the corner of his eye.
‘I also teach sign language,’ she said. ‘Your mummy mentioned that there might be some interest in the two of you learning that together. Which I think would be very nice. So we could do that.’
She hummed. She took a breath. The television in the other room crackled with a roar of applause.
‘Can I tell you a secret?’ she said. ‘I don’t know if you’re feeling nervous.’ Her voice remained soft, measured. ‘But I am. Just a little.’
She was still smiling. He could tell from her voice. She moved in her seat and the sandal snapped on her foot.
‘I usually work with older people,’ she said. ‘Not always, but mostly. So you’re the youngest new friend that I’ve gotten to help. Which is exciting, isn’t it?’
She seemed to be asking a lot of questions that didn’t really need a reply. Sam waited, but nothing happened, so he offered a tiny nod.
A crowd, their voices thinned by the television speaker, cheered again.
‘I’m sorry,’ Tracey said. ‘Could you just excuse me a moment?’
She stood and swept across the floor, opening a sliding door and stepping through. The television, which was in the very next room, was louder with the door ajar, and Sam could make out the rhythmic sway of a tennis match, the pock and grunt of a rally playing out, and the swell of spectators escalating with every returned shot. Tracey was talking to whoever was watching the set in a heightened whisper, far sterner than the smooth tenor she was keeping with Sam. He heard a man’s voice in reply, also talking low, but clearly annoyed. Tracey said something about the ‘appointment’ and the man groaned.
While she was gone Sam scanned his surroundings. It appeared to be a cross between a lounge room and an office. Several framed certificates adorned the wall beside a large bookcase. There were pamphlets and business cards on the mantle above a closed-off fireplace. Like the glass on the front door, the carpet, walls and ceiling were all shades of brown, but the space was busy with colour. A painting of a misty waterfall disgorging a rainbow hung by the window. Another, of a Native American man staring at the sunset, faced it on the corner wall. Multiple beaded dreamcatchers hung from the ceiling. There were small ornaments, of horses and dolphins, on every shelf, and a crystal unicorn sat in the centre of the coffee table.
Tracey’s whisper rose to a hiss and the television quietened slightly. Sam could only hear the thock of balls on racquets if he strained to listen. She returned, smiling with her lips pressed tight together, and resettled in her chair, smoothing down the wrinkles in her dress.
She began talking him through the ways that people like himself could learn to speak again. She drew a diagram of his throat—a cross-section of his neck—and talked about the way it worked now. How he worked. Now.
She described the breathing technique that the doctor had mentioned. It was called ‘oesophageal speech’.
‘Did you and your friends ever burp out words?’ she said. ‘Swallow air and burp funny sounds?’
He didn’t respond.
‘Because it’s a bit like that. Sort of,’ she said. ‘You swallow air into your oesophagus and shape your mouth and tongue and palate as you let the air out.’
She gave him a small demonstration of the process, just to get the idea. After sucking in through her nose she made a series of short grunting noises: tah, pah, tie, kah. It sounded peculiarly raspy, and Sam felt a quiver in his stomach.
‘We do some exercises like that together,’ she said, back to using her normal voice, ‘and gradually we work up to saying full words, then sentences. Did you want to try a little now?’
He shook his head.
‘Just a little go?’
He pressed back into the couch.
‘That’s okay. No hurry. Don’t worry. We’ve got plenty of time.’
Next she showed him the handheld devices. She held one out to Sam, but he didn’t take it. It was a black tube, about the size of a small flashlight. An electrolarynx.
‘Nothing to it,’ she said. ‘It just creates the vibration that your voice box used to produce.’ She raised it to her neck and pressed it against her throat. It made an angry humming, and when she opened her mouth, a sizzling noise came out. ‘And it sounds just like this,’ she said, her voice gnarled and robotic.
Sam felt lightheaded. The room seemed smaller all of a sudden. The dreamcatchers and dolphins pressed in on him. He was breathing faster.
‘You just have to make sure that you’re clean-shaven so that it has a tight surface connection. But that’s not really a problem for me.’ She looked up at Sam trembling in front of her. ‘I guess that’s not really—’
She adjusted herself in place, setting the devices out of sight on the floor. ‘Why don’t we—What if we learn a little sign language? A couple of things you can show your mummy?’
She demonstrated some words; ran through the alphabet. She spelled out Samuel with her finger and palms, and showed him very simple things like Yes and No and Hello.
‘Hello, my name is Samuel,’ she said, waving in a firm, practised way, and signing out the letters in a quick succession of gestures. He pretended to look while actually staring past at one of the flowers on her dress.
‘Now you try.’ She showed him her hands, palms out, and shaped the sentence again. ‘Can you follow along?’
He tried. Sort of. His hands felt numb. The shapes he made were sloppy and backward. Eventually Tracey rose and crossed to the couch, sitting beside him and taking hold of his fingers. Shaping them.
He could smell cigarettes. She was a smoker. Like Dettie. He became distracted by the fuzziness of her hair. The tickle of it on his ear. In the other room the man watching television cleared his throat.
Up on the bookshelf, behind Tracey, Sam noticed a line of encyclopaedias. They were the exact encyclopaedias that he had at home. Funk & Wagnalls. Black and gold spines. All snug in place on their shelf. Something about the sight of them made him choke. He started huffing. He snatched his hands back. Suddenly he couldn’t catch his breath.
Tracey eased away. ‘That’s okay, sweetie,’ she said. ‘I know this is difficult. It’s a lot to take in. A lot all at once.’ She touched his knee. ‘Why don’t we take a break? Let’s have a hot drink of something.’
She left to make him a cup—a Milo for him and tea for her. She promised biscuits.
Sam sat alone, trying to slowly inhale. Exhale. Tucked behind Tracey’s empty chair the electrolarynxes were waiting. On the table the diagram of his neck, sliced in half, tubes rearranged, stared up at him. In the next room commentators were enthusiastically reciting someone’s statistics. Sam was shaking. His breathing was fast. Fierce. He couldn’t stop. Couldn’t catch his breath. The encyclopaedias that he had at home. That he used to research his school projects. They sat on the shelf. The man watching tennis coughed. Like his father on the tape. He coughed.
The room was too small. Cluttered. Choking him. Tiny dolphins. Horses. Horse pulling carriages. Tethered. He was sweating under the bandages. He stared at the unicorn. His head was getting light. One of its legs was raised. His breath. He couldn’t. It hurt.
He was crying.
Gasping. Shaking. Sobbing. There was no way out. He was going to throw up. He tried to stop crying and cried harder. Silently. Wet, hot tears scalding his face. The waterfall painting and the dreamcatchers dissolved in a blur. His chest heaved. His neck whistled. Everything was getting dark.
At some point Tracey returned carrying a tray with two mugs and a plate of biscuits. ‘Oh, no, sweetie, it’s okay,’ she said, setting them aside and easing down beside him again. ‘It’s okay. You’re okay.’
He could barely hear her. He was doubled into himself. Eyes squeezed shut. Chest on fire. Trying to stop the sobbing. If he could just catch his breath. If he could just get control. What was going on? Was he dying? Was this what dying felt like? Dettie’s dark beyond?
‘It’s perfectly all right,’ Tracey was saying. ‘Shhh…’ She rubbed his back, but he couldn’t feel it. ‘We just need to get it out, don’t we?’
But he didn’t. He knew it. He couldn’t get it out.
He hated her.
He hated her sign language. He hated her electric buzzing voice box. Her stupid burps. He hated her dreamcatchers and her ornaments and her husband watching tennis in the next room. He hated that she called him ‘Samuel’. He hated her unicorn.
He hated Dettie for leaving him here. His mother for being at work. Katie for waving goodbye. The doctors. His school. Everyone. All of it. Everything.
He was alone with all his hate. Crushed under it. Lost in it. Choking his way deeper into it. Alone.
Eventually the sensation began to pass. Tracey got him to count out his breaths, and the choking steadily slowed to a shudder. Tears still welled in his eyes, streaked down his cheeks, but he could look around again. He could see the room and not feel so closed in. His stomach was sore, but the urge to vomit had passed.
Tracey spent the remaining time gently showing him again how to sign his name—all of the letters—but he barely took it in. He felt wrung out. His head was burnt clean. Light. Nothing he did mattered anyway, he realised, and there was nothing he could do. He let the Milo go cold.
When Dettie arrived to pick him up she honked from the street. Tracey led Sam back through the house, her hands on his shoulders, promising that everything would get easier with time and practice. He nodded because it seemed to make her happy to think that, and waved goodbye.
He decided he would never come back. No matter what. He would fake stomach-aches, postpone dates, convince his mother he was fine without it. Anything. But he would never come back again.
As he climbed back into the car it seemed like days since he’d seen his sister and aunt. While Katie told him about the park down the road he laid his head on the back of his seat and watched the door of Tracey’s house close. If she noticed, Dettie didn’t ask him why his face was puffy and his eyes were red, and he decided that he wouldn’t tell her anyway. He’d never experienced anything like that before, and the thought of it made him feel ashamed. He would leave it there. Behind Tracey’s door, its glass now dull and brown again in the distance.