I’m getting ready for my first date with a deaf woman named June. My brother met her at work. He’s an accountant who works for H&R Block nights and weekends during the tax season, and they hired him because he’s trilingual in Spanish and Sign. June had come equipped with a white board, dry erase markers and no idea that there would be a seasonal employee who could communicate with her without the props. When Steve asked if he could set me up with her, I was hesitant. But after he reminded me that it had been three years since I went on a date, I relented.

There’s a knock on the lower part of the bathroom door, so I know its Isabella and not my brother.

            “Daddy, I’m hungry,” she signs.

            “Uncle Steve is making you dinner. Let Daddy finish getting ready,” I reply in both sign and speech.

            She frowns and walks down the hall, but I grab her before she gets too far because I notice that her hearing light aid isn’t on.

            “It’s broken,” she says.

            I check the battery and it seems to be working fine. I know it doesn’t really help her hearing; it’s just for her to become accustomed to having something on her ear before she gets the implant.

            The doorbell rings, or rather, the doorbell light flashes in the hallway. I yell at Steve that I’m not ready yet, so would he please get the door and keep June occupied? I can’t remember the last time I had to match my shoes to my belt, and when I realize that I own only brown shoes and black belts, I quickly swap my shirt for a sweater that will cover where the belt should be. I don’t remember getting ready for a date being so difficult.

            When I get downstairs, June and Isabella are sitting at the computer, with Isabella excitingly showing her new friend a dollhouse for which she’s saving her birthday, Christmas and tooth fairy money. It’s wooden with two stories, a porch, and a family of four. June tells her it’s worthwhile to save her hard-earned allowance for a toy so cool, and it’s at that point that Isabella sees me from the corner of her eye and turns around.

            “Hi Daddy,” she says

            June turns around. I love her smile.

            “Daddy, this is June. She thinks my dollhouse is cool. June, this is my Daddy. His real name is Henry.” She spells my name out and follows the “Y” with a slight pause and then the sign for my name. She’s still learning to spell, and I’m so proud of her for remembering this part of signing introductions.

            June points to my feet and asks if those are dancing shoes. I say no, and she suggests I change because her friend, a bartender, got us a reservation at a Cuban restaurant and bar with a live band.

            I laugh. “I got us reservations, too.”

            “Where?”

            “Nicolina’s Italian Bistro.”

            “But I feel like Cuban.” She scrunches her nose.

            “Okay, Cuban it is.”

            We leave the house and before we’re to the car, Steve calls my name. “You know it’s Saturday, right? My usual night out? You owe me one.”

            I respond with a universal sign that Isabella, thankfully, doesn’t understand yet.

            We order drinks—a margarita for me, a mojito for her. The mojito doesn’t have enough lime or mint, so she brings it back to her friend at the bar instead of relying on our incredibly slow waiter. She brings back two, and says that the bartender gave the second one with compliments to the lady and regrets on behalf of his bartending trainee.

            We order dinner and start eating the chips and three types of salsa.

            June says that she’s in computers, and that it’s boring, really, but pays the bills. She asks what I do, and I tell her I’m in construction. She looks at me like she doesn’t believe what I’ve told her, and grabs my hand.

            “No calluses and clean fingernails,” she says.

             I clarify and say that I’m in construction inspection and monitoring. She says she’s building a house on the east side, and could I come check it out for her? Just to, you know, make sure everything’s okay? I tell her sure, but my rates are steep.

            “But for you, I’ll make you a deal.”

            “Oh yeah?” She finishes the last sip of her second mojito.

             “A second date.”

            She winks and asks me to dance. She’s an excellent dancer, which is quite a relief since I can’t keep rhythm. I ask her for her secret to keeping the beat when she can’t hear the music.

            “I watch people around me and feel the bass,” she says. “Sometimes I can get the rhythm from the way my partner moves, but that way’s not working now.”

            After the second rumba, we walk back to our table, where the waiter has just brought our meal.

            We’re silent for a few minutes and I offer her a bite of my ceviche.

            “Where’s Isabella’s mom? she asks.

            I explain how she left three days after the diagnosis that our child had lost her hearing due to meningitis. She couldn’t handle not having a perfect child.

            “Isabella is a cute kid,” she says.

            “Thanks. We’re starting evaluations and paperwork to get her an implant.”

            Her forehead wrinkles. “Why?”

            “Why not?” I respond, the liquor making my face feel warm.

            I look over at her and she’s shaking her head.

            “You don’t understand being Deaf,” she says.

            I take offense since my daughter has been deaf since she was a baby. I sign, "You don't know anything about what it is to be a father."

            “But I do know what it’s like to not be perfect.”

            I throw a few twenties on the table, get up, and leave.

            June emails the next day reminding me that I had agreed to look at her new house. "I don't want to go out with you anymore," I write back.

            But she is sneaky and calls my office, asking to hire an inspector. And an inspector knowledgeable of Sign, at that. I tell my boss I don’t want the assignment, but he says, look here, she’s paid us up front and double the normal fee. I have no choice.

*          *          *

            Friday morning I meet June at her house site. She greets me with flowers and asks if I have to wear a construction helmet. I toss the flowers in my hot car and tell her my head will be fine.

            She gives me a tour of the framing, telling me that this will be the kitchen, the living room, the dinning room, and then each of the two bathrooms and four bedrooms. I can’t get a word in, otherwise I’d tell her that I could figure it out for myself, based on the rough-in plumbing and electrical.

            Most everything looks up to par, except for a few places where the framing around the large picture windows faces the backyard appears stressed. I suggest that she gets them reinforced, and she seems very thankful.         

            She asks if she can repay me for saving the windows from stress by taking me to lunch.

            “You already paid the firm,” I say.

            So then she asks if she can drop off a movie or cookies for Isabella instead.

            “No,” I reply and head back to my car. “I don’t want to see you anymore.”

            “I think I was right. You don’t know what kind of decision you’re making,” she signs, trying to stay in my line of sight.

            “Why bother me?” I reply.

            “Because someone needs to,” she answers.

            I throw the flowers out as I drive away. Back at the office, I tell my boss to not accept any more jobs from the Deaf woman, and he tells me it’s too late. June emailed and asked that someone be there after the sheetrock’s installed. I tell him to go find another inspector fluent in Sign for that job, and take off to pick up Isabella from pre-school for the last appointment before her implantation.

            Dr. Susan is running late, so we play a game of Go Fish in the waiting room. Isabella gets bored and sits back in her chair. “Daddy, can June come and play again?” she asks.

            “No, she’s not coming over anymore.”

            “Why? She’s pretty. And she likes dollhouses.”

            “She’s just not.”

            Once in the sound booth, Isabella climbs up the tall chair to get her middle ear pressure checked. Then the intern takes her to another room attached to this one with a window between them. She signs that she can see me, and then winks.

            Dr. Susan speaks to me while facing the window and fiddling with various knobs. “So, what’s this I hear about your new girlfriend?”

            “What?”

            “Henry, the Deaf community here isn’t that big,” she replies.

            “She won’t leave me alone.”

            After she tests Isabella, she tells me June had meningitis. Just like my daughter.

            “Won’t even consider an implant for herself. It’s a shame, really,” she says.

            Since Isabella was a big girl and did so well at the appointment, I give her the last fifteen dollars she needs for the dollhouse and we stop on the way home to get it. When we pull in the driveway, she’s excitedly telling me all about how she’ll be the little girl and I’ll be the daddy, and if Uncle Steve comes over he can be the brother. When she sees the visitor sitting on the front steps, she throws her hands up in delight.

            “And June can be the mommy!” she says.

            June comes to the car and unbuckles Isabella from her booster seat while I carry the dollhouse box into the house

            “You can leave now,” I say to June, but she’s busy showing Isabella DVDs that she brought.

            “But I have something for Isabella,” she replies. The first DVD is about fairy princesses and narrated in sign in the bottom right corner by Linda from Sesame Street. The second’s called “A Kid’s Fun Silence.” I read the back; it’s about living without hearing, and how great it is to communicate in sign.

            “Thank you, but we don’t need these.” I give them back to her and motion toward the door. But Isabella has taken a liking to the fairy princess on the front of the first DVD, and she asks if we can watch it right now.

            “Of course,” June says. She walks to the DVD to put it in.

            “No, we can’t. You were just leaving,” I say.

            “Please Daddy, can’t we watch the movie?”

            I sigh and sit on one end of the couch. June sits on the other, and Isabella sits between us, holding our hands.

            As I fall asleep that night, I get angry with myself for thinking that despite being weird to me, June is really great to my daughter.

            Steve comes over for Saturday morning breakfast, and over his second helping of Frosted Mini Wheats, he tells me he’ll be out of town on business the day of Isabella’s surgery. He’s so sorry, but there’s nothing he can do about it.

            I speak so Isabella doesn’t understand what’s going on.

            “You couldn’t have said no? Why not? Isn’t Isabella important to you?”

            “I tried, really. She’s your daughter.”  He stands up and brings the half empty plate to the sink.

            “But I need you,” I respond.

            Isabella comes back to the table to finish her pear slices, and I pull her on my lap and inhale the sweet smell of her fine blonde hair.

            Apparently there are no other inspectors fluent in Sign, so on Monday I’m back at June’s house site. She’s waiting in her car, and doesn’t get out while I walk around the house. The sheetrock is fine. There’s no reason, really, for me to be here. She must know that.

            I go to the backyard to check on the sprinkler installation, and there’s a table made from two sawhorses and a few planks of wood. A bottle of wine sits next to crackers and brie cheese. I hear the back door open, and she walks toward me.

            “I’m sorry I was a jerk,” she says. “I just want to be another opinion, that’s all.”

             “I’m the father,” I say as I stand up. “You don’t know what that’s like.”

            “Please,” she says. “Don’t go.”

            I leave through the back gate and shut it behind me so she can’t follow.

            I pick up Isabella early from school and take her to the toy store to get furniture for her dollhouse. We spend the rest of the afternoon arranging small living rooms, kitchens, dining rooms, and bedrooms. Just the two of us.

            Steve stays overnight the day before the surgery. Isabella has a nightmare, so she climbs into bed with me. I can’t sleep; I watch her body move with her breathing instead.

            We drop Steve off at the airport on the way to the hospital.

            “Call me,” he says, and gives Isabella a hug and kiss.

            We check in, and I sit with Isabella, who is wearing a cloth hospital gown with balloons and teddy bears. She asks if the doctor shaves off all her hair or just a small part. I tell her he won’t shave too much, but she asks me to ask him anyway. She snuggles on my lap until the nurse comes in with the IV. My legs get weak, and when she starts to drift to sleep, I have to remind myself to be in control; I am master of myself, and I will not get upset.

            The nurse wheels her away, and I take my things to the waiting room. June is sitting there, facing the door, waiting for me.

            “Susan told me,” she says.

            “Dr. Susan? Doesn’t that break patient confidentiality or something?”

            She says she saw Dr. Susan at morning Mass, and she had just assumed she knew.

            “Why would she assume that?” I ask.

            She shrugs.

            I change the television channel to a show about seahorses and sea dragons.

            She takes a bag of M&Ms from her pocket and offers me some.

            “I want her to be perfect.”

            “She already is,” she replies.

            “I know,” I say. She holds my hand, and I drift asleep with three candies in my mouth.

            June wakes me a little over two hours later when the surgeons come out to talk to me. The surgery went well; no, they only shaved a small patch behind her ear; yes, we can go back now, but she’s probably still sleeping.

            June looks at me, and I grab her hand. We walk into the room, and there’s my daughter, her head wrapped in a bandage, and the left side of her face swollen. I climb into the hospital bed next to her and June sits in a recliner on the other side of the room. When Isabella and I wake up a few hours later, June is gone. But she’s left something: it’s a little girl for Isabella’s dollhouse, with blonde hair and an implant painted near her left ear.