At my first dinner with my fiancé’s family, his mother smiled as she passed me the potatoes, then secretly signed to her daughters that my $38 dress proved I was after his money.
For an entire year, they insulted me in sign language while I sat beside them.
They thought I couldn’t understand a word.
But both my parents were deaf, and when his grandmother’s 90th birthday arrived, I finally decided to let them know…
“Look at that cheap dress.
She’s only after his money.”
My future mother-in-law signed those words to her daughter while passing me a bowl of mashed potatoes.
With her other hand, she smiled at me.
“Help yourself, Nora.
You must be starving.”
I took the bowl and thanked her.
Across the table, my fiancé’s sister Whitney signed back, “Give it six months.”
His other sister, Paige, glanced at my shoes and made another unkind remark with her hands.
All three women smiled at me as though nothing had happened.
They had no idea I understood every word.
My name is Nora.
I was thirty-two years old, teaching art at an elementary school in a small Vermont town, and I was having dinner with my fiancé Ben’s family for the first time.
I’d bought a blue dress especially for the occasion.
It cost thirty-eight dollars.
I thought it was pretty.
Apparently, Patricia, my future mother-in-law, thought the price told her everything she needed to know about me.
What she didn’t know was that American Sign Language was the first language I ever learned.
Both my parents were deaf.
My father, Tom, worked as a printer.
My mother, Ann, was a seamstress at a uniform factory.
They’d met at a school for the deaf when they were fifteen.
I grew up in a house where hands were always moving.
Dad could tell a joke with one raised eyebrow.
Mom could end an argument by closing her eyes when she’d had enough.
They were funny, loving people who taught me far more than how to communicate.
When I was little, I often helped interpret conversations with hearing people.
I also learned how casually people could disrespect someone they assumed couldn’t understand them.
Once, when I was eight, a cashier made a cruel remark about my parents.
I was furious.
Mom gently touched my shoulder and signed something I never forgot.
“Nora, let people show you who they are.
They always do if you stay quiet long enough.”
My father died when I was twenty-six.