Olivia sat, staring into space, smiling, while her children charged around above her, yelling at the tops of their voices. She remembered acting just like that. Her own childhood wasn’t so far in the past, that she had forgotten the joy of weekends – no school, no schedule, no need to be quiet. Eight-year old Bonnie and six-year old John were good students. She had never had a call from the principal except, of course, that once.

She remembered her own mother saying that it wasn’t when the children screamed or cried that you needed to worry; it was when they went quiet. Like now. She climbed the stairs slowly, listening for suppressed giggles. The kids were playing a joke on her, she thought, hiding under their beds, waiting for her to find them. At the top of the stairs, she turned left toward Bonnie’s bedroom. On tiptoe, she crept toward the closed door, then threw it open, crying “I found you!”

Bonnie’s bed was made. The window shades were closed. Silence. Backing away, she moved toward John’s room and repeated her performance. “I found you!” More silence.

From downstairs came her husband’s voice: “Olivia!” She turned, her skin suddenly icy. Chad called her name again. “I’m coming,” she answered, her voice shaking. Her attention was still on the children. Where were they hiding? She descended the stairs slowly, listening, hearing only the sound of the refrigerator opening.

Chad was taking a beer from the fridge. He looked up. “Olivia,are you okay? You look…”

“I’m fine,” she said.

“It’s happened again, hasn’t it?”

“Chad, they were there. I heard them!”

Chad closed the fridge. He shook his head, then reached out to her. He wiped the tears from her cheeks. She moved into his arms. They stood there in the silence, each listening to the other’s breath, the other’s heartbeat; Olivia listening for what wasn’t there.

She stood still a moment longer, refusing even to nod, to admit that yes, she knew her children were not upstairs. Of course she knew. She remembered the principal’s call. It had come three months ago, on a Tuesday, just as the police were knocking at the door to tell her. The school bus. An icy road. A train. A terrible accident.

She looked into Chad’s eyes and saw her own anguish reflected there. “Help me, Chad,” she whispered.

by Sandra Leigh

See all articles by The Thursday Writers