Echoes in the Silence

ARIZONA 1976

“Papa, look!” Maddy held the worm in her tiny fingers and watched it wriggle. “It moves on me.”

“I guess he must like you,” Bush replied to his four-year-old.

“I guess.” She inspected it some more.

“Be careful with him. They like to be in damp soil, so you might want to put him back.”

“Oh. I thought he would be my friend.” Maddy wrinkled her nose in disappointment. She carefully lowered the worm back into the hole she’d dug and stared at it.

Bush frowned at the size of the hole she managed to dig with only a hand trowel. Maddy cutely smiled at him. “My little heartbreaker,” he gushed.

“What do I do with him now?”

“Let him go about his worm business.”

“What’s that?”

“Nobody knows except the secret worm society,” he replied.

“I don’t know any worm secrets.” Maddy’s face crumpled with worry.

Bush wiped the sweat from his eyes and sucked in a lungful of the hot, dry air. He looked around for Laura, hoping she might have a better answer. The intense heat created a haze in the valley below, and a river of sweat ran down his spine. He still needed to dig out the rest of the old lettuce and cabbage rows so they were ready to fertilize and start afresh. Maddy had created a mess with the hand trowel and somehow trenched two feet deep. “Cover him up. They like that,” Bush said.

“Won’t he be afraid in the dark? How will he breathe?”

Bush jammed his spade into the soil and knelt beside her. “Worms live in the soil. It’s their home. They love it, especially when we leave them alone. They help keep the soil healthy so long as you don’t get too many of them.” He scooped some soil over the worm.

“Worms help things to grow?” she asked, her tiny voice filling with amazement.

“Kind of.”

“Should we put worms in momma’s tummy?” Her innocent question almost crushed her papa.

Bush knew his little one had overheard the phone conversations from the kitchen where Laura told her friend she was officially infertile. Laura lamented she could not have the large family she so desired. Maddy didn’t miss anything and repeated whatever she heard - always with the brightest and best intentions. Bush wiped some of Maddy’s knotted hair from her sweet face. “I don’t think momma would like worms in her belly.” He tickled Maddy’s tummy. “Nice of you to think of helping her, though. Momma’s tummy can’t be healed with worms or anything.”

“Does that mean I can’t have a baby sister?” she asked, her big blue eyes filling with tears.

“I’m afraid it does.” He looked again for Laura, knowing Maddy would soon be inconsolable. “We’re all incredibly sad about it,” Bush whispered to Maddy with his hand softly rubbing between her tiny shoulders. He forced a smile to hide his pain and the agony he felt for Laura.

The specialist’s news had come as a bitter blow, if not a surprise. Laura’s body had been through it in the last few years, not to mention the devastating effect on her state of mind. Five miscarriages had led to many emotional lows. Laura never gave up hope until now. Bush wanted to give her the large family she. Now, he didn’t know what else to say or do.

Maddy began to make the little noise she always did before the tears came.

“There, there. We’ll be fine,” Bush tried consoling her. “We have to show momma how much we love her and be grateful for the family that we’ve got. The four of us have to take care of each other.”

“Skip doesn’t care. Skip said he hates girls. He said that I smell.” Maddy’s tears pushed from the corners of her eyes.

“Skip ought to keep his opinions to himself. He loves you and momma. You know that?”

“I don’t think he does,” she sniffed as her tiny face wrinkled.

“Sure, he does. I know he’s sometimes mean, but boys can be mean to girls sometimes.”

“He’s always mean,” Maddy wept.

“He doesn’t mean it. Boys, especially big brothers, sometimes forget that girls are…well, different,” Bush said, embarrassed about his inability to explain something basic to his daughter. He glanced at either side of the yard wishing Laura were here. Skip must have been at Maddy again. He was running around somewhere at the back of the house, and Bush would need to have words with him. Their seven-year-old boy was sometimes too high energy for his own good.

“Look, the worm is all happy. He stayed under the soil; you see?” Bush pointed with glee, but Maddy carried on sobbing. He turned his head away, “Godammit,” he muttered, “Laura, where are you?”

“I don’t smell, do I?” Maddy whimpered.

“No. Course not.” Her question caused Bush to take a whiff of himself quickly. Working in this heat in the yard meant he could not say the same.

“Hey, baby, what’s wrong?” Laura’s soothing voice asked Maddy as she placed her basket of fresh-picked tomatoes on the ground. She looked accusingly at her husband as to why he hadn’t solved the issue, and her gaze showed her concern as to why he was sniffing his armpits while their daughter was crying in the dirt.

“Skip hates me, and papa said I can’t have a baby sister,” Maddy wailed.

“That’s not what I said.”

Laura narrowed her stare at Bush for not taking care of it. He shrugged, rose from his knees, and returned to the vegetable patch.

“Nobody hates you,” Laura insisted, picking up her little bundle of hugs and kisses. “Didn’t papa tell you that we all love you?”

“Nooo.”

“He’s a naughty papa. Should momma spank him?” Laura gave Bush a faint smirk, which he ruefully returned.

“No. Boys are sometimes mean to girls,” Maddy repeated. “He didn’t mean it,” Maddy said all sniffly.

“C’mon, it’s too hot to be outside digging in this heat. We’ll leave that to the peasants,” Laura teased. Bush raised a pair of suggestive eyebrows at his wife.

“What’s a peasant?” Maddy asked as she curled around her momma’s neck.

“Let’s go inside and get some lemonade. Then I’ll tell you all about it, huh,” Laura’s suggestion was met with a deep nod of Maddy’s brown curly hair. Laura pointed a playful finger at Bush to let him know she’d have more to say to him.

“Even peasants need love,” Bush called. He blew Laura a kiss and stood with his hands on his hips, observing what else was needed. “Bring me some of that lemonade,” he shouted after his wife. Bush picked up his shovel and jammed the blade into the compact earth.

August in Flagstaff was blazing hot, and it had been in the high nineties for three days. Bush said the weather would soon settle back to a manageable seasonal temperature. Instead, the weather made a liar out of him. “It’s worse than Phoenix,” he moaned.

Bush Batty preferred the fall and spring weather, where he felt he could get more done. The heatwave was too much, but he had to get the vegetable garden in full production. He would need to be in the shade of the house in a few more minutes. Their home was old, and they couldn’t afford summer air conditioning or appropriate winter heating. Bush was only thirty-six, but the cold Flagstaff winters made his bones feel like he was ninety-six. Heating and air conditioning would be most welcome in the crumbling Batty household. Bush’s music teacher’s salary and Laura’s part-time job at Dillon’s tool store were barely enough to pay the mortgage, put food on the table, and put gas in the car.

The doors and windows were wide open, trying to find the elusive cross-breeze. A single ceiling fan turned slowly in the main living space. The house stood on the half-acre lot since 1932. The wooden boards suffered from dry rot, and one side of the front porch collapsed, making it unusable. In addition, the shingled roof was hanging on by some unknown force that one heavy snowfall could easily tear down.

Bush had bought the house and land from his uncle Jeb when he and Laura first married. That seemed so long ago, but those eight years in between made 1968 seem like a distant memory. “It gets hotter every damned year,” he complained. He stopped digging and looked at their ramshackle home. Despite working hard and giving their best, he disappointedly sighed at their lack of progress. Having two kids, endless bills, and trying to make ends meet seemed unachievable. Bush recalled that their lives were much more manageable and affordable before having kids. Laura optimistically maintained, “Our lives never really started until we had children.” Bush knew what she meant, but life with Skip and Maddy came with the perpetual stress of added responsibility.

Nevertheless, Bush worshiped his kids. He would never dare tell Laura, but as far as their finances were concerned, being unable to have more children was a blessing in disguise. He wished to launch other things he’d been working on, and soon their fortunes would drastically alter.

Despite their relative lack of modern conveniences, the Battys did not lack in love and gratitude for having each other. Bush would have it no other way, and Laura was the same. Love and family were everything.

Bush and Laura saved hard over the last two years and planned to make some much-needed repairs to their home. “Just you wait,” he warned the property. He pushed his boot into the blade and turned over the earth. Once the vegetable patch was done, Laura would seed it. Bush wanted time to work on his equipment in his homebuilt recording studio.

Bush was the music teacher at Flagstaff South Elementary. It was convenient the school was only three miles from their house in the southwest of the town. Laura’s job was in the center of Flagstaff but only ten minutes away.

He paused and looked at the hazy valley. “We’ll be okay,” he said aloud. His words did little to reassure.

Behind their house was a dense woodland that led into vast hills and beyond the open lands leading to Sedona. Bush liked the solitude their location gave them and meant their kids could run around, free, like he did when he was a boy. He didn’t want them in the town feeling like they had to compete with the other kids regarding toys, gadgets, and modern conveniences. Out in the boondocks, there was no competition, and the Batty’s had no means to compete.

Bush and Laura Batty were barely making it. Their house was on the outskirts of town; however, the grand houses less than a mile away were a reminder of their struggle. Laura never asked for more, but Bush wanted to give her the home comforts their neighbors enjoyed. Skip wanted a Chopper bicycle, which was unaffordable and Skip was too small to ride it anyway. Buh felt embarrassed he couldn’t do more.

The sweat stung his eyes, and the mid-afternoon sun reddened the back of his neck. Growing most of their fruits and vegetables was key to supporting their existence. “Screw it.” He dropped the shovel into the dirt and headed inside.

Laura joked it was like they were living on the frontier. “We’re like a much smaller version of the Waltons,” she liked to say. Bush kept quiet, but her reference made him ashamed that he wasn’t doing better for his family. Laura would sit in the living room knitting in the evenings or mending clothes they’d worn through. It only added to Bush’s feelings of inadequacy. But he was sure that his sound engineering work would soon pay off.

He walked around the house, muttering to himself, taking in the extensive views across the hills in the north. At night they could see the lights from the Lowell Observatory. There, Bush’s daddy had worked his entire life as an engineer. Although Bush was interested in the universe and its wonders, it was music that captured his soul and where he found his gateway to the stars. His father was long gone, and his mom lived behind a bar outside downtown Flagstaff. He repeatedly asked his mom to come and live with them at the house, but she wanted her own space. He missed not seeing her regularly. Rose Batty was more comfortable in the environment she was used to. His mom was a smart woman, always full of sound advice, although less so in her personal choices. Visiting his mom for a couple of hours once a month seemed ungrateful. His mom and Laura got on like a mother and daughter, and his kids loved visiting with Grandma. Next year, if he could put in the cool air system and extend beyond the dining area, his mom could live alongside them and have her own space. Bush wanted his mom away from the bar scene – something she had been associated with for too long. The older generations told legendary stories about Rose Batty, and none of them were pretty.

Skip went sprinting past the rotten front gate, carrying a piece of wood like it were a rifle. The boy stopped, firing imaginary bullets at some invisible foe, and ducked behind the oak tree.

“Hey, young man, get yourself over here!” Bush yelled through the window. Bush stepped outside the back door.

Skip poked his head from behind the tree trunk and dropped his rifle. “Yes, sir,” he heavily sighed. He kicked his weapon to one side, swinging his arms like the pendulum of an old clock as he approached with a dipped head.

“What have you been saying to your sister?”

“Nothing.”

“We tell the truth in this house, remember. What did you say?” his father repeated.

Skip hmphed, and his shoulders dropped further. “Maddy was all talking, and you know how she gets papa. I asked her to quit her hollering, but she kept on. I said she was a stupid girl, and no one liked her, not even me, and not nobody. And I ain’t sorry for saying it,” Skip protested.

“Do you think that’s the right way to treat your sister?” Bush beckoned his boy closer.

“No, sir.” Skip stood alongside his papa, fully expecting a timeout or a hand clipping up the side of his head. “But she just kept on going.”

Bush put an arm around the frustrated boy’s shoulders. “Now listen, Skip, you must be nice to your sister, especially now. You know momma can’t have any more babies, and she’s all upset. Maddy’s just following along as she does. You know your sister soaks up all our worries. She can’t help it.”

“I know. Momma said my sister is like our family conscience or something,” he said, not fully understanding.

“Try saying you didn’t mean it and sound like you’re sorry. Can you do that?”

“What if she starts all over again? She hurts my ears sometimes.”

“If she does, you remember that she’ll be the only direct blood you’ll ever have, so you treat her right, even if she gets uppity on the odd occasion,” Bush advised with a friendly squeeze of the sweaty little shoulders.

“Yes, sir. I’ll try. She’s too much. I love her and all that, but I ain’t old enough to understand women,” Skip explained with a giant shrug.

Bush turned his head to not laugh in his son’s face. “Good boy. Momma’s serving lemonade, so go on inside and cool off. And tell Maddy you’re sorry.”

“Yes, sir.” Skip raced away.

“And fetch me some,” Bush shouted. “Burning my damn balls off,” he complained.

Ten minutes later, the family was sitting in the shade of the back porch. Laura was rocking in her favorite chair with Maddy in her lap. Skip was still brooding, sitting next to his papa on the wooden bench. They soaked in the hazy view over the hills as the hot Sunday afternoon sun scorched the earth.

“Papa, can we go down and see if there’s anything in the ponds?” Skip asked as if suddenly revived by the lemonade.

“Oh, papa, please, can we?” Maddy begged.

Laura scrunched her face to one side, widening her eyes to let Bush know it was his call. He looked at the mound of upturned soil, still not finished. There was no sign of the heat letting up, and at least there would be plenty of shade down at the creek beds. “Tell you what – we’ll head down in an hour, but we come right back if there is no water.”

“I’ll get our fishing rods,” Skip cried out. The rods were two pieces of skinny bamboo with string crudely tied to one end.

“I’m coming too,” Maddy declared, chasing Skip to the shed.

“Help your sister,” Laura called out to Skip. Once the kids were out of earshot, Laura looked at her husband and his glistening forehead. “Make sure you get them tired out, but save some energy for me,” she said, showing a crafty spark in her gaze.

“Message received, skipper.” Bush flexed two suggestive eyebrows. “You sure?”

“Positive. I want all of you bathed and those two early to bed. Their momma needs something this weekend besides lemonade and chasing around after everyone.”

Bush kissed Laura’s cheek. Then, he spun around, marched across the yard, pulled the spade from the ground, and flung it over his shoulder like a soldier marching off to war. “I can finish this during the week. Let me get the kids to the creek and get them early to bed.”

“Don’t let them put their feet in that water. Skip’s toes still don’t look right after last time.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he saluted his loving wife.

She shooed him away with a dismissive hand and pulled up her cotton dress to reveal a quick glimpse of her skinny white thighs. It was enough to have Bush circle around and move towards her. “Go on now. You can get a closer look later,” she flightily dismissed him.

“Aww,” he sulkily turned, like a kid whose ball had burst.

Four hours later, Bush found himself in the tub with both kids fighting for space on the opposite end. “Quit splashing,” he told Skip.

“I can’t clean under my arms,” the boy said, knocking his elbows to the side of the tub as if to prove his point.

“That’s because you’re not trying. Lift one arm and use your other hand to get some soap under there,” Bush instructed. Maddy stayed perfectly still, curled against his side like she always did on bath night. She had yet to learn to swim and was afraid she could drown in the bath if her papa might let her slip from his grasp. “We’ll clean you in a second,” he said.

“Hurry up. It’s really deep,” Maddy worried.

Laura sat to the side in her thin housecoat, already cleaned head to toe, and ran shampoo through Maddy’s hair.

The Battys were an open family unit. Laura and Bush had some of the seventies hippy wanna-be vibes and taught their kids that their human bodies were perfectly natural and that the family should never have secrets from one another. It stimulated the kids to ask intelligent questions, which both Laura and Bush imagined would make them well-rounded. It was a policy with benefits, although sometimes it could lead to embarrassment in public places as Maddy tended to repeat things like a parrot.

Although their open house policy was productive, it led Bush to grumble, “Maddy walks in on me when I’m taking a dump and asks me questions about stuff she heard at school, or whatever is on her mind. She has no care for whatever’s going on around her.”

“Good. I’m not having her any other way,” Laura said. “I grew up afraid of my own shadow. I won’t have our babies afraid of anything. We’re giving them advantages we never had.”

Bush got it. He loved watching Laura teaching, playing, and interacting naturally with the kids, guiding them through daily life. God designed Laura to be a mom. Bush knew it exhausted her, but he admired how his wife performed motherhood with seemingly effortless grace. Her motherly heart oozed love and kindness, showering Maddy and Skip in a protective coating of affirmations, hugs, kisses, and loving abundance.

Bush told his mom, “Laura keeps our little ones safe and in line. Motherhood done well is a joy to watch.”

“You keep her that way,” Rose warned.

The Batty’s approach quickly developed Skip and Maddy’s minds. It was something that swelled Bush’s soul. Laura served him equally as a partner and lover, but her momma instincts made her stand out. Bush was proud to have her as his wife and had no issues with her first inclination always to their children.

His mom reminded him, “Laura will be a mother before anything else. She loves you as fiercely as any wife could, but she lives for her babies. You know this, and don’t ever forget it. Laura would be lost without the kids as they would be without her.”

Laura had much love to give but, in return, needed them to love on constantly.

Bath time finished and was followed by twenty minutes of the family playing their instruments together. Bush on guitar, Laura on her flute, Maddy on percussion with the Latin cabasa, and Skip on his mouth organ. The kids were put in their beds, and half an hour later, Laura checked they were fast asleep.

Bush lay on the bed eagerly watching as Laura slipped off the white cotton nightdress from her boney shoulders and let it slide to the floor. Her skin was pale, her frame skinny, and her dark pubic mound of hair contrasted against the whiteness of her flesh. She pulled the band from her ponytail and let her hair drop over one shoulder. She knelt beside him on the edge of the bed and presented her sharp pert breasts. Bush didn’t hesitate to pull her close.

It had been two months since they’d shared this intimate exchange. Ever since Laura’s infertility diagnosis, things have been rough. They talked about it, but Bush couldn’t wait to have Laura’s skin against his.

“Say it to me,” she said as Bush thrust himself into her. Bush whispered the words in her ear, and Laura dug her nails into his back. “Say it like you mean it,” she insisted.

Sometime later, they were covered in a fine layer of sweat with their bodies curled together, basking in the aftermath of their union. From outside the back-sliding doors came the sound of insects in the impenetrable darkness of the woodland.

“We have something special here,” Laura breathed against his shoulder.

“It’ll be even more special once we get it fixed up next year. Our savings are almost there,” Bush assured. He kissed Laura’s sticky forehead as she played with the wispy hairs on his chest. “I wish you would play more,” he said, referencing Laura’s flute. “There’s magic in it.”

“You’re biased because you love me too much,” she teased.

“I do, but I’m telling you that the whole world takes notice when you play. You’ve seen it yourself. I’m this close to cracking the code,” he said, pinching two fingers together to demonstrate his point. “It’ll change everything, baby.”

“Does it matter why?” she asked, her voice tired and sleepy.

“It does. Apart from the fact it’s my brilliant, wonderful wife who’s producing those sounds, we owe it to everyone to discover why your music has its effect. If this were 1776, I’m telling you, Laura, they’d burn you at the stake.”

“You wouldn’t let them, would you?”

Bush reached around and patted her butt cheek. “I’d be the inquisitor. I’d force you to tell me the secrets of your witchcraft,” he joked. “Seriously, we have to know why. When the animals come out of the woods and stand next to one another to hear you play without tearing each other to pieces, there’s something you’re doing that removes fear. It pulls them in like a whale song does to an ocean herd.”

“Like a whale, am I?”

“Definitely not, but you’re doing something that nobody can explain. I’ll be the first to uncover it. I haven’t just been tinkering in my studio for nothing. My beautiful wife, this is a game-changer. Perhaps it can be used in treatments or to cure people?”

“I think you had too much sun,” Laura sighed. She adjusted and ran her fingers through the straggly hair on his head. “I should cut this.”

“Yeah, but not too much.” Bush quickly turned over, suddenly full of enthusiasm. “Honey, don’t you see how important this thing is? You’ve broken through something no living person has ever managed before. Imagine, if harnessed, what we could do with that frequency power. I’m so close,” he said, clearly inspired.

She stroked his face and softly kissed his lips. “You’re a good man, Bush Batty. I’m sure you’ll figure it out. You always do.” Laura took the weight off her elbow and rested entirely on the bed, nestling her head into the pillow. “Come here,” she whispered as she turned over. Bush knew what to do. Laura presented her arched spine to him, and he softly teased his fingers slowly up and down the length of her back. She purred, and quickly, her breathing slowed. Within two minutes, Laura was asleep.

Bush wanted to talk more about her flute playing, especially when she hit the high G’s. Laura could make wild animals stop in their tracks and appear en masse at the edge of their yard. He told her she was like one of those Disney cartoon features, where something inexplicable happened, but their family could watch it magically unfolding. Bush knew the answer was in the frequency that she produced. At some point this week, he’d return to his home studio and keep working on it. The prospect of a new musical discovery was Bush’s way to finally achieving something for himself and his family.

He carefully rolled onto his back and stared at the popcorn ceiling. Soon, he thought to himself.