Tuesday Slice: A comfortable silence

The quiet is creeping in to our empty nest.

I wake up hours before he does.  The house is dark, intensifying the sounds of the rushing tap water as I make my coffee and the jarring metallic rattling of silverware pulled from the dishwasher.  I prepare for the day with quiet words in my ears and before my eyes.  He is just getting out of bed as I enter the shower, the music of his alarm breaking the stillness.  Good mornings are given in barely a whisper.

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"How was your day?"  "Fine; how was yours?"  "It was okay."
A silent pas de deux in our small kitchen, opening cabinets and refrigerator and microwave door for a dinner of leftovers.  A smile exchanged across the table, over our plates.

Afterwards, one falls asleep on the couch, the other in the armchair. "Antiques Roadshow" is softly playing in the background.

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Another afternoon goes by without a television or radio blaring.  Computer keystrokes play a staccato beat against the intermittent bluster of the central heater.  We sit back to back in padded office chairs, each staring at our own screen in the twilight of the study, occasionally bumping softly with a mumbled "sorry".

In the evening, the dishes clink as he cleans up the kitchen. The first to head to bed, I give him a quick hug from behind and wish him good night.  He will follow long after I am asleep.


Two quiet souls, at the end of noisy days.  We revel in the comfortable silence.