A Girl Named Hush
She was a small, unassuming girl with pale blue eyes and light blonde hair. She walked slightly bent forward at the waist from the weight of the backpack on her spindly shoulders, and stared at her scuffed shoes so as not to fall as she made her way down the packed hallway.
Several people called out to her –mentioning things about calling each other on the weekend or finally planning that pool party at Jimmy Baw’s house- and she replied to them with a smile and a congenial remark.
No one noticed, however, her change in expression when the dark blue car pulled up in front of the school and sat, idling, in the space reserved for the buses. No one noticed the way her bright eyes dulled. Her mouth turned stiff. And her face seemed to grow pale underneath her freckles. No one noticed the way she uncomfortably opened the passenger seat of the car and slid in, saying somberly as she did so, “Hello, Daddy.”
“Did you get your homework done, Hush?” He asked before she had even fully closed her door; Logan McNally was not one for pleasantries.
Hush did not know how to respond to this ridiculous question without making him mad. She hadn’t even been out of school for five minutes, how could she have gotten it done? Finally she decided to just tell the truth. “No, Daddy.”
“Stupid girl,” Logan muttered.
School buses were starting to line up behind his car.
“I’m sorry,” her voice quivered.
“Yeah, I bet you are,” Logan muttered darkly.
The slap happened before it even had a chance to register in Hush’s brain that Logan was moving towards her. One minute both hands were on the steering wheel, and the next, his hand was flying across her cheek, leaving an angry red mark that stretched from her left eye to her chin. She cupped her hands to her face and huddled as close to her car door as she could manage.
The air was now filled with the steady beep of buses’ horns.
Outside, no one could see her through the tinted windows. No one knew inside the common blue car a girl had just been slapped. No one cared about a girl named Hush.
Logan pulled his car away from the curb and out of the school parking lot, acting as normal as any other Dad who just picked up their daughter from school would. Meanwhile, his daughter just stared out her window and pressed herself even closer to the cold car door as if trying to escape.
<*>
Logan burst into the small, suburban home much louder than necessary, calling out as a greeting to his wife, “ISN’T DINNER READY YET?”
He didn’t notice the way Leah McNally winced as the front door banged against the wall behind it, or that she looked so tired she was practically dead on her feet. The only thing Logan noticed was that the air was void of any smells that indicated dinner was in the oven, and that made him angry.
Hush stumbled into the foyer just in time to hear what her father called her mother. It was a word unrepeatable and certainly not one one should say in general, let alone to one’s wife.
Hush winced, but Leah wasn’t concerned about what her husband said to her. She had long since given up any hope that Logan would one day come home in a civilized manner. Long ago given up her childhood dream of a home filled with love and laughter and warmth. Instead, she focused on her younger daughter, who was sprouting a large red mark on her cheek.
Leah whirled on her husband, her blue eyes flashing.
Logan glanced back at the child and shrugged, unconcerned. “She slipped.”
Leah quickly hustled her daughter into the kitchen, leaving Logan standing in the drafty living room. She wet a washcloth and leaned down to dab at the mark on Hush’s face, which was in the shape of a hand, despite her husband’s protests.
“He did it again, huh?” A voice asked from the doorway of the kitchen. Zaila stepped into the room and walked over to the fridge. She perused the options before finally settling on a can of soda. She popped open the top and leaned against the closed fridge door, watching her mother tend to her little sister’s face. “He’s going to keep doing it, you know.” Zaila’s voice was matter-of-fact, but rang with a quality that indicated it had been said before. She crossed her long legs at the ankles and looked at her mother through startlingly blue eyes.
Leah sighed heavily before handing the washcloth to Hush, who kept it pressed against her cheek. “I know.”
Leah tried to busy herself by getting the lasagna out of the oven. The aroma of expertly prepared spices and melted cheese filled the small kitchen, making Zaila’s mouth water. She swallowed. “Then why do you let him do it?”
Leah felt cornered. The truth was, it hurt her deeply whenever Logan injured one of the girls. Each time it happened it was as if someone was chipping away at her heart, taking everything that meant something to her and returning it battered and broken. She tried to take the blows and insults as often as she could, but it wasn’t as if she could shadow the girls when they were around their father.
She had considered leaving him, but the thought of raising two girls –one of whom would leave for college in just a year- on a nurse’s income terrified her. More and more, though, the idea had invaded her head as Logan became increasingly unpredictable.
“I don’t know.” Leah’s voice was small, like a child’s. She looked at her breathtakingly beautiful daughter and down at the black clothes she wore.
“Why do you wear all black?” Leah asked. This was not the first time she had wondered –it actually entered her mind once, maybe twice, a week- but it was the first time she had uttered the question aloud.
“I’m in mourning,” Zaila said, taking long strides to the door of the kitchen. “For this family and how messed up we are. Plus, makes Dad mad.”
“What about dinner?” Leah called to her daughter’s back.
“Not hungry!” Zaila said, already making her way down the hall to her room.
“Stop yelling!” Logan bellowed at her from his seat on the couch.
<*>
As usual, dinner was a quiet, tense affair that revolved around Logan badmouthing his colleagues, Leah refilling his plate whenever it was in danger of becoming empty, and Hush pushing food around her plate whilst counting down the minutes until dinner was over and she could escape from her father’s presence.
Eventually, the meal came to an end and Hush asked if she could be excused. Leah, frowning, looked down at her daughter’s barely-touched plate and then at her daughter, who, at fourteen, was just skin and bones.
“I suppose…” Leah said, trailing off.
“Ah, let ‘er go,” Logan said. He was in a much better mood after three beers and a full belly. “You’re only young once.” He burped, rubbed his protruding stomach, and rumpled Hush’s hair as she walked by to get to the hall.
Leah grabbed Hush’s plate and scraped the food down the garbage disposal. Setting the plate and fork aside, she turned and found herself face-to-face with her husband.
After everything that had happened over the years, it was amazing that Logan McNally could still make Leah’s heart race. Yet, it did. It fluttered and skittered just as it had when they first met and Logan kissed her chastely on her front porch after their first date.
And now, twenty years and two kids later, here they were, standing in the kitchen where just an hour ago Leah was tending to her daughter’s cheek. The cheek her husband had hurt.
Her husband had intentionally hurt their daughter.
Leah’s heart sped up, this time from anger. She pushed her husband away with both hands to his chest and returned to clearing the table.
<*>
It was at dinner the next day that things started sliding into motion.
They were having mashed potatoes and chicken and, for once, the entire family was at the table. As usual, Logan was going on about his coworkers and the women in the family were expected to listen to his endless stories about men who thought they were better than him, when, obviously, they were not.
In the middle of a monotonous tail about a man who did extra work in his free time yet expected to get paid for it, Zaila stood up. “Just shut up!” Her hands, balled into fists, were shaking. “No one cares about your stupid story! Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!”
Stunned by this peremptory event, Logan simply stared at his daughter.
Zaila, however, was not done. “Every single day we’re stuck listening to you drone on and on about your stupid co-workers and your stupid job –which, news flash, doesn’t even pay that much- and we can’t get a word in edgewise! We’re stuck listening to your asinine stories about your opprobrious and nefarious “friends”, and I’m sick of it! Really and truly sick of it.” Zaila looked down at her father with revulsion.
Logan –who was not used to being looked down upon and refused to admit that he didn’t understand half of what his daughter said- stood up and said superciliously, “Now look here-”
But Zaila had over seventeen years of pent-up anger and frustration and she wasn’t about to let the man who ruled her life get a word in edgewise. “You swear at Mom, you use Hush as a freaking punching-bag, and you completely ignore me! You didn’t even acknowledge that I got a full scholarship to the best school in the state! A full scholarship! You don’t care that Mom works twelve-hour days at the hospital just to help support us, and you don’t care that Hush is wasting away before us because she’s too anxious to eat! You only care about yourself!”
Zaila stepped back from the table and went over to her father. Logan didn’t notice when it had happened, but, sometime over the course of the last few years, Zaila had grown so that she was as tall as him, and that fact made her that more intimidating.
“Youyouyouyouyou!” Zaila poked her father in the chest with each word.
Furious, Logan raised a hand, ready to put his daughter back in her place, but, to his surprise, something happened that made him pause.
“Stop!” Leah’s voice shook only slightly as she, too, rose from her seat at the table. “Stop right now!” Her voice grew stronger as she strode over to her older daughter and put both hands on her shoulders. “You will never again hurt our girls or me.”
Hush, who was still sitting at her seat at the table and was watching this unfold with a mixture of disbelief and felicity in her large blue eyes, made a diminutive noise of amazement at the certainty of her mother’s tone.
Leah looked at her quiet little daughter and gave her a small smile before turning back to her husband. The husband that, for fifteen years now, had been pushing her around. The hallow shell of a man who got his kicks from kicking the woman he pledged to love and protect ‘til death do us part.
He didn’t deserve her. He didn’t deserve any of them.
And that revelation was what gave Leah McNally the strength to say what she wanted to say for fifteen years: “Get out.”
Logan blinked and his daughters would later comment that that was the first time they had ever seen their father really and truly surprised. The first time he looked unsure of himself. The first time he was knocked off the pedestal that had taken over fifteen years of abuse to make.
Leah allowed him five minutes to pack a bag before she slammed the front door on his arrogant face.
After that, the house was just silent.
There was no tension. No tiptoeing around, wondering what mood Logan was in. All there was was love and a monumental event that was fifteen years in the making.
Leah smiled at her daughters, who hesitantly smiled back, and said pleasantly, “Now who wants to make cookies?”
<*>
The months that followed were months that would forever stand out in the McNally’s minds.
Firstly, after a month of ignored calls and unanswered poundings at the door, Logan realized he would have to change in order to get his family back. That was not in his nature, but he decided that the McNally women were worth it. So, he started attending counseling. It was a long and demanding road, but eventually he was able to face his wife and apologize.
And, Leah refused to take him back. She said actions speak louder than words and he would have to win her back.
So began a long yet romantic road for Mr. and Mrs. McNally. Full of lovely dinners and kisses on the porch until one of their daughters started flickering the lights, indicating it was time for the date to end.
The second thing that happened was that Zaila went to college. And both her parents were there to help her move into her dorm and make sure she had everything she needed. Before that dinner in April, she would have been afraid to leave her mother and sister in the hands of her father. After everything that had happened, however, she was finally comfortable in his presence.
Thirdly, Hush got the relationship with her father that she had always craved. In addition to taking his wife on dates, Logan would take Hush out, and the two would laugh over silly things and spend hours talking about nothing at all.
And, lately, there had been rumors circulating the McNally household. Rumors about renewing vows and gorgeous rings and bridesmaids that were daughters. Rumors about becoming the man that his wife had fallen in love with. And that, was the biggest event of all.
Names and their meanings:
Hush: quiet
Logan: hollow
Leah: weary
Zaila: might, power.