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She Read Their Lips and Ruined Them
NovelShort
Hoàn thành
I'm hard of hearing. The day the Hensons took me back, the fake heiress Sabina Henson leaned close to my ear and smiled. 「Sis, it's actually kind of nice that you can't hear well.」 「At least whe...
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第1章
I'm hard of hearing. The day the Hensons took me back, the fake heiress Sabina Henson leaned close to my ear and smiled.
「Sis, it's actually kind of nice that you can't hear well.」
「At least when people call you a deaf hick, you won't have to feel bad about it.」
She kept her voice low.
My mother, Valerie Delgado, only saw her linking arms with me, all affection.
I nodded and opened the live captions on my phone.
A line of text jumped onto the screen.
【deaf hick】
The whole living room went quiet.
I held the phone up in front of her.
「Do me a favor and say it again.」
「This time, into the mic.」
My brother, Ethan Henson, frowned right away.
「Lottie, Sabina was only joking with you.」
I looked at him.
「If it's a joke, why not say it louder?」
Nobody answered.
Sabina's eyes went red. She turned and handed me a keycard.
It read: 【Family Escort Pass】
Her voice trembled.
「Sis, your ears aren't good.」
「From now on, whenever you come and go from the house, I'll go with you.」
I smiled.
「So you're saying, to get into my own home, I have to have you lead the way?」
...
I held it in my hand and turned it over, looking twice.
No name of mine on it. Just a string of temporary numbers.
Sabina's eyes were still red, her voice soft as cotton.
「Sis, don't misunderstand.」
「I just worry that you've only just come back, and you won't hear what the guards at the gate say.」
「If you wander into the wrong place, people will laugh at you.」
I looked up at her.
「Laugh at me for what?」
She froze for a second.
I said:
「Laugh that the Hensons' real daughter needs the adopted one to show her the way home?」
The color drained from Sabina's face.
My brother Ethan came straight over.
His tone was cold.
「Lottie Bishop, Sabina meant well.」
「You've barely walked in the door, and you're already set on making her cry?」
I watched his lips move. A few of the words I couldn't catch.
But I understood him.
I opened the captions on my phone and turned the screen face-up.
「Slow down.」
「I'm hard of hearing. I'm not on trial.」
Ethan's face darkened further.
「You——」
Valerie hurried over to smooth things over.
She's my birth mother.
Her eyes were red, and when she looked at me she seemed to want to hold me, and to be afraid of dirtying somebody's rules by doing it.
「Lottie, you must be tired from the trip.」
「Come inside first.」
I glanced at her.
She hadn't had anyone put my name into the system, and she hadn't taken away that escort pass.
She only said: 「Come inside first.」
「No need.」
「I remember the way.」
The Henson house was big.
Big enough that every few steps someone lowered their head and murmured, “Miss.”
But it was Sabina they were greeting.
Sabina walked ahead like the real mistress of the house.
She glanced back at me, smiling sweetly.
「Sis, the stairs wind around a bit.」
「Stay close to me.」
I said:
「My ears are bad.」
「My legs aren't broken.」
A maid beside us jerked her hand and nearly dropped her tray.
Sabina's tears started welling up again.
「Sis, I really only wanted to take care of you.」
Ethan said coldly:
「Can you not talk properly for once?」
I turned to look at him.
「Can you get her to act like a decent person first?」
The living room fell silent.
That was when Brendan Henson came out of the study.
He's my birth father.
His face was heavy. He looked first at Sabina, then at me.
「Lottie.」
「Now that you're back with the Hensons, you'll need to learn some sense of propriety.」
「Sabina grew up in this house. She knows how to look after people.」
「Your hearing isn't good, so a lot of situations are awkward for you. Letting her guide you is for your own good.」
I let out a small laugh.
I'd heard this many times as a child.
Just not on Old Street. I'd heard it when someone found me to be a nuisance.
At the Old Street soup shop, my grandmother never talked like that.
When she called me, she'd tap the rim of the bowl with a spoon first.
Valentine Chavez, a neighbor, would bend down and look me in the eye when he spoke to me.
When my adoptive father fixed radios, he even built me a little lamp.
When someone called for me, the lamp lit up.
My grandmother said:
「Lottie, not being able to hear well isn't your fault.」
「Anyone who really wants to talk to you will come stand in front of you.」
「The ones muttering behind your back were never saying anything worth hearing.」
So I looked at Brendan Henson.
「Mr. Henson.」
Valerie went pale.
「Lottie, that's your father.」
I said:
「What he just gave me were the house rules.」
「I thought I'd walked into a board meeting.」
Brendan Henson's brow furrowed.
Ethan gave an outright sneer.
「Raised out in the sticks. No wonder she's got such a sharp tongue.」
Sabina quickly tugged at him.
「Ethan, don't talk about Sis like that.」
Even as she pleaded, she dropped her voice.
「Sis will hear you and get hurt again.」
The captions on my phone lit up.
【Raised out in the sticks. No wonder she's got such a sharp tongue.】
I held the screen up.
「I don't catch all of it.」
「But it keeps a record.」
Ethan's face went stiff.
Sabina's hand stopped too.
Valerie looked at that line of text, and her tears spilled over at once.
「Ethan, how could you say that about your sister?」
Ethan pressed his lips together. He didn't apologize, only turned his head away.
Sabina said quietly:
「It's all my fault.」
「If I hadn't tried to help Sis, none of this would have blown up.」
The moment she cried, Valerie softened.
「Sabina, it's not your fault.」
Suddenly I felt tired.
The Hensons had searched for me for eighteen years.
Yet on my first day in the door, the one they pitied first was still the person who cried prettily.
That night, Sabina took me to my room.
The far end of the third floor.
The door opened onto a space clean as a guest room just tidied up.
The sheets were new.
The curtains were new.
Even the flowers on the table were new.
A shriek of static ripped through my hearing aid, sharp enough to make my temple twitch.
I stood where I was, not moving.
Sabina asked softly:
「Sis, what's wrong?」
I went to the wall and pressed close to listen. Next door there was the low noise of a machine running.
A humming, coming in waves, boring into my ears.
I turned back to her.
「What's on the other side?」
Sabina blinked.
「The equipment room, I think.」
「But it's very quiet.」
She leaned in close, her smile faint.
「You can't really hear it anyway.」
「What difference does it make where you sleep?」
I watched her mouth.
This time I didn't look at the captions.
I said:
「That part, I heard clearly.」
第2章
That night I barely slept.
The equipment room next door never stopped.
The humming pressed through the wall and bored into my ear, until the hearing aid buzzed my skin numb.
I took it out.
The world went quiet all at once.
Quiet the way it is when someone holds your head underwater.
My phone lit up. A voice message from my grandmother.
I tapped it open and let it turn to text.
【You asleep?】
【I've got the soup dumpling filling mixed. I'll fold them in the morning.】
【If the food over there doesn't sit right with you, come home and eat.】
I stared at that line for a long time.
【It's fine. I can eat.】
She wrote back fast:
【Being able to eat is one thing. Being pushed around is another.】
【Anyone gives you grief, don't sit on it.】
I let out a small laugh.
The next morning, by the time I came downstairs, the living room was already full of people.
The Henson relatives had come.
To meet me, supposedly.
But the moment I reached the top of the stairs, I saw Sabina sitting beside Valerie, her eyes red.
Her voice was soft.
"My sister was probably just worn out yesterday."
"She didn't mean to snap at our brother and Dad."
"Her hearing's bad, that's all. Sometimes she can't tell what tone people are using."
Someone in the room sighed right away.
"That explains it."
"Not being able to hear properly is a hassle. The family will have its hands full from now on."
Another woman, in a fitted qipao, looked over at me.
She didn't bother lowering her voice, probably assuming I wouldn't catch it.
"How is she ever supposed to marry?"
"You can't exactly bring a caption machine to social functions."
Sabina jumped in.
"Auntie, my sister can read lips."
"Just don't ask her anything too complicated. Speak slowly and she'll manage."
I came down the last step.
The room went quiet for a beat.
Sabina shot up.
"You're awake, sis."
"I was only explaining your situation to everyone. I didn't want anyone hurting your feelings by accident."
I looked at her.
"You explained it in a lot of detail."
"You even asked, on my behalf, how I'm supposed to get married."
The woman in the qipao stiffened.
I sat down on the sofa and set my phone on the table, live captions running.
"Auntie just asked how I'll ever marry."
"Is your own marriage a happy one?"
Dead silence in the room.
Valerie grabbed at me, flustered.
"Lottie."
I turned to her.
"She gets to ask, but I don't?"
The woman's face flushed red.
"I was only worried about you."
"What kind of child talks this sharply?"
I nodded.
"Before you worry about someone else, wash your mouth out first."
Ethan came out of the dining room, his face darkening at once.
"Lottie Bishop, there are elders in this house."
"Watch how you speak."
I pushed the caption screen toward him.
"Then tell your elders to watch how they speak too."
"I'm hard of hearing. I'm not so deaf I've lost my dignity."
Sabina's eyes went red again.
"Sis, don't be like this."
"Auntie really didn't mean any harm."
I looked at her.
"No harm, so why not say it to my face?"
Beside her, one of the relatives muttered under their breath:
"Raised out there in the sticks. No manners at all."
I turned my head toward them.
The person shut up instantly.
I pointed at my phone.
"It heard that too."
"Want me to read it out loud?"
The color drained from their face.
Brendan finally spoke.
"Enough."
"This is a family gathering, not a courtroom for you to interrogate people."
I laughed.
"Right."
"So from now on, stop putting my ears on trial."
The moment I said it, Sabina's tears spilled over.
Valerie handed her a tissue at once.
Ethan's eyes went colder on me.
I sat on the sofa and watched them all crowd around to soothe her.
Out of nowhere, I wanted a bowl of my grandmother's soup dumplings.
People on Old Street talk loud.
Sometimes one shout carries from the shop door all the way down to the end of the alley.
But they never once, to my face, called me a burden.
They'd never set a hot bowl of dumplings in front of me and then say:
"Your ears are bad, eat less, don't cause anyone trouble."
At noon, Edwin arrived.
He was the fiancé the Hensons had arranged for me.
It was the first time I'd seen him.
The moment he came in, he handed a box of pastries to Sabina first.
"You said you wanted these last time."
Sabina flushed a little.
"Edwin, thank you."
Only then did he look at me.
His gaze settled on the hearing aid behind my ear.
I knew that look too well. Not curiosity. Assessment.
Sabina introduced me in a gentle voice:
"Edwin, this is my sister."
Edwin gave a small nod.
"Lottie Bishop."
He didn't even bother with a hello.
I asked:
"And you are?"
Sabina's face stiffened.
Ethan said coldly:
"This is Edwin James."
"Your fiancé."
I gave a flat "Oh."
Edwin's brow creased faintly.
"The engagement is something I'll discuss with both families' elders."
"You've only just come back to the Hensons. There's a lot you haven't adjusted to yet."
"I don't think now is the right time to talk about this."
His words were polite enough.
But his eyes never left my hearing aid.
I asked:
"You want to call off the engagement?"
The room went quiet again.
Edwin pressed his lips together.
"I don't want to embarrass you."
I laughed.
"You've already embarrassed yourself plenty."
Sabina rushed in:
"Sis, Edwin isn't looking down on you."
"He just thinks the two of you don't know each other well yet."
I looked at her.
"Translating for me again?"
"My ears are bad. My mouth works fine."
Edwin's face darkened.
"Lottie Bishop, I only want you to know your own limits."
"The partner I need has to be able to attend functions with me normally."
I glanced down at my phone. The captions were jumping across the screen, clear as anything.
I pushed the screen toward him.
"Normally?"
"Go ahead and define that."
Edwin's expression froze.
Behind him, Sabina gave his sleeve a small tug.
She thought the movement was slight. She thought her voice was low enough.
But I saw the shape of her lips.
She said to Edwin:
"Don't come down too hard."
"She can't hear it, but she'll play the victim."
Edwin lowered his eyes, dropping his voice even further.
"I'll call off the engagement."
"There's no way I'm marrying someone who needs looking after around the clock."
On my phone screen, a line jumped up.
【There's no way I'm marrying someone who needs looking after around the clock.】
I laughed.
"Mr. James."
"Your breakup statement—want me to write it for you?"
第3章
After Edwin James left, the Henson house stayed quiet all afternoon.
Not because anyone felt sorry for me.
Because they were afraid word of the broken engagement would get out and sound bad.
At dusk, Brendan called me into the study.
A gala program sat on the desk.
*Hear Love, Step Into a World Without Sound*
I turned a couple of pages.
"A charity gala for the hearing-impaired?"
Brendan nodded.
"The Henson family holds it every year."
"You've just come home. This is a good chance to be seen."
He spoke very slowly, as if afraid I wouldn't understand.
"Lottie, a formal occasion isn't like being at home."
"When people ask you something and you can't hear it clearly, just smile."
"Sabina will help you."
I looked at him.
"I stand there, and she speaks for me?"
Brendan frowned.
"She's more familiar with how it runs."
There was a knock at the door.
Sabina came in carrying tea.
"Dad, I can go with my sister."
"It's her first time at something like this. She's bound to be nervous."
"If anything complicated comes up, I'll handle it for her."
I lowered my eyes to the program.
The host's script read:
*Miss Sabina Henson has devoted years of attention to the hearing-impaired community and took part in the community caption-screen initiative.*
My finger stopped.
"Caption-screen initiative?"
Something flickered in Sabina's eyes.
Brendan said:
"A charity project Sabina did a few years back."
"Installing little screens for the elderly in the community, so they can see queue numbers and notices."
I looked up.
"You did that?"
Sabina smiled softly.
"Sister, it's all just helping people."
"There's no need to draw such sharp lines about it."
I didn't smile.
That set of screens was originally called *Old Street Can Hear*.
My adoptive father built it while he was still alive.
The soup shop had a lot of elderly customers who couldn't catch the numbers being called, so he rebuilt an old monitor into a small screen.
I helped him enter the text, adjust the brightness, test the delay.
Later the clinic, the shoe-repair shop, and the community center room all had them installed.
After my adoptive father passed, I organized the schematics and submitted them through the charity platform.
I never thought I'd see them again under Sabina's name.
I set the program back on the desk.
"I don't need her to speak for me."
Brendan's face darkened.
"Lottie, don't throw a tantrum."
Sabina's eyes reddened at once.
"Dad, don't blame my sister."
"She probably just feels I've stolen her spotlight."
I looked at her.
"Is it the spotlight you stole?"
Her face went white for an instant.
The night of the gala, a lot of the Henson family showed up.
The lights were very bright.
There were plenty of cameras too.
The moment I walked in, a staff member handed me a badge.
*Hearing-Impaired Experience Guest*
Sabina stood at the side of the stage in an evening gown, waving to me gently.
"Sister, go sit in the audience for now."
"When the host mentions you, just smile."
I set the badge back on the sign-in table.
"So I'm not a member of the Henson family."
"I'm material."
The staff member lowered their head, embarrassed.
Edwin James stood beside Sabina, comforting her in a low voice.
"Don't be nervous."
"Tonight you're the one giving the speech."
The music started.
The host introduced Sabina.
The big screen lit up.
The first slide read:
*Sabina Henson: Standing With the Hearing-Impaired Through Gentle Companionship*
The next slide was a photo of the little screen in the Old Street soup shop.
The one after that was the queue-number screen at the community clinic.
In the corner, you could still see the label my adoptive father had written by hand.
Only the credit had changed.
It had become Sabina.
She stood under the lights, her voice soft as water.
"Ever since I was little, I've felt that people who can't hear deserve to be seen."
"These years, I haven't done much. I just didn't want them to be alone."
Applause broke out.
Ethan sat next to me and said quietly:
"See? Sabina's always been kind."
I looked at the big screen.
"Sure."
"Kind enough to take a dead man's schematics and use them to gild herself."
Ethan's face changed.
"What are you saying?"
I didn't answer.
On stage, Sabina finished and went backstage.
She thought the microphone was off, and thought I couldn't hear.
But the red light on the control panel was still on.
She lowered her voice and said:
"Don't let Lottie Bishop go up later."
"The second she opens her mouth, she sounds too deaf."
"Just let her sit in the audience as material."
第4章
The line jumped up on the small monitor at the control desk.
【The second she opens her mouth, she sounds way too deaf.】
【Just seat her in the audience as filler. That's enough.】
The staffer panicked first. He reached out to kill the captions.
I caught his hand.
"Leave it."
His face went white.
"Miss Bishop, this is a minor glitch."
I looked at him.
"It's not a glitch."
"It's what she said."
Backstage, Sabina still hadn't noticed.
She was touching up her lipstick.
Her assistant asked quietly beside her:
"What are we going to do about the experience-sharing segment?"
Sabina's voice was soft.
"Just have her go up and stand there."
"She won't catch the host's questions anyway."
"I'll answer for her when the time comes."
The staffer glanced at me, and his face turned worse.
Onstage, the host had already moved into the next segment.
"Next, let's invite the daughter the Hensons just recovered, Miss Lottie Bishop, to the stage."
The lights swung toward me.
Ethan dropped his voice.
"Don't say anything out of line."
"Tonight is the Hensons' event."
I watched his mouth.
"So?"
He frowned.
"Sabina didn't mean it just now."
"Don't cling to one sentence."
I smiled.
"One?"
"How many did you hear?"
Edwin came over too.
He planted himself in front of me and kept his voice low.
"Lottie."
"Everyone here tonight is somebody."
"Do you really want to embarrass the Hensons?"
I opened the captions on my phone.
His words popped up on the screen.
【Do you really want to embarrass the Hensons?】
I held the phone up for him to see.
"Was it me who put the embarrassing part out there?"
"Or was it her, saying it?"
Edwin's face darkened.
"You're too sharp."
I nodded.
"Not as soft-edged as the rest of you."
"Cutting people open and calling it doing me a favor."
Onstage, the host had already called my name a second time.
Brendan sat in the front row, his face grim.
Valerie's eyes were red. She wanted to come pull me back.
Sabina finally emerged from backstage.
The moment she saw me still sitting, she put on a worried look.
"Sis, are you nervous?"
In front of everyone, she walked over to me.
Bent down, took my hand.
Her voice was soft enough to drip.
"It's okay."
"If you can't hear clearly, I'll go up with you."
"Whatever the host asks, I'll say it for you."
The camera was pointed right at her.
She really knew how to pick her angle.
I pulled my hand back.
"No need."
Sabina's eyes went red at once.
"Sis, don't push yourself."
"I'm just afraid you'll mess up."
I looked at her.
"Afraid I'll mess up."
"Or afraid I'll open my mouth?"
Her lips trembled.
People around us were already whispering.
"So this is the one they found?"
"Why is her temper so strange?"
"Sabina really has it hard."
"Hearing-impaired kids are sensitive, that's for sure."
I stood up.
There was still faint static in my hearing aid.
The light landed on my face, harsh.
All at once I thought of the little screen outside the soup shop.
Every time letters flashed across it, Grandma would tap the rim of a bowl.
"Lottie, see that?"
"The soup's ready."
She never once thought I was a bother. She only worried I'd let a hot meal go cold.
I walked up onto the stage.
The host passed me the microphone.
"Miss Bishop, we hear that Miss Sabina stood by you and pushed the community caption-screen project forward."
"Is there anything you'd like to say to her?"
Sabina stood at the side of the stage, tears held in her eyes.
As if waiting for me to thank her.
I held the microphone and looked toward the big screen.
"There is."
"First I'd like the staff to switch the backstage captions to the main screen."
The host's face changed.
The room went quiet too.
Brendan shot to his feet.
"Lottie!"
I didn't look at him.
"Isn't this a charity event for the hearing-impaired?"
"Then let everyone see the captions."
The staffer hesitated.
I walked straight up to the control desk and connected my own phone to the display.
The next second, the big screen blacked out.
When it came back on, it showed the backstage caption log from before.
【Don't let Lottie Bishop go up later.】
【The second she opens her mouth, she sounds way too deaf.】
【Just seat her in the audience as filler. That's enough.】
The whole room went dead silent.
The tears on Sabina's face hadn't fallen yet. She stood frozen under the lights.
Edwin was ashen.
Ethan couldn't get a word out either.
I picked up the microphone.
"Sorry."
"My ears don't work well."
"But I read captions just fine."
I opened the second file.
Photo after photo popped up.
The little screen at the Old Street soup shop, the number-call screen at the community clinic, the notice screen outside the shoe-repair shop, the handwritten schematics my adoptive father left behind.
Grandma stood by the pot, the screen behind her lit up:【Table three, your soup's ready.】
The last page was the project registration form.
Project name:【Old Street Can Hear】
Lead: Lottie Bishop.
Helper: Theresa Bishop.
Late technical maintenance: Andrew Dickerson.
I turned my head toward Sabina.
"You said just now that you didn't do much over these years."
"You really didn't."
"You only changed the name to yours."