Heather Gudenkauf - The Weight of Silence

“I’ll get those fliers for you right away, Mr. Gregory,” he says and leaves me.

Now in the sanctuary of my office at St. Gilianus, each excruciating moment of the day stabs at my mind. I cannot concentrate. Sitting in my office on campus with a pile of papers, my beautiful daughter’s face gazing out at me from them, I can almost feel Petra’s presence in the room. Petra loves to sit beneath my large walnut desk. There she plays with her dolls, which she carries in a large canvas bag with her name painted on the front of it. As I do paperwork, I can hear the intricate conversations that her dolls hold with one another, and I smile at the thought. Petra enjoys learning all about the mysterious history of the college. She walks with me through the buildings, sunlight shining through the jewel-colored stained-glass windows depicting the saints and martyrs of the Catholic Church. She often makes me pause in front of the window showing St. Gilianus, the namesake of the college. In brilliant hues of saffron, lapis, copper and jade, the artist tells the story of Gilianus’s life, an old man dressed in brown robes, holding a scroll, flanked by a large bear and a flock of blackbirds. I repeatedly tell her about St. Gilianus, also known as St. Gall or St. Callo, a man born in Ireland sometime in the sixth century. Legend had it that Gilianus, a hermit, ordered a bear in the woods where he lived to bring his reclusive clan wood for their fire, and the bear obeyed. I describe to her the tale of how King Sigebert of Austrasia, now northeastern France and western Germany, implored Gilianus to free his promised wife of demons. Gilianus obliged, and at his command freed the tortured woman of demons who left her in the form of a flock of blackbirds. Petra always shivers with delight at this story and rubs the musical note charm on her necklace nervously.

My colleagues make special stops to my office when they know Petra is visiting. They ask her about school and friends, and she draws pictures for them to hang in their offices. My students are equally enchanted with Petra; she remembers the names of everyone who happens to meet with me while she is present. One distressed junior made an impromptu visit to my office this past winter while Petra played happily under my desk. The young man, normally confident and charming, was near tears, worried about graduating on time. He could not concentrate on his studies, and needed to get another part-time job to help pay his tuition and rent.

“Lucky,” I said to the student, “you have too much on your plate right now. It is natural for you to feel stress.” I hastened to lure Petra from under the desk and introduce her to the young man before he became too emotional in front of her. “This is my daughter, Petra. She often comes to my office on weekends to help me. Petra, this is Lucky Thompson, one of my students.”

Petra looked critically at Lucky, taking in his shaggy hair, baggy jeans and sweatshirt. “Is Lucky your real name?” she asked boldly.

“No, my real name’s Lynton, but everyone just calls me Lucky,” he explained.

“Good move,” Petra said, nodding her head. “So are you lucky?”

“Most of the time, I guess.”

“Do you have a pet?” she quizzed him.

“I do, a dog,” he responded, amused.

“Because, you know, they say that having a pet helps relieve stress. What’s your dog’s name?”

“Sergeant. He’s a golden retriever.”

“Cool. Dad, doesn’t Grandma need help at the café? Maybe Lucky could work there,” Petra suggested. With a phone call to my mother-in-law, I confirmed that this was true and arranged for her to meet with Lucky.

“You’re a cool kid, Petra,” Lucky said, smiling, chucking her under the chin and rubbing the top of her head.

So in her effortless, magical way, Petra once again made everything all better, and the young man left with his spirits buoyed and a lead on a part-time job at Mourning Glory.

I stand now, my joints creaking with the effort. I am very much feeling my age today. I pick up the stack of fliers and a roll of Scotch tape, lock the door to my office, and begin the unfathomable task of tacking my child’s face to windows and telephone poles around town.

ANTONIA

My ear aches from all the phone calls I have been making, trying to find Calli and Petra. I’ve called everyone that I could think of, neighbors, classmates and teachers even. No one has seen them. I can hear, in the pause on the other side of the phone, a silent judgment. I’ve lost my child, the most precious gift, somehow I let her get away from me. I know what they’re thinking, that first I let my daughter’s voice be snatched away, now her whole being is gone. “What kind of mother is she?” is what they are not saying. Instead, they wish me luck and prayers and say that they will go out looking and tell everyone they know to look out for the girls also. They are very kind. I am thinking that I should have put up posters the day Calli lost her voice. MISSING, they would say, Calli Clark’s beautiful voice. Four years old, but sounds much older, has a very advanced vocabulary, last heard on December 19th, right after her mother fell down the stairs; please call with any information regarding its whereabouts, REWARD. Silly, I know, especially when I’ve done so little to try and actually help Calli find her voice again. Oh, I’ve done the basics. Took her to a doctor, to a family counselor even. But nothing has changed. Not one word has been spoken. I have worked so hard trying to forget the day I lost the baby, but little snippets come to me at the oddest times. I could be weeding in my garden and would remember how I named her Poppy; I couldn’t actually name her Popsicle Cupcake Birthday Cake, but Poppy seemed appropriate. She had the prettiest red hair; she looked like a little, wilted red-petaled flower when they brought her to me to say goodbye. They had tried so hard to save her, they said, but she never even took one breath in this world.

I could be standing at the kitchen sink washing out a pan when I would recall that day after Griff helped me to the couch, seeing him guide Calli to the kitchen and whispering something to her. I remember thinking, “Oh, he is trying to reassure her, to calm her with comforting words.” But after that she said nothing, ever. I never asked Griff what he had said to Calli, and even worse, I never asked Calli.

I step outside and the high temperature instantly assaults me. I see the heat rising from the road, making the air wavery and thick-looking, and the saw of the cicadas is nearly deafening. Ben is walking slowly out of the forest. His shoulders are hunched and his hands are stuffed in his front pockets, he is slick with sweat. To me he looks like a little boy again, always so sweet and unsure, wanting to be one of the guys but not certain of just how to do that. He has always been large for his age. His classmates look up at him, impressed with his bulk, but are always a little puzzled at his gentleness. “Sorry,” he’d always say if he knocked down an opponent during a basketball game, and he’d stop in his play to make sure he got up okay.

“Sorry, Mom,” Ben whispers as he brushes past me into the house.

I follow him in and find him leaning against the kitchen counter. I reach up into a cupboard and pull down a glass, fill it with ice and lemonade and hand it to him.

“Thank you for trying, Ben. I know you did your best. There isn’t anyone who knows the woods better than you do. If they were in there, I know you would have found them.”

He takes a long swallow of the lemonade and makes a pinched face at its sourness. “I’m going back out. I’m gonna call the guys and we’ll go out looking again. We need to go in deeper. She may have gone farther in, she likes to explore.”