The Case About Amy

1. Time Tears Us Apart

Time Tears Us Apart Amy thought Ashokan was the most beautiful place she had ever seen. The woods were deep and secret and the hills were for climbing. Morning and afternoon, the campers followed the trails to blacksmithing and broommaking and to the pond, where they found insects in leaflike homes, baby dragonflies, and newts. They went fishing with live worms for bait, using poles they had made themselves. Amy's mother, Nancy Rowley, had arranged for a woman who had a mentally retarded son in the student visiting group to keep an eye on Amy. Such a woman would understand the needs of a child with a disability, Nancy reasoned. But Amy stopped being scared almost as soon as she got to Ashokan. The outdoors were for the eyes, anyway, and Amy dashed about, gulping down the sights. The gorge made them all gasp with pleasure . And then they got to feed the animals. Amy liked that. She had animals of her own at home-a cat, a rabbit, a bird, a turtle, and three fish. She had other interests as well. She loved libraries with their bulging stock of adventure. She burrowed inside and read Nancy Drew mysteries. As a Girl Scout, she made up a script for a play. A week with her classmates in a camp in the Catskills was made to order for her. At Ashokan she sensed a freedom that was different and more important for her than for her classmates . They were simply out of school. She was out ofa world ofhassle, a world of constantly being observed and discussed. That world was transformed in the woods. She could run to her heart's content. Copyrighted Material Chapter 1 She was free-or almost so. Someone had been going through her clothes. Later on, she learned that adults in charge ofthe school-sponsored camping trip were looking for her hearing aids. She had not brought them with her. The school's "trainer"-a wireless receiver used in the classroom to amplify sound directly to her-was on the blink again. And what good would it do out here, anyway? When it was working, it helped only in direct conversation with the teacher and then only if no other student asked a question. She had decided to make Ashokan a visual, private experience once she learned that she would not have an interpreter with her. No interpreter out here, no interpreter now in class. And for all of her parents' long fight in court, Amy realized that she had never known how important an interpreter would be until she lost the one she had had the previous two years. This sense ofloss had arisen sharply in her over the last few weeks as the class talked about the field trip to Ashokan. She could make little out ofthis free-form, classroomwide, question-and-answer session , with students sounding offfrom around the room, as it was impossible to lip-read such quick exchanges. Fortunately, there were handouts. Studying these afterward, she got an idea ofwhere they would be going and what they would be doing. She vowed to live within her fully functioning senses ofsight, smell, and touch, but it was a vow difficult to keep. Once, on a long hike to the gorge, the guide up front had stopped the straggling line ofchildren to make a little speech. Halfway back in the column, Amy could make nothing of it. She grabbed Mr. Brett, her teacher, who was walking nearby, and he repeated what had been said in his Australian-English accent, which she had always had to struggle to lip-read. She shook her head: she could not understand . Finally, Mr. Brett stripped some white bark offa tree and carved the words the guide had used on it for her. She thought it was a nice thing for him to have done. She liked Mr. Brett because he did try hard, but the incident with the tree bark also had the effect ofreminding her that she would be back in class soon and depending heavily on her friend, Marjorie, for help in understanding what was said. All the same, she kept the white piece ofbark by her bedside for years, to remind her ofAshokan, her first real love affair with nature. And the words lingered in her mind long after the bark had darkened, making the carving difficult to read: conifers-evergreen trees/deciduous-trees that shed leaves. 2 Copyrighted Material [3.21.76...