Free The Second Silence by Eileen Goudge

william and impatiens spilled onto sidewalks and walkways. Morning glories crept up over the railings of porches onto which sofas and easy chairs had been dragged to catch whatever breeze there was to be had. The air hummed with the wick-wick-wick of sprinklers. And in the Inklepaughs’ garden, it looked as if a good crop of sweet peas and runner beans had established a beachhead. Doris’s next-door neighbor would be busy with her canning come August.
    Her mother’s sturdy clapboard house looked exactly as it had the last time she’d visited, only then the trees had been bare, the lawn brown and crusted with snow. Now, with the maples and elms throwing a spangled light over the lush grass below, and the roses bursting with blooms, it was a Norman Rockwell illustration come to life. Mary half expected a white-haired grandma from central casting to step onto the porch bearing a freshly baked pie.
    But when she pulled into the driveway, no one rushed out to greet her. She climbed from the Lexus and stretched to ease her cramped limbs before starting across the still-damp lawn. Mounting the creaky porch steps, she was struck by the unusual silence. At this hour, just past ten, there ought to have been the faint sounds of life stirring inside the house. The rattle of pipes and the hiss of running water, the radio tuned to WMYY.
    She rang the doorbell, waiting with heart in throat for her mother to answer. Her response to this house never varied. Poised on its threshold at the end of a long absence, she always felt a conflicting sense of homesickness and despair. Nothing ever changed, but each time she couldn’t help feeling she was about to embark on a journey from which there would be no turning back.
    She heard footsteps, then the click of the latch. The heavy oak door swung open. An old lady stood framed in the doorway, peering out at her. At first Mary scarcely recognized her own mother. Doris, in her double-knit turquoise slacks and matching floral top, might have stepped off a tour bus filled with a group of similarly dressed seniors on their way to view the Acropolis or Old Faithful. Blinking in the sunlight, she fixed her gaze on Mary as if to get her bearings.
    ‘Hello, Mama.’ Mary bent to plant a kiss on a dry cheek smelling faintly of talcum—and something else, something faintly and unpleasantly medicinal.
    Seeing how much her mother had aged in just the last six months was a shock. Doris’s ginger hair was now snow white and her illness had left her frail; the flesh on her face appeared to be melting like tallow from the bones underneath. Only her eyes were the same, sharp and blue as sparks from flint.
    ‘You made good time,’ she said, stepping aside to let Mary in.
    ‘Luckily there wasn’t much traffic’ Mary lowered her voice. ‘Is she awake yet?’
    ‘Just. She’s upstairs now trying to get Robert on the phone.’ Mary caught a flash of worry before her mother’s expression settled back into its familiar groove: stoic perseverance mixed with a trace of scorn.
    Moving more slowly than usual, with the crabbed gait of someone ailing, Doris led the way down the hall, her rubber-soled shoes squeaking against the old dark-stained floorboards. Mary followed with a knot of trepidation in her stomach. A glance into the darkened living room confirmed that Noelle had indeed spent the night there; the coffee table had been pushed aside, and a blanket was scrunched at one end of the brocade sofa.
    In the kitchen Doris retrieved a mug from the drainer on the counter. ‘You look as if you could use some coffee,’ she said. ‘There’s milk in the fridge. Help yourself.’
    ‘Thanks, but I take it black.’ It was a little game they played, her mother pretending she didn’t know Mary took her coffee black and Mary acting as if Doris had merely forgotten.
    She watched her mother fill the mug from the old-fashioned percolator on the stove. The kitchen was as tidy as ever, its speckled green linoleum and