Silence of Shame

The house sat quietly at the end of the street, illuminated by dim street lights and the fading red glow of sunset. Inside, seated at the family’s wooden dining table, 10-year-old Amelia closed her homework notebook and set down her pencil. She looked around at the silent and still kitchen, listening to the quiet buzz of the neighborhood outside the window.

“Mimi!”

Amelia tensed. The nickname grated on her: “Amelia” was kind of a mouthful for a baby learning to speak, but it was her name. Why should she shrink away from her entirety?

“It’ll always be this way,” said Dark Lady from the shadows in the corner. “Don’t fight it.”

Her sister, half her age, barrelled into the room with her bare feet plopping against the linoleum. She charged toward the table and wrapped herself around her sister’s leg. “Mimi! Mimi, I’m hungry!”

The sun set. Amelia was hungry, too. She dropped her feet to the ground and stood. Her sister giggled and released her weight, wrapping her ankles around her leg.

“Nina!” Amelia nearly fell trying to catch her balance.

“Let go, girl!” Dark Lady snarled.

“Stop!”

Nina scrambled to get back to her feet and dropped her gaze to the ground. “Sowwy.”

Amelia brushed herself off. She looked back at the kitchen, darkness seeping through the window, and considered what she could and couldn’t reach. “It’s fine. I’ll... make dinner.”

She had never made dinner before. But her mom had shown her around the kitchen, taught her how to use the toaster and the microwave. What could she make with that?

“Nuggies, p’ease!” Nina’s excitement bubbled over. “And kepsup!”

Amelia couldn’t reach them in the back of the freezer.

“Hot dog!” Nina volunteered. “And kepsup!”

“It’s pronounced ketchup.”

“Kep-chup.”

Amelia let out a long sigh. “I’ll see if we have any kep-chup.”

Nina giggled.

“You’re not a very good teacher,” scolded Dark Lady. “What kind of sister are you if you can’t even help her? What are you good for?”

She grit her teeth and clenched her fists, then stomped toward the refrigerator to start on dinner. Dark Lady never had anything kind to say. Amelia had been taught that if she didn’t have anything nice to say, not to say anything at all. So, she kept quiet.

“Mimi?” Nina asked, plodding after her into the kitchen. “Um, when are Mommy and Daddy coming home?”

The din of the neighborhood dissipated to silence and the streetlights hovered beside the moon like a string of fairy lights. Amelia didn’t see her parents’ car outside the window.

“Maybe they never will come home,” said Dark Lady. “Maybe you’ll be alone forever. With your sister hanging on your leg.”

“I don’t know,” Amelia said, careful not to talk over Dark Lady. “We’re on our own... for now.”

Nina pulled herself onto a chair to sit at the table. “For now,” she said in her sweet voice, assuring them both with the absent comment.

“Don’t let her foolishness blind you,” grumbled Dark Lady. “You should know better.”

Amelia squeezed her lips tight together. She just needed to focus on dinner. Then she would go to bed and when she woke up...

“Stop!” Dark Lady’s voice rattled the walls. Amelia flinched. “You can’t use the kitchen without adult supervision. You’ll break something; you’ll catch on fire; you’ll cut your fingers off. What if Nina climbs in the oven, or what if you burn the house down? You’re just a useless child!”

“I...” Amelia’s eyes darted between the knives, the stove, the microwave, the window - each one a clear and present danger. She grabbed a bowl and filled it with sugary breakfast cereal. “I’m... sorry.”

“Carefully.”

Amelia returned the milk to the fridge, never spilling a drop.

“Here,” she said as she set the meal in front of Nina. “It’s all we have right now.”

“Wha?” Nina’s face fell as she turned teary eyes upward. “But I want hot dogs and kepsup!”

“Spoiled child,” Dark Lady scolded.

“Too bad!”

Nina lifted her small hands over her head, bunched up her face, and slammed her palms down on the table. She smacked against the bowl and sent it teetering, skidding across the tabletop. Milk splattered across Amelia’s homework notebook.

The girls and Dark Lady froze, stunned, in a suspended moment of disbelief. The liquid soaked into the pages.

“It’s ruined!” Dark Lady wailed. “Ruined. Ruined! She ruined it. She ruins everything!”

Nina yanked her hands back to herself, clasping them across her chest. She looked up at Amelia with wide eyes.

Amelia began to shout. “Why did you do that?!”

“I’m sowwy!”

“Punishment!” Commanded Dark Lady. “She deserves punishment.”

Amelia grabbed Nina’s upper arm and jerked her out of the chair. “You’re in so much trouble!”

Nina sobbed. Amelia yanked on her again.

Dark Lady’s voice cut through the child’s crying. “How could she do this to you? Your parents and your teacher will be furious! Send her to her room! Get her out of sight!”

Amelia dragged her sister to her bedroom, a small room with her bed and toys strewn about on a pink rug. Tears and snot spilled down Nina’s red face as she tugged against the stronger girl. “Mimi, I’m sowwy!”

“It is too late for apologies,” said Amelia and Dark Lady.

Nina fell to her bedroom floor and wiped at her face with small hands. Strings of wet mucus spread between her fingers.

Amelia let her go and grabbed onto the door with all her might. She prepared to step through and slam it shut until she looked into the blackened hallway on the other side. Dark Lady leered in the shadows pressed against the doorframe. Her unseen gaze enveloped Amelia, holding her tight, refusing to let her go.

Dark Lady said many things all at once, then. “Embarassment.” “Disgrace.” “Useless.” “Worthless.”

Amelia covered her ears, but she still heard the words. The pressure threatened to send Amelia down to the floor with Nina.

“Listen to me!”

The girl dropped her hands to her side, gripping her fists and gritting her teeth. She trembled. Nina let out a screaming sob.

“She will drag you down, embarrass you, linger in your shadow for the rest of your days. She’s probably the reason your parents aren’t coming home. She has no shame. This must never happen again.”

“This... can’t happen... again,” Amelia repeated.

“Never again.”

Nina rubbed her face against the carpet leaving red streaks and a swath of snot before she pushed herself upright again. Amelia whipped around and grabbed her by both shoulders, drawing another scream.

“Mimi!” She shrieked. “Mimi let me go!”

“You’ll never learn!” Amelia and Dark Lady shouted in unison. “Shame on you. Shame on you!”

Amelia shoved her sister towards her closet and tore the door open. Dirty laundry spilled out from beneath the clean dresses hanging. Nina cried again as her sister pushed her inside and she collapsed into the pile.

“Shut up!” Amelia screamed. “Shut up, shut up!”

Nina fought to get to her feet and slapped her palms against the door to hold it open. Her sister shoved her again. She shrieked in the darkness when the door slammed. But through the closet door, Amelia could almost tune it out... Until it rattled against the frame. The little girl fumbled in the dark with her uncoordinated fingers.

“Hide the mistake. Silence her.”

Before she realized she’d done it, Amelia grabbed the back of the dining chair that she’d hauled Nina out of earlier, where they’d tried and failed at everything, and drug its legs against the linoleum and onto the carpet.

The closet door cracked open, allowing Nina a peek at the other side where her red-in-the-face sister stomped toward her. She gasped. The door closed inches from her face again and plunged her into darkness. Between sniffles, she croaked “I, I hate you... Mimi!”

Amelia jammed the chair under the doorknob. The closet door shook again and the doorknob twisted uselessly.

Amelia turned away from Nina’s distant screaming. “I’m tired,” she said.

“It’s over.”

Amelia drudged forward on numb legs. All she heard was the rushing of her pulse in her ears. All she saw was the single lamp lit in the living room, the comforting darkness that blanketed the rest of the house.

“She hates you,” Dark Lady said. “Of course she does. Why wouldn’t she?”

Amelia sagged onto the couch and collapsed into its cushions.

“She’s your sister and you just locked her away.”

“It’s my fault.” Amelia laid down on her side.

“What would your mother and father think of you? Would they hate you, too?”

A hot tear rolled down Amelia’s face, over the bridge of her nose and into her hair bunched under her cheek.

“Maybe this is why they left you. You are a wretched, spoiled little child.”

A thick, heavy ache settled over her as Dark Lady spoke. She turned her head to look for her in the darkness, but saw no one. “I... I thought...”

“Your thoughts are wrong. You deserve this.”

The loneliness. The emptiness that unspooled from within Amelia. She pulled it over herself as though it would warm her in the cold darkness.

“I should know better,” Amelia said. “What else am I good for?”

A second of clear, quiet dark tolled through the silence.

Then headlights burst through the kitchen window as the family car pulled into the driveway.