Hush by Sara Marshall-Ball

was. Maybe it wasn’t healthy. He took it for granted; tried to make it as easy as possible. Maybe he actually made her worse, letting her spend so much of her life in silence. But then, that was why she loved him.
    He assumed.
    As he assumed so much. Because, of course, she never said a fucking word about it.
    In one motion he lifted the glass in his hand and flung it against the wall, sending whisky flying up his arm and across the room. Splashing brazenly across the wall. The glass shattered, and fell in a million pieces behind the unit which held the TV.
    He breathed deeply, shakily, and waited to see if she’d wake up.
    Not a sound.
    He pressed ‘play’ on the answerphone, and listened as his boss explained in weary tones why he would never make it as a journalist.
     
    Lily awoke to the sound of breaking glass. Lay in perfect stillness to see what would come afterwards. Nothing but the low rumble of the television and, after a minute, the electronic chatter of the answerphone, indecipherable.
    She could remember lying in bed as a child, listening to her parents arguing. Breaking glass had always been followed by slamming doors. And then the agonising wail of her mother’s tears. Anna had never troubled to keep quiet, never worried about who heard what.
    Lily lay in the darkness, listening, but no further sound came from the living room. She waited for two hours until she heard Richard move, and then she turned over and pretended to be asleep. He crept into the bedroom, slipped under the covers with a minimum of movement. Didn’t disturb her, except to lean over and lightly kiss her on the forehead.
    She fell asleep with the imprint of his lips still burning on her skin.

then
    The driveway went on forever. There had been wrought iron gates at the entrance, improbably high, but that had been at least five minutes ago. The comforting crackle of tyres on gravel made Lily feel as if she were coming home. But this place wasn’t home. All she could see were trees, and, far in the distance, a house as big as a palace.
    Her parents were talking in the front, but she couldn’t hear what they were saying. The radio was on, playing a song that she knew. She didn’t sing along, but she mouthed the words, echoing the tune in her head. Some of the words were unrecognisable, and she made up her own language to fit in the gaps.
    They pulled up next to some stone steps, which led up to a door at least twice the size of their front door at home. There was a brass knocker, a gargoyle with a loop in its mouth that sneered down at them from above. The building was very long, with rows of windows in both directions, neatly lined up with the windows on the floors above. All the windows had bars across them.
    ‘What do you reckon, Lils?’ Her father turned round from the driver’s seat to face her. She looked up, but didn’t reply.
    ‘There’s no point, Marcus.’ Her mother’s mouth, twisted with the bitterness of her own bad luck.
    ‘We wouldn’t be here if there was no point. Come on, Lily. Let’s go and find out if anyone’s home, shall we?’
    Her mother didn’t bother waiting for Lily to answer.
    ‘You go,’ she said. ‘I’ll park the car.’
    Her father mumbled something that Lily didn’t hear and climbed out of the car, opening the rear door so that she could follow. Her mother shifted awkwardly into the driver’s seat. She didn’t look at the back seat.
    ‘Come on,’ her father said, reaching down to take Lily’s hand. She let him, and followed him up the stairs. The car drove off behind her.
    ‘Do you want to knock on the door?’
    Lily looked up at the knocker, with its gargoyle that glinted slightly in the mid-afternoon sun. It looked more menacing than it had done from the car. She shook her head.
    ‘Okay, then.’
    Her father reached up, grasped the loop of brass firmly in his fist, and knocked three times.
     
    The inside of the house was dark, despite all the windows Lily had seen from the