Chapter 6 - The Broken Silence
The diagnostic suite smelled of rubbing alcohol, new plastic, and clean copper wire.
For two hours, Tessa sat on a low leather bench with her hands clutched tightly in her lap, watching the two Swiss specialists work. Leo sat on an elevated examination chair, swinging his short legs, completely mesmerized by the colored lights pulsing on the computer monitors.
Salvatore remained in the room the entire time. He didn't sit behind his massive desk. He leaned against the counter three feet from the examination chair, his arms crossed over his chest, his sharp eyes tracking every movement of the audiologist's hands. Whenever Leo flinched at the cold sensation of the ear molds or looked overwhelmed by the wires dangling around his neck, Salvatore would catch the boy’s eye and sign a short, ridiculous joke:
The doctor’s glasses look like two fried eggs.
Leo would giggle, his small shoulders shaking, the fear evaporating instantly.
Finally, the senior technician—a bearded man named Dr. Keller—snapped a sleek, matte-black processor onto the magnetic implant site behind Leo’s left ear. Keller plugged a thin fiber-optic cable into his laptop, adjusted three frequency sliders on the screen, and nodded to Tessa.
"We are going to activate the external microphones now, Miss Whitlock," Keller said in precise, accented English. "The digital filters are set to twenty percent baseline."
Keller pressed the spacebar.
A tiny, high-pitched chime pulsed from the device.
Leo went completely, terrifyingly still.
His small hands froze in mid-air. His hazel eyes widened until they were huge, dark pools of shock.
Tessa stood up from the bench, her knees trembling so badly she could barely keep her balance. She took two slow steps toward the chair, her chest heaving, the tears spilling over her eyelashes and tracking hot down her cheeks.
"Leo?" she whispered, her voice breaking on the single syllable.
Leo’s head whipped around toward her voice.
He didn't sign. He opened his mouth, his lips trembling as a tiny, raspy, unfamiliar sound broke from his throat:
"Teh... Tessa?"
The room seemed to dissolve into light.
Tessa fell to her knees beside the examination chair, burying her face into her little brother’s neck, sobbing so violently that her entire body shook. Leo’s small arms wrapped around her head, his fingers tangling in her hair, patting her shoulder with the awkward, tender rhythm of a child trying to comfort his mother.
"I hear you," Leo whispered, his voice small, distorted by eight months of silence, but clear as church bells in the quiet room. "Tessa... you sound pretty."
Across the examination table, Salvatore Marquetti did not move.
He stood with his back pressed against the wood paneling, his head slightly bowed. He watched the brother and sister clinging to each other on the floor, his broad chest rising and falling in slow, ragged breaths.
May you like
Slowly, without a sound, Salvatore raised his right hand to his own face.
With the tip of his finger, he caught a single, silent tear that had escaped his dark lashes, wiping it away before it could hit the lapel of his tailored suit.
