The Weight of Silence

  He hadn’t taken one drink in the week that he had been home before Calli was born. Before he had left for Alaska the last time it had been bad, so very bad. He had crossed a line, one of many that I had drawn out for him through the years. That first night he had come home before Calli was born he had lain by my side in our bed, his hand on top of my huge belly and had promised to change. He had cried softly into my shoulder and I’d cried along with him. I’d believed him. Again. He could do it, he could stop drinking with my help, he had promised.

  But the night that Calli was born, with his hands trembling so fiercely as he held my baby, I knew that was a promise he couldn’t keep, not yet anyway. He left the hospital in the dark corners of the morning while Ben and I were sleeping and Calli slept in the nursery. He left and came back hours later. There was a glassiness in his eyes, they couldn’t quite focus, and I could smell the liquor on his breath as he kissed my cheek. He held Calli firmly and capably that morning and his hands had stopped shaking.

  “There you are, Calli,” Dr. Higby tells Calli. “All done. The worst is over. Now we’ll just finish getting you all cleaned up. You, Calli, are a very lucky little girl.”

  I see Calli’s tranquil face freeze for a moment, then it changes. Her eyes begin to bulge and her skin fades to a sickly chalk color. Dr. Higby looks back at Molly and she lifts her hands and shoulders. She hadn’t been touching Calli’s feet. Calli’s mouth twists into an ugly grimace as if she is screaming; she is shaking not from cold or pain, but from complete terror. I look around helplessly as her silent shriek clangs around my head.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask her. “What’s wrong, Calli?” But still she thrashes almost convulsively. Molly and I hold her so that she won’t fall off the table. “What’s wrong?” I whimper as tears collect behind my own eyes. I notice that Molly’s and Dr. Higby’s eyes aren’t focused on Calli, but are settled on a spot just over my shoulder. Keeping my grip firmly on Calli, who is kicking and writhing, I turn to see what they are looking at. There stands my Benny, beaten so badly, his clothes bloody and ripped. My knees go weak at the sight. He is looking at Calli with fear in his eyes.

  “What’s wrong with her?” he asks me over Calli’s head. His voice sounds so young.

  I don’t answer him. I want so badly to go to him and draw him close to me. I wave him toward me with one hand, but he stands rooted to his spot.

  “I’m going to give her a sedative, Mrs. Clark,” Dr. Higby says. It takes several moments for the shot to have any effect on Calli, but soon she calms and her shaking subsides and her eyes begin to close. She still clutches at my shirt, pulling me close to her. She seems to be trying to speak to me, but her lips are slack and can’t form the words.

  “What, Calli? What is it? Please tell me,” I whisper into her ear. But she has fallen asleep and whatever has frightened her so badly has crawled back into its hole and sleeps, too, at least for now.

  MARTIN

  When we pull up to the front of my mother-in-law’s home I see that the reporters have gone, but one strange car remains in the drive. I thank the officer and he offers to stay until we are ready to travel to Iowa City. He will escort us, get us there quickly and safely. Again I thank the officer and say no. We will be fine. We will get to Petra just fine. My legs feel heavy as I make my way to the front door, already they ache from the day’s exertion. My pants are dirty and I have some of Ben’s blood on my shirt collar. I try to tame my hair by pressing my fingers against its wiry texture, but know it does little good. My glasses are set crookedly on my nose and I take them off and try to bend them back into the correct position. I see a rustle at the curtains; Fielda must have heard the car pull up in front of the house. I see her peek through the window briefly, then the front door is open and she hurries to greet me. Behind her are her mother and a woman I do not know.

  “Did you find her, Martin, did you find Petra?” She seizes my arm and her voice has the same hysterical tone that I heard her use with Agent Fitzgerald. I wonder what has happened to him; I have not seen or heard from him in hours.

  I gather Fielda in my arms and hold her tightly to me. I feel her body sag against me and instantly I am aware of my mistake.

  “She’s alive.” I cannot bring myself to say that she is fine, no; I cannot say that to my wife.

  Fielda screeches with relief and joy. “Thank you, God, thank you!” she exclaims, still clutching on to me. “Thank you, Martin, thank you for finding her. Where is she? Where is she?” Fielda looks around as if Petra is off playing a few yards from us in the front yard.

  I clear my throat. Tread carefully, I tell myself. Do not alarm her. “She’s at the hospital.”

  “Oh, of course.” She squints her eyes at me. “She’s going to be all right, isn’t she?”

  “I think she’ll be fine. You need to go to her,” I tell her.

  “What do you mean, you think she’ll be fine? What happened, Martin? Let’s go, let’s get in the car and go.”

  “They took her to Iowa City, to the hospital there. The medical personnel thought that the hospital in Iowa City would be the best place for her to go.”

  “Iowa City? What’s going on?” Fielda steps away from me and crosses her arms in front of her. The woman I do not know makes her way toward us and rests a hand protectively on Fielda’s shoulder.

  “Fielda?” the woman says. “Fielda, is everything okay?” she asks.

  “I don’t know,” Fielda says in a voice too loud for the quiet of the night. The cicadas have even stopped chirping. “I don’t know,” Fielda says again. “Martin?”

  I take Fielda’s hand and pull her along with me, leaving the woman behind.

  “You tell me what’s happening right now!” From the porch light I can see that tears are brimming in Fielda’s eyes. I need to tell her now and I need to tell her everything.

  “We found Petra at the top of the bluff. She was hurt…” I swallow hard. “She was hurt in many ways, but she was breathing. She had cuts on her head and bruises. A helicopter took her off the bluff. They have flown her to Iowa City. She’s there by now. You need to go to her now, Fielda, she needs you.”

  “Is she going to die?” Fielda asks. “Is my little girl going to die?” There is steel in her voice almost daring me to tell her that death was a possibility.

  “No!” I say with more conviction than I feel. “Can you drive to Iowa City on your own?”

  “But why?” Fielda looks confused. “Why don’t you come with me?”

  “I can’t, I need to help with the investigation,” I say, hoping that she will ask no more questions.

  “Investigation? Do they have the person who did this? Who did this, Martin? Do you know?”

  I nod. “I do know. You need to go now. Can you drive on your own, Fielda?”

  Fielda looks at me as if she wants to ask more, but something on my face causes her to pause.

  “I can take her,” the unknown woman tells me as she approaches us, and for the first time I look at her carefully.

  “I’m Mary Ellen McIntire.” She holds her hand out to me and I recognize her from the television news, from when she had begged for the safe return of her daughter.

  I take her hand. “I’ve heard about you, your family. I am very, very sorry.”

  “I’ll drive Fielda and her mother.” She looks to Fielda to see if this is acceptable to her. Fielda nods, but is examining me carefully.

  “What happened to you, Martin? Is that blood?” She points to my stained shirt.

  “I’m fine. Now please go. I’ll join you as soon as I can. Tell Petra that I love her and I’ll see her soon.” I kiss Fielda on the forehead and turn to Mrs. McIntire. “Thank you for looking after my wife. I am grateful.”

  “I’m glad to help. Fielda and I have become fast friends.”

  “I’ll go get my purse, oh, and Snuffy,” Fielda says as she hurries into the house. Snuffy is Petra’s stuffed anteater, which she sleeps with each night.

  Mary Ellen
leans in close to me. “You know who did this, don’t you?”

  “I think I do, yes.” I do not look her in the eye.

  “He did terrible things to Petra,” she states. I notice it is not a question.

  “Yes, he did.”

  “You’re going after him, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, I am.” I now look her straight in the eye, trying to determine if she will tell Fielda, who would rail against my foolishness.

  Mary Ellen McIntire and I stand in the shadows of the porch; she briefly touches my arm, but says nothing.

  Fielda and her mother emerge from the house, purse and Snuffy in hand. She kisses my lips, tells me she loves me, then gets into Mrs. McIntire’s car and drives away. I stand for a long time, watching until the red glow from the car’s taillights disappears, and then I trudge up the steps, into the house, and flick off the porch light. I sit in the dark at the kitchen table, trying to gather my thoughts.

  Then I stand stiffly, my muscles protesting, and I go upstairs to my mother-in-law’s extra bedroom. I open the closet door and reach high behind the photo albums and behind Mrs. Mourning’s wedding gown, the very same dress that Fielda wore for our wedding. The gown is wrapped in paper and sealed in a box, tied with a blue ribbon. I stand on the tips of my toes and fumble around for the wooden box. My hand grazes the container and I am able to nudge it toward me. I pull the box down and lay it on the bed. It is not locked. I lift the top and hear the slight creak of its brass hinges. Inside is a gun. I do not know the caliber or the brand name. I have never been interested in firearms. The gun that I have set before me belonged to Fielda’s father who had passed away many years before, long before I had met her. Fielda’s mother does not know why she keeps it; guns scare her, but she cannot bring herself to give it away, and most likely has forgotten that it is up here. I take the gun out of its velvet-lined box and am surprised at its heaviness for such a small gun. One lone bullet rolls around in the box and I pull it out and hold it tightly, warming it within my sweaty palm. I glance at my watch and know that I am short on time. I need to hurry.

  ANTONIA

  I look at Calli as she sleeps. Her dirty face isn’t peaceful, unlined and untroubled as a seven-year-old little girl’s face should be in sleep. Deep grooves have settled in the space just above the bridge of her nose and her lips are pinched tightly. On another examining table, next to Calli, sits Ben. Dr. Higby and Molly are now tending to him, collecting more evidence. His face is a mess. I have avoided asking Ben the question that has rested on my tongue since I first glanced at him when he entered the hospital. Who did this to you? I am afraid of the answer.

  I dip the washcloth that Molly has given me in a basin of warm water and begin to wipe the dirt from Calli’s body. I start at her face, beginning at her hairline, trying to gently smooth the channels that travel along her forehead. I move down behind her ears, along her cheeks and under her chin, carefully lifting and lowering her head as if she is an infant. I see her nearly naked form on the table, except for her hospital gown and the thick white gauze that is wrapped around her feet; the number of bruises that dot her arms once again startles me, even though I had watched Molly take pictures of them earlier. These are no childhood bruises caused by a careless tumble or by an accidental bump into a sharp corner. I gently fit my fingers around the even arrangement of the marks and shudder.

  I continue my washing of Calli, now focusing on her hands, trying to rinse away the dirt that has collected in the little wrinkles that form her knuckles and in the valleys that score the inside of her palms.

  I trace the lines on her palm, now pink from my scrubbing, and I wonder at her future, my little damaged girl. And I wonder about Griff. Where is he?

  “Well,” says Dr. Higby, “we’ve got one broken nose and what appear to be three broken ribs on Ben here. You’ll live, Ben, but you won’t be playing any contact sports for a while.”

  Ben snorts a little at this and looks sadly at me.

  “We’re going to get Calli settled into her room for the night. You two are welcome to stay with Calli tonight or you are free to go home,” Dr. Higby tells us.

  “Stay,” Ben and I say at the same time and we smile at each other. We both know we need to be with Calli.

  “I’d like to run home and get a few things. Some clean clothes, Calli’s blanket and stuffed monkey,” I tell Dr. Higby.

  “That’s probably a good idea,” Dr. Higby says. “Calli is going to need all the comfort she can get in the next few days. And, Ben, no offense, but you could use a shower and a clean shirt.”

  Ben laughs and I am glad. Whatever happened up there wasn’t enough to take Ben’s laugh away.

  “Do you have a way to get back to your house?” Molly asks. I frown. No, I don’t. My car is back at the house, I am stranded at the hospital. I very much want Calli to wake up with her yellow blanket and monkey. I think of Rose, the nice paramedic, and her offer to help out in any way that she was able.

  “I think I do,” I tell Molly.

  DEPUTY SHERIFF LOUIS

  Tucci, Dunn and I retrace the path that Ben and I came down on the four-wheeler. We pause for a moment at the carcass of the dog that Martin Gregory and I had found earlier in the evening. I wonder if the dog had anything to do with the events of the day and make a mental note to suggest that the forensic team investigate. “Did Charles Wilson, the school counselor, ever find his dog?” I ask.

  “Don’t know,” Tucci answers. “We had nothing to hold him on. His wife said she woke up at about seven this morning and that he left sometime before then to walk the dog on the trails.”

  “Do we know where Wilson is right now?” I ask, wondering if we hadn’t let Wilson go prematurely. From the glow of my flashlight I see Tucci shrug his shoulders. “Call into dispatch and check on it. We need to cover all bases.” Suddenly I feel foolish tracking some unseen being in the forest in the dead of night. I don’t know what made me think that I would be able to find whomever I had seen crouched among the trees. I guiltily admit to myself that perhaps I hoped that, I, the fearless hero, Antonia’s hero, would bring Griff in. Ben had told me that it was Griff up there on top of the bluff. It was Griff who beat him, and it was Griff who left Petra and Ben up there all alone.

  “Do you see anything?” Tucci asks after we had been walking for about forty minutes.

  “Naw,” I say, disgusted with myself.

  “He’s probably long gone now. We may as well go back. We’ll organize a search for daybreak. He could be anywhere by now,” Dunn says.

  The radio at my hip crackles and the dispatcher lets me know that I have a guest waiting for me down at the bottom of the bluff. Agent Fitzgerald.

  “Let’s go,” I tell Tucci and Dunn, convinced that Griff is still out here, waiting, for what I’m not sure.

  When we step out of the forest I can see Fitzgerald deep in conversation with a man and woman dressed in civilian clothing. The headlights from two cruisers light them up from behind. I figure the two people that Fitzgerald is talking to are other agents from his office. When we approach the group they stop talking and look at us. I can tell by the look on Fitzgerald’s face he isn’t happy with me.

  “What the hell do you think you were doing?” he spits at me. Tucci and Dunn shift uncomfortably behind me.

  “Have you gotten word on Petra Gregory’s condition?” I ask, ignoring Fitzgerald’s obvious anger.

  “She’s still unconscious, but stable. There’s evidence of sexual assault,” the woman next to Fitzgerald tells me and my stomach clenches as I think of Calli. “I’m Special Agent Lydia Simon. This is Special Agent John Temperly. We’re here to help with the investigation involving the two little girls. I understand you’ve had quite an evening.”

  “You could say that,” I tell her, still eyeing Fitzgerald warily, waiting for his next burst of anger.

  “You took two civilians—worse, two of the victims’ parents—on an unauthorized search,” Fitzgerald says in a threatening voi
ce. Agent Simon places a hand on Fitzgerald’s arm and he instantly quiets. I get the sense that she has great influence over Fitzgerald, is perhaps his senior in their department.

  “You found the two girls and the boy?” Simon asks me.

  “Actually, Calli Clark found us. We were standing right about here when she came out of the woods. She was carrying Petra Gregory’s necklace and underwear. We figured out that Petra and Calli’s brother, Ben, were still at the top of the bluff.”

  “You let Martin Gregory go up the bluff,” Fitzgerald says accusingly.

  “There was no way I was going to stop him.” I can’t keep my own irritation out of my voice. “I called for an ambulance and backup and followed him up the bluff. He thought that Ben Clark had something to do with what happened to Petra and he was going up there, ready to kill anyone at the top that might have hurt his daughter!”

  “You should have followed procedure and waited for backup,” Fitzgerald shoots back at me.

  “Hold on now,” Agent Simon says. “Let’s just all get up to speed on the investigation and go from there. We can’t change what has happened and the girls are safe. Let’s focus on finding who did this.”

  “Ben Clark, Calli’s brother, said that Griff Clark, their father, was the one,” I say, trying to make my voice sound professional again.