About three months after the suicides, in the heart of a Canadian January winter, the kind that made me long for Tahiti or Hawaii or someplace with fruity drinks, a man came in from the cold. He was tall and lanky, but young in his face and hands. Almost no wrinkles and good skin. He smiled at me as he shook off the snow from the shoulders of his coat.

"How can I help you this evening?" I asked. It wasn't quite yet eleven, so I still felt chipper. "We have some hot cocoa from a machine down the hall, if you'd like to warm yourself before checking in."

The man shrugged in an over-exaggerated manner. Then he grasped his ears and shook his head. I thought he meant he was cold, and wanted earmuffs or had lost his pair, so I gestured down the hall where the cocoa was. He shook his head yet again, and then dug through his pocket and handed me a card.

Hello! My name is Jeremy and I'm Deaf. If you speak to me, please enunciate and go slowly so I can read your lips.

"Oh," I said. I met his gaze and wondered if I needed to repeat my surprise. I decided against it, since I was sure my expression was enough. "Good evening, sir. Are you in need of a room?"

He nodded and placed his hand against his chin, then brought it outward. Thank you. I remembered that word from the basic sign language that I had struggled to learn in elementary school when we had a deaf student. He was almost never in class, but when he was, he was always poked and prodded by the other children. It was third grade, and so everyone different was fascinating, and we'd not yet developed a moral conscience or social awareness yet to hide it. All I could remember from that limited time with him was the sign for thank you -- a flat hand to the mouth and out -- and boy and girl, because they were associated with old school hats and bonnets. I didn't think this guy needed me to tell him I was a boy, and stroke the invisible brim of my hat as I did so, though.

I got him a key to a room instead. We had a lot of available slots, but I wondered if there was a special area he'd like or needed, like many of the patrons with wheelchairs needed the last room with the bigger bathroom and only on the first floor. I had no idea how to ask this, so I got him a key and then wrote on a Post-It note.

Do you need anything special? Like a bigger room or ...?

Jeremy read the words and smiled. He brought his hand to his mouth again. I was transfixed by the way he spoke with his hands -- but also his face. Every last thing he did was expressive, wonderful. Almost like watching a theatre show. I was sure that my amazement and fascination was wrong in some way -- surely, had I brought up this experience in one of my university classes, I'd be set to right--but for the time being, I was just moved. Fascinated.

I don't need anything special in my room, he wrote in response on the other side of the note. But I wonder if I could stay in 108.

I looked at the key slots -- 108 was available, so I went and placed it down. I gave him the log book to sign in, and then compared his name -- Jeremy Sullivan -- to his credit card and his license. He smiled in the photo for his license, a quirk which caught me off-guard. Usually IDs had to be stoic, impassive. But I guess he'd not heard that instruction. It was only as I logged him into the computer that I noticed the last name. Sullivan. Not that common or uncommon, but it stuck with me. So did room 108.

I opened and closed my mouth a few times, unsure of what to say. Jeremy noticed, though, and he nodded.

"Yes," he signed and also spoke in a slightly strange voice, one that sounded as if it had been practiced underwater. "That was my Uncle Maurice who died here a few months ago."