Read Online The Price of Silence by Camilla Trinchieri - Free Book Online
Authors: Camilla Trinchieri
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talent and could be trusted, which I guess is nice, but I didn’t believe it.
The afternoons she was there, I’d get a Coke and go to my room or to the basement until dinnertime. I’ve always done that. Gone off by myself, I mean. Even when she wasn’t there. I had nothing against her.
Mom thinks I’m shy. I don’t get into conversations when I’m not interested, that’s all. There’s no point to it unless there’s something really neat going on.
One time I saw Mom reading to An-ling in the park across the street from our building. Riverside Park. I stopped to listen to a guy playing Jimi Hendrix on his guitar— “Purple Haze”—what I’d just been playing in the basement.
The guitar player was really good, but Mom’s voice kept covering the notes, like she had no clue she should stop making noise and just listen to the music. She went on reading from this little book she had in her hands. An-ling was sitting in front of her, facing me, both of them on an old knit blanket full of holes from me poking at it when it was on my bed when I was little. Grams gave it to me when I was born. She told me she knitted it especially for me, which I know isn’t true because I overheard her tell Mom she wouldn’t be caught dead knitting like some old Italian peasant.
How can you tell what’s real? We all lied—Mom, Dad, Grams, An-ling, me. Whatever we were trying to save, it didn’t work.
An-ling saw me that day in the park and winked at me. I pretended I didn’t see her. I didn’t want Mom to turn around. She was always asking me to stay with them, sit in on their talk.After An-ling left I would get,“Isn’t she nice?”
“Don’t you like her?”“Please try to make her feel welcome.
She has no family. Her home is far away.”
“What about the Goo-Goo in San Francisco? She’s got her.”
Why did she wink at me in the park? I wanted to ask her, but I knew I never would.Was she making fun of me or making fun of Mom? And Mom reading poetry to her? I thought that was weird.
I think it was after seeing them in Riverside Park that I gave An-ling some space in my head.She was coming over for dinner two or three times a week, always on school nights. Dad said no to weekends. I thought it was because of the food.She and Mom always made Chinese food which Dad doesn’t like. It wasn’t as good as what you get at Ollie’s over on 116th and Broadway, but it was better than takeout stews and meatloaf, which is what we eat most of the time.
During dinner,An-ling told stories about her life in a small village.Pretty grim ones.No running water, no heat.An outhouse. Her parents used to live in a big city—I forget the name. Her father was a well-known painter and her mother a doctor. During the Cultural Revolution, her mother was lucky to get work in a shoe factory,but her father was sent away to build dikes or something, and she said that when he came back after Mao died, his hands were bleeding stumps.
“Too much water.” She made circles in the air with her arms.
“You mean a flood?” I said.
“Yes, a flood take his tools and the Red Guards make him dig with his hands.”
Mom was drinking this stuff up, her face getting all soggy.
Dad put his fork down, chewed on his food real slow like he wasn’t liking it a whole lot, swallowed, all the time keeping his eyes on a spot above An-ling’s head. “The Cultural Revolution ended over thirty years ago,” he said.
An-ling straightened up tall in her chair, her neck getting long, like she was trying to reach that spot Dad kept looking at. “This happen before me. My parents old when I come.”
“I see.”
When she left, he didn’t wait long to say,“That girl made that whole story up.”
Mom slapped the pot she was cleaning down on the counter. I was standing right next to her, drying, and got a big splash of dishwater all over me.“Hey, watch it!”
But she was only paying attention to Dad.“Why are you being so unpleasant? What has that
The afternoons she was there, I’d get a Coke and go to my room or to the basement until dinnertime. I’ve always done that. Gone off by myself, I mean. Even when she wasn’t there. I had nothing against her.
Mom thinks I’m shy. I don’t get into conversations when I’m not interested, that’s all. There’s no point to it unless there’s something really neat going on.
One time I saw Mom reading to An-ling in the park across the street from our building. Riverside Park. I stopped to listen to a guy playing Jimi Hendrix on his guitar— “Purple Haze”—what I’d just been playing in the basement.
The guitar player was really good, but Mom’s voice kept covering the notes, like she had no clue she should stop making noise and just listen to the music. She went on reading from this little book she had in her hands. An-ling was sitting in front of her, facing me, both of them on an old knit blanket full of holes from me poking at it when it was on my bed when I was little. Grams gave it to me when I was born. She told me she knitted it especially for me, which I know isn’t true because I overheard her tell Mom she wouldn’t be caught dead knitting like some old Italian peasant.
How can you tell what’s real? We all lied—Mom, Dad, Grams, An-ling, me. Whatever we were trying to save, it didn’t work.
An-ling saw me that day in the park and winked at me. I pretended I didn’t see her. I didn’t want Mom to turn around. She was always asking me to stay with them, sit in on their talk.After An-ling left I would get,“Isn’t she nice?”
“Don’t you like her?”“Please try to make her feel welcome.
She has no family. Her home is far away.”
“What about the Goo-Goo in San Francisco? She’s got her.”
Why did she wink at me in the park? I wanted to ask her, but I knew I never would.Was she making fun of me or making fun of Mom? And Mom reading poetry to her? I thought that was weird.
I think it was after seeing them in Riverside Park that I gave An-ling some space in my head.She was coming over for dinner two or three times a week, always on school nights. Dad said no to weekends. I thought it was because of the food.She and Mom always made Chinese food which Dad doesn’t like. It wasn’t as good as what you get at Ollie’s over on 116th and Broadway, but it was better than takeout stews and meatloaf, which is what we eat most of the time.
During dinner,An-ling told stories about her life in a small village.Pretty grim ones.No running water, no heat.An outhouse. Her parents used to live in a big city—I forget the name. Her father was a well-known painter and her mother a doctor. During the Cultural Revolution, her mother was lucky to get work in a shoe factory,but her father was sent away to build dikes or something, and she said that when he came back after Mao died, his hands were bleeding stumps.
“Too much water.” She made circles in the air with her arms.
“You mean a flood?” I said.
“Yes, a flood take his tools and the Red Guards make him dig with his hands.”
Mom was drinking this stuff up, her face getting all soggy.
Dad put his fork down, chewed on his food real slow like he wasn’t liking it a whole lot, swallowed, all the time keeping his eyes on a spot above An-ling’s head. “The Cultural Revolution ended over thirty years ago,” he said.
An-ling straightened up tall in her chair, her neck getting long, like she was trying to reach that spot Dad kept looking at. “This happen before me. My parents old when I come.”
“I see.”
When she left, he didn’t wait long to say,“That girl made that whole story up.”
Mom slapped the pot she was cleaning down on the counter. I was standing right next to her, drying, and got a big splash of dishwater all over me.“Hey, watch it!”
But she was only paying attention to Dad.“Why are you being so unpleasant? What has that
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