The Burden of Sound

It doesn’t always feel like I love her.

My finger picks at the stitching on the driver’s seat as I try not to think. I can’t seem to stop my thoughts from having more thoughts. Josie says it’s because I’m a Virgo. I say it’s because I want to take an ice bath so I don’t have to feel anything. Just cold and numb.

My eyes can’t seem to move from the seatbelt light flickering at me, desperate for my attention. I imagine our kids in the backseat telling me to hurry and buckle up. Safety first they would say. I never wanted kids until I met Josie. I guess it doesn’t matter anymore. Treatment took that option away. I need to move. I hate this.

“It’s okay.”

Josie’s hand found mine and squeezed it- a startling motion in the bleakness of the hospital room. Her words fell gently from her mouth, but all I heard was silence. That’s what death is, right? Silent.

I didn’t think about it then, but Josie had this look on her face when her doctor told us. It was an echo of a smile that held together the sour curling of her gut, a stench so foul only she could contain it.

I smell it now.

The vomit hitting the toilet water. The subtle hint of hospital air on her breath. The orange blood dribbled on our pillowcases. It wasn’t easy at first, but it was easy with her. It always was. Wasn’t it?

Recently I’ve been looking into astrology more. Josie had said something about her being a Pisces while we were on our first date and I had pretended to know what she was talking about. Apparently in response to their position on the zodiac wheel, they carry the emotional weight of every other sign. They’re the last ones, the ones everyone remembers. She told me that was why her ex never got over her.

Josie’s mother was raised in Tijuana before coming to the states and trying to raise five kids. After her father left, Josie was stuck juggling school, a job, and babysitting. She always made sure to tell me something good about her family if she told me something negative before it. Even though she had been stuck playing mom, she enjoyed looking after her siblings. She loved them.

A few years back, her family invited us over for Christmas. It was my first time meeting her mother in person and I had been nervous. When we sat down for dinner, she asked why Josie and I weren’t married yet. It was the second thing she had said to me other than greeting us at the door. I had laughed at her comment, but very quickly the whole family had chimed in about how I needed to be a man and make a move. Josie kept quiet while the Opinion Brigade slammed into me, but I don’t blame her. We both knew her mother would melt into the ground if she knew we went to the courthouse.

That night we spent in her childhood bedroom, Josie broke down in my arms. We left the next day. The doctor told us her diagnosis the next week.

Is it bad not to watch your partner throw up? I find myself scrolling through social media while I rub her back. Sometimes it takes her forever and I just want to slap the vomit out of her.

Guilt jabs at my heart and I wonder why I always make everything about myself. I feel so guilty, but I do nothing about it except make myself feel even more guilty. Maybe I should just sit in this car until I die. I don’t deserve her. Or maybe this is exactly what I deserve.

The sound caught me off-guard.

My eyes flicker to the window, trying to see past the dash lights reflecting off the surface. My hands relax from their grip on the steering wheel. I soften my breathing and listen.

Nothing for a minute.

Two.

Then it comes again, tugging at the hairs on the base of my neck. It is faint, but the vibrations ripple under my skin.

Josie’s mother was convinced that owls were harbingers of death. Anytime her ears picked up on their low murmurs, she immediately called in the clergy. One night, Josie’s little sister had spotted the creature outside her window. She rushed to tell her siblings. After their mother overheard the excitement, she sprinkled holy water over all the doors, windows, and beds. None of the kids were allowed out of the house the next day without protection: homemade herbal dolls, a rosary, and a pocket knife.

Josie’s older brother ended up spraining his ankle at soccer practice that day. He’d been roughhousing during warmups and tripped over the bleachers. Had he been higher up on the steps, he might’ve broken a bone with that fall. Once word got back home about the sprain, everyone was convinced it was the owl.

It seems more like a coincidence to me.

I roll down the window and cut the headlights, then peer out into the suburban darkness. I hear the call again and twist my gaze to a tree in front of the neighbor’s house. Even though my eyes couldn’t catch the bird, I knew it was there. It was as if we were meant to find each other because the more I stared at that tree, the more the voice sounded familiar.

It wasn't the screeching of the barn owls on my grandparent's farm, but more like the ones we heard when we took our family trip to the zoo. Deep and eerie. The trip had been meant as a distraction for my newly neck-braced sister after she realized she wasn’t cut out for gymnastics. I told her that she looked like an owl now that she had no neck. We had to leave after that because she threw a fit, so I didn’t see much more of the small, feathered creatures.

My phone buzzes. A text from Josie asking to pick her up some Gatorade while I’m out.

I exhale and sink back in my seat, then turn my head toward the dash again. My eyes go out of focus on the seatbelt light as I shift the car into drive. My mouth feels dry. Gatorade does sound nice.

I back out of the driveway slowly, then look back at the tree.

Silence.