Silence vibrated through the flat, seeping its way into every crack and crevice. It tormented Shelagh. Her lips moved in desperate prayer but her voice was too weak to break through the blanket of silence. So, she sat, clutching her Bible, hoping, praying that her husband would find a way back to her.
The silence echoed through Patrick's mind, clouding any sane thought he once possessed. Restless dreams claimed his fitful sleep. It was in sleep he saw the flashing lights, his fellow soldiers desperately clutching to one another. It was in his sleep that he relived the nights in the trenches, the nights watching the stars, praying for a better time to come. He revisited the nights when everyone was together yet never more alone. Some wrote letters to loves ones, others distracted themselves by writing songs that would never be heard, others bowed their head in prayer, clutching at their last straws of faith. Yet no one dared disturb the sound of silence that smothered the night.
In daylight darkness clouded his mind, and the silence lingered in the air. No longer was he attuned to his wife's soft footsteps, Timothy's sarcasm or Angela's ever delightful giggle. Silence drowned the noise of life.
Each night, he watched as Shelagh knelt by the bed, one hand reaching out to his but not daring to touch, the other clutched over her heart, as if the pain were physical. Silence created a barrier between them, a no man's land almost as terrifying as the one he revisited in his sleep. Yet, each time he tried to speak the words tangled in his throat, choking him, suffocating him. So, silence remained.
It was a scream that finally tore him from his stupor, overpowering the silence that had plagued him. But it wasn't a scream like those that had haunted him all those years ago, for it wasn't a scream laced with terror. It was the scream of a child reaching out for her father. His body shifted almost voluntarily from the bed, his legs instinctively carried his weary limbs to Angela's bedroom. Her cries ceased as soon as he reached the crib to pick her up, swiftly followed by her soft laugh as he peppered kisses across her forehead. The sound filled the silence of the room and the silence of his mind. With his daughter tucked securely in his arms, head under his chin and ear against his heart, he took her to stand by the window. Waves of orange and red danced across roof tops and light seeped through the window, illuminating the room, breaking through the darkness.
"No matter how dark the day, there's always beauty at the end," Shelagh's voice broke the comforting silence that had settled, yet this time the soft voice was welcomed, the barrier had been broken. He outstretched his hand to welcome her into his embrace, she fit perfectly like the missing piece of a jigsaw, two hearts joined as one once more.
"I know," came the strained reply, "I see the beauty in every day," he leant down to gently kiss her hair causing his final words to become only audible to her "because I have you."
Silence filled the flat no more.