Sister of Silence

by Daleen Berry

  “I see. What do you have to say about all this, Eddie? Do you think it’s Daleen’s fault? The affair, I mean?”

  “Well, first of all, I think it’s something that I’m never going to be able to live down, and second, no, I don’t think it’s her fault. I don’t know why I’m not very nice to her. I just…” His words trailed off.

  “I’d like to say something.” I decided to be bold.

  Trudy looked at me. “Go ahead, Daleen.”

  “I think that’s unfair, Eddie. I said I forgave you, and I never bring it up, but right after I told you I wouldn’t file for divorce, you began treating me terribly. That’s very hard to get used to. Besides, I shouldn’t have to—you just shouldn’t do it.” I stared at him, hoping he felt my pain.

  “I take it Eddie was gone from the home for a time after this affair?” Trudy’s voice was gently prodding.

  “Yes, he moved out for a couple of weeks, until I decided I was willing to try and save the marriage. But he’s been gone some since then, too.”

  “You mean out of the home?” Trudy asked, taking more notes.

  I shook my head and looked at Eddie, trying to give him a chance to explain. There were, after all, answers I needed from him, about why he continued to act so petulant.

  “Eddie, would you like to say something about that?” Trudy asked him quietly.

  He pulled the tip of his baseball cap up so we could see his eyes. “Not really, but I guess I’ll have to.” He stopped. “You see, I never meant for anything to happen. I’m probably as hurt by it all as Daleen is. But it happened and you can’t turn the clock back, but I just get the feeling that Daleen hasn’t really forgiven me, even though she says she has. And it’s like she’s always watching me, trying to see when I’ll make the next mistake.” He looked at me squarely. “But there won’t be a next time.”

  “Does Daleen say anything to make you feel like she doesn’t trust you?”

  “No, not exactly. It’s just a feeling I get, that’s all.” Eddie shrugged.

  “I see,” Trudy said, taking more notes.

  “I don’t think Eddie believes I’ve forgiven him because he’s never forgiven himself, and he feels guilty about it,” I offered.

  “Is that right, Eddie?”

  “Yeah, I guess so.”

  “Let’s get back to what you mentioned earlier, Daleen. You said that Eddie still leaves sometimes. What do you mean?” Trudy asked.

  “He just gets angry and takes off in his truck and doesn’t come back for a day or so. Usually he goes to his sister’s, but I never know until I’ve called around, hunting for him.”

  “And has this been going on for a long time?”

  “No.” I closed my mouth, and then realized something. “Well, actually, if you want to get technical about it, he’s been doing this ever since we were first married.”

  Trudy’s eyebrows went up. “Really?”

  “Yes, he has,” I said thoughtfully. “Over the years, whenever he’s gotten angry—but not every time—he would take off and I wouldn’t hear from him for several hours, sometimes not for a couple of days. The first time it happened, we’d only been married a few months.”

  “I see.” Trudy looked at Eddie. “You seem to be content to just listen, Eddie. What do you think? Do you know why you leave?”

  He gave Trudy his classic shrug. “I dunno. I just do, that’s all. I guess I get tired of hearing her complain.”

  “I complain because you’re never home long enough to fix anything that needs fixed, and when you are there, you’re glued to the television screen, or to some porn magazine, and then you get angry when I ask you for help with the kids,” I said coldly.

  I felt myself begin to fume, but fought to stay in control of my feelings. I couldn’t understand why, when I felt like I was trying so hard, nothing was working out.

  “I see.” Trudy made a few notes, before speaking in that soft, even tone of hers. “I’m sorry, but it’s almost time for my next client. But before you go, I want you to try to do something for me. Do you two ever go out on a date?”

  Eddie smirked. “What’s a date?”

  “Has it been awhile?” Trudy laughed, looking at each of us. “All right. Eddie I want you to ask Daleen out sometime this week, and then I want you to arrange for a sitter. Next week you can tell me how it goes. Are you two game?”

  Our heads shook in unison, and I wanted to laugh. It was the first time we’d agreed about anything since we met Trudy.

  But neither of us was thrilled about her suggestion. I could just picture us going out on a date. If it went anything like the last hour, we were in for a major waste of time.

  Friday rolled around soon enough, and even though Eddie hadn’t officially asked me out, I was still mildly excited about our “date.” I wasn’t expecting too much for our first trial run, but I hoped an evening together might improve our relationship, even if just a little.

  I was getting dressed when Mileah came into the bedroom. “Where are you going, Mommy?”

  “Daddy and I are going out tonight, Honey.”

  “Who’s staying with us?” Mileah asked, watching me button my blouse.

  “Pam.”

  “Oh goodie!” She ran off to tell her siblings. I could hear them making plans, and talking about how fun Pam was.

  It had been awhile, and as I slipped on my shoes, I stopped to think about just when Pam had babysat for us. I couldn’t even remember when, much less why, we had gone out.

  I guess Trudy’s right; we do need some time alone together.

  The phone rang, breaking into my thoughts. I heard the mad rush as the children ran to answer, fighting over it. “Do not fight over the telephone. Tell whoever it is I’ll be right there.”

  I ran downstairs to discover Mileah talking to Eddie on the phone. I took the receiver she held out, saying, “Eddie, where are you? Pam will be here in thirty minutes.”

  “I just finished fixing a piece of equipment they need on midnight shift tonight. I’ll be there shortly. It won’t matter if we’re late, will it? You didn’t have anything special planned, did you?”

  “No, but I would like to eat before too much longer. I’m starved already.” I glanced at my watch, which read 5:30 p.m. That meant he wouldn’t get home until after 6 p.m. I wasn’t paying any attention to what he was saying, but I could tell by his tone of voice he wasn’t worried.

  “That’s all right, Eddie. I’ll just grab a snack until you get here. But please hurry.”

  “Okay, see you soon.”

  I turned to the kids as they tore through the house. “Hey now, you four, don’t think you’re going to turn this place upside down just because your father and I are going out, because you’re not. I already wrote Pam a note telling her you have to clean up any messes you make before you watch television.”

  I went into the bathroom and began putting on my make-up. When the doorbell rang twenty minutes later, I yelled for the kids to get the door. “Tell Pam I’m in the bathroom, please.”

  I heard the sound of jumping. “Pam-my! Pam-my! You’re our favorite babysitter,” they chanted.

  I stepped out of the bathroom long enough to see them fighting over which one would get the privilege of sitting on Pam’s lap. “I left you a note on the table, and there’s some leftovers in the oven, in case you haven’t eaten. Why don’t you go ahead and look over the note, in case you have any questions.”

  “All right kids, let’s go read your mom’s note.”

  I finished brushing my hair and went into the kitchen for a snack, to keep my growling stomach from protesting any louder.

  I was still there when the front door opened and the kids ran to greet their father, whom they dragged into the kitchen. Eddie had returned working at the mines a few months earlier, and came walking in carrying his metal miner’s pail, amid the cries of “Daddy, Daddy!” He hugged each child and then looked at me. The whites of his eyes looked bright against his coal-blackened face. His cloth
es were black, too, and I had given up asking him to hold off hugging the kids when he first came home. They always ended up with coal soot on them, but I had long ago realized it wouldn’t kill them. I figured that’s what the bathtub was for.

  “My, don’t you look nice?” Eddie said, noticing the pale blue blouse and new jeans I was wearing.

  I smiled, happy that he noticed I had dressed for the occasion.

  “Thank you. Now if you expect us to get to town before the stores close, you better get on the ball,” I teased him.

  He saluted and the kids squealed with laughter, while I gritted my teeth. He knew I hated that, and he only did it to irritate me. “Yes, Maam!”

  After Eddie showered and changed into clean clothes, the kids ambushed us at the door when we tried to leave a short while later. They all wanted kisses and hugs, and each one had a special, last minute request. When we finally made it into the car all alone, the quiet that surrounded us was practically deafening.

  “So, where to tonight, kid?” Eddie asked, evidently letting me choose our destination.

  “I hadn’t really thought about it, but pizza sounds good. What about you?”

  “Can’t go wrong there. What then?”

  “I haven’t gotten any farther than that in the planning stage. Don’t you have any ideas you’d care to contribute this evening?” I asked. I wondered if he would have even remembered we were going out on a date, without my reminder that morning.

  “Well, I know one thing we could do that might be fun.” A sideways glance told me just what he meant.

  I turned my head so he wouldn’t see me grimace, wondering if sex was all he ever thought about.

  “They’re having a live radio show at the mall. Why don’t we go there?” Eddie suggested.

  “Okay, but let’s eat first,” I said.

  “Sure. You name the place.”

  “I think the pizza parlor over on Fifth Street has the best crust. Let’s go there.”

  I was mildly surprised when Eddie asked about my day while we ate our dinner. Usually he never asked, but he seemed to be following Trudy’s suggestion that he show more interest in my daily routine.

  I told him I was working on a story about the statewide teacher’s strike for the next edition. By the time I started working on the story, teachers in forty-six of fifty-five counties were on strike. Teachers were fleeing the state to find work elsewhere, and local educators were predicting a “mass exodus” if things didn’t change. They believed the state government was immune to their plight and that of their students, allowing them to subsist on substandard conditions both in the classroom, and in their weekly paychecks.

  That very morning I had crossed a picket line to interview teachers at the school our children attended. I found myself facing a battle line—one that included teachers with seniority who refused to cross, and some newer teachers fearful of losing their jobs if they didn’t go back to their classrooms and their students.

  Eddie knew about some of this, because I had mentioned a couple of things in passing earlier in the week, but as I talked, he didn’t seem to remember anything I had said. I shrugged it off and tried to ignore his seeming indifference. By the time I finished, though, I knew he had only inquired about my day because Trudy assigned him to do so. Nor did Eddie tell me about his day, shrugging it off as “just another day in the pit.”

  Later, as we stood on the sidelines of the music show, I asked Eddie if he wanted to dance. “No, you know I can’t dance. Especially not in front of all these people.” He looked at me like I was crazy.

  “You do so know how to dance, you just don’t want to. If you tried it, you might like it,” I pressed, giving him my best smile.

  He shook his head. “Nah, I don’t think so. I’ll just watch—if it’s all the same to you.”

  I gave up trying, and a few minutes later his expression told me just whom he was interested in watching: the voluptuous blonde across the room. It wasn’t that he looked at other women that bothered me—it was the way he looked at them, as if he’d like to devour them, or like he was trying to figure out what their measurements were. I turned away in disgust, walking over for some refreshments.

  While waiting for my drink, I casually glanced around the room. Many of the men were inspecting the blonde as intently as Eddie. They were openly gawking at her as she gyrated on the dance floor. Some men were more discreet than others, but they were just as interested in watching her as the men who weren’t trying to hide their leering looks.

  Standing there, I began looking at the women with those men. Some of them were average looking, but many of them were very attractive. Some of the women even wore an expression of forced happiness, as they pretended their husband or boyfriend wasn’t favoring the beautiful blonde. I gave myself a mental shake, trying to comprehend it all. I had seen it in high school, when the jocks dated the prettiest and most popular girls, but then (behind their girlfriends’ backs, of course) continued showing interest and even flirting with any other girl who showed them attention.

  This was a long way from high school, though, and some of the couples I saw were much older than me, and even older than Eddie. All around that room, I sensed a resigned sadness behind the women’s fake smiles, as if they were used to being treated disrespectfully, and they had just decided to live with it. I wondered how long it would take for me to wear that same look of resignation.

  I think I’d die first. I’ll never get used to such inconsideration and rudeness.

  Drinks in hand, I went back to Eddie, noticing the way he tried to tear his gaze away from the blond before I noticed.

  “You’re too late.” I sipped my soda calmly.

  “What do you mean?” His stare was blank.

  “Too late to keep me from seeing you stare at her,” I said, grinning wryly.

  To his credit, Eddie pulled off a realistic puzzled look. “Her? Who on earth do you mean?”

  I nodded towards the blonde bombshell on the dance floor.

  “Why on earth would I be watching her?” He sounded flabbergasted.

  “Oh I don’t know, Eddie. Why do you stare at any woman who comes within a fifty-foot radius?” I smiled politely, hoping it looked like we were having a pleasant conversation.

  “Look, I don’t know why you’re upset, but I wasn’t staring at her.”

  “All right, I guess it was probably the male DJ who caught your interest, right?” I heard the sarcasm in my voice, a clear indication we were on our way to a fight, but I couldn’t seem to stop myself.

  “Well, I can tell another evening is spoiled. Come on, let’s go.”

  He took off toward the exit, and I had to fight back the urge not to run after him and apologize for spoiling things, for overreacting, for everything.

  It’s not your fault. He caused this. If he wants to leave then, fine, let him leave. You certainly don’t get to enjoy yourself, having to police him whenever he’s around other women. The voice in my head was persistent, to say the least. And I listened.

  I forced myself not to run to keep up with him. We rode for the first fifteen minutes in total silence, until I tried to ease the tension. “You know you’ve always had a problem in that area, Eddie. I don’t know why you just don’t admit it and then work on it. Instead, you try to deny everything and accuse me of being paranoid.”

  “Oh, so now we’re back to that! I wondered how long it would take.” As his anger increased, so did the car’s speed.

  “Do you mind to slow down some, please, so we can get home in one piece?” The speedometer still didn’t slacken though, and I knew he wasn’t listening. We made it home safely, but I felt a sense of loss because the evening had turned out badly, and we weren’t going to have any progress to report to Trudy. I wondered if it was any use to continue going to her.

  We kept on trying, though, twice a month. Sometimes our sessions seemed beneficial, as if Eddie and I were both trying very hard to make our marriage work, but at other times I felt I w
as the only person putting forth any effort. That usually happened after Eddie began talking about something that had happened in the mines, which then dominated most of our session. I felt like the time we should be using to iron out our marital problems was being shortchanged. So I never mentioned it to Eddie, knowing that it would be therapy suicide if I did. That would be all it would take for him to stop going completely, and I didn’t want him to blame me for that, too.

  Nor did I need to speak up, because Trudy did it for me, gently suggesting we try to focus on relationship topics during our sessions. And for a while, we seemed to gain ground. But for every inch of progress we made, we seemed to slide backwards two inches. We eventually got into the habit of having lunch together after our appointment, before Eddie had to leave for work, which allowed us to continue our session privately. Those lunch dates became something I looked forward to, knowing it was one of the few times we usually didn’t argue. Because we had just paid for an hour’s worth of therapy, and an argument immediately afterward would have seemed like a waste of money, we usually managed to get along.

  About the same time Trudy entered our lives, a Valentine’s Day mystery occurred, when a local man simply vanished into thin air. It was the first of four disappearances—and what would ultimately culminate in 10 murders—to occur in our sleepy little county during an 18-month period. The crime rate soared, making more work for the police and media alike. At the same time Robert Barlow disappeared, another local man from a neighboring county was shot a few hundred feet from where we lived on Swan Street in Newburg.

  By then, I had been on the job two years, and local cops would offer me stories and news tips willingly. They would even give me a scoop, providing details about ongoing investigations in return for holding a story until it wouldn’t compromise their investigation. I had learned that ours was a mutual relationship—we needed each other—so I was willing to work with them, because it ultimately meant getting a story.

  Deputy Charlie Haney investigated the Swan Street shooting. Haney was Joe Stiles’ sidekick and sometimes partner, and the pair had put on a good cop, bad cop display for me not long after I started working as a reporter, which initially left me nervous about talking to them. Before long, I learned they were some of the biggest jokers—and best cops—in the state.