Only Just Begun

Echos of Silence

Jerry stared at the white hospital ceiling, like someone watching a cloudy sky, hoping a sliver of light might break through.

He'd been there nearly two days. Time, inside those sterile walls and with the endless beeping of machines, felt like liquid—slow, shapeless, slipping through his fingers. He felt like he was floating, disconnected from the world. He had woken up the morning before, lost. The world was a blur of faded memories. Only two faces stood out: Carol and Daniel, bathed in the flashing lights of the nightclub. And then—nothing. Just black. A curtain falling on a stage without applause. And now here he was. In this bed. In this hospital. In this city. With no real idea of how he'd ended up here.

He'd spoken briefly to Daniel on the phone. He had promised to visit, bringing Tessa with him. Jerry clung to that promise with unexpected hunger. He craved familiar faces, voices that didn't sound metallic or clinical. Above all, he felt alone.

And then there was her. Carol.

A vision that wouldn't leave his mind — like a dream that refuses to fade with the dawn. He saw her sitting at his bedside, eyes full of worry, warm hands wrapped around his. Maybe it was just a fragment of his imagination. A desperate wish from a subconscious aching for comfort.
But it felt real. So real. Like his soul remembered her touch even if his brain couldn't.

He sighed and picked up his phone. Three days without a single message. His mom was probably having a nervous breakdown by now — and, sure enough, his screen was filled with 42 missed calls and a flood of texts loaded with question marks and all-caps panic.
One message stood out — from his Uncle Robert:

"Hey, kid. How's the vacation? Wild or boring? Message your mom, will you? She's been driving me nuts for three days! You know how she is!"

Jerry chuckled.

"Do I ever..." —  he thought, fondly. He was starting to feel like himself again. He typed out a short message, just enough to ease her restless mind:

"Hi Mom. The trip went well, and I'm enjoying London. Hope you're okay. Love, Jerry."

Simple. Direct. Clean. Like a band-aid over a wound he wasn't ready to reopen. He thought about the time his sister Josephine had left home without warning, no note, no goodbye. The house had sunk into silence and sorrow. His mom spiraled into anxiety and pills. His dad, Henry, had grown even more distant.

And him... he had learned to vanish into himself. It was Uncle Robert who had truly seen him when everyone else was blind.

"You need to visit your parents more often."  — his uncle had said days before the trip.

"Do I?"

"Yes. Unless you want to end up like Jo. You're better than that."

Jerry remembered every word. He also remembered the time he'd been hospitalized months before, tubes in his arms, and his mother sobbing beside him. His father had stood at the foot of the bed, eyes filled with a kind of fragile guilt Jerry had never seen before. That look had hurt more than any diagnosis. His father was a man of actions, not words. He built homes, not emotional bridges. And yet — he had built Jerry's kitchen cabinets. A silent truce, sealed in wood and screws.