Emily was just fifteen and at an age when most any girl has a right to expect to be happy. Fate however pays little heed to one’s “rights,” any more than it cares about fairness, parental loss or innocence. It holds all the aces and plays them like a pro!

Emily’s mother died as she would have wished – saving her daughter’s life. Being on the crossing just outside the school gates doesn’t count for much when you’re talking high-range drink-driving and the man who carried her mother sixty-three yards down Brooklyn Way, wedged dying, three quarters through the windscreen, didn’t count for much either. Annie Clarke had less than half a second to push her daughter to safety before the impact. It had been enough. In as much as she had fallen forwards, Emily had been spared the sight of her mother’s body being tossed airborne, driven into and butchered by the glass ... but she heard it! She tried to scream ... but no sound came out.

Medical opinions varied – don’t they always?

Jonathan Clarke sat upright in the ergonomically designed piece of extruded plastic, masquerading as a chair. The equally sterile sign on the desk read “Dr. Peter Browning – Speech Pathologist.” The man lowered his glasses.

“You must understand Mr. Clarke, your daughter has been severely traumatised.”

Jonathan had understood that much twenty minutes after the accident – when he arrived on the scene and his daughter had been unable to speak to him!

“Well yes doctor, I realize that,” he replied, wanting desperately to snap that fucking sign in pieces and shove it down the specialist’s coat pocket. How many years had this guy trained? How many exams? for him to sit there and tell him his daughter was traumatized? Jesus Christ!

“But can you give me something a little more concrete to go on? How long might it be before she can talk again?” he added.

Dr. Browning returned his gaze, seemingly figuring if he could still make that golfing appointment.

“Well, Mr. Clarke, all tests show there is no physiological damage – it’s just a case of Emily herself coming to terms with this er, incident. Quite frankly, time is really the best healer.”

Jonathan got up. This conversation, like the dozen or so which preceded it, was going nowhere. “Thank you Doctor,” he said unemotively, turning on his heel and leaving the consulting room to collect Emily from reception.

People react differently to stress and loss. Some handle it, some seek to blame others. More than a few suffer emotional and personality melt-down. Unfortunately for Emily, Jonathan Clarke fell into the latter category.

Whilst her schoolwork did not appear to suffer initially – after all, she could still hear quite normally and besides long periods of being withdrawn, she was able to fulfil working tasks set for her. Few of her circle of friends were prepared to put themselves out to extend any emotional support and one by one withdrew into their own little cliques. Emily became a figure of solitude – that “poor girl who doesn’t want to talk.”

Her father began to drink, and in his irrational and alcohol-fueled state, he eventually arrived at the warped conclusion that if Emily had just gotten the school bus that day, instead of having her mother drive her – he would still have a wife and female companion.

Emily sensed a change but at fifteen, could hardly understand why her father didn’t seem to love her as much. She felt it was something she must have done but had no idea what it could be. Whereas once he would help her with homework – she used to point-out the items she needed help on, now he stayed away and left her to her own devices. He rarely even kissed her goodnight any more. She missed her mother so much she would cry herself to sleep most nights!

Heading up toward sixteen now, Emily was a most beautiful child. Her young body was developing in all the right places - her hips had slimmed down and become quite pronounced. Very finely rounded young breasts that were developing on schedule. Only five-two, she could have passed for seventeen easily with a little make-up. Shoulder-length light bown hair complimented an angelic face, home-base to a cute, slightly upturned nose and smooth, flawless high cheeks. She looked out at her sad and lonely little world through pretty hazel eyes that if you looked hard enough, betrayed the pain and anguish of her loss.

What her father was increasingly looking at however was something quite different. Many months now since the accident, the enforced role of being a single parent was not much to his liking. Emily’s rather sudden transition however, in his eyes at least, from gawky kid to curvy in-house tease, began to stir a lot more than simply his memories. All may not be lost, he reflected. The situation most definitely had possibilities.

It wasn’t that Emily hadn’t been trying to regain her speech. Most nights she would sit in her bedroom in front of the mirror and will her throat to deliver some sound ... any sound. She could sense the presence of a system inhibitor – the kill-switch was spliced-in somewhere between her mind and vocal chords. She knew also that she herself had brought this intolerable existence into being and that she was the only one that could deactivate it.

It was the first day of spring. Walking home quickly from the nearby bus-top, she closed the front door behind her and headed into the kitchen, to find her father seated at the table reading the paper. Not only was he home from work two hours early, he had been drinking again. She could sense a distinct shift in their interpersonal wavelengths. The person who turned to look at her was a complete stranger.

“Have a good day at school Emily?” he slurred, “Oh tha’s right, I forgot, you can’t fucking talk can you?”

He was staring at her, his eyes slowly taking in her whole uniform and quite obviously, most everything underneath it. Emily cringed and instinctively brought her arms up protectively. The schoolbag afforded a comforting amount of protection. He poured the remaining contents of the bottle into the small glass. The only sound in the room momentarily was the ice clinking briefly against the glass.

“Curious as to why daddy’s home early Emily? ... Sure y’are sweetie.” He slammed the glass back down on the table.

“Well, you’ll be proud of ya dad, see he got his-self a raise at last.” He looked at her almost beseechingly...”Yeah, a raise alright - right out the fucking Company.” He paused for an instant, his eyes filling with tears. “So, what d’ya think of that sweet Emily? – your old man got his ass kicked well and good. He just sat hunched up at the table, an inconsolable pillar of misery.

“Lost my wife, my job ... but hey, I still got a daughter that can’t talk ... shouldn’t complain.” His voice trailed off as he studied her.

“Ya know Emily, you’re one beautiful little girl – so like your mother, come and sit on my lap – give yer old dad a cuddle.”

She was torn between allegiance to her father and wariness at his obvious insobriety. She had never seen him slipping this far down into the ooze and yet the alarm bells were pealing like the veritable old clangers at St Martins.

Her love and instinctive trust of her father over-rode her common sense and putting her school bag on the table beside the empty bottle, she allowed herself to be pulled on to his lap. For a while he just sat there holding her round the waist. Inevitably though, the immediacy of so arousing a young female body, daughter or not, tested his resolve to the limit. He allowed a hand to stray to Emily’s knee, just below the hem of her school dress. She made as if to dislodge it.

“What the? “ He looked up at her. “Can’t even put my hand on my own daughter’s leg?” She started to get up, but he pulled her back down.