She Pretends Not to Speak

By Victoria Hewitt

Her hair is grayed at the temples now. Her bones are more brittle and her voice cracks when she speaks to her cat. Her children live across the country with families of their own and her husband of 40 years passed away from the impact of the car that struck him while crossing the street a few years back.  She became exhausted by the pity party put upon her by everyone she knew after he died, so she closed herself off from most. Preferring the company of her cat and eventually imitating the loss of her voice so she wouldn’t have to answer any more silly questions from those that still looked at her with remorseful eyes.  The whites of her own shot through with red.

She lays on her old worn leather couch. Broken in just right at the middle while the cat kneads her deflated chest with his front paws.  He powerfully arches his back as if sharpening his claws or pummeling a mother for milk. And she listens to the seagulls complain outside the window where the sea is choppy and gray on this day.  She thinks of how nice it is to have this control over this non-speaking. It has been better for her. She doesn’t complain as much. How much nicer would her marriage have been if she had lived more silently before her husband’s light had been put out.  She pictures now the way he shifted his balance when he was nervous for her outbursts of anger.  Sighing regretfully over should of’s and would of’s the cat, done with her now, leaps to the floor and in her gravelly voice she calls to him, “come back, come back kitty cat!”

There is a knock at the door and standing there is the crooked and crotchety old neighbor who continues to flirt with her for years now for some reason. His whole body sagged. His shoulders curled over, and his back arched like an over cooked noodle. She smiled at him without speak as he hands her chocolates, and she shuts the door to go sip a glass of wine. Her finger slides over the top of the glass, circling it and it sings with the movement of her wrist.  She hums along. 

Victoria is a poet and short story creator who writes for herself and hopes to touch others with her words. Her family and the sea give her inspiration. She gets giddy when in the presence of both. The family includes two cats which are polar opposites as well as a dog who tolerates feline moods, just grateful to be a part of something.