Well-practiced silence

The restaurant they chose was in a strip mall, but the exterior had a façade of dark stained wood. The interior was dimly lit for the dinner service and the tones were deep green and deep, red brown. Fort Collins is not a huge city by any means, but by the time I got to the restaurant, Dean and Bonnie had already been seated at a booth with overstuffed, leather upholstery. And they had already ordered their food without me being there. It was nearly 8pm, and I had eaten much earlier in the evening, so I simply slid into the booth they were in, and I ordered a drink.

We made small talk about travel and work, and they politely asked about my wife and my sons. I was in a slightly maudlin mood, and I risked telling my sister that I was proud of her. I was proud of how far she had come from the runaway I knew when I was eleven. How far she had come from the ward of the state she was when she was in her late teens. How she had gotten her GED, then her bachelor’s degree, her masters, and then had earned her Ph.D.

“Maybe it’s because I have been thinking about everything we went through with Mom,” I told her. “But before we talk about anything else, I have to tell you how proud I am of you. Everything you’ve done is amazing.”

Her response was to avoid looking at me and to keep eating in silence. It was the same silence she’d mastered as a child, the kind that could make you disappear even when you were sitting right there. I recognized it because I’d learned it too—we’d both developed ways of vanishing without leaving the room. But I’d thought that somehow, all these years later, after everything she’d accomplished, we might have moved past the need to protect ourselves from each other.