S Is for Silence

and pecans.”
    “I don’t feel like eating.”
    “Not even one? You hardly ate your supper so you must be a little hungry. Can I come in? Just for a minute?”
    “I guess.”
    Kathy went back to her bed and sat down. Her mother put the glass of milk and the plate of brownies on the bed table. She could tell the brownies were still warm because she could smell the chocolate, as heady as perfume. She couldn’t remember when her mother last offered her something to eat. Usually it was the other way around. Yet here they were, Kathy with her heart broken, her mother sitting on the other twin bed, her expression filled with concern. “Are you feeling better?”
    “No.” Without looking at the plate, Kathy reached out and took a brownie and held it in her hand.
    Her mother said, “I can see how upset you are.”
    “So.”
    “I can understand why you’re mad at Liza for lying, but is there anything else?”
    “Like what?” She broke off a corner and put it on her tongue. She could feel tears sting her eyes.
    “I don’t know, Sweetie. That’s why I asked. I get the impression there’s more here than meets the eye. Is there anything you want to talk about?”
    Kathy couldn’t figure out what her mother was getting at. “Not really.”
    “Kathykins, I don’t want us keeping secrets. That’s not what a mother and daughter do when they want to feel close.”
    Her mother hadn’t called her “Kathykins” since she started her menstrual periods a year and a half ago. Her mother had already bought supplies—a box of sanitary napkins and this strappy elastic-belt thing you had to wear around your waist to hold the pad in place. Demonstrating how to stick the long, gauzy part of the pad in the fastener, she’d had the same worrisome look on her face, like maybe Kathy was suddenly vulnerable in ways she couldn’t bear to explain. Her mother went on in that same loving tone. “I know you’re withholding something. Can you tell me what it is?”
    “I’m not withholding anything.” She broke the remainder of the brownie in two and put half in her mouth.
    “You know I’ll always love you, no matter what you’ve done.”
    Kathy looked up with astonishment. “Muuther, I didn’t do anything! How can you think such a thing when I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”
    “Then what? I want you to be absolutely honest. Whatever you tell me will never leave this room.”
    Kathy was silent, staring at the floor. She didn’t exactly have a secret but she did have something that seriously concerned her. She knew her mother would have good advice, but she wasn’t really sure she could trust her with this. “You’ll tell Dad.”
    “No, I won’t. As long as it doesn’t have anything to do with your health or safety. Short of that, this is just between us.”
    “It’s not about me.”
    “Then who? Liza? Did she say something ugly about your weight?”
    “No-oo.” Two syllables. Something ugly about her weight? What ugly thing could her mother possibly have in mind? She was the one who talked about inner beauty.
    “But it has to do with her?”
    “Sort of.”
    “Has her mother’s drinking gotten worse?”
    Kathy shook her head, avoiding her mother’s gaze. “I’m just worried, that’s all.”
    “Oh? And why would that be?”
    Kathy had vowed to herself she’d never utter a word of it. Once she figured out how to get Liza to confess, she pictured the two of them in long, heartfelt conversations, sitting up half the night the way they’d done in the past. They’d roll their hair in bobby pins and smear Noxzema on their faces so they wouldn’t get zits. Gently, she’d help Liza see the error of her ways and guide her to safer ground.
    Her mother studied her. “I don’t understand what could possibly be going on with Liza that you’re too ashamed to say.”
    Kathy felt she was under a certain amount of pressure here, torn between her loyalty to her best friend and her longing to throw herself into her mother’s arms. “I promised I wouldn’t tell.”
    “Does this have anything to do with Liza touching herself?”
    “Touching herself with what?”
    She saw something shift in her mother’s face. “Oh my lord. Is she letting Ty Eddings have his way with her?”
    Kathy could feel a little mustache of perspiration forming on her lip.
    “Answer me.”
    Kathy murmured a reply, keeping it as vague as possible to keep from lying to her mom.
    “Speak up.”
    “She let him touch