Feeding the Silence

Date: 12/14/2025

Robin looks like someone who has had the air sucked from under her wings. The Christmas rush has finally found a way in. It presses at the edges of everything. This is new. Robin — the unflappable one, the woman who holds herself together as if glued from calm — now sags under invisible weight. Her eyes are dull, her mouth pulled taut, as if bracing for a storm only she can see. We keep delivering anyway. There is comfort in momentum. Stopping would mean noticing. Momentum dulls the ache. What’s the alternative — abandon the parcels, sit down, admit that everything is too much? Halfway through the round, someone calls my name. “Amanda.” Bully stands there, solid as an old oak, grinning like this is all part of a plan he hasn’t bothered explaining. “I’ve made you a roast dinner.” I laugh, because surely this is a joke. “A roast dinner?” He holds it out. A full plate. Meat glistening with gravy. Potatoes browned just enough. Vegetables obediently steamed. Yorkshire puddings — my favourite — ballooned and proud, like they’ve been practicing for this moment their entire lives. The whole shebang. The sort of meal that takes time. The sort of meal you make when you’re preparing for something important. “That’s… awfully kind,” I say. “But I’m rushed off my feet.” “Nonsense,” he says, offended on behalf of his crisped-to-perfection potatoes. “Eat.” I perch on a fence like a badly balanced crow and shovel it in. I don’t feel hunger, exactly — I feel hollow in the way that doesn’t want filling. But he’s watching me closely. So I chew. I swallow. I nod appreciatively. “Is that all you’ve eaten?” he asks, wounded. “I spent hours in the kitchen this morning” “I’m sorry,” I say, the apology too big for the moment. “I need to get back. Robin will be waiting.” “What about pudding?” He’s already holding out profiteroles, cream spilling over the edges. “Another time, yeah?” “Same time tomorrow?” he asks. I don’t answer properly. I just edge away. Robin is crying when I get back to the van. Not the quiet kind. The kind that makes her shoulders shake. I hold her and say the words people say — it’ll be okay — even though they feel thin and unreliable. And then — suddenly — we’re in my hallway. “I don’t want to be here anymore,” she sobs. I don’t ask where here is. Before I can respond, she’s gone. The space she leaves behind feels deliberate, like something has been removed rather than lost. In the living room, my father-in-law is slumped on the sofa, shrinking into himself. Everyone stands around him in a loose circle, waiting. He looks worn down to his essentials. Like life has been slowly dismantling him, piece by piece. He can’t speak properly now. He grunts. He points. At me. “Amanda,” he says, his voice barely there. I lean in and hug him. My arms don’t seem to know where to go. It’s like trying to hold smoke. I’m aware of how awkward I am, how poorly I fit into this moment — as if grief has rules I never learned. “Want a bacon sandwich?” my mother-in-law calls from the kitchen. Again. Feeding. As if eating might anchor us. As if chewing could delay what’s coming. “No, thank you.” I sit beside him and cry. Loudly. Uncontained. The kind of crying that makes people shuffle uncomfortably in their seats. My mother-in-law shoots me a sharp look — compose yourself — as if this is something that should be done neatly. I don’t know who the tears are for. Him. Myself. The accumulation of wrong turns and unspoken things. But once they start, I can’t stop. “We should get Dad to the hospice,” Mat says eventually. “It won’t be long now.” Mum agrees to drive, though she looks hollowed out, like she’s been awake for weeks. At the hospice, she wheels Grandpa Mike into reception, then abruptly hoists him up out of the chair, standing him upright as if muscle memory has taken over. His feet are gone. Just stumps now. Diminished. Incomplete. He wobbles, naked, exposed in a way that feels indecent. Like the body has given up trying to maintain the illusion of wholeness. Or even dignity. “Dad can’t walk,” Mat says, sharp with panic, grabbing him before he tumbles. As Mat lifts him back into the wheelchair, something slips away — another limb, another piece. As if death is already tidying up, deciding what won’t be needed anymore. He is shrinking before our eyes. Losing substance. Losing form. Losing grip. Soon, I think irrationally, there will be nothing left to put back together. While the nurses take over, I sit in the waiting area eating cookie dough ice cream straight from the tub. There are no chairs. I perch on a table. I eat because my hands need something to do. Because this, too, feels like preparation. “Dad’s gone,” Mat says when he returns. There is relief on his face. Quiet. Unashamed. Heavy things finally set down. “He’s in a better place,” I say, because what else can you say? And, I mean it, even if I don’t know where that place is. The world changes again. I’m walking through town now. Crowds surge past, intent on errands and small urgencies. I see Laura. Welsh Laura. She looks immaculate, polished, glowing with effort. Successful in a way that feels intentional. “You look amazing,” I say, suddenly aware of my own disarray. “Can you watch my kid?” she says, thrusting him in my direction. The boy is small. Dark-haired. Five, maybe. His eyes search my face like they’re looking for something they’ve lost. “Um… sure,” I say. But she’s already gone. “Mumma,” the boy says. My breath catches, and I can’t tell when it starts again. Adrien cycles past us, face flushed, pedalling too hard, too fast. “Are you okay?” I call. He doesn’t hear me. “He won’t last long,” a voice says behind me. Kylie stands there, arms folded, expression unreadable. Adrien falls. The bike skids. The sound his body makes when it hits the ground feels permanent. When I turn back, Kylie is gone. The boy’s hand stays in mine. Warm. Certain. All day, people have tried to fill me — plates thrusted forwards, meals prepared, something saved for later. As if tending the body could silence what waits beneath. As if it could ever be enough. The reality hits me with sharp certainty — The space was always there. We just kept feeding it.