The Silent Daughter

by Kirsty Ferguson

  It was Noah’s voice. Little Noah’s laugh. He laughed like that when he was being tickled, when someone had their hands on his bare belly. As a baby, he would let out this throaty chortle, a sound that Danni could still hear. Why was he laughing? Was this what madness felt like? Danni looked down at her clenched hands. She loosened them and watched as the colour returned to her white knuckled fists. Small white crescents from where her nails had dug into her flesh remained pale a second longer. She was aching. How long had she been standing there, fists clenched, teeth grinding against one another?

  The men were both staring at her, mirror images of concern on their faces. Danni knew someone had asked her something, she was meant to respond but couldn’t. She didn’t know what to say.

  ‘Danni, are you okay?’ Ryan asked, touching her shoulder.

  What a stupid fucking question. Of course I’m not okay. None of this is okay. She jerked away from his touch as if it burned like the fire that had ripped through her home and her heart. She opened her mouth to speak but nothing came out. She swallowed and tried again, her mouth feeling like she had swallowed sand followed with a chaser of ash. Ash that no longer fell from the sky like snow.

  Cutting through her stupor, she heard another siren, slightly different to the first. Two men dressed in black pants and crisp white shirts headed straight for her. One of them carried a large backpack with him which he set down on the ground in front of her. Suddenly a light was being shone in her eyes, the man firing questions at her. Questions that she couldn’t quite answer.

  ‘Can you speak? Are you okay?’

  Danni was never going to be okay again.

  ‘Are you hurt?’

  Yes, she was hurt. She hurt all over. Her heart was shattered. Her world now revolved around one person, Mia. Danni was all that she had left and she needed to be strong for her.

  ‘Shock,’ he said, throwing a blanket around her shoulders. She realised she was shivering. Mia must be freezing as well; she wore only her thin pyjamas and she had no dressing gown on. She turned to look at her just as the men gently grasped her arms on either side and began to lead her towards the front of the house and their waiting ambulance. The back doors were open, a collapsible gurney awaiting her. She looked around for the second ambulance but didn’t see one yet.

  ‘My daughter,’ she rasped, finally able to push the words past the boulder in her throat.

  ‘It’s okay, Danni, she’ll be taken care of. You’re in shock, I’m going to give you something to help you sleep.’

  ‘But I don’t want to sleep,’ she said as they helped her onto the gurney and slid her into the ambulance with practiced ease, closing the door behind her. She could just see the dying smoke curling through the sky out of the window of the ambulance. She felt a slight sting and looked down at her arm, the needle sliding out of her skin just as easily as it went in.

  ‘What?’ she mumbled groggily.

  ‘Sleep now, Danni.’

  ‘Mia,’ she whispered so softly that she wasn’t even sure she’d said it out loud.

  Awareness came slowly to Danni. Before she even opened her eyes, she remembered the fire. Her family. Unshed tears burned the back of her eyes. She could see the bright light behind her eyelids, and she wondered how long she had been asleep for. Then she remembered Mia and her eyes sprang open. Mia was sitting cross legged on the chair in the corner, staring at her. There was a tray of food near her, untouched. Of course Mia wouldn’t be hungry, not after what she’d been through. Danni breathed a sigh of relief. She was alive. Danni threw back the covers and sat up. Her head felt a bit muddled, but she supposed that was a residual effect of the medication they had given her. What had they given her?

  ‘Want to get out of here?’ she croaked. Mia looked uncomfortable and again Danni wondered how long she had been out for. How long had Mia been waiting for her to wake up, with nothing to do but watch her sleeping mother? She needed caring for, not a mother who could barely care for herself. She would have to put her grief aside for now. Danni was still wearing her dressing gown, the light colour now washed with grey and smelling like smoke. It filled the room with its presence and Danni wondered if they should have given her something else to wear. Then she noticed the clothes on the end of the bed. But she didn’t have her purse, it had burnt up in the fire, so no money and nowhere for her and Mia to stay. They had nothing.

  A nurse came into the room, inching the door open slowly. ‘You’re awake,’ she said quietly, her voice pitched low, respectful, mindful of what Danni had been through. ‘Is there anything I can get for you?’ She covered the distance between them in a couple of steps, sitting on the bed beside her, patting her hand. ‘Anything at all?’

  ‘I… I want my family back. They’re gone though, aren’t they?’ Danni’s heart hurt, her head buzzing like a hundred bees were smashing at the inside of her skull, trying to free themselves.

  The nurse looked at her, pity in her pale and watery blue eyes. She was an older woman with an air of empathy about her. Danni thought that if she began to cry, this nurse might cry right along with her.

  ‘Yes, love, they’re gone. I’m so sorry.’ She patted Danni’s hand again, her warm wrinkled hand seeking to give her comfort, but Danni could not be comforted. Not now, not ever.

  ‘I have to go,’ Danni said abruptly, pulling her hand from the old nurse’s gripping fingers. She looked over at Mia who stood as well. ‘Okay, we’re done here,’ Danni said to her daughter.

  ‘All right, if you feel you’re up to it, you can certainly leave. Your sister is here for you, she’s in the waiting room.’

  Danni froze for a moment that seemed to stretch on for an eternity, then nodded curtly. She looked over at Mia, silent and broken. Danni’s heart went out to her. Just knowing that she walked away from a fire that took her brother, sister and father, must have been hell. She didn’t want to ask, but she knew Mia must be wondering: why her? Danni reached out to hold her hand, but Mia pulled away, walking through the open door. Another piece of Danni’s heart evaporated with the missed connection with her daughter. She couldn’t afford to let her go.

  Danni trudged behind her, walking down the hallway, following the boldly marked signs for the waiting room. She looked up at the lights in the hallway. Long fluorescent lights that hummed, and vibrated, flickering above her. They were spaced evenly and she began to count them in her head.

  One, two, three… twelve.

  So many pinpricks of lights behind her eyes, the shape of them burned onto her retinas as she closed her eyes. She didn’t want to see Beth. Danni, Joe and her kids had never had anything to do with her even though she lived in the next town over. They kept their distance, at Danni’s request. Beth was toxic and, although every now and then Danni had the desire to connect with her family, time blunting the edges of the abuse, she would remember how bad it really was; what she had survived…

  5

  What is a whore? Someone who sleeps around? Someone who sleeps with other people’s boyfriends? Someone who will give it away to just about anyone?

  She guessed she was all of the above, a whore after all. School had not been kind to her. She learned the way of the world when she first had sex. She’d been told since she was old enough to have sex that she was that thing. That word that had so stunned her at first once she’d learned what it meant. Did people really think of her like that? That she was a whore? She certainly didn’t lose sleep over it. She could worry about it or she could embrace doing something that she enjoyed. Choosing the latter, she was happy with her life.

  Her dad had run out on her and her mum when she was fifteen. They went from living in a nice house with a big backyard and cathedral ceilings to living in a caravan park with about fifty other caravans, because it was all they could afford. Her dad hadn’t been kind in the divorce. She guessed she was trailer trash now, that’s what the others called her anyway so it must be true. Once he left them, neither of their lives had ever been the same again. She n
ever trusted men, instead looking upon them with scepticism and wariness. They were only out to screw you then hurt you. She learned what she knew from watching her mum. Her mum had been a stay at home mother and had never held down a job, so money was tight, and they were on welfare, so when they moved into their caravan and set up at the site, a well-meaning woman had come by and told her she could make a decent living here being a hooker, and that was all her mum needed to hear. She was a broken woman who’d do anything for money, to keep a roof over her daughter’s head. She was a beautiful woman, her mum, although some of that shine wore off with each customer she slept with. It was as if the light was dimming in her soul. She hated her dad for that.

  Thomas Decker has been the first; he started it all. They had found each other down at the river one warm Saturday morning, and Thomas said it was like they were the only two people left alive and that they had a duty to repopulate the earth. She knew it was corny, but she’d embraced the game up until then. So why not continue playing? Besides, Thomas was nice, and he was popular, and she really had no friends.

  He’d climbed on top of her, rubbing where he thought her clit was, but she didn’t care, he felt good. His hands were slightly cool to the touch since he’d been in the water before, but it compensated for the heat she was putting out, and there was some serious heat. Once he’d finished touching her, she was wet and ready, down by the bank of the raging river. Since this was her first time, she didn’t realise that he had a small cock, but she instinctively knew she could take more. He put his cock inside her, thrusting into her like crazy, like his life depended on his speed and accuracy. When he did come, he pulled out quickly and wiped himself on her singlet.

  The worst thing about it was she hadn’t even felt anything. Was she supposed to come for real? Did this make her popular now? When it was over, she felt… unfulfilled, but of course she didn’t tell him that, she didn’t want to embarrass him or alienate him. After all, he said he promised that he was going to talk to her at school and he was the most popular boy there.

  She smiled and murmured her goodbyes. She didn’t know what to expect come Monday, but it certainly wasn’t the word whore scrawled across her locker, the paint still running down the front of the door looking like blood.

  She didn’t know what to do. Should she run or should she stay and face it? People had gathered around her locker, to see her reaction, to watch her meltdown maybe.

  Instead of melting down though, she strode over to her locker and unlocked it. The paint stained her hands, so she wiped it on her jeans, scrubbing her skin against the material. It was obvious to her that Thomas had sold her out, told someone, or a few someones. Either way, the word whore stuck.

  People avoided her even more than usual. There were comments to her: keep away from my boyfriend, whore. Just like her mother. She couldn’t understand why they treated her this way. She wasn’t doing anything that the rest of the kids weren’t doing, so why were they singling her out?

  Eventually, sick of the snide comments about whores and boyfriends, she decided to fight back. There would be no more hanging her head low as she walked past girls that clung tighter to their boyfriends’ arms in case she tried to steal them, no hanging her head in shame. While she sat in class one day, the girl in front of her turned and called her a whore right to her face. The boy beside her said, ‘Heard you moan like a dog in heat.’ She excused herself from class. She didn’t want them to see her cry. She ran to the toilet before the tears came. Sitting on the closed toilet lid, she sniffed back her tears, vowing never to let her feel this way again. Whore. Slut.

  She would lean into it. She would embrace it instead.

  She would become the whore they wanted her to be.

  She spent the last two years of schooling fucking everyone she wanted to. No one ever said no to her. She was hot and easy. She had cemented her reputation now and even went after guys she knew were taken. A girl in her science class had been whispering about how she passed herself around like a party favour, so she seduced her boyfriend, sending him naked selfies then giving him a blowjob behind the classroom. The next time she saw the girl from science class the bully of a girl couldn’t quite meet her eye.

  That’s called payback, bitch. She found that she enjoyed her newfound power, it gave her a sense of control over her chaotic life. A way though the darkness.

  6

  Danni was in year eleven when things got even worse at home. It was so bad that when Beth had a friend over, male or female, Danni stayed in her room, holding the little knife she’d stolen from the kitchen. Danni understood how bad and premeditated it was to have the knife, but the truth was, she also knew she’d need it one day. That was a certainty.

  Danni had found over the years that Beth got off on the pain she caused her. Danni had run away a few times, only to be hunted down by the police and returned to her family. She never said anything to the police about how much she suffered at home. They wouldn’t believe her even if she told them. They would pull her from the back seat with a stern warning not to run away from home again and tell her that they had more important things to worry about than an attention-seeking girl. After all, Danni didn’t look like she came from a family that abused their kid, and her bruises were well-hidden.

  When Danni ran away, her parents would speak to the police. Nice, upstanding family, with a troubled runaway daughter. That’s what the police thought. They saw Danni as a troublemaker, a liar. Danni wondered why her parents bothered reporting her missing at all. Oh yeah, they’d miss the money they received from the government for her upkeep. Nothing as simple and easy as loving her. No, not that – never.

  After the last time she’d tried to get away and they’d brought her back home, Danni had gone into her bedroom and closed the door, putting the chair underneath the knob. Although it was flimsy, it made her feel better. As she lay on the bed, she listened to music through her headphones, the soothing tones calming down her rage.

  For the next few days, she managed to largely avoid her family. Because she had tried to run, her parents were angry at her, and Beth, well Beth was being worse than usual. At least at school, she was invisible. No one noticed her, she blended in with the sea of humanity. She had no friends and no desire any more to have any. Anyone who got close to her would find out her secret. Find out that she was garbage, a thing to be punched and kicked, toyed with, not worthy of love.

  Later that week Danni was in the courtyard at school, sitting on the steps by herself as usual, eating her lunch that she had made herself, when she felt eyes on her. She looked up and found herself looking right into the eyes of a boy who was staring straight at her. As soon as their eyes connected, she quickly lowered her head and peeled off the crust of the sandwich. Why was he looking at her? She felt exposed, vulnerable. Then she saw her sister. Her heart beat faster just at the sight of her. She’d never hurt her at school. No, she’d just wait until she got home, save up the violence then let it out on her in private. At school, her older sister was an angel, whereas Danni was invisible and ignored, which suited her; she was used to it, preferred it even.

  The boy was still watching her. She knew who he was. Joe was a senior and someone her sister hung around with sometimes. She looked down at the book she was holding in her hand then glanced up again a couple of minutes later. He looked at her with interest, which made her uncomfortable so she packed up her things and hurried away before her sister could catch her looking at one of her friends. She would be punished for it. What did he want? Did he want to know why Beth Douglas’s little sister was such an ugly little freak?

  The end of the day came swiftly, and no one else noticed her the way Joe had, no one stared. She scurried home like the little mouse she was. As she walked through the door, her mother, lying on the couch, mumbled, ‘That you, Beth?’

  ‘No, Mum, it’s me.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Danni,’ she sighed. ‘Your other daughter.’ She knew it wouldn’t make any differen
ce in telling her, she was drunk. She walked around the couch and stared at her mum. She had a lit cigarette dangling from one hand, almost touching the worn carpet. Danni gently removed it and crushed it out in the ashtray, smoke curling up to reach her nose. Would it be the worst thing in the world if their house burned down and her mother was in it at the time? What a terrible tragedy. There would be no insurance money, of course, nothing for them to live on, but they’d give her up to the state to be a ward and she’d finally be shot of this crappy family. Her fingers reached for the pack of cigarettes and just as she touched them, she was aware that what she was doing was so very wrong. She was contemplating arson and the possible murder of her own mum. A nervous little laugh escaped her lips, not disturbing the comatose woman lying on the couch, the smell of cheap wine wafting from her open mouth like a poisonous cloud.

  The front door banged open, hitting the wall. ‘You little shit head,’ screamed her sister, rousing their mother from her stupor. ‘Stay away from Joe. I don’t care how you did it but if he ever asks me about you again, I will cut you up into tiny pieces and feed you to the neighbourhood dogs. You understand me?’

  Danni couldn’t even talk, she was so shocked by Beth spitting her venom.