(continued from previous page)

He shrugged, the pot full of bricks bobbing up and down. "I don't know. You'll have to ask someone wiser than me. But here's what I do know. In this life you have a choice. You can laugh along with God, or you can cry all alone. Now, which are you going to do?"

So I learned to laugh along with my father.

THE WEEKS WENT BY with no sign of my voice, and I found myself thinking more and more about my father. I tried to remember his laughter, and tried not to think about his fingers. There was a difference, I told myself; his loss was permanent. Mine was temporary.

That's what the doctor thought. "It's your vocal nerve," he'd said when he heard my quiet, breathy whisper. "Must still be in shock. But I wouldn't worry about it. They usually come back. Give it a couple weeks, maybe as long as a month. Two at the very most."

That's how Taly explained it to the kids, as a temporary loss, the day I came home from the hospital.

"Elijah, Michaela, listen to me," she said. They ignored her, each one clinging on to one of my legs in a welcome-home embrace, as they pelted me with questions.

"Did it hurt? Did they take out that thing in your neck? Can we see it? Were you brave? Tell us the story!"

"Kids," she said, "I need to tell you something. Something important." They finally stopped and looked up at her. "Your daddy can't talk."

Michaela's face took on a puzzled expression; Elijah looked betrayed, and shook his head. "Yes he can," he finally said. "He talks all the time. Right, Daddy?" He looked to me for confirmation. I nodded back toward Taly.

"No," she said, "I'm afraid he can't. His `owie' is gone, and that's the most important thing. But, for now, he can't talk. But it's just for a while. Right, Joel?"

I nodded.

"How long, Daddy?" asked Michaela.

"Pretty soon," Taly answered. "But we don't know exactly when. Until then he's supposed to rest his voice, so he can only whisper, just a tiny bit."

"And when it comes back, you'll tell us stories?" asked Elijah. I couldn't hold back.

"Lots and ... lots of ... stories."

NEITHER OF THE CHILDREN quite knew what to make
of their almost mute father. At first Michaela thought it was funny, a kind of running gag, because of the strange, improvised sign language I tried to use to communicate with her. I whispered only when I absolutely had to, partly because to do so stung my throat and partly because whenever I did, she screwed up her face and shook her head. "Daddy, talk louder!"

For Elijah my missing voice meant a new job. When I was with Taly, she spoke on my behalf. But since she was working long hours to make up for some of my lost income, Elijah became my voice. As my whisper could not be heard over any other noise--the sound of a passing car, background music, or a plane flying overhead--he would come with me on errands. When I had something to say, I would whisper the words in his ear, then lift him up so he could repeat them aloud: "My daddy would like change for a twenty."

At first we were both excited about his new role. This was a good thing, I told myself, a father and son bonding, having adventures. He did his job well, but I began to notice that the attention from strangers was hard for him. Always on the shy side, he drew back from shopkeepers, grocery baggers, bank tellers, all of whom commented on how cute he was. One even asked if I was a ventriloquist. Elijah handled it stoically, but I could tell he was embarrassed, not just for his sake, but for mine. Sensing this, I tried to speak up whenever I could, but my whispers made it worse. He did not want people to know that there was something wrong with me.

Hard as it was for him in public, it was tougher still when we were alone. He had entered that age of endless questions, when the world is one big mystery and your parents know all the answers. I had looked forward to this time since before he was born. But now, as the questions came, I scrambled to answer them.

"Daddy, why is there a dragon on the Welsh flag? Or is it a griffin? What's the difference? What is mythology? You once told me a story about a troll. Where do trolls live? Can you speak French? How does time work? What's a ventriloquist? Why can't you talk?"

In response to each question, I squeezed out a word or two, then tried to fill the rest in with gestures. I drew on napkins. I pulled books off shelves and pointed to pictures. He would nod appreciatively and then, a moment later, ask another question, and the whole process would start over.

A MONTH AFTER the surgery, Taly's worry began to show. Though she tried to hide her concern, especially in front of the kids, it came out in the morning, when we awoke.

"Do you feel anything? A twitch?" The doctor had said that I might feel a slight twinge or a tingle before the nerve came back to life.

I shook my head.

"How about now?" she would ask again, five minutes later.

"Don't worry," I whispered. "It will ... be all ... right." With my breathy whisper, I could only get out a word or two before I had to stop for breath.

"But I am worried. I'm worried about you. What if your voice doesn't come back?"

"My father ... used to say ... that ninety- ... five percent ..." I stopped, out of breath. I'd meant to repeat another of his sayings, that ninety-five percent of the things we worry about never come to pass, which shows that worrying is a very effective means of dealing with problems. But it missed the mark.

"Yes," she said. "I was thinking about your father."

(This excerpt ends on page 38 of the hardcover edition.)