The Weight of Silence
Heather Gudenkauf
Language: English
Pages: 384
ISBN: 077832740X
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
It happens quietly one August morning. As dawn's shimmering light drenches the humid Iowa air, two families awaken to find their little girls have gone missing in the night.
Seven-year-old Calli Clark is sweet, gentle, a dreamer who suffers from selective mutism brought on by tragedy that pulled her deep into silence as a toddler.
Calli's mother, Antonia, tried to be the best mother she could within the confines of marriage to a mostly absent, often angry husband. Now, though she denies that her husband could be involved in the possible abductions, she fears her decision to stay in her marriage has cost her more than her daughter's voice.
Petra Gregory is Calli's best friend, her soul mate and her voice. But neither Petra nor Calli has been heard from since their disappearance was discovered. Desperate to find his child, Martin Gregory is forced to confront a side of himself he did not know existed beneath his intellectual, professorial demeanor.
Now these families are tied by the question of what happened to their children. And the answer is trapped in the silence of unspoken family secrets.
hill that descended at a sharp angle and had a number of man-made mounds, carefully rounded and patted to send sleds airborne. The smaller children gathered around the shorter hills with less of an incline. I watched as children whooped with glee on their way down the slopes and viewed their determined journey back up the hill, dragging their sleds behind them. 92 Heather Gudenkauf One small figure caught my eye. The child—a boy, I figured, my age or younger—was decked out in black snow
Oh my God!” Fielda slowly slides off the slippery chintz sofa to her knees and then curls into a tight ball. “Oh my God!” she wails. I drop to the f loor next to her and glare at Louis and Fitzgerald. “Get out,” I say enraged, surprising even myself. Then more calmly add, “Please leave us for a moment, and then we will talk more. Please go.” I watch the two men as they stand and unhurriedly walk out the front door into the scorching heat. As the front screen closes and latches with a soft click,
popcorn, I like the sea, I want Calli to jump with me!” And Calli hopped right in with me. Around and around and around the rope went, swishing against the cement. And we were smiling at each other; we both had the same two front teeth missing. Then I jumped out because that’s how the 130 Heather Gudenkauf game goes. Calli just kept jumping and jumping, not calling out that she liked coffee or that she liked bees. Everyone started getting all mad, and yelling at her, “Come on, Calli, call
softly into her ear to just close her eyes for a moment. Her curly hair fans out, dark on the crispness of the pillowcase. I long to crawl in next to her, to swallow a handful of pills and let sleep pour over me. I cannot, though; I need to be alert, prepared to aid in the search for Petra. Louis and Fitzgerald assured me that they would contact me when their interviews with Antonia and her son were complete. When Fitzgerald and Louis had finished questioning Fielda and me, shaken my hand and
tall and thin. He towers over the other officers, but looks fragile, like a brittle stick. His hair is white and he looks as if he might cry. Mary Ellen McIntire is staring at me, a look of impatience spreading across her face. She is tired of being put off, tired of having to fight for her dead daughter. I pull my eyes away from the man, sit down and return my attention to Mary Ellen. “What brings you here to Willow Creek, Mrs. McIntire?” “I heard,” she begins. “I heard about the missing girls.