Weight of Silence by Heather Gudenkauf Page A

dad would say, ‘When fairies dance upon the air, reach out gently and catch one, fair. Make a wish and hold it tight, then softly toss your pixie back to summer’s night.’ My dad said his granny from Ireland told him that and that the wishes really come true. Every summer when we’d see dandelion fluff we tried to catch one, make a wish, and then blow it back into the air.”
    “What’d you wish for?” I asked.
    “Stuff.” Louis, all of a sudden bashful, dropped his spoon and ran toward the woods, grasping at fluff as he went.
    “What kind of stuff?” I called as I chased him.
    “For the Cubs to win the pennant, things like that.” He wasn’t looking at me.
    “What about your dad? Do you ever wish for your dad?” I asked softly. His shoulders sagged and I thought he would take off running again.
    “Naw, dead is dead. It doesn’t work for stuff like that. You gotta wish for money or to be a movie star or something.” He handed me a soft white wish. “What are you going to wish for?”
    I thought for a moment, and then blew it gently from my hand, the cottony wisp floating away.
    “What did you wish for?” he asked again.
    “For the Cubs to win the pennant, of course,” I responded. He laughed and we ran off to play in the creek.
    That wasn’t my wish though. I wished for him to have his dad back, just in case.
    Eight years later, when we were sixteen, we were back at the creek. We had just made love for the first time and I was tearful. I couldn’t put into words what I was feeling. I knew I loved him, I knew that what we had done wasn’t a mistake, but still I wept. Louis was trying to make me smile, tickling me and pulling funny faces, but tears just kept rolling down my face no matter what he tried. Finally, in an act of desperation, I suppose, he ran from the creek. I sat there, devastated, pulling my clothes on, mucus dropping from my nose. I had lost Louis, my best friend. He came back moments later, though. He held his two hands in front of him clenched tightly.
    “Pick a hand,” he said, and I chose his left. He opened his palm and inside were three frail white tufts of a dandelion. “Three wishes,” he said and then opened his other fist to reveal three more dandelion fairies, “for each of us.”
    “You first,” I said through my tears, finally, a smile on my face.
    “That the Cubs win the pennant.” He grinned and I laughed. “That I become a policeman.” Then his young man’s face became serious. “And that you will love me forever. Your turn,” he said quickly.
    I thought for a moment. “To live in a yellow house.” I looked carefully at Louis’s face to see if he was laughing at me. He wasn’t. “To visit the ocean,” I continued. “And…” the tears resumed, great sloppy tears “…that you’ll love me forever.”
    Three years later, Louis had gone away to college and I married Griff. Damn fairies, I thought to myself now. I don’t live in a yellow house, I’ve never been to the ocean, and Louis didn’t love me forever. And my Calli, my dear heart, is missing. All that I touch gets damaged or lost.

D EPUTY S HERIFF L OUIS
    Once again I am sitting at Toni’s kitchen table, a sweating glass of iced tea in front of me. This time Agent Fitzgerald is sitting next to me instead of Martin. I worry, when this is over, Martin will never speak to me again. And I fear that Toni won’t, either. I can tell Toni doesn’t know what to make of Fitzgerald, his precise, unemotional questions. She wonders if he is judging her and her mothering. I see her turning over each of his questions, searching for any hidden meaning, any tricks, I suppose because she is so used to Griff’s manipulative ways.
    Finding Toni curled up on her couch, delivering a dead baby girl four years ago, I’d hoped that she would wise up and get rid of Griff for good. Granted, I don’t know exactly what happened that winter night, just that Ben had come home and found his mother covered in a