Years of Silence

CHAPTER FOUR

After class ended, I texted my dad and asked if it was okay for Olivia to come over. He agreed quickly, happy that I made a new friend on my first day of school. Some days he acts so much like my mom. I waited on the old stone steps for Olivia to finish talking to her history teacher about an extra credit paper and then we started the walk to my house. The sidewalk was full of bumps and little patches of moss, but it was endlessly straight and boring otherwise, so I was grateful to have a person to talk to on my way home.

I glanced over at Olivia. The cold of the Wyoming air brought out her blue eyes and her shoulder length blonde hair fluttered in the wind. We talked about how our first days were and what we did with our summers, and eventually, I started baiting her to talk about Bastien. "So, why did you have to make sure Bastien wasn't going to be at our house today?" I signed. Olivia didn't do anything except blush. "Do you have a crush on him?" She blushed again and continued to look down, but she lifted her head up slightly to nod, barely noticeably. I continued walking, feeling the slight smile on my face, and suddenly, we crossed the main street in town and arrived at my house.

The house I grew up in was at the end of a T in the road. There was only one road going past it, and one road that led almost right into it, which means we'd had plenty of drunk idiots speed onto our grass, not noticing the turns. Because of this, my mom took it into her hands to fix it, and when I was growing up the grass was greener than any other on the street and there were roses and lilies and petunias everywhere. They complimented the house in its pale yellow colour, brightening it with the warm colours of the flowers. The house, with its shaded porch and Victorian architecture, was always a safe place for me.

Now, with the wilted flowers and yellow grass that my dad refuses to fix, the house looked more beat down than ever. The almost owl-like structure it used to have faded to look like any other old, broken house. Ever since that day, the house has deteriorated, maybe showing the family inside it. I suddenly felt regret at the thought of bringing Olivia into our environment and showing her where and how we lived. I opened the old dark oak door, tiptoeing into the entryway. My dad was probably asleep, so I waved Olivia into the house and up the old curved stairs next to the door. The high ceiling and curved interior seemed to startle Olivia. It made the house seem so much bigger, so you could tell how it would sometimes make people feel small. Olivia followed me down the wood-floored hallway, and I entered the first room on my left, opening the almost fragile wooden door into my sparsely carpeted room. I threw my backpack onto the bed and almost found myself waiting to hear a thump, still knowing it wouldn't come.

Olivia wandered to my bed, turning and looking at my high ceilinged oval room. "Your room is beautiful." The note appeared on her paper. It seemed she had achieved a high speed of writing due to her lack of being able to talk or sign. I sat down on my large window seat and looked out onto my street where I'd witnessed so many crashes before. Suddenly, the memory flooded my head thinking about this window, but I blocked it out, signing to Olivia. I waved her over, remembering she couldn't sign, and I pulled some old flash cards from when I was eleven from behind the wall by the curved window. I held them up, showing her the motion to go with the certain letter. I planned to teach her the alphabet first, followed by dates and animals, teaching her the same was an average foreign language teacher would.

It was another hour before I caught sight of Gavin's car pulling into our driveway, and I moved so Olivia would focus on me instead of the car, trying to stop her from noticing it. It was easy, without sounds.

I saw Bastien's shadow fly into the room across the hall, and I continued to teach Olivia the letters of the alphabet. I looked up after teaching her the motion for K when I looked up to see Bastien in the doorway, in just shorts, drying his hair, and dripping water all over my floor. It looked like he'd taken a shower after practice. I signed to him, "How were tryouts?" He'd already noticed Olivia and the flash cards, and he raised his eyebrows in confusion. Olivia looked behind her at the door and saw Bastien, immediately ducking her head back toward the flashcards. Bastien's eyes darted down to himself, then back to me, and he turned on his heel to go back to his room, but I'll have to tell him later that I noticed how red his cheeks got.

Maybe this plan would work after all. I handed Olivia flashcards for A-K and told her to practice. She stuffed them in her backpack, her cheeks still red, and headed to leave my room. I followed her out of the room and down to the front door. "I'm sorry about my brother." I signed slowly. "He sometimes forgets that I have friends." She nodded, blushing, and walked out. I looked out the window next to the door, and she took a deep breath before taking a step off our porch. She started walking up the street to my right toward the house, and I smiled with satisfaction.

I walked into the living room, and I found my dad asleep on the couch. His laptop was open on the table in front of him, and he had a pillow in his arms. I looked at his laptop screen, curious as to what had put him to sleep so easily. "June 14 history" Nice google search, dad. I closed the laptop slowly, and carefully as not to spook him with too much motion.

I crept up the stairs slowly. I don't stop due to sound. My dad can feel vibrations throughout our house. That's why our house was built the way it was. My grandpa was deaf. He could feel vibrations from everywhere in the house and know his kids were sneaking in or out. My dad isn't so good at that.

I pushed on Bastien's door lightly, knowing he would let me. He was sitting on his bed messing around with our mom's guitar. I felt my shoulders slump the minute I passed his door frame. "Dad was researching June again." Bast nodded and patted the bed next to him. He passed me the guitar, and I held it on my lap, stroking the amaryllis on the corner of the frame. "I don't know why he still researches it. It was right after the silence, but it wasn't anything purposeful. Just some idiot who was drunk and decided to get in a two-ton hunk of metal." I stroked the strings, wishing they were less useless in this silence. I couldn't wait for Friday. Our birthday. The one day our family was family anymore. The one day my dad almost forgot every year. Four more days.