Nothing But Silence

Cathy Ulrich

The astronaut, when she is young, goes to the prom with a boy from her AP Calculus class. His name is Sidney and he drives a blue sedan. When he is twenty-three and the astronaut is earning her master’s degree, he will die in a car wreck. No one will think to tell the astronaut, no one will remember that it was him who took her to prom in that rustling violet dress.

The day Sidney dies, Sidney with the perfect teeth, Sidney with the neat handwriting, Sidney with the blue sedan, the astronaut will dream she is slow dancing with Barbara Walters from her parents’ Friday night new shows, Barbara Walters smartly attired in a suit dress. In her dream, the astronaut will be wearing the same dress she wore to prom with Sidney, but she won’t remember the dress, or his name, or the way he revved the engine of his blue sedan at stoplights. She will wake reaching for the phone at her bedside, thinking the song from her dream is the sound of its ring, and be surprised, hand outstretched, to be greeted by nothing but silence.

There will be a girl at home waiting for the astronaut, a girl she will later marry, a girl attending the community college, a girl investing the money her abuela left her in stocks, a girl in a tiny apartment on the other side of town from where they grew up, a girl who takes the bus back to the old neighborhood every Sunday for dinner with her family.

The house feels so much smaller than it used to, she will think when she stands on the front step. When she goes inside, there will be her mother and father, her three older brothers and their pretty wives, and all her little nieces and nephews, Tia, Tia, Tia, clamoring around her legs, and enchiladas on the table. The house will be bright and warm and oh so full, and the astronaut’s future wife will hardly look across the way at the house with the For Sale By Owner sign in the lawn, curtains drawn, gray and quiet.

She will have told the astronaut: Your father is selling your home, nestling her face close to the phone mouthpiece, and the silence on the other end before the astronaut said: It’s his home, not mine, before she said: you’re my home. The astronaut’s future wife will turn away from that gray house, join her family for dinner.

I saw that a boy from your old school died, her mother will say. She is always sharing news about people from their old school, and her sons will kiss her cheek and call her mama, we never knew him, mama, and when she looks at her daughter, the girl will shake her head.

I never knew him either.

There will be flowers at Sidney’s funeral, flowers from bankers and orthodontists and several lawyers in town who are friendly with the parents, sorry for your loss, let us know if we can do anything cards in the basket by the sign-in book, and the high school choir warbling a rendition of “You Raise Me Up.”

The astronaut will never know that Sidney had a funeral, will never know that Sidney has died. She will try to remember his name from time to time, in space especially, where her mind floats and she floats, she will think I went to prom, didn’t I? and she will remember the violet dress and the shoes her mother took to get dyed to match. She will remember feeling like a princess when he pinned the corsage to her chest, will remember how the flowers were pressed between them when he held her close, too close, while they danced, when he said into her soft ear, you’re so pretty.

She will try to remember his name, his face, where did he live, what class did we have together, did I like him, did I like any of them, and she will smile in the video she is making for home, smile like she doesn’t on earth, curled and soft smile, a smile for her wife, only her wife: I wish, I wish, I wish you were here.

Cathy Ulrich wore sneakers to prom. They were really comfortable. Her work has been published in various journals, including Ecotone, Alien Lit Mag, and Jet Fuel Review.