The other side of the house would be three more bedrooms and two full baths—the baby’s and nanny’s rooms.
The middle of the house would be an open plan with a dining room and great room that flowed into the breakfast and kitchen area. The openness would make it easier for Gini to get around.
Debbie was thrilled about the quarters for her and almost as excited with the medical room that joined hers to Gini’s bedroom.
Each visit brought more vivid images in Gini’s head: Jessica playing with Robert on a swing, and Gini holding her in her lap listening to all the singing birds in the trees. Her sad thought was Debbie wouldn’t live with her anymore.
Since Gini was progressing so well, Robert told Debbie they should play with a real deck of cards. He was sure Gini would learn the card faces easily.
“I have a surprise for you,” Robert told Gini.
“Oh… yes.”
Those words were the only words Gini didn’t have to think too much about saying. She wanted to ask what the surprise was, and she could say the words in her head but, as was the case most of the time, she couldn’t even get them out wrong. Even her sign language was messed up. She knew both Robert and Debbie mostly interpreted what they thought she wanted to say rather than what she was actually thinking and signing. Sometimes it was frustrating, but other times, once they had said the words, what Gini had intended was a fleeting thought, and she didn’t remember what she’d signed. Her world was very confusing, but she knew Robert and Debbie would always take care of her. She was determined to learn until she could communicate correctly.
She lifted her hands to sign, but they fell back to her lap.
Robert tipped the card box and took out the deck. He took one card and helped her hold it in her hand. “These are playing cards.”
She had no idea what he was talking about. She sat for a moment. “Car… uff, play?”
“Yes, like your braille cards, but since you can see so well, I thought you might like to play with real cards.”
There was that word see again.
“This is the ten of hearts. See the number ten and the hearts in the middle?”
Gini laid the card on the table, then she pointed her index finger and searched for the raised dots.
“Sweetheart, these don’t have the braille dots. Just look at the face of the card.”
See, face—what was he trying to tell her? She pushed harder trying to find the dots and, with the pressure, the card moved and fell on the floor.
She raised her hands to sign, but she couldn’t think what she wanted to say, so her hands were just flying around in the air.
Debbie was reading a book and looked over when Robert leaned to pick up the card. “Baby, what is it?”
“No, be. No, be,” she repeated over and over.
“Okay, okay,” Robert said, taking her hands in his. “We’ll try another time. Sweetheart, all you have to do is look at the card face.”
Gini burst into tears.
“Hey, what brought this on?” He wrapped her tight in his arms and started to rock her. “I wanted you to see real playing cards.”
“No, what…” she said the two words several times.
Debbie sat tense. Something was happening. Gini was in trouble somehow. She wanted to go grab her, but Robert was quietly talking to her as he rocked. “Take your time and say what you want to say.”
Gini took a big breath, then a gulp. “I, no, know, what, see, pease, tell, wha, see. Wha, see.” There was a pause. “Wha, see, is.”
“Oh, baby,” Debbie said quietly under her breath. Gini didn’t know what “see” meant. All this time, she didn’t know what they were asking her to do.
Robert put his hand on the side of her face, gently taking his thumb across her closed eye. “This is your eye. Do you remember this is your eye?”
She nodded, still weeping.
“Our eyes are how we see.” He stopped to think how he could better describe.
“Do you know how you hear me talk, or the birds sing?”
She shook her head.
He put his hand on her ear. “We hear through our ears.” Then he took her fingertip and kissed it. “What did I just do?”
“Kiss, feenger.”
“You felt my kiss, right? That’s called touch. We have five senses: hearing with our ears, touch with our fingers, or lips, or feet or other body parts, smell with our nose and taste with our mouth.”
A memory of fish and garlic smells came to Gini from the time Robert and she cooked a fish dinner in the kitchen together. “Coo… uff, fis.”
“Yes, yes, I let you smell and taste as we were cooking, I remember.” That was the meal Robert first cooked for her when they started seeing each other.
Debbie’s look of concern changed to a smile as she thought about them cooking that night.
“And the fifth sense is sight. We see with our eyes.” He paused again. “Where were the ducks the other day?”
Gini thought hard, and the vision of the ducks appeared. “Wah… ter.”
“You looked at the ducks with your eyes. You could see them on the water in the pond, right?”
“Oh… yes.”
He pulled her head back close to him. “I know your brain and your eyes sometimes don’t work as they should. But the fact that you can describe things and talk about
