Finding her voice

In Sharons family, it goes Brian, Frank, Josephine and then Sharon. Sharon had lost her mother years ago, and knew the sale of her house was going to happen at some stage, but didn’t expect it would happen while she was in hospital. With her share of the inheritance, Sharon wanted to buy an acre of land, next to what was her granny’s house, which was owned by the millionaire of the family, Frank. She wanted to build a modular home there for her and her two dogs, Bob and Suki. She wanted to start a business of photographing dogs and build a sort of ‘play area’ for them where they could let off some steam before she photographed them. It was the sort of plan that didn’t involve a large start-up fee, and she was bloody good at catching even the wildest of dogs in a great pose!

That was the life Sharon had planned for herself. Brian, on the other hand, had a different idea! He wanted his baby sister to live in the village where people could ‘keep an eye on her’! This fed into her paranoia. He also went and took it upon himself to get in contact with her friend, employer, and the person who bordered Bob and Suki when she was in hospital, Charlotte. Now, Sharon owed Charlotte a lot of money for boarding her two babies over the years, but was working to pay off the debt in her own way. Her brother Brian thought that to be nonsense, and offered Charlotte Suki to pay off half of the money owed. When Sharon found out, she was sick to the stomach. Suki, a Belgian Shephard, was given to her by Charlotte in the first place to train her for the NYPD. However, when they came to take her, they realised that Suki would never take commands from them the way she did for Sharon. Suki was her safety net, the type of dog who made her feel secure in her own home and Brian wanted to just get rid of her without even speaking to Sharon first!

Sharon could never stand up to Brian. She could never find her voice when it came to the head of the family, not that he’d listen anyway! Brian was hot headed. He would break bones and was involved in numerous fights over the years. If Sharon ever told him that someone hurt her, he made sure they went around on crutches for six weeks! She was afraid of him, not that he’d ever lifted a finger to her, but because of the things he had done to ‘protect’ her in the past! She was paralysed. She wanted to tell him she wanted to live in the countryside and start her own business, but could never express that want as she had lost her voice to Brian back as far as when she was a toddler.

Before Brian offered Suki to Charlotte, there was a ‘family meeting’ over zoom with all of her siblings and her doctor. She was paralysed in the meeting and had to be taken out of the room by one of the nurses present to see if she was ok. Her standard response was ‘I’m fine!’, but that particular nurse knew she wasn’t. The whole idea of the ‘family meeting’ was for her siblings to know more about what she went through as a child and how she was abused as an adult. Brian, who was highly strung, reacted in a bad way to the child part of the meeting, so they never got to the abuse in the three-hour session. Sharon just sat there whilst her doctor was advocating on her behalf, insisting she would do better in the countryside with her dogs. This all went over Brians head. Sharon could see on screen that he was getting riled up and when he exploded, saying that hospital was doing her no good, she shut down completely and had to be taken out of the room again.

Brian told her when he offered Suki to Charlotte, but Charlotte didn’t even send her a text to tell her they had come to this ‘arrangement’. Sharon went two weeks before Charlotte even answered her text about whether it was true or not. She was in limbo! Eventually, Charlotte agreed to a phone call, a conversation Sharon had good sense to record so she could go over it again when she was calmer and respond to all the questions Charlotte asked.

The night of the phone call, Sharon attempted suicide. She had just heard that she was an unfit dog owner and was frightened they were going to take Bob too! She was in the depths of despair, her voice still lost in the crossfire, and she saw no other way out if she couldn’t have her babies when she was released from hospital. Thankfully, someone came in and found her before it was too late and there wasn’t too much damage caused!

About a week later, Sharons brother Frank was over from the UK, where he resides, and came in to visit her. He stayed for about two hours and, somehow, Sharon found her voice and expressed her dream to live in the country and focus on her photography. Frank, who was a reasonable man, agreed with her. He was able to recognise that she wouldn’t do well in the village and, as a businessman himself, saw how little capital it would take to get her dream off the ground. He also disagreed with Brians decision to return Suki! This gave Sharon hope, hope she hadn’t felt since the sale of her mother's house! When she voiced her concerns to Frank, he offered to sell her an acre of their granny’s land at a very reasonable price for her to place a modular home, keep both of her dogs, and start her own business. Brian had told Sharon he had already talked to Frank, which turned out to be bullshit as he was only hearing about his ‘serpent tongue’ for the first time…from Sharon.

Knowing Frank was by her side in the situation was a relief! However, she still hadn’t replied to Charlotte, as when Frank left, she lost her voice again. One of Sharons biggest issues was that she couldn’t form words when the nurses asked her how she was, well other than ‘fine’. Her nurse for that day knew she was hurting, so she asked her to write it all down instead. She then took the time to go through that piece of writing with Sharon and was shocked at some of the issues she was dealing with. The nursing staff then knew why she had attempted to end her life and learned about her other problems that she hadn’t expressed in her four months’ stay. They had found a way to communicate to Sharon now and continued to get her to write down her feelings, thoughts, and opinions, and went through them with her every day. Finally, she could express herself without having to form words!

Before she got back to Charlotte about Suki, Sharon wrote down a script and decided it would be best if she emailed it to her once friend, rather than be put on the spot with a question or a challenge to some of what she had written. She needed to know whether she could have both of her babies back as the looming discharge date was approaching fast. Charlotte took the email well and they continued to correspond this way for a couple of weeks, as it was a way that gave Sharon the power of her voice back!

Eventually, they went back to phone calls, but not before Sharon was ready. She was then able to control her answers to the big questions, and was able to tell Charlotte that, even though it was a long admission this time, admissions never lasted that long before! Charlotte agreed with her and Sharon put to her that if she did take Suki, she would also lose a friend and employee, even though she wasn’t getting paid for her work. Charlotte was lost without her and, when she realised Brian was just trying to get rid of the Belgian Shephard, a dog he considered dangerous, and that Sharon had no idea he went behind her back! Charlotte was under the impression it was Sharon’s idea!

Frank, who visited Sharon each and every time he was in the country, asked Sharon to design her modular home so he could order it behind Brians back, something he had never done before. He assured her that, when it was live in ready, and she got discharged, that he would talk to Brian about the money end of things. As Frank was a millionaire, he didn’t mind when he got paid, he just wanted his baby sister to be happy and content with where she resided. He assured her that even if she had to live in the village, the modular home would always be there! He said he would use it as a holiday home until she could sell the town house after a year and move into it then.

Frank was well aware that Sharons voice was lost in translation each and every time she spoke to Brian, something she rarely did since the betrayal, but that she found it again whenever Frank visited. She even told him about the abuse she received as a young woman, and how it affected her whole existence. She let him into her world, warts and all, and, even though he cried when he heard her struggles, he then understood why she lost her voice when talking to the hot-headed Brian. He appreciated her being able to open up to him, the first person in her family she had ever told some of the issues she experienced on a daily basis, and then understood why she needed not only both of her babies back, but also why she had trouble talking to the big bad Brian. She expressed how he acted like her abuser, and how she was ultimately afraid of him because of the power he had over herself, Frank and Josephine.

As Sharon and Franks relationship flourished, them getting closer than ever, Frank decided to take Sharons voice and use it on his older brother for her.

Two years later…

Sharon, who was loving her new job, couldn’t keep up with the number of customers she was getting! She had hired another photographer and together they manned four play areas for the people who wanted professional photographs of their dogs. She had a three-month waiting list, and rented the play areas out by the hour for those who just wanted to treat their dogs to a fun day out. The treats that she was making for Bob and Suki were being bought by those who saw how much their dogs loved them as she scattered them in obscure places around the play areas to keep her four-legged customers happy!

When the customers went home, Sharon let Bob and Suki out to let off some steam in the play areas, something Suki, in particular, really appreciated, as she had three-week-old pups to look after. When they came in for the night, Bob on the couch with Sharon, Suki in her crate with the puppies, Sharon was able to smile at the photographs taken that day. With her business thriving, she was the happiest she had ever been!

She looked to the left, and saw Bob cleaning his beard on his couch, then to her right, where Suki, who turned out to be a great mother, suckled her pups, Sharon put away the computer and smiled. Her phone ‘dinged’ she looked at the clock and thought it late to be getting messages. It was Frank. He was obviously inebriated as none of the words made much sense, but she got the gist of the message; ‘I’m proud of you sis!’ She smiled and asked Bob, ‘you wanna go to bed?’ He looked up and tilted his head, before leaping off the sofa and going into the bedroom where he lay on her side. When Sharon saw him, after saying goodnight to Suki and her brood, she smiled, and thought back to a time where she thought she had lost them both! Quickly moving Bob over to his side, she looked into his eyes, his head on the pillow next to her and said, ‘I love you Bobby bear!’ She heard the little squeaks coming from the next room and told Suki she loved her too! She had found her voice, and was using it in a productive manner! Something she wouldn’t have had she not gone through the hardship of those five months in hospital two years prior!