They never replied.

And I understood, in the silence that followed, exactly what that silence meant — the same thing my own silence had always meant to them.

It meant that the pressure had failed, and that the person applying it had no next move.

I had learned the language of that silence in their house.

It was almost funny, at the end, to hear them speak it back to me at last.

Chapter 18 — The Facade Shattered