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Some things you can’t unhear, even when you desperately wish to be struck deaf, blind, and mute. While we’re wishing for one, we might as well wish for them all.
The photo in my bag burns a hole in my conscience as it takes a vicious bite. Guilt comes for the person who needs to feel it, and that’s the cold hard truth. I’m as guilty as everyone else, just because I live here. You can’t turn your head away from abuse and pretend you didn’t witness it. You'll never convince yourself even if you manage to convince everyone else.
I’m even starting to see why Paul blames my dad.
“Who should I be talking to if not you?” Finn asks, oblivious to my inner conflict. I could answer the question myself, but I don’t.
Paul stands up and walks to the window, arms crossed one over the other, a thumb pressed to his lower lip. He stands that way a long moment, jaw flexing like it’s warming up but isn’t quite ready to speak. I can almost see the second the mental battle ends, and he surrenders to the words.
“You need to be asking Sally, that’s who. But she quit talking a long time ago.”
Finn looks at me and raises an eyebrow, mouthing the word “Sally” like we just stepped on a landmine at the point of detonation. My stomach drops. Every story in this town eventually leads back to her. So far, none of them have been good.
Finn clears his throat. “Quit talking; why? And when?” It’s something I’ve wondered myself, but I’m too afraid to ask. My mouth is so dry, I doubt I could make it work. I’ve heard rumors, but that’s all they’ve ever been. Of the girl who lost her voice as a young woman and never used it again, at least never around any of us. When I was in middle school, adults used Sally as a metaphor of sorts—a“Just Say No”tactic in reverse. “Stand up for yourselves. Don’t let anyone tell you to keep quiet.Don’t be like Sally.” Never mind that this town might be to blame for her plight. Never mind that everyone who lives here has never wanted to hear her speak.
I’m starting to suspect I’ve spent my whole life believing a lie.
Paul looks down at his wedding ring and then raises his eyes to Finn.
“She quit talking because way back in fifth grade, Sally’s life began its descent into hell, and she’s lived there ever since.”
12
37 years earlier, fall 1960
Sally
On the first day of school, no matter the year, all the girls tended to look like clones of each other in their saddle shoes, plaid skirts, and pearl button-front sweaters. Not to mention the ponytails tied with slick satin ribbons and lace, draped over one shoulder, and topped with smart pin-curled bangs carefully styled with a dab of Kreml hair cream to make the tresses shine. Even in fifth grade, Sally knew she was the lone standout. And not in a good way.
Her hair barely touched her ears, shaved clean at the beginning of summer to rid it of a nasty bout of lice, too stubborn to let go any other way. Her papa had tried everything. He used special shampoo. When that didn’t work, he doused her head with iodine; it burned for three days afterward. He smothered her hair with olive oil and petroleum jelly, and she slept that way all night, but that led to a week’s worth of greasy scalp and more bugs than ever. And then her papa got lice too and gave up, swiping his razor off the bathroom counter in his anger and using it on both their heads. They looked like matching cue balls found on a garage sale pool table, one big and one small, but both nicked at the edges and worse for wear, at least that’s how her papa described them.
So, her hair was too short to go into a ponytail because three months isn’t enough time to grow anything worth shining up and curling. As for saddle shoes and plaid skirts, when you barely have enough money to keep bread and noodles stocked in the pantry, there wasn’t leftover money for frivolous things. There wasn’t even enough money for satin ribbons, not even the ones moved to the clearance rack on sale for a nickel.
So, Sally showed up that first day of fifth grade in her old fourth-grade sneakers and torn brown trousers with the hole in the knee. And no one—not even Brenda Houston with her buck teeth and awkward stumble-stutter—would talk to her. Brenda didn’t have a plaid skirt, but she had pearl buttons on her sweater. Those buttons landed her a seat at a lunch table caddy-corner to the popular girls. And being just right of the center of attention meant you were mostly right about everything. People like Brenda no longer talked to people like her.
That was why Sally was excited about her skirt on the second day of school. Her papa gave it to her just last night, and she smiled the whole way to school just thinking about what the other girls would say and how they would include her—if not in their circle, at least right outside it. There was still a space free at Brenda’s table. She saw it yesterday.
“I got you something,” Papa said last night when he walked in the front door. It was such an odd thing for him to say that her ears immediately perked up, especially because he said it without slurring any words. He musta not had any whiskey. Not having any whiskey meant Papa was talking to her on purpose, and he wasn’t even yelling. He often brought home things for them—an extra carton of milk when it was nearly expired and on sale, a blanket he found at the top of someone’s trash heap, a turtle he found on his route that needed a bit of tender care. But he never brought something just for her. In the five years he’d worked as a trash collector, this was the first time she remembered it.
“What’d you get me?” she asked, her pulse already speeding up in anticipation. Gifts were hard to come by, even at Christmas. When you’re a garbage man, Santa has trouble finding your house because you’re so busy traveling to everyone else’s house that you’re hardly ever home. At least that’s what Papa always said. As for her, she had doubts that Santa was even real. Why would he always skip her house just because her dad was gone and she was asleep? Their house still had a chimney Santa could fit through, and wasn’t a chimney the only thing he needed?
Gifts in early September never ever happened. He held a parcel behind his back and rocked on his heels, taking a deep breath like he was afraid she might be disappointed. She knew she wouldn’t be. She would be grateful whether it was a piece of penny candy or a new puppy.
“I got you this,” he said, bringing the gift to the front of him. Wrapped in brown paper and stuck all over with gray packaging tape, she couldn’t see what was inside. She took the package and flipped it over, working her finger under a strip of tape to loosen it. Twice more and the paper opened, revealing an item that caused a little squeal to stick in her throat.
“You got me a plaid skirt?” A squeal escaped as she skipped around the tiny kitchen, holding the skirt out in front of her and then pressing it to her waist as she twirled in circles. It would look so pretty on her the next day. The girls would be so impressed that she looked just like them. Now she would fit in for sure.
The way Laura Kennedy stared at her now, Sally knew she’d been wrong. Laura seemed mad at her for no good reason. Sally looked almost the same as everyone else. Except for the hair and shirt, she mostly fit in. Sally wanted to eat at the girls’ table. She’d even sit with Brenda and her two buck teeth.
“Where did you get that skirt?” Laura said real loud for everyone to hear, eyeing Sally up and down in the middle of the lunchroom. The kids closest to them stopped eating and looked up one by one. Sally was used to kids staring, but not this many all at once, and not so openly. The kids farther away must have noticed the commotion because, before long, the whole lunchroom went quiet. Even the lunchroom monitor stared at the girls, watching the scene unfold. That lady was old. At least forty.
Sally’s bottom lip started to quiver, but she didn’t know why. Today was a happy day, but Laura was ruining it with her mean stare. Now all Sally felt was sad, the same kind of sadness you feel right before someone runs over your dog. The in-between, the moment when you should have seen the bad thing coming but didn’t. You were so busy playing, that you never noticed four tires rolling toward you and picking up speed.
“My papa gave it to me,” Sally answered, trying to steady her voice. “He brought it home after work last night.” She felt her chin go up.So there.
Laura raised an eyebrow and smiled on one side, but it wasn’t a nice smile. “Your papa?” She smirked and looked around the lunchroom as though Sally’s papa was a joke. Maybe he was because a few kids snickered. “You mean, your papa that everyone knows killed your momma. Your papa that works at the town dump? Yourpapathat picks up all our trash because it’s the only job he could get?”
It all made Sally mad, but she could only focus on the most immediate thing. “He does not work at the dump. You take that back.”
