She had known silence all her life. The notion, the very concept of sound, was an abstract to her, but one she imagined fully. Sound was color.
To a lot of deaf people, silence was black.
To her, silence was white. An endless sheet of cloud white, rippling toward infinity. Sound, as she imagined it, was a beautiful rainbow against a pure white background.
When she first saw him, at the bus stop near Rittenhouse Square, she had thought he was pleasant looking, a little goofy, perhaps. He was reading from the Handshape Dictionary, trying to form the alphabet. She had wondered why he was trying to learn ASL-he either had a deaf relative or was trying to romance a deaf girl-but she hadn't asked.
When she had seen him again at Logan Circle, he had been helpful, carrying her packages toward the SEPTA station.
And then he had pushed her into the trunk of his car.
What this man had not counted on was her discipline. Without discipline, those who work with fewer than five senses would go mad. She knew that. All her deaf friends knew that. It was discipline that helped her overcome her fear of rejection from the hearing world. It was discipline that helped her live up to the high expectations her parents had for her. It was discipline that would get her through this. If this man thought she had never experienced anything as frightening as his strange and ugly game, he clearly didn't know any deaf girls.
Her father would be coming for her. He had never let her down. Ever.
So she waited. In discipline. In hope.
In silence.