The Color of Silence Read online

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Shaw, Liane, 1959-

  The color of silence [electronic resource] / Liane Shaw.

  Electronic monograph in EPUB format.

  Issued also in print format.

  ISBN 978-1-926920-94-8

  I. Title.

  PS8637.H3838C65 2013 jC813’.6 C2012-908170-1

  Copyright © 2013 by Liane Shaw

  Edited by Alison Kooistra

  Copyedited by Kathryn White

  Cover illustration by Annick Gaudreault

  Designed by Melissa Kaita

  Printed and bound in Canada

  Second Story Press gratefully acknowledges the support of the Ontario Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts for our publishing program. We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund.

  Published by

  Second Story Press

  20 Maud Street, Suite 401

  Toronto, ON M5V 2M5

  www.secondstorypress.ca

  For my Jazzman,

  ephemeral gentleness

  a summer’s breeze

  drifting, delicate

  hovering slightly

  just out of reach

  no more than a breath

  softest of whispers

  we strain to hear

  but you are silent

  as you float safely away

  to where beautiful souls

  dream in peace

  Preface

  Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others…. they too have their story.

  (Excerpt from Desiderata, Max Ehrmann 1927)

  “I don’t know what to do! I can’t control it! Tell me what to do!”

  The words scream into my brain. I know I have to do something.

  Say something.

  I open my mouth so I can give her enough words to save us. Nothing comes out but a scream that joins hers until it’s the only sound I can hear.

  Waves of screaming that drown out the rest of the world until there’s nothing left but the two of us.

  I sit up, sweating and shaking. I rub my eyes with trembling fingers, shaking my head to try and clear out the sounds.

  Just a dream.

  For a fraction of a second, I’m far enough down the tunnel of sleep to feel relieved that the dream is over.

  But then I wake up enough to remember.

  This dream is real.

  It’s me that’s over.

  I can’t hear the screaming anymore.

  I can’t hear anything.

  There’s only silence.

  Black,

  empty,

  endless

  silence.

  Chapter 1

  “Come on, you can sing louder than that! You’ll never make it to Broadway with that sad little voice.”

  “My voice isn’t sad. It’s just quiet from being sick for so long.”

  “Bull. You’re just milking it so Ms. H will give you the last recital spot, and you can practice like a maniac.” Cali picks up a pillow and throws it at my head. I duck, which makes me drop my microphone. She grabs it up off the floor and jumps up on my bed.

  “Ha! You forfeit your turn. Now the real singing can start. Put the next song up. I’m getting in the zone here.” She jumps up and down a few times, doing her version of ballet, which doesn’t look like any kind of dancing I’ve ever seen. I really hope my dad doesn’t come in while she’s doing that. He thinks that anyone who jumps on a bed is heading for life in a wheelchair.

  Cali doesn’t much care what my father thinks, though.

  Or what anyone else thinks either!

  “I’m waiting. Pick something that will showcase my perfection. Not Broadway. I hate it. And not Country. I hate it more. Pop. Rock. Even Jazz. Something real people sing.” She jumps up and tries to twirl at the same time, which makes her fly off the end of the bed and smash down onto the floor. She lies there, still and silent.

  Cali is never silent.

  “Are you OK?” Panic makes me yell. She opens her eyes and starts to laugh.

  “I knew your voice was OK!”

  “Cali, seriously!”

  “Don’t worry. Your secret’s safe with me. What are best friends for?” She sits up and looks at me, laughing and shaking her head.

  “I’m not pretending. You know I had bronchitis last month, and my throat still feels weird. I’m worried I’m going to blow it and then I won’t get a solo in the final showcase in June.”

  “You definitely won’t get in the showcase if you keep singing like a sad little mouse.” She climbs back up on the bed and starts “dancing” again.

  “Cali, my father is going to have a total fit if he sees you jumping around on that bed! He’s going to be home any minute.”

  “Your dad seriously loves me. He would never have a fit in front of me. And I sing better on a stage. I like to be seen. Music, please!” She twirls around and almost falls off again.

  “Fine. If you fall off and end up in a wheelchair, don’t expect me to push you around!”

  “I think you would love a chance to push me around for a change!” She grins at me and does a front somersault, smashing her feet against the headboard and banging it against the wall.

  I really hope my dad isn’t downstairs yet.

  I try to imagine what it would be like to actually boss her around once in a while.

  I can’t even picture it.

  I give up trying to get her to listen to me and try to search for a song. I grin to myself as I find the perfect choice—my favorite track from Wicked. Cali makes a face at me as the opening bars to “Defying Gravity” fill the room.

  “Very funny, Alex!” she yells over the music.

  The sound fills the room as Cali stands up and closes her eyes, bringing the microphone up to her lips as she starts belting it out. Even though she says she hates Broadway, she does it better than anyone I know. She has pretty amazing lungs—in both senses. She’s the best singer and the loudest person I’ve ever met.

  “Alex! What is going on in here?” My dad’s voice almost completely disappears under Cali’s as he walks into the room. She keeps on singing and jumping as he stands there looking at her. He looks annoyed for about three seconds until Cali notices him and gives him one of her mega-watt smiles.

  “Hey, Mr. T! How’re you doing? Do you like my song?”

  She sings the words to him, fitting them perfectly into the music.

  “I’d rather you sang it on the floor with the volume turned a little lower.” My dad isn’t much of a yeller, so the only one who hears him is me. Cali keeps on being loud and stays on the bed.

  “Thanks! I’m glad you like it!” She twirls around a couple of times and launches into the chorus. My dad looks at me, and

  I wait for the safety lecture.

  “Ask Cali if she’d like to stay for supper,” he half yells in

  my ear. He walks to the door and looks back at her, shaking his head and smiling at me. We both look at Cali, grinning like

  a couple of proud parents at a school recital.

  Cali has that effect on people. Even when she pisses you off, you can’t help but smile.

  “Alex, I fail to see any humor in this situation.”

 
The words slap into me, harsh and flat—totally without music. I look up, startled by the anger. My hand creeps up to my mouth, and I look up into my father’s eyes. I shake my head and shrug my shoulders at him.

  “I’m sorry,” he says, as if he’s the one who’s done something wrong instead of me. But he’s not apologizing to me. He’s looking at the other two people in the room. “Please, go ahead with what you were saying.”

  I look around the room that isn’t mine, panic bubbles rising up my throat. How did I do that? How could I have drifted away like that in front of these people?

  This is a room in a courthouse where I am finally being sentenced.

  Eleven months, sixteen days, and thirteen hours later they’ve finally got around to judging me.

  Eleven months, sixteen days, and thirteen hours after

  I already judged myself.

  “Two hundred hours of community service. One full year probation.”

  “I don’t understand why she is being punished at all. I think

  she’s suffered enough.” My father’s voice is sandpaper scraping over my ears. It stings, and I want to make them all stop talking but I can’t.

  “Mr. Taylor. Alexandra participated in the removal of a vehicle without the owner’s express permission. Joyriding is a criminal offence. There are legal consequences to your daughter’s actions.”

  Joyriding? Did she actually say that?

  Does she think it was fun?

  “Alexandra? Do you understand the terms?” The judge looks away from my father and taps her pencil on the paper sitting in front of me.

  Written proof that I’m a criminal.

  I look at the paper for a moment. I glance at her quickly and nod my head.

  “Please speak aloud for the record.”

  I open my mouth to speak but nothing comes out. I try to take a deep breath, but it doesn’t work. Gravity is working against me, pressing my head down into my body so that I can’t feel my neck. I close my eyes and try to concentrate, pushing back against it, trying to keep myself in the room. I have to do this for my dad. I have to listen to these people and do what they tell me to do.

  “Alex!” My father’s voice slaps again, harder this time, and

  I open my eyes, trying to focus on his face.

  “I’m sorry,” he says, apologizing for me again. “She has trouble speaking since the…accident. It seems to hurt her to talk.

  I think we told you this before.” He’s looking at the lawyer, who’s looking at the judge, who’s nodding.

  No one is looking at me.

  “I do understand that. But since she is able to speak, we do need a verbal response. A yes or no will do.”

  “Alex?” My father’s voice is soft, without edges, a pleading whisper that slips inside me, making my eyes sting and filling the bubbles inside of my throat until I can feel my oxygen supply cutting off. I try to swallow, but it gets stuck. My throat aches, and the pounding has reached my head, smashing into my brain like a bat trying for a home run.

  I close my eyes for a second, willing myself to stay here and to force back the migraine that’s threatening to take me over.

  I have to do this or, unbelievably, I could make things worse.

  I take a deep breath, hoping it doesn’t choke me.

  “Yes.” Someone else’s voice comes out of my throat, weak and raw.

  “Probation means you have to check in regularly with an officer of the court to be sure you’re keeping on track and following the conditions.”

  “Conditions? What do you mean?” My father rubs his hand over his face, roughly until his cheeks turn red. I wonder if he’s trying to erase this day from his mind.

  Or maybe just me.

  “She has to continue regular participation in her schooling. No behavior that would require the involvement of the police. She must observe a nightly curfew, meaning she’s to be under your supervision by no later than ten each night.”

  “And if she messes up?” He doesn’t say it, but the word again hangs in the air, suspended above us, shaped in an arrow pointing at my stupid, messed-up head.

  “We come back and start the process over again. But that isn’t going to happen, is it, Alexandra?” The judge looks at me, eyebrows arched up in double question marks. I stare at them, wondering about people who pluck all of their hairs out and then take the time to draw their eyebrows back on. The way Cali does.

  Correction. The way Cali did. Past tense.

  I miss her so much that when I think about her, I put her in the present because that’s where I want her to be.

  Which is ironic, I guess, because I’m the one who put her permanently into the past.

  My father clears his throat, a painful sound that pulls my eyes away from the judge’s face and onto his. His cheeks are still red. They match his eyes. He looks tired.

  “Alex, please!” He tries to sound mad, but mostly he sounds like he’s going to cry. That’s so much worse. My father never cries.

  I feel like I’m going to throw up.

  I slide my eyes back to the judge, avoiding her eyebrows so I don’t get distracted again.

  “No.” The word whispers out just loud enough for her to hear me. She nods to tell me that I have the right answer.

  “What’s this two hundred hours business?”

  “Community service, Mr. Taylor. She has to spend time giving back to the community. Find something positive to do with her time.” The lawyer speaks for the first time. My advocate.

  I don’t even remember his name.

  “Where would she do that?”

  I don’t really care, but obviously my father does. He looks worried by the idea of my going out and trying to do something good.

  “Alexandra will be assigned a Youth Probation Officer who will take care of arranging her hours and supervising her probation period. I’ve already set an appointment up for you to meet with her.”

  I shrug my shoulders. I don’t care what I have to do or where

  I have to go. I just want it all to go away. I want to walk backward out the door and just keep on moving until I find my way to last year.

  “All right. Alexandra, do you fully understand the terms of your probation? Please answer audibly.” The judge is looking down at me, her eyes grabbing mine and forcing me to look back. Her expression tells me that she thinks I belong in a plastic bag, waiting on the curb for a truck to take me away with the other garbage.

  She’s right.

  “Alexandra, I need an answer now.”

  “Yes!” A word bullet shooting out and hitting her right between the eyes. My father gets an embarrassed look on his face. He doesn’t like it when I’m rude to people. He thinks it reflects badly on him, splashing him with bad manners and staining his reputation as a father.

  He always told me it was important for him to be seen as a good father because when my mother died, everyone told him how hard it would be for him to bring me up on his own. He wanted to prove them wrong. The only way to do that was to make me into someone who let him look in the mirror and see World’s Greatest Dad written across his forehead.

  But instead, I broke the glass and shattered his reflection.

  Chapter 2

  Is anyone there? I think I can feel you walking around my room, but I can’t find you.

  I think I catch a glimpse of you, white shirt and pants whispering past me. Your shoes are the silent kind that hide you from me.

  I need you to speak to me! I can’t find you in the room without your voice to give me something to aim for. What are you looking at? Machines that beep and hiss out a breath for me when my lungs can’t do it on their own? Are the machines more interesting than me? Is their noise easier to hear than mine? My thoughts don’t beep or hiss.

  I’m not a machine. I’
m alive and much more interesting than the machine that is only pretending to be my lungs.

  Now you come to my side and look into my eyes. Your head moves slightly in time with mine like we’re doing a strange dance. What do you see? Do you see me?

  Do you know who I am?

  “There’s my Joanie! It’s time to get some food into you.”

  Nurse Kathleen is standing there, smiling at me, a bag of pretend food in her hand. I try to look happy to see her.

  Kathleen is gentle as she tries to straighten out my body, shifting me up slightly on the pillows so that she can attach the feeding tube to the hole in my stomach. My arms and legs fling themselves at her as she tries to work. I have a talk with my brain, telling it to get my parts under control so we can get the business over with, but as usual, it doesn’t get the message. I keep trying, and so does Kathleen. Eventually she gets everything attached and the pump starts whirring and thumping as it announces that my food is coming through the tube into my stomach.

  “There’s my girl. I know, honey. You’re tired, aren’t you?

  It will be done soon.”

  Kathleen is kind, but she isn’t someone who can see deeper than my outsides.

  She touches my hair, gently pushing it out of my eyes. She’s trying to be understanding, but it’s hard. After all, her food comes with colors and smells that make it interesting. She chews and swallows her food on her own.

  I wonder what that would be like. I try to imagine it sometimes. I have heard descriptions of eating in books—characters who talk about freshly baked cookies or velvety chocolates that melt in your mouth.

  I think I would love to feel chocolate melt in my mouth!

  Kathleen thinks I’m tired, but I’m not. I don’t think I’m hungry, either, but I’m not actually sure what hungry feels like. I’m pretty sure she doesn’t know that. I wish this body of mine could understand what my brain wants it to do. Then I could find my voice, and Kathleen and I could talk about things that are more interesting than stomach tubes.