You are in love for the first time. You are twelve. Next to you is a deaf girl, maybe ten years old. The two of you are on a train easing its way through the Cascade Mountains of Oregon. You are so sure of this girl you tell her everything. How you voice is changing its shape. How you are becoming something remarkable. She smiles at you, touches your arm. Later on, in a darkening of the trees she sleeps on your shoulder. Gives to you the soft whispers of her breath. When she wakes up, you realize you are over thirty years old. The young girl says words to you that seem out of shape, far away. Then she starts talking to you with her hands. You begin to understand the makings of her language¡ªwhere rain becomes a drizzle of fingers and where, soon, if will be a heavy enough rain that she will show you how to make rivers with your hands, your thumbs anchors against the long, wild rush of water.