That afternoon, Jonah stopped by my office at the hospital. He was holding a little black USB drive.
“You’re going to want this,” he said.
“What is it?”
“Remember last spring? When Sienna called your work line begging for money for her business? You put her on speaker in the break room because you were eating lunch?”
I did remember. She’d called the hospital’s main line because I wasn’t answering my cell.
“All calls on that line are recorded,” Jonah said. “Hospital policy. For liability. I asked the IT guy to pull it.” He set the drive on my desk. “Listen to it.”
After he left, I plugged it into my computer.
Sienna’s voice filled my small office. Syrupy sweet at first. Then cold as ice when I said no.
“You’re the only one in this family with real money, Orion. You’re basically the family’s wallet. So be useful for once in your life.”
I closed my eyes.
There it was.
Not just greed. Contempt.
I sent the file to Elaine. She called me back in less than five minutes.
“That’s it,” she said. “That’s the one. That cuts through every single lie they’re spinning. We’re taking this to court.”
That night, I drove around aimlessly. Through quiet streets. Snowflakes blurring the edges of the streetlights.
On the radio, “Silent Night” was playing. Too calm. Too peaceful for the storm that had taken root inside me.
I pulled over on a bridge above Boulder Creek. I left the engine running and stared down at the black, half-frozen water below.
My reflection looked back at me from the window glass. It looked like somebody else. Somebody who’d spent his whole life apologizing for being right.
For years, I’d mistaken endurance for peace.
Now I knew the difference.
“Silence keeps the night calm,” I said to myself. “But silence for too long becomes its own kind of sin.”
When I got home, Lennon was asleep on the couch again. A blanket pulled up to her chin. A psychology textbook open on her chest.
I turned off the lamp. I sat down beside her for a while in the dark. And I let the apartment settle around us.
The snowstorm outside was finally easing.
But the war inside our family had only just begun.
Ethan Blake is a skilled Creative Content Specialist with a talent for crafting engaging and thought-provoking narratives. With a strong background in storytelling and digital content creation, Ethan brings a unique perspective to his role at TheArchivists, where he curates and produces captivating content for a global audience.
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