Heather Gudenkauf - The Weight of Silence

“Louis said he would drive me to the hospital,” I tell her.

“He told me they caught the man who did this,” Antonia says.

“Yes. I believe he is somewhere in this hospital,” I reply.

“You’re not going to go after him, are you?”

“No. I learned my lesson the first time. And besides, it sounds like Lucky managed to hurt himself all on his own by falling down the bluff.”

“I remember him. I met him at your house that one time, with his dog,” Antonia says gently.

“Yes. I thought I knew him well,” I respond. She reaches out and touches my arm.

“It’s not your fault,” she says kindly.

“That will be the question that I ask myself for a very long time. If a father cannot keep his child safe, who can?”

“You’re a wonderful father, Martin. I’ve seen the way you are with Petra. Fielda chose you well. I wish I would have made such a wise choice myself.”

“If you had chosen differently, you would not have the children you have,” I remind her.

She smiles. “I do have great kids. We both do. Now go to Petra. When she wakes up, she’ll want to see her father standing there. You two can compare stitches.”

I laugh. I have not done that in such a long time. It feels good. It feels like things one day could go back to normal. I stand, shakily, my head still aching, and go off in search of my doctor. I am leaving. I need to get to my daughter and my wife.

EPILOGUE

Calli

Six Years Later

I often look back upon that day, so long ago, and wonder how it was we all survived. For each one of us it was a dark, sad day. Especially for my mother, I think, though she always says, “It was good in some ways. You found your voice that day, Calli. That made it a good day.”

I have never thought of it as “finding” my voice because it wasn’t really lost. It was more like a bottle with a cork pushed deeply into the opening. I picture it that way often, my voice like some sweet-smelling perfume, sitting in some expensive-looking bottle with a beautifully curved handle, tall and slender, made of glass as blue as the bodies of the dragonflies I see down in Willow Creek Woods. My voice was just waiting for the right moment to be let go from that bottle. No, it was never lost; I just needed permission to use it again. It took me such a long time to figure out that I was the only one who could grant that permission, no one else. I wish my mother would understand this. She still blames herself for everything, and isn’t that a heavy weight to carry around?

This I know firsthand. I, for a long time, had thought it was my fault that my baby sister, Poppy, died when I was four. Silly, you think. How could a four-year-old be responsible for a baby’s death? Now imagine this: that same four-year-old watching her mother and father arguing at the top of the stairs and that four-year-old seeing her pregnant mother tumble down the steps backward, reaching out for her with her outstretched hands. Now picture that four-year-old crying and crying, not being able to stop. Understandable. Now see the four-year-old’s daddy trying to get her to quiet down, not with hugs or soft kisses, but other whispered words. “Shut up, Calli. If you don’t be quiet the baby will die. Do you want that to happen? Do you want the baby to die? If you don’t shut up your mother will die.” Over and over and over, whispered in that four-year-old’s ear. And the baby died, my little sister who had hair as red as poppies, whose skin was as soft as a flower’s petals. I ate my words that day. Actually bit down, chewed them, swallowed them and felt them slide down my throat like glass until they were so broken and damaged that there was no possible way that the words could rearrange and repair themselves enough to be spoken. So I know what it feels like to feel responsible for something I really had no control over. That’s how it is for my mother.

Petra never did return to school the year after this happened. She was in the hospital for a very long time. She had several surgeries and spent nearly two months in Iowa City, then another month at our local hospital. My mother would take me to the hospital to see Petra once a week, when she was well enough to have visitors. It’s funny, we didn’t talk much during those visits even though I was able to talk then. We just didn’t need to, to talk, that is. We could just be.

Petra and her family moved away about a year and a half after she was hurt. She was never quite the same after it all. She walked differently and school was a lot harder for her because of her head injury. I don’t think anyone made fun of her; they didn’t when I was around, anyway. I think that everyone, kids and adults, just felt so bad for her that no matter what, they couldn’t let her be the same girl she was before. Kids our age didn’t know what to say to her, and adults would get this sad, concerned look on their faces. All Petra really wanted was to be like everyone else.

I think, though, that it was the trial and all that went with it that really made the Gregory family want to leave. Her father felt the worst. He was the one who had welcomed Lucky into his home, hired him to do odd jobs around the house and who had got him a job at the Mourning Glory. The morning that Petra disappeared it was Lucky and his dog Sergeant who she saw through her bedroom window. She went after them to say hello and he grabbed her when they were well into the woods. I found out later that Lucky worked really hard trying to get Petra to trust and like him. He would give her little presents when he came over to their home or when Petra went to the Mourning Glory. He even told her that he went walking through the woods in her backyard all the time with Sergeant and that he would love if she came with them sometime. Lucky killed his dog, too. It seems Sergeant actually tried to protect Petra when Lucky was hurting her. Sergeant bit Lucky and he ended up strangling the poor dog with his own leash.

The entire Gregory family had to testify and so did my whole family. It was a long, tiring, confusing ordeal, what with lawyers asking questions, reporters asking questions, and friends and neighbors asking questions. I think the prosecuting attorney was terrified that I would stop talking again; he would call our house every night during the trial to talk with me, just to make sure. Lucky was found guilty on all counts—kidnapping, attempted murder and sexual abuse. The only halfway funny thing about the whole ordeal was that old black crow who brushed by Lucky right when he was going to grab me, too, knocked him right over the bluff. He fell about fifty feet. Broke his leg and his collarbone. They didn’t find him until late that next afternoon. As far as I know he is still in prison and will be forever. It was never proven that Lucky had anything to do with Jenna McIntire’s death.

Petra and I still write letters back and forth to each other. She lives in another state; her father has retired from teaching. They live on a farm now, renting their land for the actual farming part, but they have a few animals, lambs, chickens, a pig, some dogs. Petra has invited me to visit a time or two but it’s never quite worked out. She never wants to come back to Willow Creek, which I can understand.

My brother turned eighteen this year and has been working, saving up for college. He’s leaving in the fall and my mother and I are already crying about it. He is big and tall and looks just like my dad, but softer, if you get what I mean. He wants to be a police officer and he will be very good at it, I think. I don’t know what I will do without him when he goes away. I know many of my friends cannot wait for their brothers or sisters to leave, but it’s different with Ben and me. It makes me just so sad to think of him leaving that I can’t.