Rendered Silent

Chapter 9

Wednesday

I heard it before I saw it. A soft thud as the paper landed on the mat. I lay in bed deciphering how to feel. Apprehensive, but not overwhelmingly so, I was far too excited for that. Despite my reservations with Lacy about celebrating, I was overjoyed that I would at last have my name printed under an article. I just didn’t want to spread my excitement around so that if the article wasn’t a success then I wouldn’t be hugely pitied. It wasn’t like I had a degree in writing, that it was my one true passion. Oh wait...
I grabbed my phone off the side to text Lacy just as it started to ring. It was Dad.
“Hey Dad, how you doing?”
There was some rustling of fabric and then my Father. 
“Hello? James are you there?”
I roll my eyes. Loud Speaker.
“Yes Dad, can you hear me?”
“Yes, yes, we’ve got you now. You’re on loudspeaker James, so no-”
“Funny business” I finish grinning “ You bet, I’ll withhold the dirty stripper jokes.”
Dad chuckles as Mum gasps in the background in exasperation at our foolishness.
“I have the Freighter Times in my hand here and it appears to have an article written by a certain Mr.J.Goodwin.”
I laugh.
“You don’t say! What a coincidence, those are my initials!”
I can hear Mum dithering in the distance, dictating to Dad what he needs to say.
“Yes, yes dear, I will get onto that, give me a chance,” Dad grumbles irritably.
“You made some amendments to it I see, all good, the article really is fantastic, me and your Mum are very proud of you.”
“Thanks Dad,” I say, feeling euphoric.
There is a slight hesitation on the line.
“Just one thing James.”
“Yes?” my euphoria trembles a little,
“There is a slight blurb under the article explaining you as a writer.”
Oh no, I stand up in a panic, and launch myself down the hallway.
“It says,” Dad continues, “that you are an aspiring writer and that the paper is excited to introduce you as a new member of the writers team.”
“It would say that Dad, I was helping the writer before, remember?” I say grabbing the paper off the floor as well as attempting to save my sorry lying butt.
“James.” 
I know that tone and my euphoria is completely shattered.
“It says you have spent three years in the editorial team, PA to the Managing Editor. You have been tagged ‘the diamond in the rough’, although I’m not sure how your previous colleagues are going to feel about that really,” Dad mutters the last bit.
I am frozen, the paper unopened in my hand, I can’t think, let alone speak.
“James?” I’ve got nothing, I faintly register more rustling coming from the receiver.
“James?” my Mum’s voice comes over clearer on the line.
“Yeah, I’m here,” my voice cracks
“Why did you lie to us?”
“I didn’t mean to.”
“Sweetie, it was a very intentional lie, I just don’t understand why?” She sighs down the phone.
Nothing, I’ve got nothing. 
“James, you know that we would have been proud of you regardless.”
“Would you though? I was - I still am- practically a lap dog Mum, running errands and doing odd jobs! If I’m lucky, on occasion, I have copy checked the actual articles, but only if someone has been off sick.”
It was all rushing out now, the anger, the resentment, I didn’t realise it had been smouldering away until now, as it blazed forth.
“I wrote and wrote and the only person who ever saw any of it was Lace. That’s the closest I ever got, Mum, editing other’s work and my own personal unpublished articles.”
“No it’s not.”
“Yes it is and I lied to you all about it because I was ashamed of my failure.”
“I’m looking at an article right here and it’s-”
“And to top it off if this article is nothing less than a shining example of success then-”
“James!!” my father bellowed and my words are instantly extinguished.
“Son,” he says gently, having taken over from Mum. 
“This should be a day of celebration not of anger and bitterness, we are proud of you and we have always been proud of you, we just wished you had felt able to let us know.”
“Thanks Dad,” I whisper, after a pause to compose against the lump in my throat.
 “What are you doing later?”
“Um...nothing planned, Lacy was thinking about going out for drinks.”
“Oh right, well have a nice-”
He’s cut off by my mother’s muffled but urgent tone.
“I don’t think he would-”
Another more sharp response from Mum.
Dad sighs
“Your mother asks whether you would both like to come over for dinner tonight? No need to feel obliged to though, not if you have other plans.”
It was probably the least in a long long line of things I could do for my parents considering the circumstances.
“Actually, that would be good, I’ll ask Lace today and text you”.
“Ah, well good then,” Dad sounds pleased.
“I really am sorry Dad.”
“All water under the bridge James, now let me get back to my paper, I have an article I want to cut out and frame.”
“Dad. Seriously!”
He chuckles down the line at me probably doing the cutting as we speak.
We say our goodbyes and I go into the kitchen to grab myself a coffee. I glance at the clock, surprise, surprise, I am going to be late.
I throw myself onto the sofa, coffee in hand and flick through until I find it. A whole page of it.
I skim to the bottom where I find my name and my staff picture. Glorious. Well at least I look happy... not naive or a lamb to the slaughter. At all.
Underneath just as Dad had said was a small paragraph.