Sunday Reveries: Don't Speak
"Lovers communicate not inside sentences, but between them."
- Lionel Shriver
A look across their joined desks, one tilt of a chin or a dropped shoulder in the interrogation room and Charlie knows what Reese is telling him. They speak in silence, body language and something very close to ESP. He’s attuned to her on a level that goes deeper than any other relationship he has. Even Ted doesn’t quite speak him as well as Reese does.
There is a part of him that reacts whenever she walks into a room. He was always aware of the people around him, a trait left over from prison, but Reese trips something deeper. He can know when she’s had a bad night or when she’s happy or angry. Her masks and walls are stronger than most peoples. A lot of people can’t read Reese like he can. Knowing that he can is something he regards with reverence.
She knows him in the same way. When other people are confused by his behavior or his Zen, Reese understands and translates. If she doesn’t understand, she doesn’t give up until she has it figured out, until she has him figured out. It was scary at first. He didn’t want people to know him then. He was still more of a con than a cop but now he needed her to know him. Someone in the world knew him, someone understood him and could speak his language fluently.
In the silence, she speaks the loudest to him. Words are good, words are fine, they speak in words all the time but he speaks in words with other people and so does she. Words are not private between them, words are not as intimate as the silences. The silences are what unite them, make them partners and made them lovers.
He understands that now. The silence brought them together. In learning each others language and learning to speak in silence, they built a trust. It was the trust that made the silence possible and the silence made the trust. He would spend his life in silence to only speak to her.
- Lionel Shriver
A look across their joined desks, one tilt of a chin or a dropped shoulder in the interrogation room and Charlie knows what Reese is telling him. They speak in silence, body language and something very close to ESP. He’s attuned to her on a level that goes deeper than any other relationship he has. Even Ted doesn’t quite speak him as well as Reese does.
There is a part of him that reacts whenever she walks into a room. He was always aware of the people around him, a trait left over from prison, but Reese trips something deeper. He can know when she’s had a bad night or when she’s happy or angry. Her masks and walls are stronger than most peoples. A lot of people can’t read Reese like he can. Knowing that he can is something he regards with reverence.
She knows him in the same way. When other people are confused by his behavior or his Zen, Reese understands and translates. If she doesn’t understand, she doesn’t give up until she has it figured out, until she has him figured out. It was scary at first. He didn’t want people to know him then. He was still more of a con than a cop but now he needed her to know him. Someone in the world knew him, someone understood him and could speak his language fluently.
In the silence, she speaks the loudest to him. Words are good, words are fine, they speak in words all the time but he speaks in words with other people and so does she. Words are not private between them, words are not as intimate as the silences. The silences are what unite them, make them partners and made them lovers.
He understands that now. The silence brought them together. In learning each others language and learning to speak in silence, they built a trust. It was the trust that made the silence possible and the silence made the trust. He would spend his life in silence to only speak to her.