Eloquent Silence by Margaret Weise Page A

their dinner amidst various complaints about pumpkin, Brussels sprouts and the lack of their usual scoop of ice cream. Banana custard and jelly was acceptable but it was much better topped with ice cream. They were not impressed but had finally finished their meal and left the table to go their various ways.
    Annie supervised the girls’ bathing. At nine and ten Ruth and Sarah were well able to bath themselves but forgot small details like scrubbing the red-brown Birkenwald Downs soil from the soles of their feet or washing behind their ears, typical childhood avoidances.
    Searching for the busy four-year-old David, she found him in the next door neighbor’s yard in the red pedal-car he had inherited from the younger of his two sisters, Sarah. Annie was glad her little boy felt well enough that day to seek the company of the two small neighboring children, as he had often liked to play with them in the days before he became ill. They were closer in age to him than his sisters and he had been in the habit of seeking them out at some time during most of the long days in early summer.
    But then Glandular Fever had taken its toll on him, changing his little life almost beyond recognition.
    It had been a sluggishly warm and hazy afternoon on the down side of the Christmas holidays, heading into the new school year. The girls would return to Primary School and if David happened to be well enough, he would go to Kindergarten.
    The sisters, Ruth and Sarah, separated in age by only one year and three days, appeared more like twins than sisters.  Ruth had been born prematurely, taking quite some years to catch up to ‘normal’ size for her age and was still a smidgen behind in height. Sarah was a lovely-natured, nicely-covered child, apparently placid and secure until her father hit his straps. He would proceed to scare the living daylights out of her with his temper, pulling a mind trip on her by telling her how stupid and unwanted she was.
    Annie collected David, biding him to say goodnight to the neighboring children, Katy and Barry Simpkins, and come home for his bath. He objected quietly in his easy, pleasant way, but soon gave in and drove his pedal-car down the Jacksons’ driveway and back into his own yard.
    Annie was determined to stick to her guns with David, as hard as she found it to refuse him anything, even an extra five minutes to play with his friends. He was heartbreakingly thin and pale. Annie was filled with sickening dread every time she thought of David’s future health or lack of it.
    My God, he looks exactly like those pictures I’ve seen of the little Jewish children in the concentration camps that the Nazi’s had during the war, she thought as she followed the little boy back into their own yard.
    His sickness was so horrendous for the small boy and his recovery was so prolonged that Annie felt compelled to be lenient with him until he recovered a little more. He was plagued by bouts of recurring fever and pains in the joints of his arms and legs. At his worst he had suffered episodes of such a high fever that he had felt spiders crawling all over him in his delirium. Annie could still hear his terrified screaming as she relived the horror of his illness. In her mother’s heart she wanted him to rest while at the same time she wanted him to participate in rough-and-tumble play if he so chose.
    His recuperation from the debilitating and horrendous Glandular Fever had been slow and although not fatal in itself, it was quite terrifying for a parent to watch.  Annie sometimes blamed herself for David’s illness, as she had been in the habit of buying milk from a local dairy farmer; beautiful, rich and creamy but unpasteurized.
    But then Annie sometimes blamed herself for everything. That was how she had been taught to function by her loving, faithful husband in the days before Domestic Violence became recognized for what it is, becoming a monstrous public issue. For the longest time she had been blinded