The days of silence

On the day my cousin died, there were two blue, velvet rocking chairs and one blue velvet couch in the living room. The dog was lying by the screen door with the wind blowing in, on a day in May that was much warmer than usual. Spin the Wheel was on the TV at full volume and in the background if you listened carefully, you could hear the sound of my papa’s western show from his bedroom. The sound of the gunfire and horse hooves also playing at full volume to counter my nana’s show. I had just sat down in the living room on one of those blue velvet chairs and my nana sat across from me on hers.

The sun was setting and we were already in our pajamas, mine was a t-shirt and shorts, hers were a nightgown and thick fuzzy socks with grips on the bottom. Their landline rang and my aunt’s name popped up on the tv screen, blocking the view of the wheel. My nana answered the phone. “Hello?” It was unusually late for them to call.

Something was wrong.

The TV in both of the rooms were still on at full blast. A mixture of “that letter is not correct” and the sound of gunfire rang together as I scrambled to find the remote. I found it and pressed the mute button on the side. I looked from my nana to see my papa already in the hallway waiting to hear what was going on. We made eye contact and his blue eyes squinted so that his eyelashes touched on top and bottom. My nana reached for her white tennis shoes that were too tight with the socks that she had on and hung up the phone.

Something was wrong and we both knew it. There was thirty seconds between this moment and the chaos that followed where the only noise was the wind coming in through the screen door.