You Don't Know Everything, Jilly P!: Chapters 10–15

There’s a kid’s corner with some baby kid toys, like blocks and one of those thingamabobs where you move wooden beads along a curved wire, like an abacus that melted in the sun.

She seems to be trying to make herself look older with her blond hair pulled back into a tight bun, but there are no wrinkles on her face, not even when she provides a condescending smile.

She comforts us by telling us that people with hearing loss aren’t mentally challenged but that they need, as she says, intervention to participate in the world.

“Once we have the hearing aids in her ears for a few weeks, we’ll start to get a sense of whether she’s a good applicant for cochlear implant surgery, which would augment her ability to process sound. A cochlear implant”—she looks directly at me as she explains—“is an amazing device that allows us to get right into the auditory nerves and help them receive the stimuli they’re getting.”

“Once we have the hearing aids in her ears for a few weeks, we’ll start to get a sense of whether she’s a good applicant for cochlear implant surgery, which would augment her ability to process sound. A cochlear implant”—she looks directly at me as she explains—“is an amazing device that allows us to get right into the auditory nerves and help them receive the stimuli they’re getting.”

“Once we have the hearing aids in her ears for a few weeks, we’ll start to get a sense of whether she’s a good applicant for cochlear implant surgery, which would augment her ability to process sound. A cochlear implant”—she looks directly at me as she explains—“is an amazing device that allows us to get right into the auditory nerves and help them receive the stimuli they’re getting.”

I look over at Dad, who winces at the word any, but recovers quickly. And Mom’s wide eyes look ready to latch onto anything this woman says.

In Dad’s lap, Emma chews on a teddy bear, oblivious to this woman talking about her like she’s an animal that needs to be trained.

Every baby in the history of babyness has waved with their fat, little baby hands. It’s even in Milestones for Your Baby, the dogeared book that has resided on Mount Coffee Table since Mom announced she was carrying a very special package.

For each battle, two teams are assigned the same song, and they have to cover it in the musical style of their choice. They can’t change the words or the basic beat, but they can adjust the tempo, style, and instruments however they want.

It feels like our lives are balanced on a rock on top of another rock on top of another rock on top of a crag jutting up from the sea, constantly teetering, in fear of falling.

It feels like our lives are balanced on a rock on top of another rock on top of another rock on top of a crag jutting up from the sea, constantly teetering, in fear of falling.

The big number for today’s battle is “Landslide” by Fleetwood Mac, and Chelsea’s team has turned it into trance electronica. I don’t think it’s that good. Mom calls it a travesty to Stevie Nicks, who originally sang the song.

“It is a moniker with enough I’s and i’s to bankrupt a small nation. I told your father that when we were naming you. He got off easy. Dominic is a name that can support a caboose like Pirillo."

Hi, JillyinP. BADisGreat, Botswanahavefuntoo, DelacourtFan413, profoundinoaktown, and SwordWielder42 are already here. Pull up a chair (or just stay put, if you're a Sentient Stone of Selzar) and join in.

DelacourtFan413: what about vegetarians?
Botswanahavefuntoo: we'll save some bread for them
DelacourtFan413: that's not a nutritionally balanced meal
Botswanahavefuntoo: really? that's your problem in this horse-sized duck scenario?

At first, the air is filled with the sounds of utensils hitting plates and the only thing anyone can say is "mmmmmmmmmm!" Gradually, the moans of joy turn to compliments. I'm not at the table, but I'm in the chair closest to the dining room so I can hear most of the conversation over the incessant ramblings of M & Trip-J.

Once again, I’m more focused on the table behind me than M & Trip-J’s antics. It’s when Aunt Lou says, “I just can’t imagine how much work it would be to learn sign language.”

When things are really complicated, Dad likes to call them a mystery inside a puzzle within an enigma.

Surgery is a sharp word, with scalpels and needles sticking out of it in every direction.

I turn the sound back on and leave it on for a few sentences so no one in the kitchen gets suspicious. The scene on the TV ends and I catch a snippet before the commercials start.

The caper in the mayor’s house hasn’t even fallen into a disaster, when Dad knocks on the door. “Come on out and say goodbye to your aunt Joanne.”

Mom and Dad don’t say anything about their talk with Aunt Joanne, and I don’t ask, but every time I glance their way, their faces are furrowed in thought.

Hi, JillyinP. BADisGreat, Crystaline, profoundinoaktown, SwordWielder42, and VidalianLayers are already here. Pull up a chair (or conjure your own, if you're a creation god) and join in.

Berkeley isn’t just a liberal city in Northern California. It’s also how most people around here talk about the University of California’s Berkeley campus. Mom is a professor there.