Moving Lips
by Charles C. Cole
After high school graduation, I went overseas with the Air Force, to the Philippine Islands. My best friend, John, tried community college briefly but quickly dropped out and created his own successful groundskeeping business. He moved in with a wonderful woman, Helen, got engaged, and grew up way too fast. I missed the wedding.
Not many months later, John was in a terrible car accident. Reportedly, he’d been passing three cars while high, with his new wife, Helen, beside him. He survived. She didn’t.
Toward the end of my military career, I transferred to Peterson Field in Colorado Springs where I met the love of my life, a hearing-impaired aerospace engineer named Angela. Angela could read lips like you and I read books. She never missed a thing. It was her superpower. She often “overheard” intimate conversations in restaurants and grocery stores where the participants would never have shared the details with their spouses or parents.
We visited my mother. Mom insisted I check in on John, who’d been comatose for nearly a decade by then.
“What’s he like? Does he sleep a lot?”
“Your sister says he mumbles. Probably talking in his dreams, poor child.”
Angela offered to come along, I think, to avoid being left alone with my always chatty — and sometimes catty — mother. John was bedridden in a modest convalescent home.
When we arrived, a lovely aide in a white uniform was sitting in a chair beside him, telling stories and cutting his fingernails, like a scene from a beauty salon. In high school, she would have been swept away by the bright light in his slate-blue eyes. He was rail-thin. His once wavy golden hair was sparse, damp and way too short. For practicality?
“Are you here for John? I was just finishing. Right now.” She excused herself. “He’s not much of a conversationalist,” she whispered as she brushed by me. I climbed into her hard institutional chair. The seat was surprisingly warm. I must have reacted with my face.
“Sorry; I’m told I have a hot bum.” Angela glared at her, and the aide was gone.
“John, it’s Charlie. Mom told me where you were. I should have come by sooner, but I don’t make it this way very often, it being a haul and the fact I drive like a little old lady. You told me that. Remember?” Angela stood closer and patted my shoulder. “I brought a friend. Did you know I’m married? John, this is Angela. Angela, this is John.” Angela smiled. Love beamed out of her. She never held back her emotions, or opinions. I was lucky to have her in my life.
She knitted her brows like she was confused. “Something wrong?” I asked. She shook her head. “John, I’m sorry. At least you’ve still got your looks.” Angela cleared her throat. “You okay?” I asked her. “You need a drink?”
She answered softly: “He’s funny. He says you were always a bad liar.”
“He heard me? And he responded?”
“I read his lips. He spoke.”
“John, can you hear me?”
“He says he’s not deaf, just too tired to get the words out.”
We continued the conversation through our brilliant translator.
“How are you?” I asked.
“Dead-tired.”
“Can you look at me? Move your head? A finger?”
“I wish.”
“But you’re in there?”
“Every effing day.”
“Does anyone know?”
“You do.”
“We would have invited you, but...”
“I would have upstaged you, like I did in high school. She’s good.”
“Reads lips like a spy.”
“No shit, Sherlock.” Angela smiled and nodded at him. “In Colorado Springs. He asked where we live.”
“Which is why I haven’t visited before.”
“He says: And because sick people give you the creeps.” His lips trembled a moment. “He’s asking about Helen,” Angela said.
“She didn’t make it,” I answered. “You know that, right?”
“I try to forget that part. Ruins the whole lying in bed every day when I’ve got nothing to look forward to.”
“Can we pass along a message to your mom?”
“Tell her I’m going to be really, really late for dinner.”
“We have to tell someone. This is amazing.”
“Don’t you effing dare.” Angela brightened. “Very,” she said. “He wanted to know if the nurse is as cute as she sounds.”
“Can we get you anything?” I asked. “Maybe one of your favorite books for the nurse to read aloud.”
“Forget it.”
“Your mom would be glad to know you still have a sense of humor.”
“It’s called, ’snarkasm.’ Pretty sure I coined a new word.”
“Is it okay if I hold your hand?” I asked.
“He says he’d rather I grabbed him, but a little lower. Five-foot three and 106 pounds.”
I knew what he was asking. “Does he want your shoe size, too?” I glanced at the generic clock on the wall and half-gasped. “We weren’t planning on staying long. I mean, we have a dinner reservation. We can cancel of course.”
“He says order him a couple of expensive beers, but don’t drink them.”
“I love you, John. I’ll come back later, without the old lady.”
“What would be the point?”
“Right. Can we tell the staff?”
“Better not. They share all kinds of secrets. I’m an unofficial therapist. They’d be too embarrassed to come back.”
“We’re leaving for Colorado Springs in the morning, flying,” I explained.
“Can I come? I could be your carry-on luggage. Nobody would suspect me for being a person.”
“I’ll come back. And I’ll bring Angela.”
“He says I should wear some sexy perfume, a Christmas present for him.” It was July.
When we got out to the rental car, Angela squeezed my hand like never before. “Should we tell someone?”
“He doesn’t want us to.”
“I’m so sad for him,” she said.
“Me, too,” I agreed.
We didn’t go back that visit. The next time, he was quiet with still lips, like he was giving us the cold shoulder, but I think there was just less life in him.
Copyright © 2022 by Charles C. Cole
