Snipits from The Sound of Supper
A Scene From Chapter 1 - A Profound Silence:
Chairs scraped like accusations. Forks and knives landed with metallic authority. Plates awaited orders. The table shuddered as Daddy dropped into his seat, elbows wide, claiming space like a general at war.
“Say grace,” Mama barked, already slicing the pot roast. Daddy didn’t fold his hands. He gripped the edge of the table, knuckles white, as if prayer were something you held onto rather than said. I kept my gaze down. Every clatter, every hiss from the skillet, felt aimed at me. Preparation for supper sounded like a battle cry.
While Mama barked orders. Billy slammed the washroom door. Daddy towered in his chair. “Where you goin’?” he growled. “It’s time to say grace.”
Daddy liked it quiet at the table. Billy pushed noise. Stomping. Scowling. Setting sparks. Mama’s fuse always lit.
We took our seats. Daddy’s coal eyes seethed. Mama snapped. Billy sassed. Daddy’s gaze tunneled deep. His voice rolled—low, thick. A storm—waiting.
The crickets fell silent. Like they dreaded the rest of the story.
“Boy! Get in here now, or you’ll miss every bite of supper.”
Billy stomped in, jostled Daddy’s elbow, dropped into his chair.
Daddy planted fists by his plate. His glare scorched down the row. “Bow your heads.”
We obeyed.
He dragged the prayer, testing us. Waiting. I swear a violin pierced my inner ear with a constant high E major. Intense. Waiting. I wondered if the church’s saints’ ears ever picked up music that sharp. Or did Daddy’s sermons drown it out?
I peeked. Billy’s eyes locked onto a fly on the meat. Sure enough, three more words in—he swatted.
Daddy sliced off his prayer as if with a sharpened cleaver. Hush fell. Thick. Raw.Heads down, we listened.
Daddy’s silence stole our oxygen.
Replaced it with sucked-in dread.
Mama flushed. Jacob and Benjamin gulped air—their suffocating sweat choked the room.
My chest folded—skin crawled—like crickets scaling my arms.
Daddy locked onto Billy.
Inside, noise bled away, slid into silence. Cautious, outside noise resumed.
Crickets harmonizing here and there. The cow moaning for her calf. Soft. A plane groaning overhead.
Inside, Daddy’s silence hung—a loaded guillotine.
The bruised sky smoked purple and orange. The sun fled.
My belly curled in on itself. Hunger retreated. Distress marched in.
Nothing moved. Not the air. Not even Daddy’s breath.
The blade fell.
“What’re you doing, boy.”
Thunder.
“You know better than to mess around during prayer.”
“Daddy, I didn’t do nothin’ wrong!” Billy shrieked. “I didn’t want that fly—”
“Shut up. Sit still.”
“I didn’t—”
Mama hissed. “William, stop arguing.”
“I’ll handle this, Mother.” Daddy’s voice—molten.
Mama touched his wrist—gentle over clench. “Say grace, Alton. Let’s eat.” Her voice was like honey flowing.
He paused. Scanned our bowed heads.
“Bow your head, Billy.”
Billy’s eyes burned back, defiant. Daddy leaned, ready to grab.
I cracked.
Head low, I hissed, “Let Daddy pray, brat,” and kicked Billy’s shin.
Mama’s glare sliced through me. Billy flinched. Shut his eyes.
Daddy restarted his prayer, jaw tight. Didn’t skip a word. Went back to the beginning.
After that, he included salvation for Billy’s soul and mine, and recited a list of our sins—too long to count. After pleading our cases to God, he finished with prayers for the night’s church service.
By the end, I realized—like that convict, we were prisoners. Pacing our walls. Enduring sentences doled out by hard-bitten souls.
When Mama said supper, it felt like a call to battle. We sat around our table—prisoners of war.
On that day, in my mind, I saw the runner—the radio’s escaped prisoner. My gut twisted. Let him escape. Find something clean. Scrub himself new.
I prayed for him. I prayed for Billy . . . . I prayed for myself. But my prayers felt hollow. Like letters to nowhere. Sealed in hope, dropped in silence. No echo. No reply. Just me, pretending our house wasn’t a prison cell.
Daddy says God answers prayers—even when the answers hurt. I’m still a kid. I want God to agree with me.
When Daddy finally ended the blessing, the food sat cold. Mama snatched the meat and potatoes and banged them back onto the stove.
Daddy stabbed me and Billy with his glare. He’d seen me kick. I always ended up in trouble for saving my brat brother.
Mama slapped the reheated pans onto the table. I poured milk. Daddy sliced bread.
The air eased. A thin bubble of quiet grew. And, of course, Billy shattered it.
“Why’d I get in trouble? I only swatted a fly.” He stared at his meat. “It got on the roast while Daddy prayed. I can’t eat this.”
“I said eat!” Daddy stabbed a hunk of roast and shoved it into his mouth. Bit down on the meat as if it had foolishly talked back. Chomped like fury fed him.
When Daddy eats mad, it’s like he chews you instead of his food.
I watched and decided I’d yank Billy into the woods later—let Daddy cool. Billy never saw it as rescue when I did that. Argued with me every time.
“I can’t eat it!” Billy’s eyes widened—the crickets paused like they knew what was coming.
—Boom.
Daddy’s fists hit the table like cannonballs. Plates rattled. Milk glasses jumped.
I flinched. Of course. But why?
Me and Mama and the boys leaned back.
Billy froze and shot a sarcastic reply that I didn’t even notice.
While those two yelled, I stopped listening.
I watched milk crawl across Mama’s lace tablecloth—it bled into a cream-colored lake. She’s proud of that tablecloth. She’ll blow her top.
Voices rose. I tuned them out.
Outside, crickets too long restrained burst into song. The cow bawled. The dog yipped.
I nodded in approval . . . of their symphony. Their rules . . . Their freedom.
I faded into myself, eyes drifting to the window. Daydreaming escape. Like the convict.
The squabbling pierced my skull.
I could vanish into the woods. No voices. No fists. Just me, my dog Major, a pile of books, and whatever food we hauled. Live quiet. Eat locusts and wild honey like John the Baptist. Locusts are the same as crickets, right? I wondered if they tasted like dirt or tree sap.
Their argument spun louder. The room filled, like a jar stuffed with shouting.
Could the runner—the one that got away—be dreaming of silence too? Of forests thick enough to muffle memory? My mind refused to give attention to Daddy and Billy’s squabble.
It swelled until it rattled every roof in three counties.
Then . . . .
Wham.
Silver the size of a fork sliced past my face, stabbed into the pine wall, and hung quivering beside Billy’s ear.
My eyes bulged, staring at Daddy’s fork. Stuck in the wall. Tines buried deep. Handle shimmering, casting its glow against Billy’s skin. And while it shimmered, a flash of terror told me . . . . If that kid had turned his head, or moved a fraction of an inch, the fork would’ve hit him smack in the eye, or the temple.
The silence around our supper table told me the same terror struck everyone . . . and no one moved a muscle.
The valley’s sound faucet clamped shut.
No breath.
No crickets.
No cow.
No dog.
No fight.
No sound . . . other than the fork’s terrible hum.
Every ear in the house,
every creature in the gully,
tuned to the silver vibration—until it stilled.
The hush swallowed us.
All eyes turned to Daddy.
His voice landed low. Savage.
“If I’d wanted your eye,” he growled, “I’d have taken it.”
“NOW EAT.”
Billy dropped his gaze.
Lowered his head.
Speared a bite of meat.
His ear twitched. Brushed the fork.
We shoveled food. Fast.
Eyes flicking toward the silver.
Voices sealed.
Inside me, someone hissed—Lizzy. Run. We aren’t safe.
Not even the pulsing hymns of every cricket in the world drowned the silence that held supper hostage that night. Even the quiet had a pulse sharp enough to bruise.
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***** Copyright 2026 Mary Demorest Baidenmann
NEW - Coming Soon! The Sound of Supper
Contact the author at: Info@marybaidenmann.com