The Weight of Silence

by Heather Gudenkauf

  “Ben, how’re you doing? You ready to go down now? You think you can ride down on a four-wheeler?” I ask him.

  “I think so,” he answers and I help him to his feet. “Can I ride down with you?” he asks. I look at my fellow officers and they nod in assent. The two of them climb onto one four-wheeler while I assist Ben in getting on the other.

  “You hold on real tight, okay? Wrap your arms around me. If I go too fast and you want me to slow down, just squeeze me tight. I know you’re in a lot of pain, Ben, so let me know if you need to rest, all right?”

  “All right,” he answers. “I just wanna get home and see Mom and see if Calli’s okay.”

  “I’ll get you down there as soon as I can. Ready? Hold on.” I slowly ease my way into the forest. It is dark, probably much too dark to be traveling by four-wheeler, but we have little choice. We need to get Martin to Fielda and then to Petra, and we need to get Ben back to his mother. I have a feeling that Martin may have busted a few of Ben’s ribs when he tackled him. I hope that Toni will be able to forgive Martin that. It was a horrific sight, seeing Ben standing in front of Petra, holding that stick. If I hadn’t known Ben, I think that I would have jumped to the same conclusion that Martin had.

  The light from the four-wheeler does little to illuminate the trail and I think that we might be better off ditching the quad and walking our way out, but we are making decent time. I know that the trail will become more even, less steep, the farther we go. I am sure that Ben can feel the pounding of my heart as he leans against my back. I have no clear vision of what is ahead of us and I can’t hear any noise except that of the engine and of sticks snapping as they crush beneath the wheels. I feel that I am both blind and deaf and I am more frightened than I care to admit. If what Ben has told us is true, then Griff is somewhere in these woods hiding, perhaps waiting to pounce. In my mind he is capable of most anything. I remove one hand from the handlebars and pat my revolver, double-checking that I have quick access to it.

  “What about my dad?” Ben says over the engine.

  “We’re just worrying about you and Petra and Calli right now,” I call back, hoping that Griff isn’t lurking behind some tree, overhearing what I’d just said. “It will be very difficult to find him tonight. We’ll go back out full force in the morning to find him. Don’t worry, Ben, I won’t let him hurt you.”

  “I’m not worried,” he says. But I hear the drop in his voice, the uncertainty in his tone. I pat his hands that are wrapped around my waist, and I speed up; we are minutes now from the bottom.

  Out of the corner of my eye I see something. The glow from the headlights of the four-wheeler shine briefly on a figure crouched among the trees. For an instant I think it could be a mountain lion, but that doesn’t make sense; mountain lions have not been seen in these woods for decades, well before I had even moved to Willow Creek. The angles and posture of the form are too human and I briefly consider stopping, but Ben is clinging to me and my first responsibility is to get him safely out of the forest. I take the four-wheeler up a notch and feel Ben tighten his grip around me. I don’t think he has seen what I have, but I’m not going to bring up the subject; Ben is going to have enough nightmares as it is, he doesn’t need me fueling more fears. I radio in a message that would be cryptic to Ben and any average listener, but the gist of it is that I need backup for when I return to the woods, after I drop Ben off at the bottom.

  At the base of the bluff I hand Ben off to Deputy Roper, the same deputy who is Griff’s good friend. Logan knows that we are on the lookout for Griff, but he doesn’t know that Ben has told me Griff is in those woods, was the one who had beat him senseless, who most likely hurt Petra Gregory.

  “Logan, can you transport Ben here to the hospital in Willow Creek? We need to get him checked out. His mother is there waiting for him.”

  Logan looks at me suspiciously. “You got a suspect back in there?”

  “Maybe. Tucci, Dunn and I are going back in to check a few things out. How ’bout it? Can you take Ben to town?”

  “Sure,” Logan answers. I can tell he doesn’t want to, but he can hardly refuse to help the son of one of his good friends. “Ben, boy, you really got messed up. Who did this to you?” Logan asks.

  Ben knows enough not to tell Logan that Griff, in fact, had been the one to mess him up. He just shrugs his shoulders and then winces at the pain the movement causes.

  I see Ben settle into the back of the cruiser and I poke my head into the open door. “Your mom is waiting for you at the hospital. So is Calli. You don’t worry about things out here. We’ll take care of everything. You just look after your mom and sister. They’re really going to need you now, Ben.”

  “Okay,” Ben says softly and I pat his shoulder before I close the car door. Poor kid, I think, then stop myself. I had hated it when people whispered that about me. It got to be so that I could tell when people were just thinking poor kid, could tell just by the sad look in their eyes after my dad had died. I open the car door again and lean forward. “You’re a strong kid, Ben,” I tell him. “I’m proud of you. Your mom and Calli are very lucky to have you.” He doesn’t respond, doesn’t even look at me, but I see his shoulders straighten slightly. He’ll be fine.

  “Ready?” I ask Tucci and Dunn as Logan pulls away with Ben. They are, and we head back into the forest, this time on foot and with flashlights in hand.

  MARTIN

  Too quickly, the sound of the helicopter has disappeared. My Petra is gone. I had found her, and then had to let her go again. I am at a loss as to how I had ended up on the back of a four-wheeler, crashing through the forest with my arms wrapped around a perfect stranger.

  And now I am in a police car, traveling at a maddeningly slow speed to my mother-in-law’s home. The kind officer has offered to go and tell Fielda on my behalf so that I could arrive more quickly at the hospital in Iowa City, but I say no and thank him. I want to tell Fielda that Petra is alive, hurt, but on her way to a place where the medical personnel can help her. My daughter is being carted off to a hospital that I have never visited, in a town that I have never entered before. The number of people I am entrusting my daughter to is staggering: pilot, nurses, doctors, and I know eventually the police officers will want to question her about what happened today. I wonder if she has awoken. She was not conscious when I first found her, her beautiful face so bruised and distorted that if I had not seen her curly, black hair, matted with what I now know to be blood, I might have mistaken her for another unfortunate child. Her breathing was regular, and that was all that really mattered to me, that she was living. The cuts, the contusions…the damage that was done to her, I can cope with, even though I push the very thought of what may have happened, what I will to not have happened out of my mind. She was breathing, sweet, warm breaths and I will send her mother to her. Fielda will make it all better; she will be a comfort to Petra. I, on the other hand, will return to the forest. I will return and find the monster that has done this to my family. It will not matter that the man is Calli and Ben’s father, or Antonia’s husband. That will be of little consequence to me. I will find him and I will kill him.

  ANTONIA

  Dr. Kelsing remained by my side as Calli finished with her X-rays and says she will return after Calli is all cleaned up and settled for the evening. I thank her and ask if I should try to get Calli to talk.

  “No, just be with her for now, just be her mother. Talk to her as you always have. Ask her questions, but don’t expect verbal answers. She needs to feel safe. Knowing that you are with her will go a long way to making her feel safe. I’ll check back with you shortly.”

  Molly begins gently to clean Calli’s cut feet. Her feet are coated with dirt, dust and dried blood and it is difficult at first to tell the extent of the damage to them, but as Molly lightly begins to wash away the filth it is quite apparent that Calli will need stitches, and that it will be a very long time until her feet are fully healed. I try not to gasp at the sight of the deep pu
nctures and gouges in the bottom of Calli’s feet and at the livid red welts that crisscross the tops of her feet. The nail of her big toe is torn clean away. Calli goes rigid and begins to shake in either cold or in pain, I suspect both. She begins to cry silently.

  “It’s going to be okay, Calli,” I tell her, finding my voice, stepping in front of her line of vision so she will not have to see what Molly is doing down there. I rub her arms to try and warm her.

  “Calli, I’m just getting your feet cleaned up so you don’t get a nasty infection in them. I know it’s no fun. Just hang tight, okay?” Molly explains.

  Calli nods bravely, wraps her arms around my neck and squeezes.

  “That’s right, Calli,” I whisper in her ear. “Hold tight. I’m right here.”

  Calli’s back arches and she begins kicking and struggling to pull away from Molly.

  “Whoa, Calli, I need you to try and stay still. I know it hurts,” Molly says soothingly, despite the fact that Calli’s foot strikes her in the chin. As much as I like Molly, I feel relief that Calli still has some fight left in her.

  Dr. Higby enters the room, comes over to Calli and smiles at her and moves to ruffle her hair. Calli cowers and buries her head in my chest and Dr. Higby pulls his hand back.

  “That’s okay, Calli. I guess I wouldn’t want anyone rubbing my head if I felt the way you do right now, either,” Dr. Higby says jovially. He washes his hands in the small sink in the corner of the room and pulls on a pair of latex gloves. “Calli, I’m going to give you a little medicine right now. It will help your feet take a nap.”

  Calli peeks up at Dr. Higby doubtfully.

  “Well, they’re not going to start snoring or anything.” Calli’s mouth twitches at this. “But they will feel numb,” Dr. Higby continues. “You won’t feel any pain in them at all in a few minutes.” I feel Calli relax slightly in my arms.

  As Dr. Higby and Molly mend Calli’s feet, I speak to my daughter. I whisper to her all the favorite stories she loves to hear and I love to tell her. I tell her about the night she was born and the incredible thunderstorm that blew into town the minute I went into labor.

  “It was the strangest storm for October. The day began gray, but warm. You weren’t due to arrive for three more weeks, but I felt the familiar twinges, the slight pulling across the top of my abdomen, the ache in my back. It was just like it was with Ben, but this time I knew more of what to expect. Daddy was home from Alaska and he was so excited for you to arrive. He kept fidgeting around the house, trying to find things to do. I swear he oiled every squeaky door in the house, caulked the bathroom floor and cleaned the leaves out of the gutters. He kept asking me if I was all right, if the baby was coming now and I would say no. Not for a long time, I told him.

  “Finally, I had to shoo him away because he was making me so nervous. He took Ben over to the park to play catch with the football and I went in the bedroom to lie down. It wasn’t ten minutes later when I saw the flash of lightning and heard the enormous boom of thunder, and at the exact, the very same moment that it began to rain, not just rain but pour, torrential rain, my water broke and I knew you were on your way.”

  Calli smiles slightly at this story I have told her so many times. Her limbs have relaxed completely in my arms, but her eyes are still alert, as if she’s ready to leap from the table if need be.

  “I didn’t know what to do. Your daddy had left with Ben in the car. I had told him it would be hours before we would need to go to the hospital. The rain began pouring down in buckets; I could hear it pounding on the roof and the wind was blowing so hard that the windows rattled. And it seemed that with every clap of thunder I would have a contraction, your way of telling me, ‘Look out, I’m on my way.’ I called my doctor and he told me I should get to the hospital as quickly as possible. I threw some clothes in Ben’s school backpack, and in your yellow blanket I carefully wrapped the little outfit I was going to take you home from the hospital in, and put that in the backpack, too. I thought about calling Mrs. Norland next door, but I figured she wouldn’t want to go out in the storm, so I decided to drive Daddy’s truck to the hospital. This very hospital, actually. Problem was, I couldn’t find where Daddy left his car keys. He never put them in the same place twice. So I spent twenty minutes looking for them. Finally I found them in the front pocket of a pair of jeans he had tossed by the washing machine. I grabbed the backpack and opened the door. The wind caught the screen door and pulled it right off its hinges. I remember feeling sorry for your daddy because he had spent so much time that week oiling those hinges to get rid of the squeaks, now he wouldn’t even be able to enjoy the silence of opening and closing it anymore.

  “I hoped that Daddy and Ben were on their way back home and just as I hoisted myself up into the truck—not any easy thing to do when you’re pregnant, even tougher when you’re in labor—I remembered I hadn’t left Daddy and Ben a note. So I got back out of the truck, waddled in the house like a duck, and wrote a quick note. All it said was BABY!!! in big letters. Then I went back out into the storm and got into the truck. Now, I had driven a stick shift only, like, two times, and both times Daddy was with me, helping me along. Somehow, I don’t know how, I got that thing started and off onto the road. It was raining so hard that the windshield wipers couldn’t keep up and I had to drive slowly just to make sure I was staying on the road. I prayed that another car wouldn’t suddenly come up behind and rear-end me because I was moving like a snail. But thankfully I didn’t see one other car until I got into town. Every few minutes or so I would have to pull over to the side of the road when a contraction overtook me and I would have to keep my feet pressed down on the clutch and the brake so I wouldn’t stall the truck. I was determined to get to that hospital. I said right out loud, even though you were the only one who could have possibly heard me, ‘I am not going to have my baby in this rusted out old truck!’ I just slowly kept on creeping forward until I finally made it to the hospital, and I left the truck parked right in front of the emergency room entrance. I didn’t find out until later that I had left the door open, the lights on and the keys in the ignition. I wasn’t thinking so much about those details at the time, though, was I?

  “The nurse barely got me onto a bed and the doctor just stepped into the room when you came. In three pushes you were there, giving this mighty cry! And then suddenly you were in my arms, this perfect, beautiful, little baby girl with a head of dark hair. I apologized to you first thing. I said, ‘I usually don’t look like a drowned rat, I hope I didn’t frighten you too much.’ You just kept crying and crying. You sounded like a little lamb bleating.”

  Calli smiles at this part of the story, just as she always has. When she was three, before she stopped talking, she would chime in with a high-pitched “baaaaa” and I would laugh because it was just what she had sounded like. She makes no noise now, though; I was hoping that Calli would come in on her part. Molly and Dr. Higby are still working on Calli’s poor feet; I hear words like antibiotics and tetanus, but I try to ignore them for now.

  “The nurse took you from me for a few moments and she weighed and measured you. Six pounds, two ounces, and nineteen inches long. You were perfect. When she handed you back to me you were wiped clean and wrapped in a blanket. The nurse had pulled a little pink hat over your ears and you were still crying. Oh, you had so much to say to me!” I look at Calli carefully, worried that my last sentence may have bothered her, but she gives no indication that this is so.

  “After a while you sort of just cried yourself out and fell asleep. I just looked and looked at you. Your face was so peaceful. Then Daddy and Ben burst into the room! They were both completely soaked from the rain. Their hair was matted down and water dripped off their noses. I could hear their feet squelching on the hospital floor.

  “‘Did I miss it?’ Daddy asked. It was pretty funny because there I was holding what was clearly a newborn in my arms.

  “‘It’s a girl,’ Ben observed, seeing the pink hat on your head.<
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  “‘A girl,’ Daddy breathed as if it was the most amazing thing in the world. And he and Ben walked hand and hand up to us and looked and looked at the new beautiful girl in their lives. Daddy looked down at Ben and said, ‘Benny, you have a sister. A little sister. You’re the big brother now and you have to look after her when I’m not around.’ And Ben nodded. He looked so serious. Ben reached out one finger to touch your cheek. ‘Soft’ he said. And then you opened your eyes. And I swear, though no one who wasn’t there to see it believes me, I swear you smiled at him.”

  Here, in the cold, white, hospital examining room, Calli smiles a true smile.

  “Later, when Daddy and Ben were all dried off, they took turns holding you. Daddy paced and paced the hospital room saying, ‘My Calli-girl.’ It was still thundering and lightning out, and the power went out so the hospital had to use their backup generators. They let Ben and Daddy stay with us at the hospital room that night, though technically they weren’t supposed to. It was a perfect night, Calli, the day that you were born.”

  Calli closes her eyes as if she is remembering. I wish she could remember that day. It was truly perfect. At least the way I told the story it was perfect. I remember feeling so hopeful that the birth of Calli would be the catalyst to a new beginning for our little family. But of course it wasn’t. Nothing is perfect, not even the perfect day, though I have set into Calli’s and Ben’s minds that it was so. What I have left out from the story was that while Griff was carrying around Calli, singing softly to her, his hands were shaking so badly that I feared he would drop her. I remember being ready to leap from the bed to catch her if she fell. I remember asking Griff to hand her back to me, making every excuse as to why I needed her back in my arms. She needed to try nursing, she was tired, he looked tired. He wasn’t fooled, though. I could see it in his eyes, the flash of hurt in the fact I didn’t quite trust him holding our baby.