Part 3 Stone Fox: Deafening Silence

Richard was away on business leaving Isobel floating around like a spirit, gracefully gliding between the rooms of their house, not knowing what to do with herself. Normally in these pockets of peace, Isobel could finally take a breath and let her nervous system recalibrate, resting in the tranquility of solitude without judgement but today felt different. Where she would fill the time with reading her beloved books or dancing alone in her kitchen, soaking up every ounce of this sacred time, she couldn’t help but feel how queit the house was when Richard was away. Too quiet. Isobel had once thought it peaceful — a hush wrapped in cashmere and clove smoke — but now it felt like something had been pressed over her mouth. The silence was suffocating, not soothing. A stillness that demanded obedience.

She sat on the velvet settee in their living room, eyes glazed over as the afternoon sun moved across the walls, casting stained-glass shapes like a cathedral. The light turned gold, then bruised violet, then disappeared altogether. She hadn’t moved in hours. Frozen in a trance, trapped in her own mind, Isobel let all the thoughts flow through her and tried to catch them one by one.

Somewhere in the kitchen, the tap was dripping. She tuned into it’s rhythm that kept her mind ticking on, that kept her functioning for another day. She heard the hum of the fridge, a constant drone reminder her that every day moves on and nothing changes. Suddently the silence sounded like a symphony and the noise grew louder and louder.

The thoughts in her head were now screaming at her. She thought bout the way her stomach twisted when Richard touched her shoulder, even if he was smiling. It made her feel sick to her stomach. The way she hesitated before speaking, rehearsing her sentences silently before letting them out for fear of accidently saying the wrong thing. The way she no longer cried, even when she wanted to. Especially then.

She missed crying.

There were moments now — flashes — where she felt completely outside herself. Like watching someone else play her part in a story she hadn’t written. Sometimes she’d find herself standing in the middle of a room, no idea why she’d gone there. Sometimes she'd catch herself apologising when no one had asked her to. There were days when she could not, for the life of her, remember what her own laughter sounded like.

She wasn’t sure when the shift began. Maybe it was the time Richard corrected her story mid-conversation at a dinner party, turning it into something cleaner, more palatable. Or maybe it was when he forgot her birthday and brought her roses three days later, saying “I knew you'd understand, bella.” Or the time she told him about a dream she had — of buying a small art studio — and he smiled, condescending, “You're cute when you fantasise.”

She told herself he meant well. He was tired. Busy. Important. She should be grateful. But gratitude began to feel like a weight tied to her ankles.

She started having trouble sleeping. The dreams that came were fractured — flickers of her childhood home, of Sofia crying at the foot of the stairs, of her mother humming hymns while wiping her eyes with the same towel she used for the dishes. And in those dreams, her father never said a word.

One night, unable to rest, Isobel wandered into the spare bedroom Richard never entered. She opened an old cedar chest and pulled out a forgotten box of photographs. Some were from her early twenties — smiling wide at the bookstore, wind in her hair. There were ones of Sofia too, barely a teenager, eyes full of rebellion and hope.

Looking at those faces, Isobel realised something. She had stopped existing somewhere along the way. Not in a dramatic, cinematic way — but gradually. Like wallpaper fading in the sun.

She reached for her journal, one she hadn’t touched in years. The pages were filled with old poems, prayers, sketches. She flipped to the last page and, with a shaking hand, wrote: “Who is Isobel?”

The next day, she walked into Maria’s Bar.

It was nearly empty. The kind of quiet that invited confessions. Crazy Lou sat in her usual booth, wrapped in a fur coat stained with wine and dust. She didn’t look surprised to see Isobel.

“I told you,” Lou rasped, lighting a cigarette with the grace of someone who no longer cared about lungs or reputations. “Takes a while to feel the trick.”

Isobel slid into the booth opposite her, unsure what she was doing.

“I’m not here to—”

Lou waved her off. “I don’t need apologies, sugar. I just want you to know you're not losing your mind. That’s how he does it. He unpicks the seams till you think you came apart on your own.”

Outside, church bells rang. Three slow chimes.

Lou smiled, but there was no joy in it. “You still think you're in love, don’t you?”

Isobel didn’t answer. Instead, she looked out the window and watched a woman usher two children into the chapel across the street, their hands folded, their heads bowed.

“I used to think love was sacrifice,” she whispered.

Lou stubbed out her cigarette. “That’s not love, sweetheart. That’s religion. And Tricky Dicky? He ain’t no god.”

The words sat between them like incense, heavy and cloying.

That night, Isobel didn’t wait up for Richard. She left the front light off and went to bed early, the rosary her mother once gave her tucked beneath her pillow like a secret. She didn’t pray — but she held it tight in her palm, and for the first time in years, she felt angry.

It was as if her body was waking from a long imprisonment.

The time for staying quiet was over. Shrinking herself, losing herself — that was the harsher sentence. And if she didn’t act soon, there’d be nothing left of her to save.

She trusted her anger.

And that — that was the beginning of her return.

Soundtrack: Sky Goddess