p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"A/N - I never could write a tech-focused story, so I'm not sure why I set myself up to do this. However, here we are, and with some suggestions from the NaNoWriMo forums, I have enough plot to get this thing going again after 10 years (remember all those author's notes where I would apologize for taking a week between updates?) /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;" /p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"***/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;" /p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"They all took a seat at the cafe and Jordan went to order new drinks for everyone. Gibson was very out of practice with signing, and had never been a proficient one anyway, so he borrowed Jordan's phone and started typing notes when his ASL vocabulary failed him. They spent a little time catching up first. She told him about graduating from the deaf school, and said that after he left, life was boring there. No more FBI, she joked. /spanstrong id="docs-internal-guid-6ed26cbd-7fff-e2e0-0d5f-e4f3a11b88b4" style="font-weight: normal;"/strong/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;" /p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"He knew that her parents had sent her there because they were not deaf and didn't know what to do with her. The school had become her family. She and some of her closest friends had headed off to Gallaudet and that's where she'd fallen in love, she said, half speaking, all signing, with Gibson translating to fill in the blanks for Jordan, her face breaking into a smile that Gibson couldn't remember her ever having. Lu, as she called her, was two years older, and they'd met at freshman orientation. "I was 18. She was 20. We were way too young to find the love of our lives, but we did. And we just made sense. It just got more and more intense as the time went on. But then she graduated and moved back to Seattle. We were still together, kind of, but had decided we should try to put things on the backburner. It lasted a month before she flew back and asked me to marry her. And, well, here I am." /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;" /p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Jordan looked at her ring and smiled. "That's beautiful," she said, using one of the few signs she had already learned somewhere along the way. And it was - platinum, with a setting of five diamonds. Clearly, Lu had some money. Typing into the phone, she wrote, "Gibson and I are going to get married too, but I don't think we're at the ring stage yet." The knowledge still made Gibson blush, and Thea's grinning at him wasn't helping./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;" /p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Young love," Thea said, her voice a little loud, and she raised her coffee cup in the air, causing Jordan to start giggling before she joined in the toast. "You did good," Thea continued out loud. "Very pretty." /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;" /p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"He gave her an embarrassed smile. And then Thea's words were in his head, more of thoughts than spoken words or signs, as it had always been between them, though she had always been one of the easiest people for Gibson to read. "Does she know?" He nodded./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;" /p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""She's special too," he signed back. "She can see what's going on in your life, what's going to happen, if she touches you." Thea looked confused, and Gibson thought he might have mis-signed something. He took the phone to write it out, but Thea ignored him and held her hand out to Jordan, who looked at him with concern. "It can be a lot for her," he warned. "It can hurt if there's something really bad going on." Thea looked down and retracted her hand./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;" /p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Something bad is going on, isn't it?" he asked and she nodded./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;" /p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""I'm scared," she said in the signing equivalent of a whisper. "I found something at work, and I don't know what to do. But I can't talk here. I can't talk out loud. I can't talk through the phone."/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;" /p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""I live in Seattle now. It'll take about an hour by bus." said Gibson. "What about you?"/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;" /p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""On Mercer Island with Lu and her dad. We can go there."/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;" /p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Thea had a car and the three piled in. It was quiet since Thea couldn't really talk much while driving, but Jordan took the time to tell Gibson about Mercer Island, that it was considered a rich enclave and that people like Howard Schultz and Paul Allen lived there, not that he knew who they were. But she giddily continued talking about how fancy it had to be, and by the time they pulled up to Lu's house, he was not surprised by the opulence before him. Monica's home in Mexico City was gated, but though the house was large and comfortable and the grounds fairly expansive, it was nothing compared to the mansion they were heading towards. /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;" /p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"The grounds were compact, due to lack of land, but the opulence was on full display. The drive led to a large fountain. To the side was a massive five-car garage, which Thea pulled into. She drove a relatively good car, but beside the Lexus, the Bentley, and the Porsche, her new Toyota looked sad. Lucretia bounded out of the door with glee, and smiled happily at the unexpected visitors before kissing Thea. She started signing at the guests, but Thea quickly broke in to explain that they were both hearing and one couldn't sign at all. /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;" /p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Welcome," she said aloud, her deaf accent not nearly as pronounced as Thea's, and they noticed that she wore a hearing aid. "I can speak better than Thea."/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;" /p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Cochlear cheat," Thea signed and spoke back, and they both laughed. "I win at lip reading," she declared, but Lu laughingly shook her head at Thea's friends./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;" /p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"They led them inside the massive foyer and then into a small sitting area to the side. A servant came in with a tray, apologizing to the new faces for not having anything prepared for them. She hurried off to bring them tea and cookies as well. Thea brought out some pens and pads of paper and then took Jordan's phone from her, needing to secure it far away. /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;" /p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"They didn't start talking yet, but instead continued to catch up. Lu told her story, growing up the only child of a tech giant who had rubbed shoulders with the greats in Seattle. Her mother was a CODA, a child of deaf adults, and there was little surprise when Lu failed her infant hearing screen. Her hearing loss wasn't as profound as Thea's, but having a family history, there was no doubt that she would go to Gallaudet. She had also been raised with the love and support that Thea had lacked, but when she'd brought her home for the first Christmas, Lu's family had enveloped her. Sadly, her mother passed away the following year after a brief illness, but the family remained close. /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;" /p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Lu had studied anthropology, though she didn't really have plans to do anything with it yet, spending her time writing and painting instead. She laughed as she told them she planned to be Thea's trophy wife. Thea had studied tech, coding and computer science, and Lu's father had promised her a job at graduation with the company he currently ran, EV Technologies. She liked it there, and had quickly risen through the ranks in the last two years, earning more than enough to take care of herself, especially once Lu's father, Malcolm, had insisted she just move in. /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;" /p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"They were a happy family, easily spending their days together. The way in which Lu and Thea talked and thought about their life reminded Gibson of life with John, Monica, and Vera, which left a pang of longing in his heart that he attempted to calm by reaching out to Jordan. /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;" /p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Thea's family was different. She was the only deaf child out of four, with no family history. Her parents struggled to learn basic sign, pushing her to read lips instead and making her wear uncomfortable hearing aids that did little to help. As soon as she turned 7 and was therefore old enough, they sent her to the deaf school out in the middle of the desert, a thousand miles away from home, and did little to keep her in their lives, only reluctantly letting her home during summer and winter breaks. They lived in Idaho, and were not the kind of people to take kindly to their daughter's announcement at 15 that she was gay. By the time she started college, they had broken off all contact with her, which only made Lucretia's family hold her tighter. /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;" /p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"As they finished getting to know one another, the maid entered and announced that dinner was ready. They had just sat down when Malcolm arrived. He was a tall somewhat large man with a head full of white hair and green eyes that held a natural kindness. But Gibson knew immediately that his mind was focused on the very thing that Thea had discovered, a conversation that was still to be had. He was the type of person who would never begrudge a guest though, and welcomed them to the table. /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;" /p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"His attempts to be cordial were offset by the pressing matter that was filling him with worry. "Sir," said Gibson after the first course had been cleared from the table. "We can talk openly. I know you're worried about the data."/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;" /p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"***/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;" /p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"They all took a seat at the cafe and Jordan went to order new drinks for everyone. Gibson was very out of practice with signing, and had never been a proficient one anyway, so he borrowed Jordan's phone and started typing notes when his ASL vocabulary failed him. They spent a little time catching up first. She told him about graduating from the deaf school, and said that after he left, life was boring there. No more FBI, she joked. /spanstrong id="docs-internal-guid-6ed26cbd-7fff-e2e0-0d5f-e4f3a11b88b4" style="font-weight: normal;"/strong/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;" /p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"He knew that her parents had sent her there because they were not deaf and didn't know what to do with her. The school had become her family. She and some of her closest friends had headed off to Gallaudet and that's where she'd fallen in love, she said, half speaking, all signing, with Gibson translating to fill in the blanks for Jordan, her face breaking into a smile that Gibson couldn't remember her ever having. Lu, as she called her, was two years older, and they'd met at freshman orientation. "I was 18. She was 20. We were way too young to find the love of our lives, but we did. And we just made sense. It just got more and more intense as the time went on. But then she graduated and moved back to Seattle. We were still together, kind of, but had decided we should try to put things on the backburner. It lasted a month before she flew back and asked me to marry her. And, well, here I am." /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;" /p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Jordan looked at her ring and smiled. "That's beautiful," she said, using one of the few signs she had already learned somewhere along the way. And it was - platinum, with a setting of five diamonds. Clearly, Lu had some money. Typing into the phone, she wrote, "Gibson and I are going to get married too, but I don't think we're at the ring stage yet." The knowledge still made Gibson blush, and Thea's grinning at him wasn't helping./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;" /p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Young love," Thea said, her voice a little loud, and she raised her coffee cup in the air, causing Jordan to start giggling before she joined in the toast. "You did good," Thea continued out loud. "Very pretty." /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;" /p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"He gave her an embarrassed smile. And then Thea's words were in his head, more of thoughts than spoken words or signs, as it had always been between them, though she had always been one of the easiest people for Gibson to read. "Does she know?" He nodded./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;" /p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""She's special too," he signed back. "She can see what's going on in your life, what's going to happen, if she touches you." Thea looked confused, and Gibson thought he might have mis-signed something. He took the phone to write it out, but Thea ignored him and held her hand out to Jordan, who looked at him with concern. "It can be a lot for her," he warned. "It can hurt if there's something really bad going on." Thea looked down and retracted her hand./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;" /p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Something bad is going on, isn't it?" he asked and she nodded./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;" /p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""I'm scared," she said in the signing equivalent of a whisper. "I found something at work, and I don't know what to do. But I can't talk here. I can't talk out loud. I can't talk through the phone."/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;" /p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""I live in Seattle now. It'll take about an hour by bus." said Gibson. "What about you?"/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;" /p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""On Mercer Island with Lu and her dad. We can go there."/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;" /p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Thea had a car and the three piled in. It was quiet since Thea couldn't really talk much while driving, but Jordan took the time to tell Gibson about Mercer Island, that it was considered a rich enclave and that people like Howard Schultz and Paul Allen lived there, not that he knew who they were. But she giddily continued talking about how fancy it had to be, and by the time they pulled up to Lu's house, he was not surprised by the opulence before him. Monica's home in Mexico City was gated, but though the house was large and comfortable and the grounds fairly expansive, it was nothing compared to the mansion they were heading towards. /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;" /p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"The grounds were compact, due to lack of land, but the opulence was on full display. The drive led to a large fountain. To the side was a massive five-car garage, which Thea pulled into. She drove a relatively good car, but beside the Lexus, the Bentley, and the Porsche, her new Toyota looked sad. Lucretia bounded out of the door with glee, and smiled happily at the unexpected visitors before kissing Thea. She started signing at the guests, but Thea quickly broke in to explain that they were both hearing and one couldn't sign at all. /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;" /p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Welcome," she said aloud, her deaf accent not nearly as pronounced as Thea's, and they noticed that she wore a hearing aid. "I can speak better than Thea."/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;" /p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Cochlear cheat," Thea signed and spoke back, and they both laughed. "I win at lip reading," she declared, but Lu laughingly shook her head at Thea's friends./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;" /p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"They led them inside the massive foyer and then into a small sitting area to the side. A servant came in with a tray, apologizing to the new faces for not having anything prepared for them. She hurried off to bring them tea and cookies as well. Thea brought out some pens and pads of paper and then took Jordan's phone from her, needing to secure it far away. /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;" /p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"They didn't start talking yet, but instead continued to catch up. Lu told her story, growing up the only child of a tech giant who had rubbed shoulders with the greats in Seattle. Her mother was a CODA, a child of deaf adults, and there was little surprise when Lu failed her infant hearing screen. Her hearing loss wasn't as profound as Thea's, but having a family history, there was no doubt that she would go to Gallaudet. She had also been raised with the love and support that Thea had lacked, but when she'd brought her home for the first Christmas, Lu's family had enveloped her. Sadly, her mother passed away the following year after a brief illness, but the family remained close. /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;" /p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Lu had studied anthropology, though she didn't really have plans to do anything with it yet, spending her time writing and painting instead. She laughed as she told them she planned to be Thea's trophy wife. Thea had studied tech, coding and computer science, and Lu's father had promised her a job at graduation with the company he currently ran, EV Technologies. She liked it there, and had quickly risen through the ranks in the last two years, earning more than enough to take care of herself, especially once Lu's father, Malcolm, had insisted she just move in. /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;" /p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"They were a happy family, easily spending their days together. The way in which Lu and Thea talked and thought about their life reminded Gibson of life with John, Monica, and Vera, which left a pang of longing in his heart that he attempted to calm by reaching out to Jordan. /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;" /p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Thea's family was different. She was the only deaf child out of four, with no family history. Her parents struggled to learn basic sign, pushing her to read lips instead and making her wear uncomfortable hearing aids that did little to help. As soon as she turned 7 and was therefore old enough, they sent her to the deaf school out in the middle of the desert, a thousand miles away from home, and did little to keep her in their lives, only reluctantly letting her home during summer and winter breaks. They lived in Idaho, and were not the kind of people to take kindly to their daughter's announcement at 15 that she was gay. By the time she started college, they had broken off all contact with her, which only made Lucretia's family hold her tighter. /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;" /p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"As they finished getting to know one another, the maid entered and announced that dinner was ready. They had just sat down when Malcolm arrived. He was a tall somewhat large man with a head full of white hair and green eyes that held a natural kindness. But Gibson knew immediately that his mind was focused on the very thing that Thea had discovered, a conversation that was still to be had. He was the type of person who would never begrudge a guest though, and welcomed them to the table. /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;" /p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"His attempts to be cordial were offset by the pressing matter that was filling him with worry. "Sir," said Gibson after the first course had been cleared from the table. "We can talk openly. I know you're worried about the data."/span/p