2 Silent treatments

2

I returned to the house an hour and a half later.

My father was waiting for me at the entrance, sitting in a chair with the newspaper open. I let Koi go to my room and headed for the kitchen when he grabbed my arm, a strong and cold grip.

"Where were you?"

They had taught me the trick of counting to ten, and if it didn’t work to add ten more and ten more, and so on. 

That should help control, they said. To think and say what they wanted. It was bullshit, so I fixed my gaze to the photos hanging on the wall and numbered the reasons why they were my parents.

I thought of good reasons, remembered better moments and exhaled.

"I went to the plaza"

He let go of my arm and I went to the kitchen. 

I knew he was following me because I heard the newspaper creak with the dragging of his steps. I saw the closed door of the study and the raised voice of my mother who seemed to argue with a client, my father grabbed me by the shoulder, once again. And without looking at me he said it, with the same emptiness and fear.

"We worry about you"

I grabbed the glass with juice, some cookies and went to my room.

I had taken the pills, adhering the sleeping pills. 

Thus waking up at 3 in the morning, when my parents pretended to sleep instead of still working and reading. 

With Koi, we went to the kitchen to find the dish that my mother had left me in the microwave. I put the TV as background noise and shared dinner with the dog, I stayed for an hour and a half watching the characters move on television with the annoyance of the ads. 

Wanting to silence the memories of my mind and not think about what day it was. I went back to my room, took another sleeping pill and closed my eyes. Wanting to run away from that day.

Miranda and Miguel.

The kids with the marked cheekbones, dark circles and baggy clothes. They were sitting at one of the tables in the corner, muttering under their breath and separated by a breath.

I was three chairs away from them. They had lost eyes and lips that moved fast. They ran their hands through their dead hair and did not sit still, uncomfortable in the seats. 

In the eyes that did not look at them, I used to observe them because they were one of the few who did not respond violently to observing and that was a slow day to just watch them talk.

"I think we don't know each other, I'm Giselle, and you?"

Giselle. 

She was sweet, she was the flower in spring and the sugar on the coffee, she was the joy and colours in that building.

There were kind, bitter, selfish and abusive people however she was the rays in the dark, from which we fed. That didn't mean she was dumb. 

She was cunning and fast, not asking questions but listening.

Nor was she blind to when people tried to eavesdrop, she knew the definition of privacy. And it was not difficult to tell her the secrets she was looking for.

Yet, with me she wanted to talk about Sebastian. Without explanations, without saying his name, our conversations revolved around him. In small favours requested and without any given reason.

“Could you give him this jelly? he is not eating and if he doesn’t they will force him and I know he does not want that. Tell him it’s lima, his favourite ”

She left me with two while handing out the twelve o'clock pills. By the time I woke up, it was already past four in the morning and I took two steps at the time.

He was there, he had brought a blanket with him because of the cold that was getting worse in those parts of the country. 

I approached him and left him the jelly next to his feet, by the time I was finishing mine, he grabbed his and started eating, as if he had verified their situation. That night we stayed a little beyond the first rays, taking advantage of the extra hours they gave us to sleep during the cold days.

We were on the stairs, going down slowly. He was two steps behind me and keeping the distance. The sheet lifted the dirt from the steps and neither of us cared. I was thinking about how I should cut my hair that was already covering my eyes and how was that Sebastian's was always the same. With the tips cut and with a slight shine under the stars. 

I was thinking about the need for a private shower where I could take a shower for thirty minutes without people following me with questions and fears. 

In the need of colors other than white, blue, Gise's red and Sebastian's black. I thought of every little detail that could distract me from the silence:

"What do you know about euthanasia?”

Neck perspiration, fist-shaped hands, a twinge in legs, agitated breathing. Blankets on the floor and Koi was barking. The hurried steps, the door that opened and arms that held me and everything went too fast. 

A cold shower, then hot, the conversation on the phone, the words:

"Natural"

“Possible abuse of sleeping pills”

“Be careful"

That day my parents took turns staying by my side, I was forbidden of being close to sharp objects, couldn’t be alone, couldn’t leave, couldn’t breathe and Koi was in the yard.

Always far and my parents didn't talk, they watched. 

They passed me food and water, and the door of the room remained open. I didn't sleep that day, I still had the echo of the question.

It was Monday, they couldn't help going to work and they weren't going to ask Micaela to watch after me. She already had a job and they didn't want the rumours, the suspicions, so they just left me with rules to follow and warnings for every action.

They left quickly, with kisses on the forehead, a look through my arms, my neck, my body and they left.

Micaela was immersed in her work so she didn't notice when I grabbed Koi and left the house. I took the road opposite to the square and walked twenty blocks to where the house with the black gate and the entrance park was. 

I grabbed the mail they had at the entrance and rang the bell, it was Karen who let me in, she had turned six years ago three weeks ago, she was taller, with two pigtails, scraped knees and shorts with a big shirt:

"Lucas!"

From there it took about ten minutes to have the whole family around me. The three-year-old twins, Marcos and Lucia. Behind them, with grey hair in their hair, dark circles disappearing and being replaced by nostalgia. Summer dresses and sleeves rolled up, Martin and Juliet:

"It's good to see you, Lucas, how are you?"

And it was to fall into a comfort, in security and custom, with homemade food, the noises during the children's lunch, Martin's laugh and Juliet's voice that kept order.

It was a happy family, with a perfectly maintained extra chair.

“We wanted to go to visit you but they only allowed family and your parents…”

My parents didn't want witnesses, they still blamed the rest, still wanted distance because they thought my pain was still on them. My parents envied the Bruhl family, and they didn't have to say more.

We were sitting on the edge of the pool, the children taking a nap while we discussed the lost year. 

The difficulties I could not face with them, and they did not judge, they understood. There wasn’t a problem, there was an absence.

“What do you plan to do?"

And that was the question the people had left me with. The one that my parents hadn’t asked yet. That of the last stars of a warm night, that of black clothes and rainy days, the one behind my door. That question that was in every corner of my mind.

"I don’t know"

And that could be the most honest answer I had said since the first question of strangers, parents and whiteness.

The dishevelled hair, dark circles, long fingers and stretched shirt. With a nervous tic on the legs, he sat opposite of me. In the circle that they had made us assemble, he was biting the skin of his hands and he would look to me and smile:

"So, how is he?"

He looked at me with his eyes moving. In the windows, in the people who walked and on the floor. We were going to the backyard, Gise had passed and had given him three pills that he swallowed them with eyes closed and the answer to sticking out his tongue, giving up, once more, independence and privacy:

"He's quiet"

We had reached the patio chairs, where people no longer went out because of the cold that was rising. He sat in front of me, with his legs to his chest and his arms hanging:

"Yes, I think nobody has ever heard him speak"

“It is a way to end a life when you are tired when there are no solutions. But only when you are very sick, when you cannot, or want more. It is a choice that is in the person who asks for it ”

We had been sitting in the cold of the night for three hours. We had both brought blankets to cover us up, and this time we had jelly with cookies. Which seemed homemade, there were three and Sebastian had given me one.

"I never see you the morning, why is that?"

It was snowing, it wasn't the first one, there was already a blanket of snow in nature, letting it sleep, and leaving us on with white in the exterior as the interior.

On those nights we were both sitting at a distance of three steps to my left. Under the only protection that was on the terrace and there were tremors in our body, red noses, with pale breathing in the dark and the darkest blue we had seen. 

It was difficult but it was our only freedom and peace of the days we lived.

His voice was still hoarse and difficult to understand.

"It's when I can sleep because I'm alone"

He told me one night, he didn't explain it to me although he let me understand that for him. That we were more than two but less than three. I saw his gaze lost at fixed points and I knew he was telling, in his belief, the truth.

I had arrived at the house before my parents and a few minutes before Micaela had to leave. From there it was Koi and me, sitting in the calm of the heart of the house, with cookies and music at a low volume.

We were sunbathing, at four in the afternoon, with our eyes closed and attentive to the noises of the garage door opening. The car doors closing, the studs on the stairs, the sighs, and it took them about fifteen minutes to call my name:

"Present!"

From there it was doors closing behind each other and once again it was Koi, music, nature and me. We stayed outside until the sun went down and my mother called me for dinner. 

She gave me the pills, and the conversation at the table was about their work, about my passing of the day, the tranquility in the same events of the day. When we were raising the table, moving slowly, knowing our positions and steps well, I stopped between them, and looked anxiously at the ceiling

“I was thinking that I could do something, start a job, see faculties or something”

It was silence, it was dishes resting on the countertops, the TV turned off. Until my father rebooted the sound by washing the dishes, my mother stopped at the kitchen door

"No, it's too soon."

I was going to insist, I was going to do it, I had the words ready, even when the mind was in doubt, even with my hands perspiring and anxious. 

I knew I had to take the next step, I opened my mouth and she left. My father, my father who had finished cleaning the dishes, put his hand on my shoulder:

“She is right, you just came out, not yet, maybe in a few months"

By morning my parents were gone, leaving behind reminders of the rules and words that felt empty. 

The morning passed in shadows and lights on the wall of my room. There was the noise of the dishes, of Koi barking, of the broom, the steps of Micaela and the washing machine. I closed my eyes even though my mind stayed awake, and my fingers played with an envelope of spent sugar.

At one point the bell was heard with the distant but close voices, the steps, the stairs, the knock on the door and the voice of Micaela. 

It took me ten minutes to register, hurried steps, two-step at the time, open doors, scraping my bare feet against the asphalt, looking left and right but there was no one with agitated breathing and Micaela's voice in my mind :

"A girl passed by, she said she knew you, Gisele I think she said her name was"

I returned to the house in search of Micaela, who was in my parents' room setting up the bed.

"Did she tell you what she wanted?"

She paused a few seconds, thinking, then she continued working and I was by the doorframe waiting. I heard the arrival of the car and the opening of the garage, she looked at me again:

“Oh, yes, she asked me to let you know that the visiting hours are from ten in the morning to fifteen in the afternoon. That they are waiting for you ”

T.A.