Silence (7 page)

He lived in a rational universe. He had to. Al the irrational, unpredictable things made no sense to him, and, worse, they were threatening because they made no sense. Things that could be explained, in however much exhaustive detail he demanded— and he could demand quite a lot—were not things he had to fear.

But things like…Emma’s dead father…How could she explain something like that to Michael? When she didn’t understand it herself?

She said, felt herself say, “Michael, he’s stil my father. He’s the same person he was. He’s not dangerous.”

But Michael didn’t appear to hear her. He probably had; it had taken him years to learn to look at people when they talked.

She remembered—and what a stupid thing to remember now, of She remembered—and what a stupid thing to remember now, of al times—teling him that he had to look at people when they spoke so they knew he was listening. And she remembered the way he had looked at her, his expression serious, and what he’d said.

“Emma, I don’t hear with my eyes.”

“Wel, no. No one does.”

“Then why do I have to look at people so they’l know I’m listening?”

She wasn’t always very patient, and it had taken her three days to come up with a better phrasing. “So that they’l know you’re paying attention.” She’d been so proud of herself for that one, because it had worked.

“Brendan?” her mother whispered.

Her father—the expression on his face one that Emma would never forget, said, “Mercy.” Just that.

She wanted to let go of her mother’s hands. She couldn’t.

Instead, watching Michael, she let go of her father’s.

The room colapsed; the lights went out. Emma felt a sudden, sharp tug, as if she’d been floating and gravity had finaly deigned to notice her. She fel, screaming in silence, to earth—but earth, in this case, was a lot like cheap vinyl, and it didn’t hurt when she hit it. Much.

She opened her eyes, blinking in the harsh fluorescent lights of the emergency waiting room. Lack of feet caused a moment’s panic before she realized they were curled beneath her. She looked to her side and saw her mother’s profile, her slightly open looked to her side and saw her mother’s profile, her slightly open jaw, her wide eyes circled by dark lack of sleep.

“Mom,” she croaked. “My hands.” Her fingers were tingling in that pins-and-needles way, and they looked gray. Or blue.

Her mother shook her head; Emma’s voice had puled her back. “Oh, Em, I’m sorry,” she said. It was pretty clear she had to work to free her hands, or to free her daughter’s. Their hands shook, but Emma curled hers in her lap; her mother lifted hers to her face, and very slowly let her head drop into them.

“Mom—”

Mercy Hal shook her head. “I’m sorry, Em—I’m—I’ve had a long day.”

Emma looked away from her mother. “Michael?” she said, slowly and distinctly. Michael didn’t appear to hear her. He was staring straight ahead. “Alison?”

Alison, on the other hand, turned to meet Emma’s gaze.

Emma gestured in Michael’s direction, and after a second, Alison took a deep breath and nodded. She turned and walked over to Michael, caling his name. Michael was stil staring. When Alison stepped in front of him, he didn’t stop; what he was seeing, Emma could only guess.

Alison knelt in front of Michael and picked up his hands, one in each of hers. “Michael,” she said again, voice softer.

He blinked, and his gaze slowly shifted in place, until he could see Alison. He was rigid. But he was quiet. Emma wished it didn’t resemble the quiet of a rabbit caught in headlights quite so much. He blinked.

Emma slowly puled her feet out from under her. They were Emma slowly puled her feet out from under her. They were tingling as wel, and she grimaced as she flattened them against the floor. But she tried to stand, and as she did, Eric moved. She had almost forgotten him, which was stupid.

He crossed the room and offered her his hand; she stared at his palm until he withdrew it. He was silent. She was silent as wel, but her look said, We’re going to talk about this later.

His said nothing, loudly.

She walked over to Alison and Michael, and stood beside Alison; she would have crouched beside her, but she didn’t trust her knees or her feet yet. “Michael?”

He looked up. He was stil seated, and that was probably for the best. “Emma,” he said. She smiled, and not because she was happy. It was meant to reassure.

“I’m here,” she told him, while Alison continued to hold his hands.

“Emma, that was your dad.” It wasn’t a question.

Had he been anyone else, she would have lied, and it would have come cleanly and naturaly. Lies were something you told other people to make things easier, somehow—hopefuly, for them, but often more selfishly for yourself. Lies, Emma realized, as her glance flicked briefly to her mother and back, were things you told yourself when your entire world was turned on its end for just a moment, and you needed to put it right side up again.

But Michael? Michael hadn’t even understood what a lie was supposed to do until he’d been nine years old. He hadn’t understood that what he knew and what other people knew were not, in fact, the exact same thing. Emma didn’t remember a time when she didn’t understand that. And she wasn’t certain why, at nine, Michael began to learn. But he had; he just didn’t bother lying because he could see the advantage of honesty and of being known for it.

Not lying, however, and not being lied to were different.

Emma could have lied, but that—that would have pushed him over the edge he was clearly teetering on. Because he knew what he’d seen, and nothing she could say was going to change that.

She took a breath, steadied herself. “Yes,” she told him quietly, just as Eric said, “No.”

Alison turned to stare at Eric. She rose, stil holding Michael’s hands. She passed them to Emma, who could now feel her feet properly. Michael looked at Eric and at Emma, and Emma said, quickly, “Eric doesn’t know, Michael. Remember, he never met my father. He’s new here.”

Eric opened his mouth to say something, and Alison stepped, very firmly, on his foot. She didn’t kick him, which Emma would have done. Alison hated to hurt anyone.

Michael, however, was nodding. It went on too long. Emma freed one of her hands and very gently stroked the back of Michael’s hand until he stopped.

“He’s dead, Emma.”

“Yes.”

“He used to fix my bike.”

“Yes.”

“Yes.”

“Why was he here?”

She started to say I don’t know, because it was true. But she stopped herself from doing that as wel. Things were always more complicated when Michael was around. But they were cleaner, too. “He was trying to help me,” she said, instead.

“How?”

“I think he knows what’s causing the—the headaches.”

“It’s not a concussion?”

“No.”

“Oh.” Pause. “Where did he go?”

“I don’t know.”

“Wil he come back?”

“I don’t know, Michael. But I hope so.”

“Why?”

“Because I miss him,” she said softly.

Michael nodded again, but this time, it was a normal nod. “I miss him, too. Was he a ghost?”

“I don’t think ghosts exist.”

“But I saw him.”

She nodded. “I saw him, too. But I don’t know what he was.”

“He looked the same,” Michael told her. “And you said he was the same.”

She had said that. She remembered. “I think ghosts are supposed to be scary,” she offered. “I think that’s why I don’t think he’s a ghost. Was he scary?”

“No. Wel, yes. A little.”

Emma could accept that.

Emma could accept that.

“He doesn’t want to take you away?” Michael continued.

“You aren’t going to die, are you?”

“Everyone dies,” she told him.

“But not now.”

“No, Michael,” she managed to say. “He doesn’t want to take me away. And even if he did, I’m not leaving.” She knew, suddenly, where this would go, and she did not want to go there.

Michael closed his eyes. Emma braced herself as Michael opened them again and asked, “Wil Nathan come back, too?”

And, after a moment, Emma managed to say, “I don’t know.”

Emma knew her mother was upset. But upset or not, Mercy Hal insisted on waiting for a CAT scan. Emma told Alison she should go home with Eric and Michael, but that fel flat as wel.

They huddled together in silence. Emma’s mother said almost nothing to anyone who wasn’t a doctor, and Michael sat quietly, thinking Michael thoughts. Alison was worried, but she didn’t say much, either; it was hard to find a place to put words in al the different silences in that waiting room.

The CAT scan was a four-hour wait. The results, they were told, would be sent to the Hal family doctor, which meant, as far as Emma was concerned, that they hadn’t found anything that constituted an emergency. To confirm this, the doctor filed out discharge papers, or whatever they were caled, gave Emma’s mother a prescription for Tylenol, but stronger, and also gave her mother a prescription for Tylenol, but stronger, and also gave her advice on headaches. Emma was tired, and her body stil felt strangely light, as if part of her had gone missing. But she was no longer in any pain.

Not physical pain.

Eric said nothing. He waited. When Emma’s tests were done, he offered Alison and Michael a ride home. Emma would have preferred to have their company, but it was clear that her mother wouldn’t. Michael and Alison went home with Eric.

Emma went home with her mother in a car that was as silent as the grave. It was worse than awkward. It was painful. Mercy kept her eyes on the road, her hands on the steering wheel, and her words behind her lips, which were closed. Her expression was remote; the usual frantic worry about work and her daughter’s school were completely invisible.

Emma, who often found her mother’s prying questions difficult, would have welcomed them tonight, and because the universe was perverse, she didn’t get them. She got, instead, a woman who had seen her dead husband, and had no way of speaking about what it meant. Possibly no desire to know what it meant; it was hard to tel.

When they got home, it was 8:36.

Petal greeted them at the door with his happy-but-reproachful barking whine.

“Sorry, Petal,” Emma said, grabbing his neck and crouching to hug him. She knew this would get her a face ful of dog-breath, but didn’t, at the moment, care.

breath, but didn’t, at the moment, care.

Emma’s mother went to the kitchen, and Emma, dropping her school backpack by the front door, folowed, Petal in tow. They briefly, and silently, held council over the contents of the fridge, which had enough food to feed two people if you wanted to eat condiments and slightly moldy cheese. There were milk and eggs, which Emma looked at doubtfuly; her mother often stopped by the grocery store on the way home from work.

Today, she had stopped by the hospital instead.

“Pizza?” Emma asked.

Her mother lifted the receiver off the cradle and handed it to her daughter. “Pizza,” she said, and headed out of the kitchen. It was a damn quiet kitchen in her absence, but Emma dialed and hit the button that meant “same order as previous order.” Then she hung up and stared at her dog. Her dog, the gray hairs on his muzzle clearer in the kitchen light than they were in the light cast by streetlamps, stared at her, his stub wagging.

She apologized again, which he probably thought meant “I’l feed you now.” On the other hand, she did empty a can of moist food into his food dish, and she did fil his water bowl. She also took him out to the yard for a bit; she hadn’t walked him at al today, but she knew that tonight was so not the night to do it.

From the backyard, she could see the light in her mother’s bedroom window; she could also see her mother’s silhouette against the curtains. Mercy was standing, just standing, in the room.

Emma wondered, briefly, if she was watching her or if she was watching Petal. She kind of doubted either.

was watching Petal. She kind of doubted either.

When Emma was stressed, she often tidied, and god knew the kitchen could use it. She busied herself putting away the dishes whose second home was the drying rack on the counter. She had homework, but most of it was reading, and like procrastinators everywhere, she knew that tidying stil counted as work, so she could both fail to do homework and feel that she’d accomplished something.

But when the doorbel rang, Mercy came down the stairs to answer, and she paid for the pizza and carried it into the kitchen.

She looked tired but slightly determined, and she had that smile on her face. “I’m sorry, Em,” she said. “I’m not sure what got into me there. Things are stressful at work.”

Emma accepted this. She usualy asked what was causing the stress, but she didn’t actualy enjoy listening to her mother lie, so she kept the question to herself and nodded instead. She also got plates, napkins and cups, because her mother didn’t like drinking out of cans.

They took these to the living room, while Petal walked between them. The pizza box was suspended in the air above him, of course. He was too wel trained to try to eat from the box when they put it down on the table in the den. He was not, however, too wel trained to sit in front of it and beg, and he had the usual moist puppy eyes, even at the age of nine.

Emma fed him her crusts.

He jumped up on the couch beside her and wedged himself between the armrest and her arm, which meant, realy, between the armrest and half her lap; she had to eat over his head.

Her mother didn’t like to eat while the television was on, but even she could take only so much awkward silence before she surrendered and picked up the remote. They channel surfed their way through dinner.