Virtual Silence Read online

  “It’s time to talk, Charles,” Dad said.

  Ida lifted her fists and ran at Charles, beating him on the chest. “Did you shoot her? Did you shoot her?” she cried.

  Dad moved forward and took hold of Ida’s shoulders. Sobbing, she turned toward him and he wrapped her in his arms. Charles watched with something akin to horror on his face.

  “Charles didn’t shoot her,” Dad whispered. “Remember, Ida? He was just coming into the house when we heard the shot? Do you remember that?”

  Ida nodded. Dad waltzed her over to one of the chairs and made her sit down. Charles, in the meantime, was turning his head slowly from side to side, searching, I suppose, for Goliath’s ghost. A scampering sound came from the kitchen and Charles gasped. “A mouse, Charles,” Dad said disgustedly. “Now sit down.”

  Charles sat. Ida put her arms out for me and I went and squeezed into her chair beside her. Dad began to pace. “What happened, Charles?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. I was just coming in. You said so yourself.”

  “What happened, Charles?” Dad said much louder. “There may be some kind of criminal on the island. Our lives may be in danger. Rita may be lying out in the forest somewhere, hurt. Or she may have shot off her gun because she was angry. You have to tell us what happened.”

  Charles began to talk then, Sharon, with his head dangling, so that it took an effort to hear him over Ida’s continual sobs. Listening to him reveal his secret made me feel justified in having kept my own. How else would Dad have learned the truth about the woman he had intended to live with or Ida about the man she had married? Charles’s confession, reluctant, garbled, and veiled as it was (he mentioned nothing about Goliath’s salary), was an absolute necessity.

  He concluded his story, and for awhile we all listened to Ida’s crying. Finally Charles whispered, “She said she would do something to force me to confess.”

  “Well, Charles,” Dad responded, “I hate to offend you, but I find it hard to believe that a girl like Rita would shoot herself over you, if that’s what you’re thinking. I think it’s more likely that she shot the gun off to make you think she did and that she’s hiding somewhere now, perhaps in one of the other cottages, having a good laugh over what she imagines is going on over here. I can’t speak for Ida, but for my part, I’m glad all this is out in the open.”

  Ida stood up so suddenly that I nearly fell out of the chair we had been sharing. “Let’s look for her. I want to find her and kill her. We’ll bury her here. No one will ever know.”

  Before anyone could comment, she collapsed onto the chair again and resumed crying.

  Later, Dad took a lantern and went to search the cottages. Charles, meanwhile, went to bed, and I sat up with Ida, who simply could not stop crying. When Dad returned, Goliath-less, of course, and saw the state Ida was in, he suggested she go and get one of Charles’s tranquilizers. Ida said she would rather die than go into his room. Hearing that, I got up myself, as I knew where the pills were. I had seen her fish out the one for Charles earlier, from a flowered case in her duffel bag. Supposing that Charles would be asleep after all this time, I didn’t bother to knock. He wasn’t asleep though; he was just getting up, and when I pushed on the door, we collided. I rushed past him and grabbed the duffel bag. As I was turning with it, he asked, “Did he find her?”

  “No,” I said.

  He put his hand over his eyes and returned to bed.

  We put Ida to bed in Dad’s room, and Dad is on the second cot in mine. Since I don’t hear any snoring (I’m writing to you from the floor in the kitchen), I assume he is still lying awake. Charles is not sleeping well either. I know that because every now and then I hear him gasp. Once he even yelled out, “No!”

  There is a part of me, although a small one, that feels pity for him. I know very well what it is to have your dreams peopled with demons and ghosts.

  Why am I telling you all this? you probably want to know. Well, here’s what will be causing my nightmares tonight, if I ever calm down enough to go to sleep: Goliath will likely tell her escorts not to bother about the Coast Guard, that she’ll go and tell them about us herself. But will she? What’s to stop her from simply finding her own way home and forgetting all about us. She must realize that everyone here has turned against her. What has she got to lose? As we’ve already seen, she has no conscience, Sharon.

  So I will go to sleep tonight, if I am able, with the same concerns as last night. We may starve here. You may never hear from me again. In the event that my letters are found, along with our bodies, and forwarded, you, at least, will know what really happened. Someone should know the truth. You, being its servant, are the ideal choice.

  Lovingly,

  G.J.

  P.S. Tell my mother that I love her and that I forgive her for the way she treated me before I left.

  17

  Due to the nature of our trip, we canceled our rooms in New Bern and came back two days earlier than expected. I had wanted, more than anything else in the world, to fly right to Frankie’s house, both to see him and to collect my beloved Surge. In order to insure that Frankie had not only received my letters but had also had time to consider the proposition I had set forth in the second one, I forced myself to wait the two days. Now, as I sat in front of the shack in the Yugo trying to compose myself, I happened to glance at the Stewarts’ mailbox. There was no latch on the box. The flap was down and I could see the edge of my lavender envelopes beneath one larger white one. In spite of my efforts, I had still come too soon.

  My stomach turned sickeningly as I considered pulling away and waiting another day. Then it dawned on me that my premature arrival might work to my advantage. If Frankie was rude again (I hated to think it possible, but I needed to justify breaking with my previous plan), I would have the option, which I knew in my heart I wouldn’t use, of collecting my letters on the way out and saving myself from being made a complete fool. I took one final deep breath and pushed open the car door.

  My approach alone should have been enough to rouse Surge, but I knocked for good measure. There was no answer; clearly, Frankie and Surge had already gone out for the day. Thinking that his father and brother must be out too, since there were no cars in the driveway, I turned away. I was half way back to the Yugo when I heard the door open. “Can I help you?” asked a none-too-friendly male voice, and I turned in response.

  He stood behind the door just as Frankie had the first time I had come to the house. His face was thin and grayish, with hollow cheeks. The skin beneath his eyes was badly puckered. His lips, though, were Frankie’s lips, and thinking that this man might well be my future father-in-law, I forced my brightest smile to my face. He didn’t smile back.

  “I’m Frankie’s friend,” I declared cheerfully.

  He only nodded.

  “I came for Surge.”

  The indignation left his dark eyes and was replaced immediately with confusion. “My dog,” I explained.

  “Oh, him,” he said. “He’s gone. Frankie took him with him. Wait a minute.”

  He closed the door behind him and then opened it again a moment later, holding a sheet of folded loose-leaf paper out to me. “He told me to give you this.”

  I stepped up to the stoop and took it from him. I opened it, but now I was confused and unable to make sense of the one line scrawled across the top of the paper. I folded it into quarters and stuck it into the pocket of my jeans. “When will they be back?”

  “They ain’t coming back, is my guess.”

  I could feel that I was trembling badly. It was clear where this was leading, but some part of me continued to cling to the notion that I must be mistaken. “Well, could you tell me where they went?”

  “I wouldn’t know that, ma’am. He didn’t say.”

  “Well, could you tell me when they left?”

  “Same day he come back here with the mutt.”

  “Well, then he must be at a friend’s house. Do you know Tom Heely? Could he have go
ne to stay with him?”

  He shrugged.

  “How about his brother? Could he have gone somewhere with him?”

  His features crinkled cruelly. “Frankie and Phil go someplace together?”

  “Why not?” I whimpered.

  He laughed, and I saw that most of his lower back teeth were missing. “They ain’t talked to each other in well over a year!” he said, shaking his head at me as if this were common knowledge.

  “But that’s impossible,” I stammered. “He’s come to my house several times in Phil’s car. If they weren’t on friendly terms—”

  “Old blue Chevy with one yellow fender?”

  “Yes. Phil’s car.”

  He stuck a bare arm out of the door and pointed down the road. I looked where he was pointing and saw the car in question in the driveway of another cottage some fifty yards away. “That’s Miss Flagg’s car. She’s too sick to drive it anymore. Frankie was borrowing it from her in return for taking her to the doctor’s every other Monday. She’s got cancer bad. No hair left anymore. Not even eyebrows. It’s a pity.”

  I gulped and fought to keep my tears in check. “So you’re saying he stole my dog?”

  He reined his gaze back in from Miss Flagg’s house and wet his lips. “I ain’t saying stole. Don’t be going to the police or nothing like that with that word on your lips. He said it was an exchange, your dog and the money for the gun.”

  I gasped audibly.

  “Cut his hand up too getting it for you, but he said you wanted it that bad, on account of some accident you been in.”

  “He stole my dog?”

  “He bought himself a nice little pick-up with all that money you gave him. Your dog gonna be nice and comfy in the back there. Don’t you worry about him.”

  “Please,” I cried. “You must have some idea where he is. I have to have my dog back.”

  “I got to go now. I’m letting all the heat out of the house.”

  “But he must be coming back. What about school on Monday?”

  “What about it?”

  “Please, you’ve got to help me!”

  “Nice meeting you,” he said, and he closed the door gently. When I knocked again, he didn’t answer.

  I was crushed, devastated, crying so hard I could hardly see the road. I moaned aloud, giving no thought at all to the people in the cars that I passed. Finally I pulled off the road and vomited out the window.

  The world was ending; there was no other explanation. I had become a talker again on the Coast Guard vessel, midway between the island and New Bern. I had had no choice. The others were too despondent to even notice that our captain was asking questions about our boat, let alone to respond to him. And now I had no one to talk to, no one who would understand. I had no place to go. Even my own mother, in fact especially my mother, was unavailable to me. She had gone and done just what she had threatened to do before I left for the trip. With the help of a psychic healer (who she said cleared out her chakras) and her therapist (who got her started her on Prozac, the effects of which she insisted she was feeling already) she had indeed become a new woman. I had known something was wrong back when I called her from New Bern to let her know that we would be back two days ahead of schedule. Her reaction, which should have been despair, was delight. In fact, she invited all of us, including Goliath, to come straight from the airport to the house so that she could hear all about our trip over the dinner she planned to prepare. I had to tell her then that Goliath wasn’t with us, and that while I would pass on her invitation to the others, I doubted that any of them would accept.

  Life was hell. The trip was bad enough, but since I’d been back, things were worse. Ida was staying with us, and she couldn’t stop talking about what Charles had done to her. Mom, on the other hand, couldn’t stop talking about how good she was feeling, with her drugs and her chakras spinning clockwise. Since Ida didn’t want to bring Mom down, and Mom, likewise, didn’t want to make Ida feel worse, I was the one they both wanted to talk to. They took turns coming to and going from my room, one bouncing in with ideas for her future, the other staggering in with the tissue box, declaring that she didn’t know how she would get through the night.

  And now my dog was gone.

  I vomited once more and then sat in a kind of daze for a couple of hours. It began to snow, and I watched the flakes accumulate on the windshield. After awhile, I could no longer see out. I liked that, I liked the darkness in there, in the little Yugo in the middle of the day. But before long I found myself yearning for more darkness yet. I considered the trunk, but I could not visualize going outside to get into it. I looked over my shoulder, at the narrow strip of floor between the front and back seats, and then climbed back there and cried myself to sleep.

  Usually when I dreamed about Beverly, it was about her death, but in the dream I had now she was very much alive. I recognized her immediately, because of the way her platinum-streaked hair caught what little light there was in the auditorium. She was sitting on a chair on the stage, all alone, dressed in jeans and a dark-colored sweatshirt. Her feet, however, were bare, and I was afraid that the floor would be cold and that she would be distracted by her discomfort and forget her lines. But she didn’t, not a one, I knew, though I couldn’t actually hear them.

  My body was numb with cold and it took me some time to sit up and climb back into the front seat. I imagined that the Yugo was completely covered by now, and I was both surprised and disappointed when the windshield wipers quickly cleared what was actually there. It was dark, and I was hungry. More than that, I needed to be held, loved, reassured that Surge would somehow be returned to me, though I didn’t know who would do it.

  I drove slowly, in keeping with my energy level, which was nearly nonexistent, and allowed myself to become captivated with the snowflakes that were coming at me through the windshield. I hadn’t seen my father since we’d returned from the trip. We’d come back from the airport in a taxi, because Charles’s car, which had brought us there, had a flat tire. Dad and Ida and I had left him there in the cold to change it all by himself. While our driver was retrieving our duffel bags from the trunk, I leaned over to kiss Dad good-bye. He gave me his cheek, but didn’t kiss me back. Before I got out of the cab he said, sternly I thought, “I want you to come over as soon as you settle yourself.”

  I hadn’t settled myself yet, but if I waited to do so, I might never see him again. Now seemed as good a time as any.

  I parked the Yugo by the Dumpsters and was halfway up the stairs when I realized that I had left the lights on and had to go back down again. When I started up the stairs a second time, I had to use the railing to haul myself along, and by the time I got to the top, my glove was soaked and my hand frozen. I walked the catwalk slowly and in utter silence. If he wasn’t home, I promised myself, I would simply lie down in front of the door and let myself freeze to death. My hand was numb now, and it wasn’t such a bad feeling. In fact, it was nothing compared to the emotional ups and downs I had experienced recently.

  Is this how it starts? I wondered. Are thoughts such as these—clear, buoyant, objective—a preface to suicide?

  But he was home, of course. The night was so still that I could hear the tap tap tap of his fingers on his keyboard even before I opened the door. I stuck my head in and attempted a smile. Like Mr. Stewart, he didn’t smile back.

  He stood up and pointed to one of the chairs at the table, saying, “It’s about time.” When I didn’t answer immediately, he cried, “You’re not starting that stuff again, are you?”

  “No, I’m talking.” I sank into a chair, too cold, stiff, and tired to take off my jacket. I realized that I was still smiling—a melancholy sort of smile, I imagined—and I wondered if maybe my face had just frozen that way.

  Ever the host, my father opened the refrigerator and took out a can of Pepsi and a couple of cheese sticks. The cheese sticks were wrapped individually, and as hungry as I was, I knew there was no way I could open them with my numb
fingers. I wanted to convey this information, but I was feeling light-headed and didn’t quite know how to go about it. The top of the Pepsi can was so icy I couldn’t even imagine touching it.

  “I’ll get right to the point,” Dad said.

  As he was still standing, to my right and slightly behind me, I had to stretch my neck to see him. He was staring at my jacket hood, which, I suppose, was wet with melting snow. “I know what you did. What I want to know is why?”

  “What’d I do?” I asked. My voice sounded like a little girl’s, sweet and innocent.

  He folded his arms. “You shot off a gun on the island. You let me run around in the dark like a lunatic looking for Rita’s corpse. You let Charles spend one terrible night dodging demons. And Ida!” He threw his hands out and shook his head at the very thought of it.

  “I’m sorry, Dad,” I whispered.

  “You’re sorry! Is that all you’ve got to say?”

  “Can I ask a question?”

  He threw his hands out again and stood like that for a moment. “Go ahead, ask, and then I want some answers.”

  “Were you snooping through my bag?”

  He turned on one heel and set his fists down hard on the edge of the counter. “No, I was not snooping through your bag. It never in a million years occurred to me that my daughter might be carrying around a loaded gun and might shoot it off and then not tell anyone even when she saw that the consequences of her action were driving certain people out of their minds and—”

  “Charles deserved to be driven out of his mind.”

  He turned back towards me abruptly, his face red with anger. “And who the hell asked you to play God?”

  “If you calm down, I’ll tell you how it happened. But first I want to know how you found out.”

  “Accidentally,” he replied. He sat down on his chair, rubbing one palm down over his face. “When I was sleeping in your room, your bag was by my cot. I woke up in the middle of the night and realized you weren’t in the other bed. When I got up to see where you were, I stepped on it. I felt something hard. I couldn’t imagine what it was. I reached down, to push it out of the way, and caught the gun by the barrel, and I thought, What the hell is this?”