The Silent Wife's Reckoning

Synopsis

I wasn't born mute, but my husband, Edward Grant, always said he preferred my silence. It made his life easier. His cousin Matthew pressed a lit cigarette against the back of my hand, betting I wouldn't make a sound. Cold sweat drenched me from the pain, my mouth gaping open yet completely silent. When Edward saw it, he didn't care about the burn. He only frowned and scolded me, "Anna, the look on your face was hideous. You've unsettled our guest." In his eyes, my pain was mere theatrics, and my silence was nothing more than dullness. Even as I lay on the floor miscarrying, writhing in agony, he only glanced coldly at his documents and muttered, "Enough theatrics. Go and get me a glass of water." In that moment, the last impulse to cry out died in my throat, buried alongside the child within me. Eventually, I disappeared. He searched for me obsessively. Three years later, he finally found me at a school for the deaf and mute. Through the window, he watched as I told a story in sign language, my smile radiant with a warmth he had never seen. He pushed through the door, his eyes bloodshot, begging me to speak to him. I lifted my hands and signed a slow response. The mute woman who had once adored him now spoke to him in a language he could not understand. My hands formed the words "We are strangers."