"Life changes and we are left with the quiet." Those are the only words she could fully remember from her sister's letter. There was something about her niece moving to the midwest on account of Roger's job and a somewhat scary late night false alarm caused by a raccoon triggering the new security system her husband insisted upon, but in lieu of those striking words that registered somewhere between banal and profound, all of that other stuff had already begun to sift down into the recycled realm of her subconscious. Leaving her with the quiet. Yes, she had told Caroline that it had gotten quiet since the kids left after Christmas, but she wasn't so much complaining as stating a simple fact during one of the handful of conversations they'd had in recent years over the phone filed under "catching up." Elizabeth and Edward made an extraordinarily polite pairing and oh how wonderful it was to see her baby Charles before he embarked on that post graduate journey. It seemed only natural to feel a temporary bout of despair upon their departure and to share those sentiments in an apropos manner. But why did her words read so cold, so quiet?
She walked along the lake the day of the letter, thinking she really hadn't taken advantage of the serene spot she'd settled upon in the wake of Tom's passing. It was a kind spot really, cordial, she might even describe it as if anyone asked. The way firewood billowed unanimously from the surrounding chimneys each fall night, or the serendipitous evening in which Christmas bulbs lit up all at once as if it was ordained. Her house had all the makings of a home too, she thought. Cluttered in coziness. So much so that even her memories sometimes recycled themselves here, and she had to remind herself on Christmas morning that the kids hadn't ever run down those carpeted stairs to retrieve their presents. No, she supposed this wasn't always her home as she watched the remaining light dip below tall trees that had certainly guarded the landscape for generations, and returned back inside.
She read the letter again sometime later, once again clinching onto the those quiet words so tightly that she had apparently squeezed everything else into oblivion. It wasn't that she didn't care about her sister's life. Good Heavens, they were soul mates once upon a time. She would carry her around in her arms like a doll, bestowing kisses and kindness onto Caroline like a baby who no doubt relished in the warmth of being the center of existence. It's impossible to fathom how Andrew lured her kisses elsewhere. Then Tom. Could it...? No, it seems too cold to consider that her sister was now returning the favor, reminding her of the life changing events that transpired so long ago that potentially left her in the quiet while wedding bells rang in her own ears.
There was no doubt quiet crackling loudly from the fireplace tonight. That had been the case for sometime though. Embers softly whispering until they could no longer be heard at all. But what worried her was that the quiet had started to come earlier now. No longer confounded to the dark, it steadily crept up into all waking hours until the final vestige of melody was in the first instant of tangled consciousness that morning brought. She could try and drown out the quiet with walks along the shoreline or television of even the sleeping pills she feared she was becoming dependent on, but in the end she knew the quiet would be heard.
