Sister of Silence

by Daleen Berry

  That morning, I grew distant and silent, and was barely able to make myself talk to him. Sensing my unspoken anger he did his best to appease me all week, trying to humor me with pretty words and expensive trinkets.

  But as that week and those after it passed, if anything, Eddie’s bedroom behavior grew worse instead of better, and if I didn’t insert my diaphragm before he got home, then he wouldn’t let me use birth control. Sometimes during sex, he told me he would gladly get me pregnant again. I thought it must give him some sort of satisfaction, or make him feel more like a man.

  Then came the day when I knew without a doubt I was pregnant. After confirming my worst suspicions with a home pregnancy test, I sat down at the kitchen table, my head in my hands, praying to God for answers.

  Why won’t he listen to me? It’s all his fault. He won’t let me use birth control, and he refuses to take responsibility for it himself.

  When Eddie came home that evening, I told him I was pregnant when he came to bed. My words were devoid of emotion, lying like the cold steel of a knife blade between us. When he leaned close to hug me, I couldn’t return his enthusiasm. By then, it was all I could do just to lie beside him in bed without acting on an intense desire to strike him.

  “I guess you’re not very happy about it, are you?” Eddie propped himself up on one elbow.

  I gave him a stony stare. “What do you think? It’s not your body. You don’t have to get fat and be sick and then give birth. Babies are a lot of work and you’re never here to help. You’re always working overtime. Besides, Mileah’s still a baby. She needs more than I can give now, and when this baby comes she’ll have to share it!” I turned my gaze away, feeling repulsed by the sight of him.

  You did this to me.

  “Well, I guess saying ‘I’m sorry’ won’t change things now, but if it helps any, I am sorry.” He sat there, waiting to see if that did the trick.

  He didn’t have long to wait.

  “You’re sorry? You’re sorry! Now’s a fine time to be sorry, don’t you think?” I hissed the words through clenched teeth. I was angrier than I had ever been in my life. “Don’t you think the time to be sorry was when I asked you to let me get my diaphragm and you wouldn’t let me? It’s too late now.” I rolled over and closed my eyes. I couldn’t stand the sight of him.

  I knew he was gone when I felt the mattress move as his weight shifted. What I said was mean and hateful, but I didn’t care. His selfishness and carelessness had gotten me pregnant.

  Just like the first time, a voice within me whispered.

  The next few weeks were so strained Eddie and I barely spoke, and for once he didn’t try to touch me after he came home from work. Sometimes he would make a bed on the floor in the living room and sleep there. I no longer cared.

  I had no patience with him, because my morning sickness lasted all day long and sapped my energy. Sometimes I drove to Mom’s house, just so she could help me with Mileah.

  But something else was happening, something I just couldn’t put my finger on. Eddie’s angry outbursts were becoming more and more frequent, and he began complaining about money. We didn’t have a shortage, but it was tighter than ever before, because of the cut in pay he had taken by changing jobs and going to a non-union coal mine.

  I tried to tell you, but you wouldn’t listen. I don’t know anything, do I, so why should you listen to me? I thought it, but didn’t say it.

  I had long ago learned that telling him “I told you so” never produced positive results. Besides, we still had enough money to eat out a couple of times a week, and occasionally I went shopping for new clothes. We were by no means living close to poverty level, as he tried to say in the middle of one tirade.

  Because he was a poor money manager, Eddie let me handle our finances. After the bills were paid each month, I put the rest aside. If I was shopping and saw something reasonably priced that I liked, I bought it. Often Eddie and I would see furniture or some other big item we wanted, and he would always decide to buy it. I told him we could afford the purchase, but it wouldn’t leave us any extra to put aside for an emergency. He didn’t seem to mind, though, until the day he realized there wasn’t anything left for his precious truck.

  That’s when he hit the roof. I tried to account for the money, explaining that we had just bought an antique love seat and matching chair. I reminded him that we had also shelled out money for new appliances because the apartment wasn’t furnished when we moved in, but he wasn’t listening. He kept yelling at me while I was making his lunch.

  “It’s all your fault. If you didn’t spend so much, we would have more money and I could get that new CB radio for my truck. I don’t know why you have to buy everything you see!”

  “That’s not fair. I always ask your permission before I buy anything that costs very much. You know that.”

  He shook his head, an ugly scowl on his face. “Oh yeah, go ahead, say it’s all my fault. It always is, isn’t it? It’s never your fault, is it?”

  “That’s not what I meant—” But he cut me off.

  “Well you listen up little girl, you aren’t any better than I am. You hear me?”

  I fought to stay calm. “I hate it when you call me a little girl. I know I’m only seventeen, but I am not a little girl.”

  “Yeah, sure. But you’re not the woman you think you are, the one who’s so much better than her husband.” He lashed out at me sarcastically. Then he walked away. I wanted to cry, but couldn’t find the tears. I looked at the mess before me. There were slices of bread with mustard on them, lunchmeat was scattered all over the countertop, and an open Thermos sat waiting for hot tea. What I did next was pure instinct.

  White grains looking deceptively like sugar poured noiselessly into the container and steam rose into the air as I struggled with shaking fingers to pour the unusual tea mixture into his Thermos. I hurried, afraid he would come into the room and catch me. When I saw I was still alone, I quickly screwed on the stopper.

  Suddenly I was seized by a fit of laughter, which I smothered by biting the back of my hand. But a small grin still threatened to pull up one corner of my mouth. I tried to keep a straight face as I thought of his reaction when he went to take a drink of the hot liquid later that night.

  How dearly I would love to be a little bird watching from some quiet corner! I refused to allow myself to think beyond that. I couldn’t, or else I would have turned coward and stopped. The grey metal lunch bucket sat silently beside the front door just as it did every day, waiting for Eddie to grab it and go to work. Every muscle in my body was tense and I prayed he wouldn’t open the Thermos before he left the house.

  But I needn’t have worried. He paid no more attention than he usually did. It was the home-cooked lunch he complained about. I took it in stride, having long ago grown used to him saying how much better my mother cooked than I did. But when the sarcastic remarks continued as Eddie tugged on his steel-toe mining boots, I felt like I was going to explode.

  I stood at the sink washing dishes and almost instinctively, the small paring knife in my soapy hands seemed to fly of its own accord across the room. The blade stuck in the door facing just a foot away from him, and he turned with a look of surprise on his face. Any anger was yet to break out—or else he was dumbfounded that his meek and mild wife had thrown a knife at him.

  The minute it left my hands, I knew I shouldn’t have. I couldn’t even understand what made me do it. It was so out of character for me. Eddie looked at the knife and turned to me without saying a word, disbelief written all over his face. I was terrified he was going to hit me. Instead, he just laughed.

  I was so ashamed of myself.

  What has gotten into me?

  “Just leave me alone and go to work!” I said angrily.

  “My, my, aren’t we testy?” Eddie taunted as his tongue came unglued.

  “Yes I am, thanks to you,” I retorted. Eddie stared back at me before shaking his head as in disbelief. The knife fell to th
e floor as the door closed behind him and I looked at it, wishing I hadn’t missed. Then I went into the bedroom and looked down at my Mileah, amazed she had slept through the noise. Stretching out on the bed, I fell into a deep, dark sleep.

  Later that night when Eddie came home from the mines, he didn’t bother me. I didn’t even know he was there until I woke to Mileah’s cries of hunger. Walking over to her crib, I picked her up and held her against me.

  “There, there, Little One, Mommy’s got you now. I’ll feed you and you can go back to sleep.” I whispered to her softly, knowing she was the one person who needed me, who loved me. My eyes had adjusted enough in the dark to make out the outline of Eddie sleeping in the bed. I wondered why he had come to bed without trying to wake me.

  That’s unusual.

  I crawled back into the bed, hoping against hope that Mileah’s whimpering wouldn’t wake him. I pulled my daughter beside me, opened my gown, and let her eat. Her tiny mouth was warm and I lay there watching for a long time, until her trusting eyes slowly closed.

  The next morning I awoke to find Mileah nestled up against me in the middle of the bed. Eddie was still sound asleep, and I thanked God for a night of peace. I still wasn’t sure how he would react to the knife incident or the salt in his tea, but since he hadn’t harassed me during the night, I felt relatively safe. Maybe proof of my newfound courage had caused him to reconsider his own behavior.

  I was mixing up some cookie dough when I heard movement behind me. Turning, I saw Eddie; he gave me a curious, unsettled glance in return. Quelling the pangs of nervousness I felt, I put on a brave front. “Morning. How was work yesterday?”

  “It would have been a lot better if I’d had something decent to drink.” He leaned against the countertop and stared at me, and I had to fight to keep from smiling.

  “Why, was something wrong with your tea?” I asked innocently.

  “You know damn well there was. You put salt in it, didn’t you? I drank about half of it in one gulp, before I realized something was wrong.”

  I couldn’t help it when the corners of my mouth turned up.

  “You probably think it’s real funny, don’t you? It wouldn’t have been so bad but I was a couple of miles underground, so I didn’t have anything else to drink the rest of the night,” he grouched. Getting the orange juice from the fridge, he took a big swig.

  “Eddie! You don’t drink from the container. Get a glass.”

  He ignored me. “And, as if that wasn’t bad enough, when I bit into my sandwich, the cheese still had the plastic wrapper on it, and the peeling hadn’t been taken off the bologna.” He seemed to be getting less angry as he talked, and I was no longer afraid he might start screaming.

  But I was surprised to find I felt sorry for him. I felt guilty, too, because he had gone without anything to drink for more than eight hours. “I’m sorry, but you made me so mad! You had no right to talk to me like that, and then walk off without even saying you were sorry!” I said.

  He leaned down and kissed my cheek. “You’re right.”

  We looked at each other, neither of us speaking. “But I am sorry, and I do love you. I don’t mean to give you a hard time about the money; I know you’re doing the best you can.”

  “I love you, too.” The whisper was barely spoken before he reached over and pulled me to him, pressing me against the warmth of his flannel shirt.

  “I’m sorry, Eddie.” I looked at him, hoping he believed me. We kissed then, a kiss that spoke of heartaches and mistakes, and a desire to make things better.

  For a short time, I imagined a miracle had occurred, thanks in part to my small act of defiance. It felt like our home was becoming a place of peace, and Eddie even bought me a white gold necklace. It was a small rose-shaped pendant, with a diamond in the middle. He said he hoped it helped me to forgive him.

  And it did.

  I was seven months pregnant when we found an old two-story house just a mile from my childhood home. It was big and needed a lot of work, but only cost $16,000. I fell in love with it, but Eddie was less enthusiastic. I could see all of its possibilities; he could only see all the work. Finally, he agreed we could do the work ourselves. By the time we finished remodeling, he said it would still be a bargain. So in late March, we moved in. One month later, the coal industry took a nosedive and Eddie came home with a pink slip.

  I spent the better part of April cleaning and sprucing up the place, since it had been vacant and had layers of dirt and grime everywhere. Instead of moving into one of the upstairs bedrooms, we turned the dining room into a bedroom so I wouldn’t have to climb the stairs after the baby arrived. I had found a midwife, and we were going to have a home birth. I wouldn’t even have to leave the house.

  At times like those Eddie seemed like a good husband, one who thought about the needs of his increasingly pregnant wife. That was when I questioned my own nagging doubts about his angry outbursts and controlling behavior. During early April, we worked together hanging drywall, painting and papering the walls, and plumbing the bathroom. We got along fine, even though he was a hard taskmaster. I think he pushed himself so he wouldn’t have to think about being out of work; I pushed myself, too, driven by the desire to get everything done before I went into labor.

  Eddie said he was glad to have some time off, but after three weeks, it took its toll and stress soon became my constant companion. While being together all day every day had at first seemed a good thing, we were running out of patience with each other. We depleted our savings and our finances grew tight, since unemployment compensation was one-fourth of Eddie’s regular wages. The previous summer we had bought a top-of-the-line Toyota station wagon, which was as much as our monthly mortgage payment. I thought the car was more than we needed or could afford at the time, but Eddie insisted we had to have it.

  Trista was born in early 1982, entering the world after a long and strenuous labor. I was frightened because she wouldn’t cry at first, but soon she began yelling and my midwife said she had good lungs. I gathered the small bundle up and held her tightly against me. Trista had dark hair and petite features and I thought she was perfect. Just as I had with Mileah, I fell in love with her the moment I saw her.

  It wasn’t long before my joy turned to fear, though. It happened about the same time Eddie realized the layoff was going to last longer than predicted, making the tension between us even thicker.

  That’s when I first saw a vision of myself picking Trista up, and simply letting her fall out the window. I’d had that same sensation with Mileah, but only once. After Trista was born, though, I found myself staring out the window, caught up in the unthinkable reverie before I even knew what I was doing. All it would take was a few short steps from the bed to the window. It took a huge amount of willpower just to pull my mind’s eye away from what I was seeing, but it felt so real—as if I was really going to do it—that I forced myself to walk as far away from the windows as I could, whenever Trista was in my arms. I couldn’t even bear to stand nearby and try to look outside, for fear I would act on what I was sure was an evil impulse that lived somewhere deep within me.

  As if that wasn’t enough, the chaos, as well as caring for two small children, left me too tired for sex. But I would often wake up in the middle of the night to find Eddie fondling me. Asking him to stop never worked: He simply continued doing whatever he wanted until he had used my body to reach a climax. The times when Trista was in the bed with us were the most unbearable. She would fall asleep while nursing and then he would want to have sex.

  “Not with the baby here. We can make love in the morning, before she wakes up,” I said, praying my logic would make a difference. It never did. “Just let me put her back in her crib first,” I pleaded. Unhearing and uncaring, he selfishly went ahead, while I lay as still as possible so my baby wouldn’t wake up.

  The daytime stress was different. I told Eddie we would be better off selling the station wagon and buying a used one, so our monthly payments wouldn�
�t be so high. But he stubbornly refused to let it go back to the bank or to sell it and buy something more affordable. I finally applied for food stamps since there wasn’t enough money at the end of his unemployment check. Because I refused to lie and told the social worker we had a plush new car, our food stamp application was denied.

  We had no choice but to join our friends and neighbors, and the many other mining families who stood in line at the local senior center to get cheese, rice, and other commodities. Using the little cookbook pamphlet that came with the free food, I became quite adept at making meals that cost next to nothing.

  But then October arrived—and with it another conception. I knew I was pregnant when I began throwing up in the mornings. No sooner had I gotten out of bed, than a wave of nausea would attack me.

  Just like when I got pregnant with Mileah and Trista.

  I couldn’t bear the thought of another baby. Trista was only six-months-old, and Mileah wasn’t quite two. I was exhausted from the demands of motherhood. That’s why, a few mornings later, I sat down on the cold bathroom floor and asked God to let me die.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Sitting on the cold bathroom floor I realized something: I wasn’t yet twenty, and wouldn’t be for another year, but I was going to have a third baby.

  My God, I’m still a teenager and I already have two children, I thought. But I feel many, many years older.

  In that moment I hated my life. Most of all, I hated Eddie for not putting a leash on his passion. I wondered if I was doomed to spend the rest of my life barefoot and pregnant.