Chapter 3 - ETHAN’S SILENCE
Ethan had always been quiet around Martha.
I used to think it was respect.
Now I know children often go quiet when they are studying danger.
He watched everything.
How Martha opened cabinets without asking.
How Andrew’s shoulders tightened when she criticized the apartment.
How I swallowed replies because Sophie was napping or Ethan had homework or dinner was almost ready.
Ethan learned the rhythm of avoidance before I admitted there was music playing.
That Sunday, he sat on the couch with his tablet while Martha stood over Sophie.
He saw it.
All of it.
The snack cup.
The crying.
The toe of Martha’s shoe pushing food away.
He did not move.
At the time, a flash of anger went through me.
Why didn’t he say something?
Then he looked at me from the couch, white-faced and frozen, and I understood.
He had learned silence from the same people who taught Sophie hunger.
Later, after I locked the bedroom door, Ethan came to the hallway and stood there with his tablet pressed against his chest.
Martha was still on the phone outside the apartment door, talking loudly enough for neighbors to hear.
“No, Andrew, she canceled it. After everything I did for you and that boy.”
That boy.
Ethan’s eyes lifted.
My phone recorded from my pocket.
Martha continued.
“She thinks she can cut me off? She has no idea what I kept quiet. She has no idea what you let me do so Ethan could stay with you.”
I stopped rocking Sophie.
Ethan’s expression changed.
He heard his name.
He looked at me.
I unlocked the bedroom door slowly and stepped into the hall, still holding Sophie.
Martha stood near the front door with her back to us.
Her voice dropped, but not enough.
“Don’t pretend you’re innocent now. You knew Jenna never abandoned him. You knew after the first letter.”
Ethan’s tablet slipped from his hands and hit the carpet.
Martha turned.
For the first time, she looked afraid of a child.
I looked at Ethan.
His mouth had opened slightly, but no sound came out.
Jenna.
His birth mother.
The woman Andrew told me had left when Ethan was a baby and never looked back.
The woman Ethan believed did not want him.
The woman Martha had just said had written at least one letter.
I pulled Sophie closer.
Ethan whispered:
“My mom wrote?”
Martha’s face hardened again.
“No. You misunderstood.”
May you like
I took the phone from my pocket.
“No,” I said. “We didn’t.”
