Heather Gudenkauf - Not A Sound

“I tripped,” I explain, holding up my hands. “It looks worse than it is.” He takes my hands in his and turns them over to examine my cut and scraped palms. His grasp is warm against my chilled fingers and I realize just how cold I am.

“Her name is Gwen Locke. I know her. We worked together. She’s been to my house,” I say. “I’ve been to hers.”

Jake looks surprised but doesn’t ask me if I’m sure of the woman’s identity. He releases my hands, and I immediately miss his warmth. He turns his attention to the DNR officer. Wagner points to the water, and a muscle in Jake’s jaw twitches and once again he becomes all business.

“Go back down by your paddleboard,” he signs. “We have to seal off this area. I’ll be right down to take your statement and Officer Snell will make sure you get home safely.” I nod, and Jake gives me a wisp of a smile as if to let me know that everything will be all right. I want to believe him.

Officer Snell, with his closely cropped hair and smattering of acne across his forehead, looks to be barely out of his teens. He’s waiting, pen and pad already in hand by the time I reach him. Cold has seeped through my pants, still damp from wading through the water and from my tumble to the ground and I begin to shiver.

“Just a few questions, ma’am,” Snell begins, but I quickly lose the thread and stop him.

“Maybe we should wait for Jake. Detective Schroeder,” I amend. “He knows sign.” Officer Snell nods his understanding and we stand around awkwardly until Jake makes his way down to us.

Jake knows how to talk to me. Not only does he know sign, he looks me right in the eye and keeps his sentences short. I answer out loud while Snell writes down my answers. He covers all the expected questions: name, address, phone number, age.

“You say you know her?” Jake signs.

I nod. “Her name is Gwen Locke. She’s a county sexual assault nurse and last I knew was a nurse at Queen of Peace and Mathias Regional.” I try to keep one eye on Stitch who grows bored and wanders away. His attention is on a black squirrel that looks curiously down from a tree branch at the drama unfolding before him.

“Do you have any contact information for her? Know her next of kin?” Jake signs as Snell flips his notebook to an empty page.

I haven’t used the phone number I have for Gwen in almost two years. After my accident she reached out to me, came by the hospital and to the house to visit but I refused to talk to her. To anyone. “Her husband’s name is Marty and she has a daughter named Lane. She grew up here.” I pull out my phone and find Gwen’s number. Snell adds it to his growing list of notes.

Jake has me take him, step by step, through my morning right up until Stitch discovered Gwen in the river. Beyond his shoulder I see Stitch wander toward my neighbor who is waiting next to a four-wheeler, his hands stuffed in the pockets of his jacket. He bends down to scratch Stitch’s ear. “Stitch, Ke mne!” I call. Ke mne is Czech for come and pronounced as khemn yea. Stitch leisurely trots back to my side. Stitch’s trainer, Vilem, who is originally from Prague, trained all of his police and rescue dogs using Czech commands, including Stitch and Jake’s K-9.

Jake shifts so that his face is once again in front of mine. “You going to be okay?” he asks. “Do you want me to call someone for you?”

That’s when I realize I’m late for my interview with Dr. Huntley. I’ve forgotten all about it.

“Oh, shit!” I say. I check my watch. It’s close to ten thirty. I’m already a half an hour late. By the time I get home, cleaned up and to the clinic I’ll be well over two hours late. I tell Jake about the interview and that I have to get home.

“Sorry,” he signs. “Officer Snell will get you home as soon as possible. You’ll have to come to the police station at some point and we’ll have you sit down with a certified interpreter to take your official statement. I’ll check in with you later.” Then he moves back up the bluff toward Gwen’s body.

I check my phone and find two texts from Dr. Huntley’s office manager. The first reading, Dr. Huntley is running behind schedule and will be about thirty minutes late for your interview.

For a moment I’m hopeful that I’ll still be able to get to the clinic in time to catch him but then I read the second message and my stomach sinks. Dr. Huntley has to leave for another appointment. He will contact you if he’d like to reschedule. Great. The professional equivalent of “don’t call me, I’ll call you.”

There’s a third text from David. It’s only one word but it speaks volumes.

Typical.

3

Jake orders me not to share any details about my discovery with anyone so I send a text to Dr. Huntley’s office manager, apologizing for my absence. I explain that I have a good reason for missing the interview and that I will tell her all about it later. My fingers itch to respond to David’s smart-ass text with something equally snarky, but my attorney, Amanda, has advised me to keep all my communications with David cordial so I shove my phone into my pocket before I change my mind.

Because I’m not Nora’s biological mother I have absolutely zero rights when it comes to custody or visitation. If and when I get to see Nora is completely in David’s hands.

I clearly remember the day, even though I was completely sloshed, that David finally had enough. He had come home from his shift at the hospital and found me sitting on the floor of our bedroom with a bottle of Smirnoff and my coffee mug with “Cute enough to stop your heart and skilled enough to restart it” written across the side. A Valentine’s Day gift from David. I couldn’t be that bad off if I was still using a glass. At least I wasn’t chugging directly from the bottle, never mind that I was holed up in my bedroom with the shades drawn, lights off, drinking vodka and watching closed captioned episodes of Judge Judy at four in the afternoon on a Tuesday.

Of course I didn’t hear David come into the room, but once he turned on the light and I saw the look on his face I knew things were bad. “You forgot to pick up Nora,” he said, pointing to his watch as I rolled the Smirnoff beneath the bed.

“Sorry,” was all I could offer. “I’ll go get her now.” I got unsteadily to my feet. My face felt numb and I almost didn’t care that I couldn’t actually hear what David was saying.

“No, Amelia, you won’t. You can’t get in a car and drive like this.” I couldn’t stand seeing the anger, the disappointment in his eyes, so I averted mine. David grabbed my chin. Not hard, but firmly, so that I couldn’t help but look at him. “You will never drive with Nora again. Do you understand?”

“You can’t tell me what I can and can’t do,” I said, my chin still cupped in his hand. I remember actually being glad that his hand was there, I was having trouble keeping my head steady. I kept wanting to lie down, close my eyes.

“I can and I will,” David said through clenched teeth, making it difficult for me to read his lips. “I en an I ill,” it looked like he was saying, and for some reason this struck me as funny and I started to laugh.

“Dammit, Amelia!” David said, his fingers now digging into my cheeks so hard that tears sprang into my eyes. “You will not get into a car with my daughter. If you do, I’ll call the police, I swear, I will. Once you sober up, I want you out. Out of my house. Do you understand?” David’s face was pale and he was nearly vibrating with rage.

I wrenched away from his grasp, the half-filled mug still in my hands. “Now Nora’s your daughter? I knew you would do this,” I spat. “I knew you could never deal with me being deaf. I’m not your perfect little wife anymore so you’re going to just throw me away,” I slurred.