Page 1 of When The Noise Stops

Prologue

Lila

Three months after my husband was convicted, I walked into a church basement in St. Petersburg and sat down in a circle of folding chairs.

I didn't want to be there.

Ronny had found the group. Said I needed to talk to people who understood. I told her I didn't need to talk to anybody. She cried over the phone and threatened to quit her job to come to Florida.

So I went.

The basement smelled like old coffee and cleaning products. Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead. There were six women in the circle. Different ages. Different colors. Different stories, probably. But the same look in their eyes.

I knew that look.

I'd seen it in the mirror.

A woman named Diane with silver hair, a kind face, and a tiredness in her eyes that I knew sleep wouldn't fix smiled at me when I sat down.

"You're new," she said.

"Yeah."

"You don't have to talk. You can just listen."

"Okay."

I listened.

The first woman talked about her husband. How he'd broken her arm in three places and told the hospital she fell down the stairs. The second talked about her boyfriend. How he'd threatened to kill her dog if she left. The third didn't talk at all. Just cried.

Then it was my turn.

The room looked at me.

I opened my mouth.

Nothing came out.

I tried again.

"He shot me."

The words hung in the air.

"I remember thinking he wouldn't actually pull the trigger. But he did, twice."

"He shot me in our house. In the hallway. I was trying to leave. He said I wasn't going anywhere." I laughed a little.

"He shot me because he was mad that I was mad he slapped me."

I stopped. I exhaled.

"The first bullet flew past my ear, the second grazed my shoulder. He's in prison now."

I paused.

"He hadn't spent ten years beating my ass, just the last eight. I didn't tell my friend Ronny. I told her everything, but he had my head so fucked up by then I kept secrets from my human diary."