What Lies Within Earshot

Sunday

Boom. It makes a noise so loud, blood. It’s all red and dark and it makes your ears

hurt, like something real big is trying to break right into your head. That was a bad sound,

for sure, and I can tell you that I didn’t like it one bit. That is one sound that I don’t want

to hear again.

Mommy got us all out of the car quick quick. That’s what she said, “Quick quick”

with a funny breathy voice I’ve never heard before. So that’s two new sounds in one day

that I don’t think I want to hear again.

She rushed us right out of the back seat and kept saying two things over and over

into the phone: “Oh my God,” and “I don’t know.” See, I could hear her, even though she

kept turning her face away from me. I’m real good at listening.

Pretty soon there were a lot of screaming lights, from the hospital cars. No one

really looked much at me because I was sitting real small in the grass. Once a lady came

up and put a blanket around me. She smiled but not happy. Why would you smile if

you’re sad? I didn’t like her because she seemed confused. But then again, she looked

around real keen at everyone, like she was in charge. So maybe she knew what was going

on after all.

Even after the please-men were there, Mommy kept just saying those two things,

especially, “I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know.” From where I was sitting in the

grass, it looked like they should stop asking her questions. She didn’t seem to have any

answers, like this boy I know from school never does. He’s always sassing back and

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saying “I don’t kno-ow!” all sing-songy, even when it’s not music class. But Mommy

wasn’t saying it like a song. It was more like a chant, like she couldn’t think of any other

words so she was just going to repeat those words she knew over and over and over until

her brain caught up with her mouth.

It took a long time for the please-men and big hospital cars to drive away. I was

cold, even with the blanket and even with my friend Evie huddling beside me. She’s two

months younger than me so of course I had to share the blanket with her, just like we

share our desk at school, but the blanket wasn’t really big enough for both. Mommy

finally finally came over when most of the other people had drove away down the road,

and she looked me right in my two eyes. She said it’s going to be fine, all fine, and I

would see that she was going to fix anything that’s wrong.

I know she was telling the truth because lying is a real bad thing, and Mommy

wouldn’t do it. Mommy slapped me right across my face when I lied about walking

Hedda home after school the day that I stopped in the woods to watch the chipmunks.

She never, ever lays a hand on either of us, so I know that lying is pretty much the worst

thing to do. Later that night she said sorry real soft and slow to me, and she explained that

telling a lie is like a knife in your heart. She stroked my cheek, like by touching it gently

she could undo the slap she put there earlier. She said lying drives you away from others,

and you can never get the truth back if you keep it up. She said one thing leads to another

until you’re stuck.

That’s how I know she was telling the truth. Mommy wouldn’t want a knife in her

heart, and I don’t want one there either. We already saw enough blood today, and our

ears hurt. Boom.

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Monday

When I’m at home on school days, Daddy always laughs and says “Ohoho! We

got our own little noisemaker today, don’t we!” But today he didn’t say that. He didn’t

say anything.

No one around here is saying anything. Mommy didn’t even get up today, she just

lay in bed like I want to before school when she says, “Rise and shine, beautiful! Early

bird gets the worm!” She didn’t get any worms today but I did because I woke up so

early. It was still grey and dark when I opened my eyes and I just lay there for a minute

until I realized what sounded so funny. There was only one set of breaths in the room,

just mine. I couldn’t hear Hedda’s at all. She’s littler than me by two years so she has

smaller breaths. I always listen to them; I can’t sleep until after she’s asleep and I always

wake up before her. Maybe that’s why I didn’t sleep good at all last night.

I didn’t like how it sounded in there, so I got right up and crawled in with

Mommy. Usually she’s so warm and soft all over so I can melt right up into her side. But

this morning, no sir, she didn’t even seem like Mommy at all, she was so stiff and straight

in the bed. She made a little noise when she realized I was there but neither of us said any

words.

That’s when I heard the next funny noise. It sounded like a sad little bird, so I

hopped up and checked the window. No bird. I thought maybe it was Stella, Hedda’s cat

with the folded up ears from when she had frostbite. I looked around the room. No cat.

The TV was my next idea but I could hear Daddy in the kitchen so I knew he didn’t turn

on Good Morning, This is News Channel 8 and Today We Are Talking About Sad Birds.

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No TV. I stood there in the doorway, listening in all directions with my owl ears. I didn’t

even know that owls don’t need ears to hear, they just have holes in their heads and faces

that are like plates that snatch up the sounds. I tried to do that too, like an owl, and I

heard it: the sound that Mommy was making. Sad bird sound.

I know for one hundred percent that my Mommy or any Mommy in the whole

world does not cry. Little kids like Hedda cry, or me only when it’s really bad since I’m

not little anymore. So I knew that Mommy was not crying. But usually I can trust my ears

to tell me the truth. It didn’t make any sense, and all of a sudden I was real scared. I ran

out of the room as fast a cheetah, but I couldn’t go to my room because no Hedda

breathing in there and I couldn’t go to Mommy’s room because my ears were lying so I

ran down the stairs and right bang into Daddy.

Phew, this was better, I was thinking. But Daddy didn’t look normal. I was

waiting for him to say, “There’s my little noisemaker!” I didn’t feel that much like a

noisemaker, but I was kind of hoping he’d say it and then it would be normal again in

here.

He didn’t say it. He wasn’t even moving, like he didn’t notice I just crashed right

into his leg. He was holding a shovel and staring staring staring like his eyes were lasers

from those space movies, right at Hedda’s chair.

She wasn’t in it, that was the one thing. The other thing was the metal black shape

on the table at her place. You know what it looks like: please-men carry them, bad guys

carry them, good guys can too though, like Daddy sometimes does. Back seats can carry

them too.

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When I saw it I started to scream. Once I started, I realized I had been screaming

this whole time. Just not on the outside.

Tuesday

“It’s expected that you would have any-motional reaction,” says Laurel. “You’re

not crazy, Hannah. You don’t have to be afraid.” She’s been saying stuff like this ever

since I got in here about twenty million hours ago. When I asked her how long it had

been she said thirty minutes but jeez, it feels a lot longer than that.

Laurel’s from the state, Mommy said before she dropped me off, and she’s a real

nice lady who knows all about kids. She’s for me to talk to, at least for now. I said, no

thank you, just like I do when Mommy gives me sprouts. But just like when she gives me

sprouts, she said, yes ma’am, you will eat these, you will talk to this lady. It’s going to be

fine, she said.

Mommy doesn’t lie. So I bited my tongue and went on in.

I don’t really want to come back here again. It’s nice and all, my chair is comfy

and the paintings on the wall are pretty, but I want to just stay home tomorrow and the

next day and maybe forever. Then I think about staying home and I think well, maybe

not, no thank you.

There are too many flowers at home right now. Just like Laurel, she said her name

is a kind of flower. Well, there’s too much of her right now, too. These flowers started

coming in bushels and vases and bouquets and from people I only remember seeing once

or twice but they used to look different from each other, not all the same like they do

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now. Everyone who comes has the same crumpled face. I don’t even know how Mommy

tells them apart when she welcomes them in and talks quietly to them.

I asked Laurel, “Why am I here, anyway?” She says that she understands that I

am very high-strung right now and may need to have a third party to confide in. I think

about that for a while and then I say, “I don’t think so, I didn’t even have first or second

parties yet.” Maybe that’s what the flowers are for.

Daddy already said sorry to me a thousand and a hundred times since yesterday,

and the whole time Mommy was squeezing me and rocking me back and forth, saying

shh shh shh. I felt bad for making her get up from bed but it wasn’t really my fault.

Daddy was the one who yelled upstairs to her, “For God’s sake, she will not stop

screaming!” and Mommy yelled right back as she ran down the stairs, “Don’t you ever

lay your hand on a broken child like that!” I didn’t really want to be that kind of

noisemaker, the screaming kind, but I just couldn’t stop. Shrieking wailing caterwauling,

all the words I know for ‘scream’ were bouncing in my head until I stopped and just

started crying instead. Mommy touched her fingers to the red place on my cheek and then

she rushed me out of the room without saying one word to Daddy.

I told Laurel all of this because she would not stop bugging me to talk to her, just

like Hedda does. Some people just don’t get that you have other things to do besides just

talk to them or draw them pictures. There’s always a tree to go climb and races to run and

flowers to talk to and books to read and Daddy’s music to dance to in the living room.

There’s also glitter glue and somersaults and beads and capes and swings and chalk so I

can’t say that there’s much time for other people. Some people just don’t get that you’re

busy.

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When I went home there were three rooms I couldn’t go to. One my room,

because no breathing, two Mommy and Daddy’s room, because still Mommy lying up

there, three kitchen with the empty seat. So I sat in the living room with flowers up to my

neck and felt like I was in a big, sad garden. I couldn’t think of anything to do, either.

Even though I know there are all those things that busy people like me have to do, I

couldn’t even make myself move. I just sat there for the whole day until I turned into a

statue.

Wednesday

Mommy was yelling and cussing this morning, so no rise and shine for me. She

was the early bird today, but she didn’t much like the worm. If I had been upstairs in my

room I would have been scared to come down but since I was already sleeping in the

living room I didn’t have much choice. That’s how you knew it was a right strange week,

because I wasn’t sleeping in my bedroom like always.

Mommy was shrieking and ripping up the newspaper, walking so fast from the

living room, kitchen, living room, kitchen. She had taken one look at the paper and then

started hollering and shredding the page to bits. She turned so red and I was listening to

her yelling but after a while I stopped because it didn’t make sense and instead I put my

head under the couch cushions and pretended to be underwater where you can’t hear any

noise.

Then, I pulled my head up, like those deers who eat grass and then zip, up their

heads go when they see you! I did that just like them when I heard her stop making so

much noise. It was because Daddy had grabbed her hands and steadied her shoulders and

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held her tight. At first she whined and pounded on him but I kept watching and she

finally stopped. She looked so tired even though it was only the morning. I thought that

maybe I probably looked like that too.

Mommy and Daddy stood there so long I got bored with watching them, standing

like two trees twisted together among all those flowers and scraps of paper on the floor

all around them which is litter and bad. It would probably kill all the flowers but I

wouldn’t mind because they make the living room into a garden, which it really isn’t.

After a long, long, long time, Daddy leaned back and whispered into her face, “We’re

going to get through this,” which made me think about when Mommy said, “It’s going to

be fine.” I thought parents said those things to only kids. But maybe not.

Daddy left and went next door and I think he stole our neighbors’ newspaper

because he got a new one. He took a deep breath and he slowly, slowly, cut out the

picture and the words on the front page. It took him way longer than it would have taken

Hedda, because she’s so fast at scissors even though she’s only four, she’s faster than me.

But even I probably could have cut it out faster. He kept stopping and putting his fists in

his eyes and muttering.

Mommy said that Evie called and she misses me at school. I bet she does, because

Evie is smarter than just about anyone except maybe Mommy and the principal I guess.

She knows everything, which I thought would be a good thing for her, but it just makes

people get mad. I’m just about the only one who eats lunch with her or climbs the jungle-

gym with her at recess.

I said yes I miss her too but that was only sort of the truth. When I realized it was

partly a lie, I felt so bad. I kept thinking about that: I didn’t really tell Mommy the truth

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and now she’ll tell Evie something that’s not really the truth but Mommy never tells a lie

and now I made her tell one and she doesn’t even know it. It was so bad that I even made

myself go up the stairs and into Mommy’s bed where she spends a lot of time now. I

lifted up her dark hair that I love when she pins with her sparkly barrettes and I

whispered right into her ear so that she could hear because she’s not an owl. I said,

“Mommy, it’s not really that true that I miss Evie because I didn’t really think about her

that much today.” I thought she might be angry at me again because her eyes got so sad.

But she just pulled my face into her neck and she said, “Oh, Hannah. Me neither.”

I know that Mommy didn’t lie to me. But I don’t think that this is what fine feels

like.

Thursday

We’ve all been at home the past few days, for the most part. I visited Laurel, and

Mommy and Daddy went to see the office-shawls, but besides that we’ve all been just

about at home all the time. Today, though, we had to be.

We were sitting in the flowers in the living room. Mommy had tea, Daddy had

tea, I had chocolate milk. I didn’t have to worry about running out as soon because I

wasn’t sharing with Hedda, but that sort of made the milk taste worse. The flowers are

mostly pink and white, actually mostly white with some pink, some blue, some yellow.

They’re looking more brown now, like toast that’s burnt when you leave it in too long. I

hate it like that. A few petals dropped off and I picked them up and put them in the

garbage on top of the newspaper scraps. Then the door went Boom and I jumped right out

of my skin like a snake and covered my ears and screamed. Mommy grabbed me and said

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into my face, “It’s the door, Hannah, it’s just the door, baby.” Daddy opened it and then

WHAM shut it again right away without saying anything to the mailman or whoever it

was, I didn’t know, I had my eyes shut still. But then it turned out to be a lady in a man’s

suit with a puffy microphone like the lady from the Thanksgiving Day parade who blocks

the view of the turkey balloons. She’s always in the way of what you really want to see.

Mommy said, “No, this isn’t the same lady, it’s just a lady with the same job.”

“Well, there’s no parade here,” I said.

Daddy chuckled with his fists clenched. “They’ll make a parade out of anything,”

he said, leaning against the door like he was holding it closed, even though it’s really the

locks that do. They knocked again, and I saw some bright flashes even though there was

no thunder. I counted, to see how far away the storm was, but when I got to seventy-three

I knew the storm must be too far away because it’s sunny and there’s no thunder to go

with the lightning.

Mommy said, “No, this isn’t lightning, it’s cameras.”

“Well, there’s nothing to take a picture of here,” I said.

“They’ll take a picture of anything,” Daddy said.

We played a game called Close The Curtains Really Fast on all the windows,

which makes a whirring noise that I like. I wasn’t allowed to do any because last time I

broke one in the bathroom so no curtains for Hannah today, we don’t want any broken

ones.

I don’t see what exactly is so interesting about sitting in the flower room. It’s not

the living room anymore because there are more flowers in there than living people. All

we do is sit here and talk a little and read a little and do bits of this and that and we can’t

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remember what we did at the end of the day. I don’t know why all those ladies in man

suits kept knocking all day long and flashing their lightning on the house. A couple times

Mommy said, “Why can’t they just leave us in peace?” or  “Where’s the decency?” And

Daddy said a few times, “Should I go out there?” or “I’ll send them away, I really

should.”

But none of us moved at all until Daddy got up and went out the door with his

shovel. But the back door, not the front. I went too and sat on the back porch steps and

watched as he dug a big, deep hole. I never went too close to it because it looked so

angry, with jumbly rocky teeth and thick roots criss-crossing all crazy and the bottom

probably further away from the top than my head is from my own feet. Daddy threw a

black Boom into the hole. It wasn’t the one from the back seat because that one was taken

away to be nice and safe. This was Daddy’s other one. I guess he didn’t want it anymore.

He looked down on it so hard that I got up from the steps and came over and looked

down on it too.

“Are you gonna put the dirt back?” I said, because I was thinking about the

worms who would be tunneling. I pictured them burrowing along, doodeedoo, and then

they poke their head out and Ahh! A cliff in the ground where there used to be just more

ground. I wouldn’t want them to lose something they never ever realized could even be

lost.

“Yes,” Daddy said, quiet. It took him a long time to say that. I looked at his face

and I realized he was looking in the hole but he sure wasn’t thinking about it.

Then we went back inside. He never did fill in the dirt. Poor worms.

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Friday

Since I’m not going to school for a while, Mommy said I should write Evie a

letter. I thought maybe she was secretly mad because I did that little lie, but the way she

said it, I don’t think she was even thinking about it. So I said yes, ok, and I went into the

playroom.

First, I have to get paper. Hedda gets mad when I use red paper because it’s her

favorite. I got blue instead, the last piece left. I got a black pencil and Mommy’s big

white eraser that erases everything so good, you can’t even see the marks at all. I wrote

Deer Evie, even though I know that Deer is the brown animal with the white tail and Dear

is Hello Dear How are You. I did Deer Evie because we like animals. So it’s clever if you

know why I put it. If you don’t know why I put it, it would look wrong but it’s not wrong

because I did it on purpose.

I told her hello, how are you, I miss you. At this point I really do, because our

house had been only real quiet or real loud this week. Evie is good at being in between. I

wrote I’m sorry if you were scared when we were waiting by the road. I’m sorry if I hurt

your ears. But I also said don’t worry, Mommy told me it will be fine. I wrote that and

then I felt better. But only for a moment.

Because then I started realizing, this is not fine. Hedda wouldn’t say it’s fine

either, but she’d only say that to be a copycat. But I’m big and I know that it’s not fine at

all. Not by me, mister. Sister. Hedda’s my sister. She wouldn’t say it’s fine. Wouldn’t

won’t can’t. She can’t say it’s fine.

My face started to feel hot and I realized that I was sweating onto my pencil and it

was hard to hold it. Mommy said it would be fine. She said that. She did. She said that

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right into my face and I know for sure I heard her right because I heard all sorts of things

this week and that was most definitely certainly positively one hundred and a billion

percent something that I heard her say. I’m real good at listening.

Oh no. This letter was not going well at all, my hand shaking all over the place

and making it a big sloppy mess. I decided to pretend I was an iceberg so that I wouldn’t

feel so hot and bothered. Hot and bothered, that’s what Mommy says. Mommy says it’s

going to be fine. But it’s not.

I drew Evie a deer, an owl, please-men, flowers, and lightning. I thought that

would show her what exactly my week had been like. Then I wrote I’m sorry one more

time and I put Love, Hannah. Because it’s ok to say love when it’s your best friend or

your grandma. But if you put that to a boy then people sing songs about you and not nice

songs.

I folded up the letter, put it in the envelope that Mommy wrote on and then I put

stickers on. I put the square one that you need to send it, and then I put other ones that

you don’t need but I like putting them anyway. Evie and I always give stickers to each

other on paper and then Hedda and I pull them off the paper they’re on and stick them to

the floor under her bed. There’s so many under there you can’t even see the floor that

good. It’s under the bed so that you can’t see it unless you look. Mommy and Daddy

don’t know where to look.

I gave the envelope back to Mommy and she dropped her lips on top of my head

for a quick second but I jumped away. I couldn’t help it, because it’s not fine, and Hedda

can’t say it’s fine and neither can I. Mommy said it was. But it’s not.

Isn’t that a lie?

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Saturday

Daddy says not to think about tomorrow. Well, all right, I won’t, but I can’t

exactly help it since tomorrow is tomorrow and we’re digging a hole and putting a stone

on top of it. I always wondered, what do the stones even do? Are they to warn pirates not

to rip up the rock and look for buried treasure, because all they’ll get is a gross body?

That’s nice for the pirates, so that they know where not to dig up the ground and interrupt

the worms.

The microphone lady and the camera men were here for two days but today they

finally went away, for the most part. Mommy said, “I am fed up with this treatment,” and

she got on the phone and got the please-men to scare the people away.

She said, sooner or later I’ll have to go to school again. I said, later, thank you.

She said, sooner, missy. I said, no thank you, later. She said, sooner. And I said, I don’t

care. It’s true. Why should I care what she says if it’s not even true? She might just lie

about school anyway. I don’t care.

Since the people outside went away, Daddy took a deep breath and put on his

working clothes and went out. Mommy took a deep breath and went upstairs and lay

down in her bed for the one-millionth time this week. At the bottom of the stairs she said

“I love you as big as the universe.” She said that because we used to do that when I was

little.

This is how it used to work. I said, “I love you as big as a chair.” And she said, “I

love you as big as a bed.” And I said, “I love you as big as a kitchen.” And she said, “I

love you as big as the house.” And I said, “I love you as big as a tree.” And she said, “I

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love you as big as a lake.” And it kept going until we got all the way to the universe and

then she kissed me and I went to sleep, after I listened to Hedda’s little breathing. It

didn’t have to be the same things every time, we just had to end with the universe last.

The actual steps don’t matter for a lot of things. It’s just the ending.

Today is the seventh day in a long week of bad sounds. When the house was quiet

I sat in the flowers up to my neck. Dead flowers. We don’t throw them out. I didn’t know

why, because they’re ugly now, like dead animals hanging on trees. But then I heard

Daddy say to Mommy, “Hedda’s flowers.” No wonder we don’t throw them out.

I was sitting there, just like I did every day. Then I got hot again. It’s not fine. I

tried to be an iceberg or a walrus or a polar bear. I tried to be cold. I put my hands under

cold water but I didn’t even feel it. I put them in the freezer but I didn’t feel it there

either. Daddy calls it ‘nerves,’ what makes you feel, but I wonder if there’s two different

kinds of nerves because I say to Hedda, stop it, you’re getting on my nerves.

No no no, I do not say that to Hedda. Not anymore, I don’t. She can’t even say it’s

fine. Not because she doesn’t know how to, but because she doesn’t have a mouth

anymore. I don’t even think she has a body anymore.

Yes she does, I remember now: don’t think about tomorrow. Don’t think about

putting her little-breath body in the ground.

I pick up each of the dead flower vases and weigh them in my hands. Even all

together, they don’t weigh as much as Hedda. All added up, they aren’t even close to

equaling my sister.

I throw each of them onto the ground. And they smash. I think I step on a few of

the pieces and they burn my feet, like when we play hot lava and can’t touch the ground.

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Oopsies, I’m building a new ground made of water and shattered pieces and dead

flowers. Every vase crashes to the floor. It’s the first sound I’ve heard all week that

doesn’t hurt my ears.

It’s not a flower room now. It’s not a living room now. Now there’s nothing that’s

really truly alive in the whole entire house. Maybe in the whole entire world.

The sounds of the dead flowers hitting the floor were so loud, and I think Mommy

may have heard me and will come to check, and then she’ll be mad because now I ruined

Hedda’s flowers on top of just ruining Hedda. I run through the house like a cheetah but

not as fast because I’m not a cheetah, I’m just me. I listen to everything like an owl but

I’m not an owl, I’m just a girl. I try to cool this burning in my feet and my throat and my

hands and my face but I’m not an iceberg, I’m just small and warm.

I smash through the back door and jump off the porch, running faster and faster.

My leg twists but I just run on it anyway and it feels good to make it hurt. I stop by the

hole my Daddy dug and never filled in. He lied, too. Just like Mommy did.

It’s not fine.

Daddy left the shovel right there, but I don’t want to touch any metal so I jump

right onto my knees and start pushing the deep wet dirt into the hole again. It smells like

worms and animals, and I thought I would hear them because I’m so close to the ground.

But all I hear is a sad bird noise. This time it’s coming from me.

It took me so long to put all the dirt back in, what with having to wipe my eyes

dry so I could see. I pushed it in with my feet, my hands, my whole body; any part of me

I could use, I used. I threw handfuls of it down so that no one would ever see the metal L-

shape just like the one that made red blood come out of Hedda when I picked it up. I was

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being careful too, when I picked it up from the under the front seat and pulled on its

hook. That’s when the Boom happened.

I don’t want to see or hear or taste or smell that Boom ever again. I’m going to

put it away for good, since Mommy couldn’t tell the truth and Daddy couldn’t put the dirt

where it came from to help the worms.

Now all the dirt is back right where it belongs. That’s what ‘it’s fine’ looks like:

every speck back in its place. I yell and scream and holler and stomp and jump and crush

the dirt back into the ground as hard as I can. There are rocks under my feet and roots and

sticks and sharp things but I think they bounce off because I am harder than a stone.

No, Mommy didn’t make it fine. I had to make it fine. I put the Boom back in the

ground and it will never come out again. It will never make that sound that took away

Hedda.

I mangle the hole until I don’t feel any legs under me and then I just feel the dirt

because I fall to the ground. My own jumping crushes me.

I’m real good at listening. No one else notices, but I hear it: one last shot in the

earth, underneath me.

Boom.