Wonderboy comes to me and delivers an incomprehensible message in whisper-sounds. I’m pretty sure he can’t even hear a whisper, but he can feel that it’s a different way of talking. Sometimes we are loud, "MOMMEEEE! WHERE GAY-GEE GO?" (The baby is on the move now, and Wonderboy finds her scoot-crawling mobility a bit stressful. Precious objects such as telephones and babies are supposed to stay where you put them. Aren’t they? Aren’t they? Where did she go? Doggone it, she’s halfway down the hall again, and I’m pretty sure she took the phone with her.)

Yes, sometimes we are loud, and sometimes we are hushed and whispery. He comes to me with his tight little grin and his proud whisper, and he pours forth a string of sotto voce gibberish, like my amateur actor friends and I used to do during party scenes in high-school plays.

His secret message thus transmitted, he giggles expectantly, eyes dancing. This is my cue: I whisper back, delivering my own incomprehensible message to ears that can’t detect these sounds even with technological assistance.

Suddenly he is all business, and he trots off down the hall to find Jane. That’s the game, see; he is carrying our messages from one end of the house to the other. I have no idea what she is saying on her end. I keep forgetting to ask her. It doesn’t really matter. We both know the substance of the message is joy.