The Weight of Silence

conversation would be more effective. I asked a neighbor to come over and watch the kids and I went over to Behnke’s.

I saw Griff through a smoky haze, sitting at the bar next to a bunch of his old high-school friends. His friends were laughing and talking, reminiscing, I’m sure, about the good old days, about the only thing that group had going for them. Griff was uncharacteristically quiet, slamming back shots, nodding and smiling once in a while at what someone said. I walked over to him, and he glanced up at me. He didn’t look surprised to see me. I felt the eyes of all the patrons of Behnke’s on me, watching what would happen next. My history with Toni was no secret in Willow Creek. I waited for Griff’s usual sarcastic greeting. “Deputy Sheriff,” he’d say in a pompous wise-ass voice that made it sound like he was addressing a king or head of state. But he just looked expectantly up at me and a hush fell over his cronies next to him.

“Go outside for a minute, Griff?” I asked politely.

“Gotta warrant, Deputy Sheriff?” Roger, his idiot sidekick, asked, laughing hysterically.

“You can talk to me here, Louis,” Griff said mildly and then downed another shot. “Can I buy you a drink?”

“No thanks, I’m on duty,” I replied, and for some reason his friends thought that was funny, too, and collapsed in laughter.

I leaned in close to him. “It’s about Toni, Griff,” I said in a low voice, not wanting these jokers to hear.

Griff stood up. I’m a good four inches taller than Griff, but he’s broad and built like a weight lifter. I had no doubt that he could beat the shit out of me, just like he did when I was nineteen and had come from college to try to get Toni to come back to me. I had gone to her house, where she still lived with her dad, who seemed to have aged decades since Toni’s mother died. I took one look at Toni’s face that night and knew something was irreparably broken between the two of us. We could never go back to the way it was. At the time, I didn’t want to stay in Willow Creek and Toni didn’t want to leave. My mom had remarried earlier that year and moved back to Chicago with my brother and sister. I loved college, loved Iowa City, and wanted Toni to come back with me. There wasn’t really anything left for her in Willow Creek, I thought. But she said no, with regret, I think. Said she was seeing Griff Clark and was doing just fine. That she couldn’t leave her father alone, he’d lost too much already. Then she crossed her arms over her chest like she always did when she made a decision and it was final. I leaned in to kiss her goodbye, but she dropped her chin at the last second and my lips landed on her nose.

Griff waited until I had driven away. He waited until I had driven forty miles and stopped for gas. He waited until I was just about ready to get back in my car after paying the clerk and then he came out from the shadows and sucker punched me in the stomach and while I was bent over, he kicked me in the balls. “Stay away from Toni, asshole,” he hissed at me. I could smell the alcohol on his breath. “We’re getting married,” he slurred before one boulderlike first crunched into my face. Those three words hurt more than the punch. A few months later, I heard through a friend that Toni and Griff had gotten married. And it wasn’t all that many months later when I heard about Ben. It didn’t take a genius to do the math. I should have tried harder. I shouldn’t have let her go.

“Let’s go,” Griff said, the yeasty smell of beer that emanated from him bringing me back to Behnke’s, and I followed him out of the bar. The cold brisk air of the parking lot was welcoming after the stale nicotine cloud we just left.

“What’s up?” he asked innocently. “Is Toni okay?”

“She’s at Mercy Hospital,” was all I said. Even as much as I hated the guy, I couldn’t tell him that his baby had died.

“What happened? What’d she say?” Griff asked.

“Not sure,” I replied. “She’s not saying much right now. Ben called for help.” I left out that Ben had called me at home, knowing that this could cause him grief later.

Griff paused at his truck, keys in hand and turned to me. “Probably not a good idea for me to drive, huh?”

“Probably not,” I agreed. We looked at each other for a moment. “Come on,” I said finally. “I’ll drive you over.”

We climbed in and I started the cruiser. The only sound was the heater trying ineffectively to warm the car. After driving for a few moments, Griff cleared his throat.

“What’d Calli say?” he asked, not looking at me.

“What do you think she said?” I asked, knowing full well Calli hadn’t uttered a sound, not since I got there, anyway.

He cleared his throat again. “Toni fell, but she was fine. She got right back up. She said she was okay. She settled herself on the couch. She was fine when I left.”

“She’s not so fine now,” I said, pulling into the parking lot of the hospital. When I stopped the car I turned to Griff and said, “Griff, if I find out that you did anything to hurt Toni, I will come after you. I will come after you, arrest you, throw you in a jail cell, and some night, when no one is looking, I will beat the crap out of you.”

Griff laughed as he opened the car door. “No, you won’t, Deputy.” There was that obnoxious tone. “Naw, you won’t. You’re a by-the-book kinda guy. But hey, thanks for the ride.” He slammed the door and left me, my breath frosty-white, curling around my head.

And damned if he wasn’t right.

BEN

When I was seven I started playing in a summer soccer league. Mom thought it would be good for me to get out and get some exercise, make some new friends. I was big, but not exactly the athletic type. My feet always seemed too large and I’d end up tripping over them and making a fool of myself. After squashing about three of the kids on the other team, plus one of my own teammates, the coach put me in as goalie. That, I could do. I was about twice the size of anyone else, so it was more likely that I could stop a ball from flying into the net. I would snatch balls out of the air as they came whizzing toward me, blocking the soccer ball with my body. No one scored on me in four matches. I could see you and Mom hollering on the sidelines, cheering me on. You were two, I guess. Sometimes you’d try to run out onto the field to come and see me and then the referee would have to stop the game and Mom would come over and scoop you up saying, “Sorry, sorry,” to everyone.

One time Dad was in town and he came to one of my games. It had rained earlier and the grass was all slippery. Dad came a little later, after the game had started and I was standing in the goalie box, wearing my blue soccer shirt with the number four on it and my black goalie gloves. They were so cool, I thought, those gloves. They looked all professional-like and had these bumpy knobs on them for a better grip to hold on to the ball. You and Mom were sitting on an old blanket, but Dad was pacing up and down the sidelines. I kept watching him, walking, walking, walking, like some caged-up lion. He’d be yelling, “Come on, boys! Get that ball, move it up the field.” When the ball came toward me, I’d have to force my eyes off him, trying to concentrate. My hands were out in front of me, my knees were bent and my legs were spread apart, trying to take up as much space as I could, just like the coach told me.

“Come on, Ben,” he shouted. “You can do it, get that ball! Grab it, grab it!”

I can still see the ball flying at me, the black and white spots on the ball spinning so fast they looked gray. The ball sped right past me; I didn’t even get one fancy-gloved finger on that ball. I expected to hear Dad shouting and yelling at me and Mom trying to shush him. But when I looked to the sidelines, to where he’d been pacing, he wasn’t there anymore. I searched and searched the crowd and finally spotted him, walking back to his truck.

We won the game four to one. Mom took you and me out for ice cream to celebrate, but I wasn’t very hungry. Dad didn’t say anything about the game when we got home, which was worse in its own way.

ANTONIA