The Weight of Silence

by Heather Gudenkauf

  I gave her the message, trying to conceal my wounded feelings at being left out of this part of Fielda’s life. Though I must say, I couldn’t really blame her. I had told her to stop, which is something Fielda never did, give up, I mean. She thanked me for the message, staring at me levelly as if daring me to call her on it. I didn’t.

  Instead I canceled and rescheduled my classes that drizzly October afternoon to accompany her. In the office I tried to hold her hand, which she shook impatiently away. I tried reading aloud bits from outdated magazines but she ignored me. Instead, she paced around the waiting room, looking at walls tacked with Polaroid snapshots of weary mothers holding tiny babies in their arms, sometimes a shell-shocked husband or boyfriend standing nearby. When the nurse called her name, Fielda marched back to the examining room without a backward glance toward me. Moments later, however, the nurse returned to the waiting area and called my name.

  “Mr. Gregory, would you please come on back? Dr. Berg would like for you to join us,” she said, smiling.

  I followed her, heartened at her smile. Good news, I thought. Fielda will return to her former self, her shoulders would straighten and laughter would return to her eyes. When I entered the room Fielda sat, fully dressed, on the examining table, crossing and uncrossing her ankles nervously. The doctor was a dark-skinned man with a serious face. His hair was black and slicked back from his forehead, and he had caring eyes.

  “Mr. Gregory, I am Dr. Berg, Mrs. Gregory’s gynecologist. Please, take a seat.” He indicated a plastic chair across the small room.

  “No, thank you,” I replied and continued to stand next to Fielda.

  “We asked you both to come in today to share with you the results of some initial tests that we have done in order to find out why Mrs. Gregory has not conceived.”

  I nodded and reached for Fielda’s hand. This time she did not pull away.

  “The good news is, we cannot find anything conclusively wrong that is preventing conception with Mrs. Gregory. There is, of course, further testing that we can do, but I would recommend that you try some other avenues.”

  “For example…” I began.

  “For example, I would suggest that you, Mr. Gregory, have a sperm sample taken. This could address any concerns with sperm viability.”

  “Oh,” I laughed uneasily. “I don’t think that will be necessary. I believe that these things come in due time. Perhaps parenthood is not for us.”

  I felt Fielda pull her hand from mine. It was not a violent pull, more like an easing away. It did not alarm me. Fielda’s next act, however, did. She slid off the examination table and breezed out of the room without a backward glance or an acknowledgment to the physician, which surprised me, as Fielda is normally unfailingly polite. I thanked the doctor for the both of us and quickly made my exit. When I stepped out into the wet parking lot I could see Fielda speeding away in our car.

  I walked the nearly two miles home, ruining my dress shoes, the chill of autumn pouring into them as I sloshed through puddles. When I arrived at our house Fielda was not at home. I decided to give her some time to think, to be on her own, but the minutes stretched into hours and evening arrived. I finally called the Mourning Glory and asked Mrs. Mourning, albeit awkwardly, if she had seen Fielda. She had not.

  “Did you all have your first fight?” Mrs. Mourning teased good-naturedly. “Bout time, you’ve only been married four years!”

  I laughed feebly and asked her to tell Fielda to call me if she happened to hear from her.

  It had stopped raining, but darkness was gathering, pressing in on the house so that I nearly choked on its emptiness. Finally, I abandoned the notion that Fielda needed some time to herself and climbed into our other car, “the regular folk” car Mrs. Mourning would say, a Chevette that was a shade of bronze that fortunately covered the rust stains eating away at its edges. I spent the next hour driving up and down side streets, looking for Fielda; I drove past the library, the fabric store, the candy shop, searching to no avail. I even paused briefly in front of the Mourning Glory and glanced into its gleaming storefront, lit warmly, but did not see Fielda or our Camry. I decided to drive into the Willow Creek Camping Grounds, a dismal, junky spot, I thought, to which people who had nothing better to do with their time would pull cumbersome campers in order to sit around a fire and drink beer all day and all night. I could not imagine that Fielda would be there, but I had run out of ideas. As I pulled into the paved entrance area lined with gigantic maples, their bright red plumage shadowed in the dusk, I saw the car almost immediately and pressed my foot to the pedal, sending my car lurching forward. I pulled in next to Fielda and could see at once that something was not right, that something very, very bad had happened here. Slowly—I do not know why I did not rush—I opened my car door, stepped out and firmly shut it again. I could hear my shoes slapping against the wet pavement as I approached the still car. No movement inside. I went first to the driver’s side of the car and pressed my forehead against the glass, framing my face with my hands to get a better look. My Fielda was seated, if I can call it that, in the driver’s seat, but sprawled in such a way that her head lay on the passenger’s side, her arms tucked up around her face as if she was sleeping. But she was not. I attempted to open the car door, but Fielda had locked it. I fumbled for what seemed an eternity with my key chain, found the correct key and tried to insert it into the lock. I had to stop myself to take a breath and steady my hands. Finally, I yanked the door open and pulled Fielda toward me. I could smell it first, the vomit, an acrid odor, and then I saw the mess on the car floor and car seat. Fielda had been lying in it. I do not know if I spoke, I do not recall that I did, but I remember thinking, Please don’t take her away from me! I held her close to me, I know, rocking her back and forth for a moment, until I pulled myself together. I pushed her away as gently as possible, but knowing the urgency that was upon me, not as gently as I would have liked.

  I climbed into the Camry and breaking every traffic law, drove to Mercy Hospital, where the hospital personnel took Fielda away from me. I was not allowed to see her. They pumped her stomach. I handed the emergency room nurse the empty bottle of pills Fielda had ingested, and she informed me with a scathing look that it was a miracle that she had survived and would be recuperating on Four West, a place described by my students as “Four West, Nut Nest.” I knew I deserved these looks, I knew I had failed my wife, and I was punished. She was taken from me. For two weeks, even when they allowed her to have visitors, she refused to see me. I did not teach and I did not go to my office; I went to the hospital and sat in the waiting area, begging the nurses to let me see her for just one moment, no more. I sent flowers, candy, orange poppy seed muffins, but still she refused. At last, at the insistence of Mrs. Mourning, I am sure, Fielda sent for me.

  Alone, I entered her room, not dark and sad, as I thought it would be, but sunny and cheerful, smelling of roses, my flowers surrounded her bedside along with cards and well wishes from family and friends. The nurse left us, telling Fielda to call for her if she needed anything. Fielda would not meet my eyes. She looked thinner, smaller to me, and tired, very, very tired. But still I went to her, still I removed my jacket and shoes, and still I crawled into her small hospital bed, molding myself to her. Together there we cried, the two of us, begging each other for forgiveness and quietly, tearfully we both forgave and allowed ourselves to be forgiven.

  Now ten years later, in the swelter of summer, our daughter missing, Fielda has pulled the bedcovers up around her head, and I can hear her breath in sleep, heavy and even. I touch Fielda’s shoulder before treading softly from the room and closing the door behind me. I hesitate in the hallway; I don’t quite know what to do with myself. I know I cannot stay here at my mother-in-law’s home, too far away from what is going on. I need to be near the officers, I need to be there at a moment’s notice. I had already let my daughter down once by letting her be taken from our home, hadn’t I? I would know, would I not? Someone entering my ho
me, in the dead of night, slinking up the stairs, past my bedroom, down the hallway, to my daughter’s door, standing on its threshold, listening to the whir of the box fan, watching the rise and fall of Petra’s chest.

  Here is where I must stop. I cannot imagine what could have happened beyond this point. I would know, wouldn’t I? Someone in my home, I would know.

  BEN

  I run until my chest is ready to explode. My face is hot with tears. I stumble over a fallen log and tear my dress shirt on a thorny branch, but still I run, down to the creek. I could tell by the way that cop looked at me, the way he talked to me, that he thought I might have hurt you, Calli. At least, he thought I knew who hurt you.

  Jason Meechum, bastard. Figures he would be brought up. I could have killed him. I could have. But not really. But I was so mad, furious. It started in math class last spring. I was doing some god-awful division problem with fractions on the board and I couldn’t think. The numbers just blurred together and I couldn’t think. If I had a pencil and a piece of paper and was sitting at the kitchen table, with you swinging your feet in the chair next to me, drawing butterflies, I would have been fine. Instead, I was standing at the blackboard in front of twenty-seven other kids with a fat piece of crumbly chalk in my hand, and I couldn’t think. Jason Meechum started it all. I could hear his whiny, weasely voice.

  “Retard!” he coughed, concealing his mouth behind his hand.

  The other kids giggled, but said nothing. The teacher didn’t hear him, of course, and told me to keep on trying. More laughter, I could feel dozens of eyes on me, burning into my back. I glanced back over my shoulder and could see Meechum making faces and whispering, “Retard,” to me. I remember trying to swallow, but my mouth was dry. I can’t believe I did it, I really can’t. But Meechum had bothered me before, making cracks about my wino father and my stupid sister. This just topped it all off, and I snapped. I spun around, the thick chalk in my fist, and I flung it at him, as hard as I could; I’m a big kid and have a strong arm. The minute it flew from my fingers I was reaching to get it back, but it was too late. I had visions of the chalk hitting a classmate or worse yet, the teacher. But it didn’t, it hit Meechum dead center between the eyes. I heard the weird thunk as the chalk hit and saw his hands cover his face. The classroom went completely quiet and Miss Henwood sat at her desk with her mouth wide-open; I’m usually not the guy who causes problems in the classroom. Then I walked right out of the classroom and went home, like, three miles.

  My mom was expecting me when I got home. She wasn’t mad or nothing. She just looked sad, and of course, that made me start bawling. She just set me on her lap like I was three, I’m sure I about crushed her, and I cried and she told me everything was going to be all right.

  It wasn’t, though; we had to have a big meeting with the principal. I had to say sorry to Meechum, and I did, even though I still believe he deserved it. Meechum’s parents went on for a while, saying that I should’ve been suspended or something, but I wasn’t. Wish I was.

  That next week Meechum and his buddies cornered me after school and pushed me around a bit, called Mom a whore, said she was screwing the deputy sheriff. I walked away that day, but later, when Meechum was alone I snuck up on him and wrenched his arm behind his back and told him I was gonna kill him if he ever said anything about my family again. Meechum blubbered to his mother and she called the school and the police. Another meeting was called, but I denied everything, and he couldn’t prove anything. Mrs. Meechum said something about me being just like my no-good father, and boy, did Mom hit the roof with that one. But the damage was done. Everyone looked at me a little different after that. I wasn’t the quiet one anymore.

  Calli, I’d never hurt anyone. I’m not like Dad, I’m not. I’d never hurt you. I’ll find you, even if it takes all night. I’ll bring you home and then they’ll know.

  CALLI

  Calli slept fitfully. The ground was hard and unforgiving. Mosquitoes hovered around her exposed parts, though she had tried to tuck her legs underneath her nightgown, and they bit at her ankles and forearms.

  She dreamed intermittently of flying among the branches of the trees. She felt cool air on her forehead, and the pleasant swoop in her stomach that came with flight, like the Tilt-A-Whirl at the county fair. Below her she could see the creek, cool and beckoning; she tried to will her body to fly down to the water so she could dive into it. But she could not. She continued to soar, following the crooked path of the creek. She caught a glimpse of her father’s fiery hair and her stomach lurched in fear. He was looking up at her, anger etched on his face. She quickly passed over him and saw the rabbit-eared fawn drinking at the water’s edge. Its soft eyes calmly summoned her and Calli winged down and hovered just a few feet above the deer. She reached out her hand to stroke its hide, but it darted out of her reach and into the woods. Calli tried to follow, the puff of its white tail raised in warning, her beacon. In and out of firs and buckeyes it twisted and turned. Calli concentrated to keep up. A hand snatched at her from behind and tried to grab at Calli, but only caught the hem of her nightgown. Looking over her shoulder, she could see that it was Petra who waved happily after her. Another hand clamped briefly on her arm and her mother smiled up at her. Calli’s flight slowed, but did not stop, and she momentarily spied her mother’s hurt, confused look as she flew onward. Then the wood was filled with people who were familiar to her, grabbing at her in a friendly way, like children chasing bubbles. There was Mrs. White, the school nurse, and her kindergarten teacher, and Mrs. Vega, her first-grade teacher whom she loved dearly. Mr. Wilson, the school counselor, held her opened journal, pointing at something in it, but she couldn’t see what it was. What was he pointing at? She so badly wanted to know. She tried to will her body to fly down toward Mr. Wilson and look at that journal, but she could not, she kept soaring onward. There was Mrs. Norland, Deputy Sheriff Louis, Mr. and Mrs. Gregory, Jake Moon, Lena Hill, the librarian, all there reaching out for her. She peered through the throng of people searching for Ben, but she could not find him. Now there were people grasping at her that she did not know and this was frightening to Calli. She tried to kick her feet and swim upward with her arms through the air, onward she flew, following her doe. Soon she came to a beautiful clearing. Trees circled the small green meadow. A small pond was nestled in the center and the fawn stopped for a drink. She was so thirsty, but could not pull herself down to the bank. Suddenly Ben was there. Big, strong, kind Ben. He called to her. She tried to tell him that she was thirsty, so thirsty, but no words came. He seemed to know, though, Ben always seemed to know, and he dipped his hands into the water and pulled them out, cupped full of water. Still Calli could not bring her body down to him, but he tossed the water up at her and she caught a drop on her tongue. It was cold and sweet. Calli reached out for her brother, but it was as if she was filled with helium and she kept rising, higher and higher, above the treetops. Ben quickly began disappearing, his red hair a small flag below her. She continued to travel upward. The temperature rose as she rose, until she crashed into the sun.

  Calli awakened with a start, momentarily disoriented. She sat up and tried to wet her cracked lips, but her tongue was thick and heavy and held no moisture. Her dream had fled from her mind as she blinked herself awake, but was left with the comforting feeling that Ben was nearby. She stood slowly, her muscles tight, her feet sore. Downward, she decided, toward the water, and she began her slow descent down the bluff toward where she thought the creek might lay. As she walked gingerly along the path, avoiding broken twigs and jagged rocks, Calli recalled snatches of her dream and the image of the school counselor, Mr. Wilson, holding her journal, pointing at something inside of it.

  At their first meeting, Mr. Wilson, a tall, thin man with bone-white hair and a long nose, invited her to sit next to him at the circular table in the guidance office. In front of them lay a black journal made with a rough raspy paper with little natural fibers poking out. The book was held together with white sil
ky ribbon. Calli thought it was a beautiful book and longed to flip through the pages to see what was inside. Next to the journal lay a brand-new box of colored chalk, not the thick variety that came in only four colors and was used for drawing on the sidewalk, but a real artist’s set with wonderful bright, rich colors. Her fingers itched to open the package.

  “Did you know, Calli,” began Mr. Wilson, “that some of the best conversations people have are not with the spoken word?” He waited, as if expecting Calli to answer.

  Immediately Calli became guarded. Last year’s counselor, Mrs. Hereau, a mousy woman who only wore baggy clothes in shades of gray and tan, would wait for Calli to answer, as well. She never did, though.

  “Calli, I’m not going to get you to try and talk,” Mr. Wilson said, as if reading her mind. He rubbed his long nose with one extended fingertip and looked at her straight in the eye. Mrs. Hereau never even seemed to look at Calli’s face, always talked to her while jotting notes down in a notebook. Mr. Wilson’s straightforward manner unsettled Calli a bit.

  “I do want to get to know you, though,” he continued. “That’s my job, to try and get to know the students, and help them if I can.

  “Oh, don’t look so suspicious, Calli,” Mr. Wilson chuckled. “Talking is overrated. Blah, blah, blah. I listen to people talking all day! Then I go home and listen to my wife talking, and my kids talking, and my dog talking…” He slid his eyes toward Calli, who wrinkled her nose and smiled at the image of Mr. Wilson listening to a black Lab or German shepherd sitting at the kitchen table, talking about its day.