The Weight of Silence

by Heather Gudenkauf

  “Come on with me, Petra. We’ll go figure this out.”

  “Nuh-uh!” Petra exclaimed. “I’m supposed to be outside, standing by the wall for recess. If she knows I told, I’m gonna be in big trouble!”

  “You go on outside then and stand by the wall. I’ll go check on Calli and visit with Mrs. Hample. And Petra, you’re a good friend. Calli is lucky to have you,” Mr. Wilson told her and Petra smiled her big, toothless grin at him.

  Mr. Wilson went to the classroom, looked through the window in the door and saw Calli, sitting at her desk, her head bent forward and her long hair shielding her face. He entered the room, stood beside Calli’s desk, and watched as big, fat tears plopped down, causing a wet stain to slowly spread across the brown-gray handwriting paper that lay in front of her. “Hey, Calli, ready for our appointment?” Mr. Wilson asked her in a cheerful voice. Calli looked up at him in surprise; they never met on Friday, only on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and in the late afternoons, near to the time that school ended.

  “I’m sorry I’m late.” Mr. Wilson looked concernedly down at his watch. “I was stuck in a meeting. Let’s go on up to my office.” Calli stood and looked fearfully at Mrs. Hample. “I’ll bring her back in about twenty minutes, right before lunch.” He addressed his last comments to Mrs. Hample.

  “She should be in a special classroom. She doesn’t talk, you know,” she said as if Calli could not hear her. “Or maybe in a behavior disorder class. She’s being obstinate, not talking like that.”

  “All our students are special here, and Calli is right where she belongs. You won’t be needed for the rest of the day, Mrs. Hample. You may sign out at the office. Thank you.”

  When Calli finished using the restroom, he sent her outside to play with her classmates for recess. She and Petra played hopscotch with some other children. Mrs. Hample left and never returned and Mr. Wilson was their substitute teacher for the rest of the afternoon. When she arrived home from school that day, her backpack held a note for her mother from Mr. Wilson. Calli watched carefully as her mother read the note, her face drooping more and more at each line she read. Finally, she set the letter aside and beckoned Calli to her.

  “Petra’s a nice girl,” her mother whispered to her as she gathered her on her lap. Calli nodded and played with the collar on her mother’s shirt. “We have to do something nice for her, don’t you think?” Again Calli nodded. “Cookies, you think?” Antonia asked her. Calli slipped off her lap, opened the refrigerator and began pulling eggs and butter from inside.

  “You remember what a good friend she’s been to you, Calli. Don’t ever forget it. Petra will need you to be just as good a friend someday, okay?”

  Calli and Antonia delivered the cookies, still warm and soft, later that evening to the Gregory house. Petra’s mother and father had smiled proudly at their daughter’s kind actions on Calli’s behalf. Calli and Petra had run off into the porch to sit and eat the chocolaty cookies.

  Now, in the meadow, her stomach growled in remembrance of those chocolate chip cookies as she wove a crown of flowers for her best friend. Calli felt her nose begin to burn from the harsh sun, and she headed back into the woods and its dim calm.

  ANTONIA

  Martin, Fielda and I huddle together. We sit on Mrs. Norland’s sofa, trying to decide what to do next. We need to talk to the press, that much is certain, but don’t know where to begin. Don’t know quite what to say. I mean, how does a parent get up in front of a camera and say to the whole world, “I’ve lost my child, please help me get her back.” How does one do that?

  But it needs to be done. I hold in my hand a collection of pictures of Calli. Calli in her first-grade picture, a hesitant smile on her face, her two front teeth missing, her hair brushed and curled, staring right into the camera. Calli wearing her yellow bathing suit earlier this summer, her skin slightly pink from the sun, her hair in pigtails. Calli and Petra, just last week, sitting at the kitchen table, arms thrown around each other, heads touching.

  “Let’s go,” I say, standing.

  Startled, Martin and Fielda look up at me.

  “We’ll figure it out as we go,” I assure them. “Come on.”

  I hold on to Fielda’s hand as we approach the front door, and she holds on to Martin’s hand. We make an odd little train as we leave the house. We walk down the long lane to Timber Ridge Road to where the reporter is waiting for us. I shield my eyes from the glare of the sun and the reporter looks expectantly at us. Quiet greets us for a moment and the woman in the red suit addresses us.

  “I’m sorry to hear about your daughters. My name is Katie Glass. I’m a reporter for KLRS. Could you answer a few questions for me?”

  “My name is Antonia Clark,” I begin, “and this is Martin and Fielda Gregory. Our daughters, Calli and Petra, are…missing.” I hold up the photo of Calli and Petra together at the kitchen table. My hand is shaking.

  Fielda squeezes my hand and says in a quiet voice, “Please help us find our girls. Please help us find our girls,” she repeats. “They are seven years old. They are best friends. They are good girls. Please, if anyone knows where they are, please tell someone.”

  I look over to Martin. His eyes are closed and his chin is tucked into his chest.

  “What time did you report the girls missing?” the reporter asks.

  Agent Fitzgerald steps forward. “Petra Gregory was reported missing at approximately four-thirty this morning. Calli Clark, soon after. Both girls are seven years old. Petra Gregory was last seen wearing short blue pajamas. Calli Clark was last seen wearing a pink nightgown. The girls were last seen in their own homes, in their own beds.”

  “Do you have any suspects?”

  “We have no suspects, no persons of interest at this time,” Agent Fitzgerald explains. “However, we are trying to contact Calli’s father, Griff Clark, and his friend Roger Hogan. They left early this morning for a fishing trip and we need to let these gentlemen know of this situation. Anyone who knows where these two men are should have them contact the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Department.”

  “Are the two men suspects?” Katie Glass asks.

  I gasp and the Gregorys look at me in surprise.

  “Griff Clark and Roger Hogan are not suspects in any manner. We just want to let Mr. Clark know that his daughter and Petra Gregory are missing.”

  “Where did they go fishing?”

  “Somewhere along the Mississippi, over near Julien.”

  “Do you have photos of the two men?”

  “We do not. They are not suspects. I repeat, they are not suspects, but they need to return to Willow Creek.”

  “Is there any relationship between the missing girls and the Jenna McIntire case?” the reporter inquires. My stomach flips with dread. I hadn’t heard this connection before.

  “We cannot comment on any connection between the two cases at this point,” Fitzgerald says crisply.

  “Is it true that Mary Ellen McIntire, Jenna McIntire’s mother, is here in Willow Creek to give assistance to the families?”

  “I am not aware of the arrival of Mrs. McIntire. That is all for now. When we have more information regarding Petra Gregory and Calli Clark, we will pass that information to you. As for now, the Gregory and Clark families, along with the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Department, would appreciate anyone with any information regarding the whereabouts of Petra Gregory and Calli Clark to please contact local authorities.”

  With that, Agent Fitzgerald steps away from the microphones and heads back toward Mrs. Norland’s house. We follow behind him. Fielda had dropped my hand at the mention of Griff, though she still holds tightly to Martin’s hand.

  Once we are in the privacy of the Norland home, Fielda turns on me. “What’s this about your husband leaving early this morning? Could he know something about Petra and Calli? Why isn’t he here?”

  “Hold on,” I stop her, holding my hand up. “Griff knows nothing about the girls. He and Roger went fishing early this morning.
They’ve been planning it for weeks.” I try to keep the anger from my voice, but fail.

  “He had been drinking,” Martin says.

  “What?” I ask.

  “Griff had been drinking. This morning there were beer cans everywhere.”

  “That doesn’t mean anything,” I say, shrugging it off. “So he had a few beers. So what?” I notice Agent Fitzgerald out of the corner of my eye. He is watching us carefully.

  “I’ve seen him drunk,” Martin says. “He is not exactly nice when he has been drinking.”

  “That is none of your business,” I sputter.

  “My daughter is missing!” Fielda yells. “My daughter is missing and you think that your husband’s drinking has nothing to do with it? Maybe, maybe not. And while we’re talking about it, what about your son? Where is he right now? He sure spent a lot of time with the girls. Kind of odd, if you ask me. A teenager hanging out with a bunch of first graders.”

  “How dare you?” I shout. “Ben would never hurt the girls. Never! How dare you? You come in here, pointing fingers. How do we know that you two didn’t have something to do with this?”

  “Us?” Fielda screeches. “Us? My God. You’re the one with the drunken husband and the daughter who never speaks. And why is that, do you think? Why doesn’t Calli talk? Seems to me that something really odd must be going on in your house if a perfectly healthy little girl doesn’t talk!”

  “Get out,” I say softly now. “Just go.”

  Agent Fitzgerald steps between us. “We need to work together on this. There is no reason that you should be pointing fingers at each other. No reason. Let us do our work here.”

  “I’m sorry,” I turn to Fielda and say weakly after a moment’s silence. “I know you would never do anything to hurt the girls. I’m just…worried.”

  “I’m sorry, too,” Fielda says. “And I know Ben would never hurt them. I’m so sorry. We’ll talk soon.” Fielda pats my arm and they leave.

  I notice that she hadn’t said that she knew Griff wouldn’t have hurt the girls, either.

  Griff has not always been the way he is now. Not at first, anyway. He always drank a lot, I knew that back when I was first dating him. I just thought it was his age, just being wild, having fun. It was exciting to be around him. I was thrilled that someone older than me would be interested in seventeen-year-old me. And he was sweet and wanted to be with me.

  I was so lonely at that time. My mother had died, my brothers had left and my dad was moping around the house, missing my mother, missing my brothers. That winter of my senior year, Griff sauntered into the Gas & Go, the convenience store where I worked. He smiled at me, went back to the beer display, grabbed a case, a bag of Fritos and a Ding Dong, and set them all in front of me on the counter.

  “Great supper, huh?” he asked.

  “Very nutritious,” I observed as I rang up the items. “I’ll need to see an ID, for the beer.”

  “Why? Don’t I look twenty-two?” Griff asked, grinning.

  “Didn’t say that. I just have to check everyone’s, even if they look eighty.” I grinned back.

  “You sayin’ I look eighty?”

  “That’s what a diet of beer, Fritos and Ding Dongs will do to you,” I replied, trying not to laugh. God, I was so dumb.

  “How old’re you? Twelve?” Griff shot back.

  “Funny. No, I’m almost eighteen,” I said, straightening my shoulders, trying to appear taller, older.

  “Huh, I would’ve thought maybe…” he peered at me closely “…thirteen. Fourteen, maybe, on a good day.”

  “Ha, ha,” I deadpanned. I felt my face redden and hoped that I wasn’t sweating too much.

  “I’m Griff Clark, by the way,” he said as he pulled his driver’s license from his wallet and laid it in front of me.

  “I’m Antonia Stradensky,” I said, using my full name, hoping at least to sound older.

  Griff was looking at my name tag. “Then who the hell is Toni?” he asked. “And where’d you put her?”

  “I’m Toni,” I said, flustered. “I mean, you know that. Toni’s short for Antonia.” Mortified, I laid his change in his outstretched palm.

  “See you later, Antonia!” Griff flashed a huge smile at me. “And let that Toni girl out of the cooler before you go home.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I’ll do that.”

  Griff stopped by nearly every time I was working after that. When he didn’t, I worried, wondered if he wasn’t really interested in me. Then he’d walk in, his red hair a beacon, and my stomach would swoop and I would smile for the rest of the night.

  One night in April, he finally asked me out, sort of. I was just closing up the store at midnight. It was a beautiful early-spring night and Griff was waiting out in the small parking lot as I locked the doors.

  “Young girl like you shouldn’t be working out here all alone this late at night. It ain’t safe.”

  “Well, good thing you’re here then,” I replied.

  “Good thing. Hey, wanna go for a drive?”

  I hesitated. “I better not. My dad will be waiting up for me.” This was not true. I don’t think my father had stayed up past nine since my mother died.

  “How ’bout a short walk then?”

  We walked; it wasn’t a short walk, though. We walked for two hours, winding ourselves around the streets of the town at least three times and found ourselves up at St. Gilianus College, among the old gothic-looking buildings.

  “What do you do?” I asked.

  “I do lots of things,” Griff laughed. “I eat, I sleep, I go for walks…”

  “I mean for a job, what do you do?”

  “Right now I’m workin’ over in Lynndale for my uncle, farm stuff. But I’m workin’ on getting a job working for the pipeline over in Alaska.”

  “Oh.” A pebble of dread dropped into my stomach. “You’re moving away.”

  “Maybe. Never was much to stay around for before.”

  “Before what?”

  “Before this kid started hangin’ around me.”

  “I’m not a kid.”

  “Oh, yeah? Prove it.”

  And I did. There behind the field house.

  Afterward, Griff was quiet, the first of his silent rages I would have to endure.

  “What?” I asked. “What’s wrong?”

  “Who was he?”

  “What? Who?” I asked, thoroughly confused.

  “Who did you date before me?” He said date as if it was a curse word.

  “No one. I mean, someone, but it was nothing.”

  He wrapped his fingers in my hair and held tightly, but didn’t pull. It didn’t hurt. “Stay away from him. Don’t talk to him no more.”

  “I won’t. I mean, we don’t talk anymore.”

  “Good.” He relaxed and smiled at me.

  He walked me back to my car, kissed me good-night and sent me on my way.

  We saw each other every day after that and were married that next fall.

  I don’t regret my marriage. I have, after all, two amazing children. I do wonder often, however, what would have happened if I hadn’t married Griff. Would I have married someone else, Louis, maybe? Would I still live in Willow Creek or would I live by the ocean in a yellow house? But I don’t wish what I have away.

  DEPUTY SHERIFF LOUIS

  Mary Ellen McIntire is about the saddest woman I’ve ever seen. Deep grooves are etched into her cheeks and it’s hard to meet her puffy, weary eyes. The hurt just bores into you. I welcome her into my little domain. I wish that Fitzgerald was here, but he’s not, so I offer Mrs. McIntire a seat.

  The whole Jenna McIntire affair was a complete and total tragedy. All around, every which way. Beautiful ten-year-old girl goes missing from her house in the middle of the night. No one knows why. She’d never left before. Jenna loved to play with dolls, had a whole collection of those American Girl dolls. I saw her room. Dolls everywhere, dressed in these little outfits. No sign of a break-in, no struggle. Just a li
ttle girl gone. The dad swore that he had locked the back door the night before, but it was found unlocked the next morning.

  Always, always, the parents are the first suspects, it seems. Even when every indication is that it’s not so. Most missing child cases are perpetrated by a family member or someone known to the child. The most humiliating thing is for parents to know they are persons of interest, when in fact they would die, they would open their wrists, bleed slowly and painfully, do anything to bring their child home safely.

  Jenna McIntire was found six days later, in a wooded area two miles from her home. There was plenty of evidence collected. Each horrible, unspeakable act on Jenna was chronicled, but still no resolution. We don’t know who did this. Why? Yeah, some sick son of a bitch. Not even sick, evil is a better word.

  So now, sitting before me is Mary Ellen McIntire, daughterless. If the gossip is accurate, she and her husband are separated. She has an older boy, fourteen, I think. I ask after him.

  “Jacob is doing fine, I guess,” she says. “You know teenage boys, though. Always somewhere to be, something to do. I’ll be happy when school starts. Then at least I’ll know where he’s at.”

  I hear voices and the shuffle of many feet near the front door and I crane my neck to see what is going on. I see two reservists escorting a dazed, disheveled-looking man into the building. “Excuse me, Mrs. McIntire,” I say, standing. The man being brought in is tall and thin. He towers over the other officers, but looks fragile, like a brittle stick. His hair is white and he looks as if he might cry. Mary Ellen McIntire is staring at me, a look of impatience spreading across her face. She is tired of being put off, tired of having to fight for her dead daughter. I pull my eyes away from the man, sit down and return my attention to Mary Ellen.

  “What brings you here to Willow Creek, Mrs. McIntire?”

  “I heard,” she begins. “I heard about the missing girls. And I thought maybe I could, you know, help.”