by Faye Sonja
"You like horses, right?" Benjamin asked, watching carefully for Rosella's response. He was slowly getting used to interacting with her, remembering that he needed to look at her for a response, as he had only visual cues to go on with her, not audible ones.
He watched as she nodded. He noticed a sparkle in her eyes as she looked over at the horse. "She said in her letters that she loved animals, and horses especially."
But there was a tightness in his throat as they approached the paddock. After all, he was a horse whisperer. And in his mail order bride ad, he had clearly written that he'd wanted a wife that could be an assistant to him. He'd been hoping - perhaps foolishly - that his new bride might even be able to help out with Ruby. He'd always secretly wondered if Ruby needed a woman's touch, a woman's voice, to help tame her. Maybe that was the missing piece of the puzzle.
But how could a women without a voice be a horse whisperer?
* * *
Rosella was, deep down, a happy, loving woman, with a big personality, but knew that her silence often got mistaken as her being reserved or too proper. She was used to being misunderstood. She wondered now, during their first few days together, if her husband was making these same assumptions.
"What does he think of me?" she fretted, as they sat in silence during one late dinner. "Perhaps he thinks I'm stupid, if I can't talk. People often assume that, I can tell."
But she clung to one hope: the letters she had sent to him. Surely, from getting to know each other that way, Benjamin had seen the true her. "Surely he must know that I am not stupid," she hoped. "Surely he must have gotten a sense of my true personality through those letters." But even this hope was wearing thin. She could tell from the look in her new husband’s eyes that he was disappointed with her, in real life. "Oh, what does it matter, all the things we wrote to each other about? All of that has been forgotten now that he has met me, that is clear."
She had to stop herself from thinking about the matter too bitterly. After all, things were not so terrible. She loved the new town, and the horses, and she was still excited about the prospect of her new start in life, her second chance.
"Anyway, hope is never lost with God." She made a firm promise that her prayers would be extra-long that night, that she would show gratitude for the new start she had been blessed with, and ask for guidance on how to communicate with Benjamin better.
"Perhaps after dinner is finished we can sit for a while, and Ben can tell me about his day," she thought, looking forward to the night ahead. "After all, I might not be able to speak, but I love to hear him talk."
But there was an abrupt change to her plans when Ben stood up after dinner and began to walk towards the door.
"I need to go out," Ben said, grabbing his hat.
"This late?" Rosella thought, disappointed. She frowned at him, then mouthed the word, "Why?"
Understanding, Ben explained that he was going to try with Ruby again.
"That wild horse?" Rosella thought. "Be careful." She worried about that horse - worried she might hurt someone. Might hurt Benjamin. She tried to look at him, so convey her concern to him. "Please protect yourself." As much as she liked Ruby, she was wary of the mare. She's never really had contact with wild animals before - the only animals she'd had contact with in Chicago were family pets such as cats and dogs. She knew she would come to love the horses in her own time, but the more wild ones scared her a little.
"It's fine, though," she thought. "Ben will understand that I need a little time to get used to them. I just hope he takes care of himself around that wild mare in the meantime."
Ben paused, trying to read the look on Rosella's face. "I don't want to give up on her until I've tried everything," Ben said, firmly. "I'm sorry, but I really need to go."
Rosella nodded, trying to look happy. "I understand," she said, but she felt sad at the same time, thinking about her hopes for a quiet evening together.
As Ben stood at the door he paused for a second. Seeming to read her mind, he said, "When I get back, perhaps I can read out loud to you a little."
"That would be nice," she thought, smiling, wishing that she could say the words aloud.
* * *
Out in the field Benjamin paced back and forth, lost in his own thoughts. "What a crazy few days," he thought. "I feel as though my entire world has been turned upside down, and I don't know what to make of it all..."
There was one thing that troubled him more than anything. Well, two things. Firstly, he was worried that Rosella would be considered very odd by the rest of the townsfolk, and that the gossip and strange looks might hurt her. But there was a deeper worry he had. And it wasn't just about he and Rosella would communicate with each other. He was already learning that he could tell what she was thinking at times, just by looking at her. Sometimes you don't need words in order to speak.
There was something else.
He wondered if Rosella was going to be able to make a proper life for herself on the farm, as the wife of a horse whisperer. He'd caught the look on her face when he'd told her he was going back out to try again with Ruby.
"She looked as though she really didn't want me to go. But doesn't she understand? This is my life here. Or, at least, a very large part of my life. If Rosella doesn't care for the horses as much as I do, then how is it supposed to work?" As far as Benjamin had seen, she had little interest in the horses. He'd wanted a partner to help him, an assistant.
"Oh well, you can't have everything you want," he thought, remembering to be grateful for what he did have. Rosella was kind, and beautiful, and a good wife to him, he could tell that. He needed to focus on all the wonderful things she was, not the few things she lacked.
But, oh, how he longed for her to be able to speak to him. He wondered what her voice sounded like, and what she would say to him if only she could. It was one thing to communicate just through looks, just through their eyes, but it was another to be able to speak properly.
"I feel like there's something more going on with her...a reason, maybe, why she won't speak, why she is silent. There seems to be a barrier that we can't get across. If only she could explain to me what the problem is... Perhaps if I can just get her to open up...trust me," he thought. "That might get her to speak."
With that he made a plan in his mind: he was going to earn Rosella's trust, and then she would finally speak to him.
* * *
4
A Misunderstanding
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“ Could this really be a fresh start?”
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"The silent bride" the people of the town called her, sniggering at Rosella as she walked past them.
"I can hear you, you know," Rosella thought, walking past with her head held high, trying to act as though she really couldn't hear their harsh utterances. "I can hear your words, I just can't respond to them."
Sometimes it seemed bitterly unfair to her, that she could be spoken to - spoken about, in such harsh terms - but had no right of response. Never able to defend herself. This caused a great deal of assumptions to be made about her.
One day in the general store, she walked in shyly, looking for the ingredients to make a pie. Mr. McGillicuddy was standing behind the counter, looking at her strangely as she entered. He was a kind man, but he was curious about her impediment, as he'd heard the town gossips talk about her.
Rosella felt his eyes on her as she approached the counter. "Hello dear," he said kindly, adjusting the spectacles on his nose, feeling a little nervous about what to say to her.
She smiled back and pointed to some sugar behind the counter. "Sugar?" he asked. "How much would you like?" Then he went a little red, realizing that she would not be able to answer.
Rosella smiled to try to put him at ease. She held up one finger to show that she wished for one kilo.
"Oh," Mr McGillicuddy said, chuckling a little. "I supp
ose it's not so hard for you to communicate after all, is it? It's just, people have been saying that you can't talk, that you might be dumb or somethin'...." He stopped when he saw the expression on her face, how she bent her head down to hide her face.
"Oh, sorry, dear. I didn't mean nuthin' by it. Don't worry about it. Let people talk, say what they want. They're just words, aren't they? Words can't hurt you."
Rosella kept her head bowed for a second. "Words can hurt you," she thought. "And it hurts even worse when you can't speak them back, to defend yourself, or to tell your own truth to people." But she bravely brought her head back up and reached across the counter to take her kilo of sugar. She held out her hand to pay with the coins she had but Mr. McGillicuddy held up his hands.
"Not today dear, it's on the house for you."
"I don't want your pity," she thought, looking up unsurely.
"It's just to say welcome to Gold Creek," he explained. "And to apologize for my rudeness before."
"You don't need to apologize," Rosella thought. The man seemed kind, and warm, and she liked him right away, even if he had put his foot in his mouth a little. It was understandable - sometimes people got nervous around her when she didn't speak, and ended up saying too much themselves, in a way, to overcompensate.
She smiled to convey her gratitude and mouthed the words "Thank you."
"My pleasure, dear," Mr McGiilicuddy replied. "Now come back soon, you hear me? And don't let the words of others get you down."
* * *
The sweet scent of baking pie was in the air, and Rosella's spirits were high after her experience in the general store. It had been a pleasant morning so far, and she was hoping the remainder of the day would follow.
Benjamin came inside grinning, eager to share something with Rosella.
"You seem very happy," she thought, glad that her husband was sharing in with her cheery mood.
"I've got a little news. Well, not news really," he explained, a little nervously. "I suppose it's more of an idea. I've come up with an idea that could help us," he said, beaming down at her.
She frowned, a little unsure what he could mean by this. "What great idea is this?" she thought to herself. Looking up, she nodded to indicate that she wanted Ben to continue. No matter what this crazy idea was, she would rather hear it than not. The wait was making her anxious.
"Here, let's sit down and talk about it," he said, pulling a chair out for her. He caught the look on her face as she sat down. "Geez, sorry," he said, scratching his head, feeling embarrassed again. "I keep saying things like that, don't I? I will talk and you can listen."
She pulled a face. "Just like usual..." she thought.
"Actually, it's the whole 'talking' thing that I wanted to speak about," Benjamin continued.
"Oh?" she thought.
He smiled and took her hand in his. "I've been wondering..." he said, speaking carefully, "if there’s anything I can do?” He paused for a moment and took in the look on her face. It was clear she didn’t understand. “What I mean is, is there anything I can do to get you to...open up to me?”
She took her hand back and hung her head.
“Rosella?”
She shook her head gently. Benjamin sighed in frustration. “There must be something I can do! Look, I know that maybe you think that you can’t trust me. Maybe I need to do something to earn your trust before you are able to speak to me?”
Rosella kept her head down. “It’s not that simple,” she thought. “If it was that simple, as easy as switching it on or off, don’t you think I would do so?” But without the words to communicate she just sat there, trying not to show that she was upset by Benjamin’s casual attitude. She’d hoped so much that he would understand her handicap – that it was not a simple thing, not something that she could just snap out of. That it was the result of a deep trauma that could not be easily overcome. If he only knew what she had seen, the horrors she had witnessed – he would understand that the very idea of speaking caused her to panic.
But of course, she could not speak up to explain any of this to him, and he mistook her sad reaction to mean that she wasn’t even willing to try his idea.
“I’m trying here, Rosella! Can't you at least meet me half way?"
"Half way?" she thought. "This isn't 'half way', this is all one way - your way. With no understanding for what I'm struggling through."
Benjamin continued on. "It seems as though you have no interest in life here in any way. Any interest in the farm, or the horses - or in me!"
Rosella opened her mouth to show her distress, but no words would come out. Oh, how badly she wanted to protest. To say that she loved the farm, and the horses, and that, maybe she could even love Benjamin if he weren't so stubborn...but she couldn't. Only silence came.
* * *
That night when she was getting ready for bed, Rosella pulled open a drawer to find a stack of papers and notes.
"What are these?" she thought, pulling them out. "Letters..."
As she scanned through them she quickly realised that they were all the letters she'd sent to Benjamin since they'd started communicating. They looked well read, with crinkled pages and tea stains on some of them. She pulled one out and turned it over, seeing that her writing went onto the back of the page, and then onto another four sheets of paper.
"I have a lot to say when it can be written..." she thought, sadly, thinking about all the time and care she had put into the letters, about how she'd stayed up all night writing them and how the words had flowed easily.
She sat down on the bed with the papers falling limply in her hands. She couldn't figure out if she was happy that Benjamin had kept all the letters or sad, as they must have served as a reminder that the only way they could communicate properly, with words, was when they'd been written down.
She had a sudden thought. "Perhaps I could still write to Benjamin now..."
Standing up, she opened the drawer again and looked around for some blank papers. There will still some empty sheets of the same paper that she recognised from Benjamin's letters to her.
Grabbing the empty pages, she found a pen and walked to the kitchen, lighting a candle so that she could see in the dim of the night. The only other light was the faint moonlight that came in through the kitchen window. As she picked up the pen, it seemed very strange to Rosella, to be writing a letter to her husband while they were under the same roof.
"I wish it didn't have to be like this," she thought. She felt silly sitting there in the dark, writing a letter.
"Perhaps Benjamin is right, maybe I should just be able to 'snap out of it'..." she thought, as she began to write out how she was feeling in her heart.
And in fact, that's what she put in her letter. She wrote honestly, with clarity, about how she was feeling, about how she'd been hurt by their earlier fight, and about how sorry she was that they couldn't find a way to communicate.
Dear Benjamin,
I know this will be hard for you to understand, but I must tell you what is in my heart. I've prayed on the matter, and when I found the old letters I sent to you, that you kept, I realized this might be the best way to explain to you the feelings I have on the matter.
I know that you only mean well, truly I do, but no matter how hard I 'try' I cannot easily speak. This is not something I can snap out of. Do you know how many times I have prayed, wishing it was different? Or how many times I have wanted to speak to you? All the things I have in my heart that I wish to speak out loud? I can't. It is not a simple matter for me. There's no way to snap out of it so easily. When you act as though it can be easy, I feel as though you do not understand me at all....
Once she'd gotten half way down the page she started to change her mind.
"This isn't the full truth..." she thought. "It's part of it, yes, but it doesn't explain the full story. Benjamin needs to know the full truth. He deserves to know that."
But her hands shook as she picked up the pen again. She'd been silent for
thirteen years, ever since it had happened. Not only had she never spoken about what happened, she'd never written about it either. Her hand froze for a second as it hovered over the paper, and she had to will herself to carry on.
The second part of the letter was far harder to write, and it took three times as long for the words to come out. As she wrote she felt her heartbeat racing, and her writing became more of a scrawl as she struggled to control her shaking hand.
You see, Benjamin, there is a reason for my silence. I wasn't born like this, and it's not something I can switch on and off.
When I was seventeen, I witnessed something that no child should ever have to see. The most chilling thing imaginable. My parents, killed in cold blood, murdered in front of my eyes by a stranger. The shock was so great that from that moment on, any time I tried to make a sound, tried to speak, my throat closed up.
I couldn't speak about anything I saw, and from that point onwards, I couldn't speak about anything, at all.
You see, even the thought of speaking causes a great panic inside me. It doesn't matter how much I long to speak to you - and I do long to - I physically can't.
I hope you can understand now, my dear, that my silence is not personal. That you haven't done anything wrong.
But that there is nothing you can do. This is my fate, and I fear it is something I will have to live with for the rest of my life."
* * *
"What's this?" Ben asked, turning the letter over in his hands. He looked up at her quizzically. She reached out and wrapped a hand around his, squeezing it, nodding at the letter.
"You want me to read this now?"
She nodded.
"Okay," he replied, seeming a little nervous. Rosella watched his face as he read over her words. His brow was furrowed in concentration, and once he got to the middle of the letter she noticed his face change. The sorrow in his expression made her heart ache. She had to drop her own head, turn away for a moment, to let him finish reading on his own. She knew that now that she'd explained things, that everything was going to change between them once again.