Chum CHIM chum CHIM... The washing machine spun about and around in front of Patty’s face like a bland pinwheel. She was wearing her clown shoes again. It was raining outside.

None of this, of course, had to do with why she refused the peanut butter and jelly her mom tried so hard to make to her standards earlier. She had put on the clown shoes and fumbled away to watch the laundry. Normally she would watch TV but Brady had on a gun game. They were too loud for Patty, though the chum CHIM of the wash was comparable.

And nothing at all had to do with why Patty had not spoken a single word since her seventh birthday six weeks ago. It did not feel right to Patty anymore. When her mother turned thirty-two she had stopped eating meat because it did not feel right anymore. We all wake up in the morning because sleep no longer feels right. Patty’s choice of silence was no different. Seven years old seemed a perfectly suitable age to become voluntarily mute.

Patty’s mother, Carleen Stelby, stood outside the laundry room door and breathed heavily. She was always breathing heavily. Despite the fact that she consumed no meat, a practice of the day that was deemed for only the extremely health conscious, Carleen Stelby was as fat as, well, a woman who consumed a few too many skirt steaks and fast food chicken patties.

She stood with her back to the wall through which Patty sat wearing her clown shoes. Her meaty hands were pressed between the drywall and her back rolls. She was thinking about her poor daughter and her poor daughter’s poor, poor situation. Poor Carleen Stelby, always trying to get the best out of life and always getting the worst. Her husband had up and died right after Patty was born. Cancer, as usual. So they named her in his undeserved honor, Patricia Lawrence Stelby. Patty used to protest about this “man name,” when she still spoke at all.

Poor Carleen Stelby, the fattest woman in her romance book club, the only woman with a mute child in the Fabric Fairy where she stood and breathed heavily nine to five, Sunday to Friday, the only woman with no husband out of all the members of the PTA at Holcomb Primary School. But she still tried to smile, because that is what all the contradicting self-help books seem to have in common.

She was even smiling as she stood outside the laundry room in her large, mostly-empty, colonial style home. The home Larry Stelby had paid for with his immaculate job at a big, immaculate company. The home Larry Stelby had paid for with his immaculate cancer and immaculate life insurance.

Carleen Stelby took an extra deep breath and turned in to face the chum CHIM chum CHIM of the wash and the……… of her daughter.

“Honey,” she said sternly, clearing her throat, “you do not go storming off like that just because I put too much jelly on your sandwich.”

Patty stared up at her with eyes that read nothing, an expression dampened beyond recognition by the spin cycle.

Carleen Stelby made an impossible request: “Next time, honey, use your words to tell me what is wrong, and we can fix it together. Only by opening up to others can you truly get what you want.” Carleen Stelby had become a walking, talking self-help book. She herself had become numb to their effects. Patty was born numb to them.

With Patty’s usual absent response, Carleen plodded away. The floorboards shook under the weight of her frustration. She filled a kettle with water for some tea; she needed to calm down.

And then, the chum CHIM chum CHIM was drowned out with a noise that had become foreign to Carleen Stelby, a noise that rattled through the large home like an anxious ghost. Patricia Lawrence Stelby was screaming.

Carleen failed to start the kettle. She froze, eyes wide in fear.

“Patty! Patty! Patty! PATTY!” All she could think to scream was her daughter’s name. She trampled back through the hallway and flung all of her weight around the doorframe into the laundry room.

“WahhAhhhghhhhh uhhhhhhaaawwwwwAaggh!” Patty screamed and screamed and screamed, releasing the wave of sound that had been pushing at her lips for a month and a half.

And then it was just chum CHIM chum CHIM chum CHIM…

Brady had shut off his gun game and was listening intently from the couch.

“Patty…” Carleen said slowly, head hot with concern. “You’re… you’re talking.” She couldn’t say much else. She swiped her sweaty palms on her sweaty forehead. She felt her breath seeping through her heavy chest and coming up in hyperventilated bursts.

“Of course I’m talking, Mama! Look!” Patty held up her phone. She had tears steadily streaking her soft cheeks. “Look Mama! I’m gonna die, Mama! Can you believe it Mama! I’m gonna die, Mama! I’m gonna die!”

And when Carleen Stelby saw what was on the screen of Patty’s phone, when she saw the reason that her seven-year-old daughter broke her mysterious vow of silence, she felt her own vocal chords shrivel and fall away.

“Mama, LOOK!” Patty prompted again, but Carleen was already looking through misted eyes.

Carleen Stelby read: “Harry Styles Cuts His Hair, Fans Outraged,” and she lost all faith.