Ever since my mother died, our house has been filled with stony silence. In the year since her death, I have refused to let any words pass my lips for fear they'll turn into a torrent of sorrow and grief. "Selective mutism," are the words everyone uses to describe my “condition”, whispering the words into my dad's head in saccharinely sympathetic murmurs. I sit still, pretending that I am a rock in a stream, the river of voices curving around me like white noise. I know what I'm doing, and no amount of false promises and wishes will get the dam of words obstructing my voice to break.

My dad eventually gave up trying to coax words out of my mouth. Sometimes I want nothing more than to curl up next to him, my head resting on the comforting warmth of his lap, and let the words come flooding out, but then I remember. I am not speaking. It is a selfish contest I am holding, but I want him to cede first. I have been winning this game of silence for too long to stop now.

I want to scream. There are so many thoughts and feelings bottled up inside of me that desperately want to be released. I want him to hear me instead of ignoring me, instead of treating me like I am fragile glass on the verge of shattering. I want to go up to him and say, “See, dad? I’m strong like she was. I have not spoken. I am not glass”. But the words refuse to come out, catching and sticking in my throat like glue until I am afraid that everything unsaid will slowly suffocate me. I do not speak, and neither does my dad. I hear him talking on the phone, I see him outside, laughing and smiling at others. He speaks to other, just not to me. I want to bring that back, to make him happy like that when he and I are together, but I don't know how to do it without her here. Her absence is a gaping black hole, swallowing up all of the joy and love that used to swell inside our walls.

Finally, I can’t stand the heavy weight of silence pressing down on me in our house anymore. The claustrophobia is too much to bear. It feels like the walls are closing in on me, trying to swallow me up into the shadows.

I march over to my dad and tap him on the shoulder. He glances up from his work wearily, as if he can't be bothered to care about me. I pantomime walking with my fingers and point towards the door. He nods and mutters a, “be careful,” before returning his attention to his papers. Even though I deserve it, his lack of interest still stings. I huff and make sure to slam the door on my way out. At least the sound of it rattling on its hinges will ricochet through the house and make a sound.

My feet angrily stomp as loud as possible as I remind myself with each clap of thunder that I exist, that I am still capable of making noise. I have no idea where I'm going, but it doesn’t matter.

Anywhere that’s not this house.

Eventually, I wind up stomping past a small, hidden pocket of a garden. An oasis of people and plants flourishing amongst the drab city blocks. Meaningless chatter fills the air, and it makes me long for the days when my house was filled with conversation, the days when words rolled off of my tongue as easily as honey dripping from a spoon.

A young woman wearing a floral hijab peers out from an overlooking window, her smile shining like a second sun. A young girl crouches in the corner, carefully patting the soil around her seedlings. The shadows make it hard to see her clearly, but she looks to be around my age. She's petite, her dark, waist-length hair shimmering with the sun's reflection. She lifts her head, and her chocolate almond eyes meet mine. There is something, maybe grief or heartache, that glimmers in her eyes and makes my breath catch with the familiarity.

A wave of nostalgia threatens to drown me beneath its foamy crests. The memories of my mother elbow-deep in dirt, her floppy-brimmed hat almost down to her eyes, are too much to bear. Tears well in my eyes and my body shakes like there’s an earthquake trapped inside. I close my eyes for a steadying second, and when I open them again, she’s there. The girl with grief in her eyes. She looks at me and before I know what is happening, she and I are embracing. I melt into the warmth for a second before forcing myself to pull apart. I am glass, I remind myself. Cold and sharp and unbreakable.

“Hello,” she says, sticking out a dirt-smudged hand. Her face is pretty in a poetic way. A constellation of pale freckles lay scattered across her smooth skin like distant stars. Her eyes are dark brown and almond-shaped with thick, elegant lashes framing their edges, the kind that instantly makes you feel warm and welcome.

“I’m Malee.” I want to take her hand, but my arms refuse to move no matter how much I will them to. She lowers her hand self-consciously. “Sorry if my hands are dirty,” she apologizes. “I’ve been here all day.”

I want to tell her that I don’t mind the dirt at all, that I am just selfish and lonely and miserable and mean. But the words won’t come out. They sit there gathering dust on the tip of my tongue. So instead, I follow her to her small plot of land in the corner. All I see are a couple of hints of green peeking through the soil. I sit down beside her, not caring about the dirt smudging my shorts or the ants crawling across my sneakers. It's not like my father will even look at me long enough to notice the earthy stains.

“These are for my father,” she explains softly. “He died before I was born. My mom named me Malee, which is Thai for ‘flower’, because he loved flowers. Even though I never knew him, I think he’s why I love flowers, too.” I don’t know how, but Malee must have seen the sadness reflected in my eyes because she said just the words I needed to hear.

The next day, I lace up my sneakers and softly close the door behind me. I hear the soft pitter-patter of the shower, which makes this an opportune moment to escape. I don't want him to know I've left, though it'll probably be a while before he looks up from his work long enough to notice my absence. I head towards the garden. I hear my phone buzzing in my pocket, but I ignore it. Even if I answered, it's not like there's anything I could say to my dad.

Malee isn’t there when I arrive, so I crouch down and get to work. By the time I am done there is dirt under my nails and smudgy stains on my clothes. Usually, I am all about neatness and tidiness, but I like the way the dirt feels against my skin. I smell like her when she’d come in from gardening wearing her earthy scent like it was perfume.

People stop and look at me, but there is no hostility in their stares, only curiosity. I feed them small smiles and shy waves, but I don’t introduce myself. I am still glass, but a mellower kind, the kind that’s been worn down by the sea until it is soft and shimmery. The brittle bits of me are being blown away, leaving behind something brand new and bursting with hope.

One afternoon, I am alone, tending to my flowers. The garden is never empty, but it is now, the looming storm clouds frightening everyone away. It feels forlorn without anyone else here, so I go to leave as soon as I am finished. I bend over to my tie my dragging shoelaces before they become as scuffed and grassy as the soles of my shoes.

When I look up, I see a scrawny boy bent over, tearing my precious plants out of the ground. I let out a helpless shriek and he turns, startled, before sprinting away, a bouquet of blossoms gathered in his arms. I stare at the spot where my flowers used to be in desolate disbelief. As if feeling my pain, rain starts pouring down, mixing with my tears and drenching my clothes. I run to my flowers, crying as I kneel on the muddy ground. It feels like my lungs have been ripped away, and I can barely breathe.

The rain suddenly stops beating down on me. I can still hear it, but now all I feel are the salty pelts of my own tears. I look up, briefly thinking it's my mother, but it's just a woman from the garden. I cry harder, remembering all over again that my mother’s gone and she’s never coming back.

“Hey, now, don’t cry. The clouds are already doing enough of that,” the woman says, wiping the tears from my face. It’s probably not safe to be talking to this woman. She’s a stranger, and she doesn’t need to be bothered by my stupid sadness. But she doesn’t leave. I sniffle and she pulls me into a tight hug, her fuzzy curls tickling the back of my neck. She smells familiar, like a mixture of honey and earth, and it takes all of my effort to stop myself from bursting back into tears. “What’s the matter, child?” she asks, her eyes squinted in such genuine concern that I feel bad for not answering.

I open my mouth, the words bubbling in my throat, but they refuse to spill out. I start crying again, thick, hiccupy sobs, but the woman won’t have any of it.

“It’s alright, it’s alright,” she soothes. “You don’t have to talk if you don’t want to, ok? Just because you can’t speak doesn’t mean you can’t make yourself heard.” I stare at her in wonder, my tears drying up as quickly as they'd begun. All this time and I thought my speechlessness made me weak and delicate as glass, just like how everyone saw me. But as I sit there, hugging the woman under her umbrella and staring at the flowers, my flowers, dotting the garden, I start to think. I have no voice, I think, but my actions can make up for that.

She leaves only after I insist I'm ok, and before she goes she hands me her umbrella.

"You need it more than I do," she says, laughing and gesturing towards the clothing plastered to my skin like paper-mâché. She waves goodbye and walks out of the garden, her curls slick and shiny with rain. Again, her words invoke an epiphany.

Thought my heart still throbs with the absence of the patch of my flowers, maybe it's for the best. Maybe that boy needed those flowers more than I did. Maybe he's going to give them to his special someone. Before I can stop myself, I think maybe he's going to give them to his mother. My throat hitches again, but I won’t let myself cry. I can't make my Dad proud if I dissolve every time someone says that word. I get to my feet, and I look up at the sun peeking through the clouds, engilding their edges with golden light. I walk home, twirling the umbrella's stem between my fingertips, an extra bounce in my step.

It's bright outside again. I inhale and exhale, clench and unclench my fists, gathering up my courage. I gently push open the door, wincing as the hinge creaks harshly. My dad is sitting in his armchair, papers spread out on the table in front of him. Even though he's doing work, he looks peaceful, and I can't help but wonder why he never looks like this when I'm home.

He looks up when he hears my tentative footsteps.

"Oh, honey, you've ruined your sneakers. You're going to track in mud." Mom would never have worried about a smidge of dirt. She'd have laughed and admonished me with empty threats that we both knew she never intended to follow through on. But though his comment irks me, I swallow down my simmering irritation. I am here as a diplomat, not as someone wishing to start a war.

I tug on my dad’s sleeve, just as I did when I was little. He looks at me with a slightly lost expression, as if he doesn't know how to respond to interaction with me. As the weeks have passed, we’ve been seeing less and less of each other. The garden was my escape, but was I trying to escape from him or from myself?

At this moment, I realize the cruelty of my contest of silence. My mother’s death broke the both of us equally, and it was unfair of me to expect him to glue all of the pieces back together himself. Maybe both of us are glass, shattered into a thousand gleaming shards of grief.

“What is it?” he asks impatiently, itching to get back to his precious work. I swallow another prick of annoyance and take a deep, calming breath. Just like the garden was my escape, work is his, and I can’t fault him for wanting to get away.

“Come,” I insist, my voice unsteady yet strong. He's shocked. I never thought I'd speak again either, so I understand his surprise. I repeat what I said and he obeys, mechanically putting aside his work. I wait as he puts on his shoes, wishing he could hurry up before I lose my nerve. I lead him by hand to the garden. We don't speak until we arrive, but it's a different kind of silence. A less stilted kind.

I pause, letting him take in the garden, before pointing out the flowers. His face crumples as he instantly realizes their significance. His eyes begin to water, and I start to think that this was a bad idea. Maybe I've reminded him too much of her. Maybe... maybe they're happy tears? Maybe they're even proud tears.

“This is where you’ve been going all this time?” he finally asks. I can tell he's hurt that I never told him. We've let each other become so distant from one another this summer. I was reaching towards the sunlight while he was hugging the safety of the ground, and there was nothing binding us together anymore.

I nod as tears start streaming from his eyes. I feel the dam in my eyes fracturing as I pull him into a hug. It shocks me how much I've missed the warmth of his embrace. The glass inside me melts as I am enveloped in his love.

“I love you, aba,” I whisper into the folds of his shirt. He smells like coffee and lemony detergent, and I soak it all up. I never want to forget his smell.

“I missed you, honey,” he whispers back, hugging me tighter. I push him apart, but I'm smiling. We've broken some invisible glass barrier. I've missed you too, I think, though I don't tell him that. I don’t need words for him to know how I feel.

I lead him around the garden, rattling off facts I’ve learned about the various plants. I wave to the woman with the umbrella, though I don’t explain why to my dad. I’ve forgiven the boy for stealing my blooms, and for now, I’m just trying to live in the present. I look into the corner of the garden, the place where it all started, and I know what I need to do next.

“Hi,” I say, sticking out my dirt-smudged hand. Her whole faces changes as she hears my voice and her mouth tilts into a wide smile.

“Hi,” she says, shaking my hand back.

Standing in the midst of my mother’s flowers, my hand interlocked with Malee’s, hearing my Dad laugh distantly at someone’s joke, I am the happiest I've felt in ages. I thought that I could make my parents happy by being glass, strong and impenetrable. But by being glass, I made myself into something hard and sharp.

And I know that wherever she is now, my mom has been proudly watching my actions. But now, she can hear my voice too.