The Skin Gods Read Online Free Page A

handlebar streamers when she was six; the one that got her into the chichi summer camp for deaf kids this year, the camp her father could barely just afford.
     
     
God, she is beautiful, Byrne thought.
     
     
Colleen Siobhan Byrne was both blessed and cursed with her mother’s incandescent Irish skin. Cursed, because she could sunburn in minutes on a day like this. Blessed because she was the fairest of the fair, her skin nearly translucent. What was flawless splendor at the age of thirteen would surely blossom into heart-stopping beauty as a woman in her twenties and thirties.
     
     
Colleen kissed him on the cheek, and hugged him closely— but gently, fully aware of his myriad aches and pains. She thumbed the lipstick off his cheek.
     
     
When had she started wearing lipstick? Byrne wondered.
     
     
“Is it too crowded for you?” she signed.
     
     
“No,” Byrne signed back.
     
     
“Are you sure?”
     
     
“Yes,” Byrne signed. “I love crowds.”
     
     
It was a bald-faced lie, and Colleen knew it. She smiled.
     
     
Colleen Byrne had been deaf since birth, caused by a genetic disorder that had planted far more obstacles in her father’s path than her own. Where Kevin Byrne had wasted many years lamenting what he had arrogantly considered a handicap in his daughter’s life, Colleen had simply attacked life full-on, never once slowing down to bemoan her alleged misfortune. She was an A student, a terrific athlete, highly proficient in American Sign Language, as well as being an expert lip-reader. She was even learning Norwegian Sign Language.
     
     
A lot of deaf people, Byrne had learned a long time ago, were very straightforward in their communication, not wasting their time on a great deal of pointless, inhibited conversation the way hearing people did. Many operated on what was jokingly referred to as DST— Deaf Standard Time— a reference to the notion that deaf people tend to be late, owing to their penchant for long conversations. Once they got going, it was hard to shut them up.
     
     
Sign language, although highly nuanced in its own right, was, after all, a form of shorthand. Byrne did his best to keep up. He had learned the language when Colleen was still very young, had taken to it surprisingly well, considering what a lousy student he had been in school.
     
     
Colleen found a spot on the bench, sat down. Byrne had stopped at a Cosi and picked up a pair of salads. He was pretty sure that Colleen was not going to eat— what thirteen-year-old girl actually ate lunch these days?— and he was right. She took the Diet Snapple out of the bag, worked off the plastic seal.
     
     
Byrne opened the bag, began to pick at his salad. He got her attention and signed: “Sure you’re not hungry?”
     
     
She gave him the look: Dad.
     
     
They sat for a while, enjoying each other’s company, enjoying the warmth of the day. Byrne listened to the dissonance of summertime sounds around them: the discordant symphony of five different types of music, the laughter of children, the high spirits of a political argument coming from somewhere behind them, the endless traffic noise. As he had so many times in his life, he tried to imagine what it was like for Colleen to be in a place like this, the deep silence of her world.
     
     
Byrne put the remainder of his salad back in the bag, got Colleen’s eye.
     
     
“When do you leave for camp?” he signed.
     
     
“Monday.”
     
     
Byrne nodded. “Are you excited?”
     
     
Colleen’s face lit up. “Yes.”
     
     
“Do you want me to give you a ride there?”
     
     
Byrne saw the slightest hesitation in Colleen’s eyes. The camp was just south of Lancaster, a pleasant two-hour ride west of Philadelphia. The delay in Colleen’s answer meant one thing. Her mother was going to take her, probably in the company of her new boyfriend. Colleen was as poor at concealing emotions as her father was practiced at it. “No. I’ve got it