I lost my voice Entirely today. Or at least, Almost Very Nearly. There’s little to nothing of it left now, and what I have will go unheard because, I’ve decided, I won’t speak aloud for the rest of the day.
That were the thing I should have done today, I know, but my students have a Big Test on Monday, and they needed to hear my voice and– more important still– the Things I Have To Say before it comes. So I taught. That involves speaking sometimes, don’t you know.
I’m feeling much better today. My voice makes me sound sick, but I’m really on the mend. Nonetheless, after a full day of teaching and the children’s dentist appointments and helping Emma Grace with her homework, I thought I’d lie down on the sofa for just a minute. That minute turned into my falling asleep about ten times (awakened each time by Emma spelling her spelling words), which turned into my decision to stay home from our Bible study tonight. And when Bill came and picked up the children to take them, Will decided he wanted to stay here too.
How nice to be the two of us, sitting together at the table for awhile, talking. He told me about things at school– a more in-depth conversation than we’ve had lately. We moved past the classes and the new teachers and what he’s doing in every subject, past the quizzes and the tests and the grades he’s earned. We talked about classmates and attitudes and how we’re supposed to love one another No Matter What.
It was nice, it was quiet– just the two of us in this house, visiting together. Funny how it works, though: it was just us, and I was whispering due, of course, to the state of my voice. But we suddenly realized that Will was whispering, too, for no reason at all but to keep me company. Our conversation was private, but we were telling no secrets, and we were All Alone.
He laughed, and I laughed in a hoarse kind of way. And he resumed talking in vocalized sound. But it remained, in a way, conspiratorial nonetheless– my twelve-year-old boy and I, talking together at the kitchen table.
