The Weight of Silence

by Heather Gudenkauf

  “Once upon a time there were two princesses, one named Calli and one named Petra. These princesses were both beautiful and smart and they were best friends. They didn’t really care about being beautiful, though. They thought it was more important to be smart and brave. And they had many wonderful adventures together fighting dragons and witches and trolls. The thing was, Princess Calli didn’t talk. No one knew why she didn’t talk, but she didn’t. She was still smart and brave. Plus she had Princess Petra to talk for her. They were quite a team, the two of them. Petra would say the magic words and Calli would wave her magic hands and the fire-breathing dragon would fall over dead and the mean old witch would be turned into a slug.” You smile up at me at this part, that is one of your favorite stories, the one about the witch being turned into a slug.

  “One day, though, Princess Calli and Princess Petra got lost in the woods.” I stop and look over at you during this part. You look up at me like you aren’t sure what I am doing, but you don’t act like I should stop, so I don’t. The door opens and the doctor comes in, the one with the crazy tie. I think maybe I should stop telling the story, but he tells me to keep on going, that he is just going to check you and me over quick.

  “So Princess Calli and Princess Petra were lost in the woods and the thing was they didn’t go into the woods on their own, Princess Calli’s dad took them there.” I look at you again and you are frowning, like what I am saying is all wrong, so I try again. “Princess Petra and Princess Calli went into the woods by themselves?” Again you shake your head no. I try again. “Some stranger took Princess Calli and Princess Petra into the woods?” Again, no. My idea isn’t working so good and I look at Dr. Higby, who sits down in a chair in the corner of the room, in a spot where you can’t see him. He gives me a nod like he wants me to keep trying.

  “Only Princess Calli was taken into the woods by her father, who was under the spell of some nasty potion?” Calli nods hard at this and I sigh. Now I am getting somewhere.

  MARTIN

  My hands go to the tender spot where Griff had hit me with the gun. I can hear the police sirens getting closer and I am relieved. Such a stupid thing I have done, coming here, thinking that I could mete out justice like some all-knowing demigod. I could never actually shoot someone, even the most vile, evil of men. I am just an angry, silly, weak man, who once again has let things get beyond his control. I scan the ground before me, looking for the gun that Griff knocked from my hand. It is gone and so is Antonia. I have failed her, too. I feel dizzy and nauseous from the lump on my head and I lean against Antonia’s shed for support.

  When the sirens are upon me and I see a number of officers spill from their cars I call out to them, not wanting to be mistaken for a criminal. Actually, that is exactly what I am. An inept vigilante. Within seconds I am surrounded by police officers, one of them being, to my relief, Deputy Sheriff Louis.

  “Where’s Toni?” he asks me immediately. “Where did he take her?”

  “The woods,” I say, pointing in the general direction I had seen her run. “She tried to get away, but he was too quick. They went into the forest.” Without another word, Deputy Louis is gone and behind him a gaggle of officers follows him, including Agent Fitzgerald.

  A woman in a blue suit much too formal for the situation, I absurdly think, steadies me by holding my arm. A man takes my other arm and they gently settle me to the ground.

  “An ambulance is on the way,” the woman assures me. “Are you Martin Gregory?” she asks.

  “I am,” I say weakly, still holding my throbbing head.

  “Let me see.” She shines her penlight on my head and winces at what must have been an awful gash. Her companion fishes a handkerchief from his suit jacket and presses it into my hand.

  “I’m Agent Simon and this is Agent Temperly. We’re assisting in the investigation of your daughter’s abduction. Can you tell us what happened?”

  “I made a mistake. I made a big mistake,” I say, feeling very sleepy. This must have been how Petra felt, I thought, with the gash that I had seen on her head. I’m in pain, this is certain, I have an incredible urge to just sleep, but what Petra has to be going through is so much worse.

  “What happened?” the woman asks me again.

  I sit for a long time saying nothing, not sure of the way to tell them, to share my ridiculous story of selfishness. Finally, Agent Simon rescues me by saying, “What happened to Antonia Clark?” This I can answer.

  “Her husband took her into the woods.” Again I point in the direction that I saw Antonia run.

  “Did he have any weapons? There were reports of gunfire,” the agent named Temperly asks.

  “A gun,” I say, knowing now that I could not postpone the inevitable. “I think he picked up the gun from the ground and took Antonia into the woods.” Blood has seeped through the handkerchief that Temperly handed to me. I fold it, trying to find a clean spot to hold against my head.

  “What gun from the ground?” Agent Simon asks, I think already knowing the answer.

  “My gun. I came here with a gun,” I admit. “Then Antonia arrived and I couldn’t let her go in the woods where he was. Not after what he did to my daughter. So I warned her. We hid and he found us.”

  “Did you threaten him with the gun?” Agent Temperly asks.

  “No, no, but I was holding it. That was threatening enough, I think. He knocked it from my hand and it went off, into the ground.” I show them the damaged ground where the bullet had impacted. “He hit me with the gun and Antonia tried to run away. He caught her and pulled her into the woods. They could not have gone far. It’s not loaded, though. The gun. I only had one bullet and that one was used.”

  “It’s not loaded,” Simon says, her voice oddly grave.

  “That’s a good thing.” I look at her in confusion.

  “It’s a good thing if you’re Antonia Clark. It isn’t a good thing for Griff Clark and the officer who may shoot him because they both think the gun is loaded.” Agent Simon turns to her partner. He nods and he walks away, I am sure to try to contact the officers who have dashed into the forest.

  “You know coming out here was not a smart thing to do, don’t you, Mr. Gregory?”

  I nod miserably and wince at the movement. My eyelids grow heavier. Sleep is what I crave.

  “Your wife has been searching desperately for you.”

  Immediately my sleepiness vanishes. “Petra,” I gasp. “Is Petra okay?” I try to stand, but my quick movement sends a wave of pain and dizziness through me and I sit hard upon the ground.

  “Hey, stay put, you need a doctor. I don’t know exactly what is happening with your daughter, but your wife needs to speak with you. We’ll get you to a phone as soon as possible, Mr. Gregory, I promise.” Once again the piercing sound of a siren fills my ears. An ambulance. For me, I suppose. Hopefully just for me and not Antonia. Surprising myself, I think, hopefully not for Griff Clark, either.

  ANTONIA

  Griff is dragging me through the woods and I am screaming at him to stop, to please stop. Finally he does.

  “I’m not gonna hurt you, Toni! Jesus. Do you really think I would do those things to Petra? Do you?”

  He looks so pathetic and sad that I almost feel sorry for him. I have known Griff long enough for me to know how to handle him. I reach out to him with my other hand, slowly, no sudden movements, and gently remove a leaf that is stuck in his hair. “No, Griff, I don’t think you would have done anything to hurt Petra. I am just trying to understand what happened.” I let my hand rest on his shoulder. In one hand he still holds the gun. With the other, he holds tightly to my upper arm, and I think I know where Calli got her bruises. He drops his head onto my shoulder and coughs out a dry sob.

  “Calli was up early this morning. We went for a walk in the woods and got lost. We got separated…”

  I bite back a response to Griff’s obvious omission of important details, like why Calli was only wearing her nightgown and no shoes on this walk
and why he hadn’t left a note telling us where they were.

  “I swear I never even saw Petra until I found Calli on top of the bluff. Then Ben came up and saw—saw Petra. She looked so bad. But I didn’t hurt her, I was trying to help her, God, I swear, Toni. I didn’t do anything to her.” I can feel Griff’s tears on my neck. I wonder if they are real as I pat his shoulder.

  “We’ll just tell everyone that, we’ll tell everyone that you didn’t do it, Griff.” I cup his face in my hands and make him look at me. “Griff, they have tests to see if someone really committed a crime, they do DNA testing. When they run those tests they’ll know you didn’t hurt her.”

  “I know, Toni, Jesus, I’m not an idiot,” he snarls at me. “But I felt for her pulse, I tried to help her! I practically threw up all over her up there. They make mistakes. The police make mistakes all the time. You gotta tell them. You gotta tell them I was with you or something. That I couldn’t have done this!” He is gripping my arm even more tightly, the gun in his hand resting on my shoulder.

  “I will, Griff, I’ll tell them. Don’t worry, I believe you!” I say convincingly. “I’ll tell them you were with me, that you went up there to look for the kids and Ben made a mistake. Don’t worry.”

  Griff looks relieved and he lets go of my arm. “Thank you, thank you, Toni. You won’t be sorry. I’ll stop drinking, it will be good now, I promise. I know I’ve made some bad mistakes, but it will be better now.” He smiles at me gratefully. “Do you remember what it was like before? It’ll be like that again, like when Ben was little. It was good then, wasn’t it? I’ll quit the pipeline, get something here in town. Or maybe we’ll just move, start all over in a new place. Won’t that be better? We could go to the ocean. You’ve always wanted to see the ocean. We could go live by it, get a house right on the beach.”

  I nod. “Yeah, that’ll be good. It’ll be good.” I’m surprised that he remembers this about me. “Come on, let’s go back now. We’ll talk to the police, they’ll understand.”

  “I don’t know.” Griff hesitates. “I think that I might have hurt Martin. I hit him pretty hard. God, I shouldn’t have hit him so hard.”

  “What were you going to do? He had a gun, remember? You were scared. You were protecting yourself. Come on, let’s go home. They’ll be looking for us, it’ll be better if we go to them, Griff. Please, let’s go, the kids need us.”

  “I don’t know, I don’t know,” Griff frets. “Let’s keep going. You know the woods better than anyone. Let’s keep going, then when things calm down we’ll go get the kids.”

  “Keep running?” I ask. “But why? I told you I would cover for you. It’s okay, we need to get to Calli and Ben. Please, Griff,” I beg.

  “You’re always takin’ their side. Jesus, Toni, just do this one thing for me, please, then we’ll get the kids. We can get to Maxwell by morning if we can get over to Highway Eighteen in the next few hours. Then we’ll make sure the coast is clear and go get the kids.”

  “Griff, Calli’s feet are all bandaged up. She’s not going to be able to travel for a while, and Ben’s got some broken ribs. We can’t just start dragging them around the countryside.”

  “Then we’ll come back for them in a week or so, when they’re doing better. Toni, come on, they’ll be coming in here soon after us.” He sounds desperate.

  “You go on without me, then. I’ll tell the police everything. How you were with me, how you didn’t do anything but take Calli for a walk this morning. I’ll tell them that you just want them to know the truth before you come home. They’ll understand that, I’m sure they have arrangements like that all the time. You go on to Maxwell. I’ll make sure the kids are okay, then meet up with you soon.”

  “You’re lying,” Griff says in a wounded voice, grabbing my arm again.

  “No, I’m not, I’m not,” I assure him.

  “Jesus, you’re lying to me!” His face twists in grief and he begins to drag me deeper into the forest.

  “Griff, you’re hurting me, please stop, please!” I try to pull away from him, but he waves the gun in my direction.

  “You’re coming with me. We’ll get to Maxwell, then we’ll get the kids.”

  I begin to cry noisily and brace my feet against the dry earth. He easily tows me along behind him like a child’s pull-string toy. “Shut up!” he orders. I can’t stop my sobbing; my cries come forth in loud brokenhearted jags.

  “Shut up!” he bellows. “Goddammit, Toni, they’re gonna hear you. Shut up!”

  Panic has overtaken me and I can’t catch my breath. I begin hyperventilating. My fingers are tingly and I have a strange numb sensation around my mouth. I look up at Griff helplessly.

  “I can’t breathe!” I try to tell him, but all that comes out is a hiss of breath as I try to gulp in more air.

  “Shut up! Shut up, Toni, they’ll hear you!” He grips me by the shoulders and thrusts me up against a tree, my head striking the rough bark. “Shut up, shut up! If you don’t be quiet you will never see Calli and Ben again, do you hear me? They’ll find us! I will not go to jail for something I didn’t do! Shut! Up!”

  “Please,” I whisper, catching enough breath to speak. “Please let me go.”

  He leans in close to me, puts his lips close to my ear and murmurs, “If you say one more goddamn word, I will shut your mouth for good. Now shut up.”

  I go still, not because of his threat, but because I had encountered this very same scene, in a different time and a different place, as an outsider looking in, but the same nevertheless. Poor Calli, I thought. Poor little four-year-old Calli, watching her mother fall down a flight of stairs. His screams of “shut up, shut up” causing Calli to cringe, not able to stop crying. I remember lying on the couch, covered in a blanket, watching Griff screaming at his little four-year-old daughter. I remember Griff bending down to whisper into Calli’s ear something, something. And for four years, she has only spoken one word. One lonely word.

  “Oh, God,” I gasp in his ear. “It was you, it was you!”

  BEN

  “So Princess Calli was taken prisoner by the king, who didn’t know what he was doing because of the potion he had drunk. The princess tried and tried to use her magic, but it wouldn’t work on the king because he was too strong.”

  I look over at Dr. Higby, who is sitting all quiet in the chair. Standing right beside him is that nice nurse, Molly. She puts a finger to her lips and looks at you, Calli. You are only looking at me, looking up at me like you want me to keep on going.

  “Princess Calli and the king became lost in the big, dark woods and Calli’s feet hurt because she didn’t have any shoes on, but still they kept walking through the woods together. She was hot and thirsty, she wanted her mother, the queen, and her brother, the prince, but she didn’t know where they were. She couldn’t figure out why they weren’t coming for her, she thought maybe they forgot about her. But they didn’t, they spent all day trying to find her. Her brother looked and looked and the soldiers of the kingdom started to look for her, too. And finally, her brother found her, on top of the bluff with the king and her friend Petra. Only Princess Petra was hurt real bad. The king had done a really bad thing and hurt her so bad that now Petra was the one who wasn’t able to talk.”

  I feel Calli go all stiff next to me and I look down at her. “Isn’t that how it goes, Calli? Isn’t that how it went?” I ask her. She sits stock-still, her face serious as if she is thinking real hard. Slowly she shakes her head from side to side. I see Dr. Higby lean forward in his chair. “What happened, Calli?” I ask her. “You finish the story, I can’t. I wasn’t there, not for all of it. You finish the story.”

  MARTIN

  They won’t let me climb into the ambulance on my own, but insist that I lie down on a stretcher and lift me into the vehicle.

  “I’m fine,” I maintain, but no one appears to be listening. A paramedic begins dabbing at my forehead, his face smooth and unreadable. Very professional, I think. I know I will need stitch
es, but before that happens I need to get to a phone.

  “Please, I need to use a phone. I need to call my wife,” I say.

  “Someone from the hospital will contact your family, sir, don’t worry.”

  “No, please. My daughter is the one who was airlifted to Iowa City. My wife has been trying to contact me. Please, I must talk to her. I have to find out how my daughter is doing.” I struggle to sit up, but the paramedic firmly presses on my chest to keep me in a prone position. I must have looked amply distressed because suddenly I have a cell phone in my hand and a few moments later I am speaking with Fielda, who breaks down upon hearing my voice.

  “Martin, Martin, where have you been? Are you all right?” she weeps.

  “Yes, yes, I’m fine.” I will tell her about my shabby stab at heroics later. “How is Petra? Is Petra okay? They told me that you said she needs surgery.”

  “She’s in surgery right now. I’m sorry, Martin, I couldn’t wait any longer for you. I had to make a decision. They needed to relieve pressure that was on her brain. I said yes.”

  “Of course you did, Fielda. That was exactly what you should have done. I’ll be there soon. I have to take care of some things here, but I will be there with you as soon as I can. I should have gone with you in the first place. I am so sorry, Fielda, I am so very sorry.” There is a pause on the phone line.

  “Martin,” Fielda begins cautiously, “you didn’t go and do something that you’re going to be sorry about now, did you?”