The Sign Language He Faked, The Family He Hid Chapter 08

The Sign Language He Faked, The Family He Hid Chapter 08

Auditory rehabilitation didn’t go smoothly.

The world was unbearably loud now that I could hear again.

Traffic, doors slamming, even the clink of a glass against a table could make me tremble before I could stop

myself.

At night, the laughter from our anniversary dinner still replayed in my head.

Sometimes Grant wasn’t even there.

Yet I could still feel him holding my hand and telling me he loved me, while in my head I heard him talking

about another woman and their child.

My auditory rehabilitation therapist asked me to keep track of one new sound every day.

The first day, it was the kettle coming to a boil.

The second day, it was rain against the window.

The third day, it was pages turning.

On the fourth day, I heard my own voice in the quiet room.

“This wasn’t my fault.”

I repeated those words over and over.

The crash three years ago wasn’t my fault.

Camille getting pregnant wasn’t my fault.

Stella not being able to call her own father Daddy in public wasn’t my fault either.

And I certainly didn’t owe Grant gratitude for using three years of lies to keep our marriage intact while I was

deaf.

A month later, we had our first divorce mediation session.

Grant still refused to agree to the divorce.

He brought the notebooks he’d kept over the past three years for communicating with me in sign language.

They recorded the signs and expressions I preferred.

They noted how to comfort me when I was sick.

They also noted whether to turn on the light first or hold me first when a nightmare woke me.

And then there was the sentence he’d practiced thousands of times.

[I’ll always be your ears.]

The mediator questioned him.

“Are you willing to stop living with Camille?”

“Yes.”

“Are you willing to publicly acknowledge Stella as your daughter and take responsibility for supporting her?”

He hesitated.

“Yes.”

Then he added one more thing.

“But I’m not going to marry Camille.”

Camille was sitting nearby.

At those words, the color slowly drained from her face.

For three years, she’d believed that once I got my hearing back and accepted Stella, Grant would finally make things official with her.

But Grant had never truly intended to choose her.

He wanted me to remain his wife.

He wanted Camille to keep raising his daughter.

And he wanted all of us to keep up the lie that benefited him most.

He turned to me.

“I can make them leave.”

“We can go back to how things were.”

I looked at him.

“Stella isn’t some problem you can just send away.”

“You need to take responsibility as her father.”

“But you’re no longer my husband.”

“Those two things don’t conflict.”

Grant’s eyes reddened.

“You used to depend on me so much.”

“Because back then, you were my only ears.”

“Now I understand.”

“You never helped me hear the truth.”

“You just helped everyone else hide it from me.”

The mediation failed.

My attorney filed the divorce petition that same day.

This time, I didn’t let Grant interpret a single word for me.

Before the court hearing, Mom released a public apology.

She admitted that Camille had never left the country.

She also admitted that she’d known all along that Stella was Grant’s daughter.

My brother released the real airport records from three years earlier.

The records showed that Camille had never boarded an international flight.

The goodbye photo had been staged solely to make me believe their lie.

They thought that if they admitted part of the truth on their own, I would drop the case.

Mom even put the old family home in my name.

“Elise, I know I was wrong.”

“You can have the house and the savings.”

“Just stop going after your brother.”

I refused.

“You didn’t regret it when I lost my hearing.”

“You didn’t regret it the first time you helped stop my implant activation.”

“And you didn’t regret it when you heard Grant lying right in front of me.”

“You only regret that you can’t hide it anymore.”

Mom cried.

“Then what do you want us to do before you’ll forgive us?”

I looked at her.

“I haven’t asked you to do anything.”

“And you don’t need to wait for me to forgive you.”

On the day our case was scheduled for a hearing, we went through one final mediation session at the

courthouse.

Grant submitted documentation of everything he’d done to care for me over the past three years.

He had learned sign language with me.

He had taken me to rehabilitation appointments.

When tinnitus kept me awake at night, he stayed up with me.

He had been there for nearly every follow–up appointment after the crash.

His attorney argued.

“Mr. Mercer remains deeply committed to this marriage.”

“The marriage has not broken down beyond repair.”

My attorney placed a different timeline on the table.

On the day Grant accompanied me to my first follow–up appointment, Camille had been at a prenatal appointment.

On the nights he sat beside my hospital bed, he was still watching videos on his phone of Stella calling him

Daddy.

Every time he canceled one of my activation appointments, he went straight to Camille and Stella afterward.

His supposed three years of devotion and three years of deception had unfolded side by side on the exact

same timeline.

Finally, I provided the original recording from the livestream.

Every false interpretation Grant had passed off as mine was there, clear as day.

The mediator asked him again.

“Are you still refusing to agree to the divorce?”

Grant looked at me.

“If I sign this, you’re really never coming back?”

“No.”

“What if I end all personal involvement with Camille?”

“She’s the mother of your daughter.”

“How the two of you deal with each other is your business.”

“It has nothing to do with me.”

Grant lowered his head.

A long time passed before he finally signed the marital settlement agreement.

The marital estate was divided under the agreement.

My share of the marital funds he had transferred to Camille was also recovered based on the evidence.

When the settlement became final, Grant instinctively raised his hands.

He wanted to sign something to me.

I didn’t look.

As I walked out of the courthouse, he followed me down the steps.

“Elise.”

I stopped.

It was the first time in three years I’d heard him call my name from behind me and chosen not to turn around.

His voice was hoarse.

“When I learned sign language, I really did want to take care of you.”

“And not every word of love I traced into your palm was a lie.”

I answered calmly.

“But once even one lie gets mixed into love, it isn’t worth gambling the rest of my life on.”

Then I kept walking.

No one stood behind me translating the world anymore.

I heard every step I took.