Sewn Silence

The silence of the house by the lake had become her language. Léa moved through it like a shadow, her bare feet brushing the waxed floorboards that her grandmother once polished with such painstaking care. She had lived in this house with its sun-bleached shutters for twenty-two years — fourteen of which had passed in wordless quiet, ever since the night her mother’s screams fell silent under the crushing blows of her father.

In the dim living room with its curtains drawn tight, Momma was waiting. The rag doll sat on the faded red velvet armchair, her black button eyes fixed on some invisible point beyond the walls. Léa approached her the way one might approach a confessional, her lips moving in a soundless dialogue only the two of them could understand.

* Hello, Momma. Did you sleep well ? *

Her fingers stroked the worn cotton of the doll’s pale blue dress, sewn from an old Sunday blouse Céleste once wore to mass. The doll’s chestnut hair — real locks, cut from her mother’s own head — was carefully braided and tied with a thread of crimson red. Every detail in her making bore the imprint of loving hands — those of her mother and grandmother, united in the creation of this cloth guardian.

A single red thread ran through the doll’s heart, a fragile textile artery that seemed to pulse under the filtered light.

“This doll will carry all the love I have for you,” Céleste had whispered when she offered Momma to Léa. “She’ll watch over you when I’m no longer here.”

Léa had been six at the time and believed this gesture to be one of tenderness. She didn’t yet know that a mother’s love could also be a slow poison, distilled drop by drop into a child’s ear that only ever wanted to grow.

The wind off the lake made the shutters groan, and Léa closed her eyes, letting the memories rise. They always came unbidden — fragments of voices echoing in the silence of her mute throat.

“Men hurt, my sweet girl, but that’s the way of the world.”

Céleste’s voice, soft and resigned, would mingle with the clinking of the rosary beads as she whispered her prayers each night after the beatings. Léa could see her mother kneeling before the crucifix in the living room, lips bruised violet, whispering Our Fathers like others count sheep.

“You are pure, my daughter. You must remain so your entire life.”

These words, Céleste would repeat while braiding Léa’s hair, her trembling fingers gently unknotting each strand with obsessive tenderness. Pure. That word still echoed, heavy with promises and threats entwined.

Léa opened her eyes and looked at Momma. The doll seemed to listen, attentive to this daily confession. Since the passing of Grandmother Éléonore the year before — taken in her sleep by a heart too tired of loving — Léa had lived alone with her memories and her cloth doll in that inherited house, which still smelled faintly of lavender and honey biscuits. She lived like a hermit, sustained by her grandmother’s savings and a few sewing jobs delivered wordlessly to the nearby hamlet.

She made her way to the kitchen, clutching Momma to her chest. Outside the window, the lake stretched like a tarnished mirror, reflecting a sky the color of ash. It was there she had learned to swim, clinging to Céleste’s dress as it floated around them like a blooming flower. It was there, too, on that same shoreline, that everything had shattered fourteen years ago — when her mother’s screams pierced the night, followed by the even more terrifying silence of her father fleeing into darkness.

She had been eight years old, still believing that monsters only lived in fairy tales.

Léa prepared the tea just as her grandmother had taught her — each motion precise, ritualized, calming. She placed the porcelain cup on the table across from Momma, now seated on a high chair.

“Be wary of love, my darling. It destroys everything it touches.”

That phrase — Céleste had whispered it the night she died, even as the ambulance sirens were already tearing through the dark. Léa, hiding behind the railing of the porch, Momma clutched tightly to her chest, had seen her mother extend a bloodied hand toward the doll, as if sealing some final, binding pact.

The phone rang, shattering the melancholic stillness. Léa jumped, spilling a few drops of tea on the embroidered tablecloth. She never answered — what was the point, when she could no longer speak ? But the sound persisted, shrill and invasive, breaking into the sanctuary of silence she had built around herself.

After fifteen rings, the answering machine clicked on. The nasal voice of Madame Dubois, the notary, filled the kitchen:

“Miss Moreau, I’m calling about the rental of your cabin. Your new tenant, Miss Maya Delacroix, will be moving in tomorrow. Just wanted to give you a heads-up, as agreed. Have a good day.”

Léa exchanged a glance with Momma. For months, the old yellow cabin five hundred meters away had stood empty, its shutters shut like tired eyelids. Now, someone would disturb their solitude.

She carried Momma to the window. In the distance, the cabin stood among the poplars, its weathered facade glowing gold in the setting sun. Léa imagined unfamiliar voices breaking the silence, footsteps on gravel, light blooming behind the windows. The thought sent a shiver through her.

She thought she saw a slight shift in the doll’s posture, as if she too dreaded what was coming. The red thread at her heart seemed to throb more intensely in the orange glow of dusk — like a living heartbeat stitched into linen.

That night, Léa fell asleep with Momma pressed close, just as she had done since childhood. In her dreams, her mother stroked her hair and murmured sorrowful lullabies — melodies of purity and protection, of love that binds and redeems all at once.

At dawn, when the first light crept through the window, Momma was gone.

Léa searched the room, her heart pounding, before finally spotting the doll standing on the windowsill. Her button eyes stared out beyond the lake, as if she were standing guard — silent sentinel of a love that refused to die.

Léa scoured her memory. Had she dreamed of putting Momma to bed ? Had she moved her without realizing ? The doubt clawed at her, cold and invasive.

She tucked the doll gently back into the bed, pulling the blanket up to her stitched chin. Outside, the sun was beginning to burn away the last wisps of fog. A moving truck had just come to a halt in front of the yellow cabin. The lake shimmered in the morning light, a promise — perhaps — of a day less gray than the ones before.