Silence Can Seem So Loud

The worst part of Eleana’s day would be getting out of her last class at the University of California, Sacramento division, to know she has to make the drive home. It’s not the drive that bothers her, is it the thought of going home. Which in other words, a home is supposed to be a place of relaxation, to put someone at ease after a long day, a place filled with warmth.

Not for Eleana.

Her home is full of sadness. Full of unwelcome and unease. It’s a cold, dark, disturbing place to be for any long period of time. And the home has been like this since Eleana could remember.

At the age of 22, the senior in college still lives with her father. Although, the only time she is at the house is after she was either done studying or done with her two jobs for the day and she was tired. Usually, this meant Eleana didn’t walk through the front door of the home until eleven or midnight on weeknights. Every night she would see her father passed out in front of the television, a half filled beer bottle to the right on a tv tray. Eleana would sneak around the man to shut the box off, causing the screen to dim before she retreated to her bedroom on the second floor. Away from the dismal environment that was slowly eating away the entire lower level of her childhood home.

The only reason she is still there is because of the fear of what her father would do if she didn’t.

Oliver Sterling was a bitter, frigid old man. Being 55, he had been widowed since the age of 32 when his daughter was born. The love of his life, Kathryn, passed away during childbirth. Something about a blood clot that shot straight to her brain. Then there was the blood loss.

And he was there to witness it all.

Having to raise the child that killed his beloved did not settle well with Oliver. After constant begging from Kathryn’s family, and from his own as well, Oliver decided to raise the child as a single father. Things were easy for the early years. It was when Eleana hit middle school when things changed. She started to look more and more like her mother with each passing day. And it never failed for a family member to bring up that fact in conversation. Oliver hated it. He loved his daughter, but he hated what she did to his wife. His soul-mate. She was to blame for him being so alone at his old age. It was all her fault.

Every day before she left for school, Oliver told her that he loved her. But he knew that it never meant the same as it used to.

Nothing in his life meant what it used to.

Eleana was the one who found her father after he had swallowed all of his anti-depressants. She found him right before he finished off the bottle of whiskey. She had been gone for a week to visit her friend while he was in New York. They attended an annual music festival. But when she walked in the door, that freedom and warmth she had felt that entire week of being with her best friend had vanished. All she saw was her father slumped over in his chair, high from the pills that were just starting to take a toll on his system.

Oliver woke up in the hospital three days later with a distraught Eleana at his bedside. He sent her away without any last glances or any last words. Just told her to leave and that when he was released from suicide watch, he would call a cab to get him home.

That is how life at home had been for Eleana for the past decade.

Sadly, it was all she knew.