The Art of Saying Nothing

“I felt it shelter to speak to you.”

– Emily Dickinson

Soap suds erupt in the sink as Tyler rinses a pile of dishes. He begins the process of cleaning a frying pan but pauses to ask how I’m feeling about a reality I’ve been avoiding: Nora’s hospital admission — a fast- approaching, five-day, inpatient stay to adjust her epilepsy medications.

I distract myself from answering by folding dishtowels, wishing I could articulate to him, and to the world, that when it comes to intractable epilepsy, my voice in all its forms — writing, prayer conversation, even conversation with my husband — is fading, raspy, raw, and in some ways, unrecognizable.

I tell him what I’ve explained before, “It’s hard to be hopeful.” He clenches his jaw and stares down at the floor. I make a halfhearted attempt to explain away the emotion in the room by logically and rationally listing “the whys,” of my hopelessness, but suddenly, he’s moving towards me and I am quickly and acutely aware of the space evolving between us: a shelter from any words at all.

For a moment, we draw close and together let it be okay to feel not hopeful.

Eventually, he makes me a drink with ice, but I don’t drink it. Instead, I hold it against my cheek and rest my elbows against the kitchen counter before I say the only thing that needs to be said, and what we’ve told each other all along: “I couldn’t do this without you.” And today as I write this, I see the miracle, or perhaps the paradox as this: even as hope is fading, we bloom together here and now.

Photo (2018): Jessica Rice Photography