Heather Gudenkauf - Not A Sound

“Did Helen go trick-or-treating with you?” I ask.

“No, she had to go to work. She’s a nurse like you.” Way to mix things up, David, I think. David could date any woman in Mathias and he has to pick another nurse. I scan my memory for any nurses named Helen that I might know, but come up blank.

Nora goes on to describe her day at school. How she loves her homeroom teacher but that her music teacher is kind of grouchy. She talks about the new boy in her class that makes fun of her freckles and she mentions the math test that she missed four questions on.

Sometimes I hate this phone and wonder if I’d be better off not having it at all. All I have are the printed words of the conversation—I can’t hear the emotion in her voice. I have no context. I don’t know if Nora is pleased that the new boy teases her—maybe he likes her. I don’t know if missing four questions on the math test is a good or bad thing. So I have to ask her and pretty soon the conversation has stalled and Nora is ready to hang up because, I think to myself, shouldn’t a mom know these things—just be able to know how her daughter is feeling?

“Bye, Mom. Love you.”

My eyes fill with tears again. “I love you too, Nora. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

I wait for a moment before hanging up in case David wants to speak to me again but no new words sweep across the screen so I replace the receiver. I think about what Nora said about David’s friend Helen. Could he really have a girlfriend? We’ve been apart for a long time. It still shocks me that David hasn’t had divorce papers delivered to my house for me to sign.

For the next two hours I sit in front of the television and watch some old movie but all the while I keep thinking of Gwen. We were good friends once. But that was before I got hit by the car, before I lost my hearing and abandoned my family and friends for alcohol. Gwen and I both grew up in Mathias, though I’m several years older. Our paths didn’t cross until we were both nurses at Queen of Peace. She’s what is called a floater nurse. She goes to wherever the action is in the hospital. If the emergency room is overflowing or maternity is bursting at the seams, she’s there to assist. She was bubbly and a bit irreverent in the break room but the minute she stepped out on to the floor she became no-nonsense and unflappable.

We went through the sexual assault nurse examiner training together. During the workshops we learned how to assess and evaluate the injuries of sexual assault. We were also trained in the collection and packaging of forensic evidence from the crimes.

We bonded during the breaks and chatted about our lives. We had daughters the same age—Nora and Lane. We talked about our husbands and how challenging it could be balancing home life and nursing. During the first domestic violence case that we worked together, I was the on-call SANE nurse and was summoned to the Queen of Peace to collect the evidence. Gwen was also there, covering a shift in the emergency room. The victim, a thirty-year-old mother of two, was so distraught, striking and lashing out at the EMTs who brought her in that she managed to kick one of them squarely in the face, causing a fountain of blood to erupt from his nose. Gwen somehow managed to calm the badly beaten woman with her low, soothing voice while I collected the evidence.

Our friendship was sealed that night. Though after the fact the injured woman insisted that she fell down the steps, the evidence I was able to gather clearly showed that she was beaten with a leather belt, sending the husband to jail at least for a few days. Gwen and I talked every day after that. We met for coffee once a week, set up playdates for our girls. Then I was injured, started drinking and lost touch with just about everybody. About six months ago, though, Gwen had left me a phone message. When I read the transcript I found it to be just a regular, run-of-the-mill, “how’re you doing, we haven’t talked in a while” message. I hadn’t bothered to call her back.

I have so many regrets. If only I hadn’t taken that first drink to deaden the pain of being plunged into sudden silence. Which sounds so selfish now. It wasn’t just losing my hearing, it was the loneliness that came with it, the sense of always being separate, apart from everyone I loved. What I wouldn’t give to go back in time and make different choices.

Once the movie credits start, Stitch moves to the door and looks at me expectantly. My cue that he needs to go outside. I go through the whole rigmarole of opening the curtains, removing the wooden stick and sliding open the glass door. Stitch dashes outside and spends an inordinately long time doing his business. The air is heavy with the scent of oncoming rain. Rainstorms in the fall have a scent that is uniquely their own. A fetid, moldy, earthen smell. As if their sole purpose is to urge the remaining flora and fauna that it’s time to rest, covering them in a soggy blanket and tamping them down close to the earth, which is ready to claim them for the winter.

I consider staying up to watch the ten o’clock news and see if they actually air my 9-1-1 call, but I really don’t want to see my frantic words emblazoned across the screen. I turn off the television and toss a few more pieces of wood into the stove before I call Stitch back in. Despite my long nap and even though it’s only a little bit after eight, I’m exhausted. I switch off the main floor lights, and Stitch and I head upstairs. I slip under the covers and Stitch takes his usual spot at the foot of the bed.

As conflicted as I am about how I feel about David, I miss turning over at night and finding his solid, comforting form right next to me. When David and Nora came into my life, I was the one who willingly, without question, opened my arms to them when they were at their lowest point. I was more of a mom to Nora in the last six years than her biological mother ever was and though legally David doesn’t have to, he still lets me see her. Supervised of course. I miss, no matter how late we’d get home from the hospital, how David and I always made sure to kiss the other good-night and say I love you. Our little ritual.

I try to shake away the past. It does no good to mourn what was. All I have is the here and now, no matter how meager. But in the here and now, I hate nighttime. The absence of sound combined with the absence of light is terrifying. Now, just like I do every night before I go to sleep, I make sure my flashlight is in my bedside table drawer where it should be and I make sure my cell phone is fully charged and within hand’s reach. My little ritual. Only now, with lights blazing and Stitch nearby am I able to close my eyes and rest.

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