The world before the baby had been full of the noise of talking and crying and singing and shouting, of the sound of water and the great wind and the birds calling to each other as they flew through it. But the baby had arrived silently, and the world after she came was made silent, too, emptied of people and their voices, without even the familiar sound of her own voice. The world was rent cleanly in two, divided between the absolutes of noise and silence. Not even the wind blew in this silent world, for the snow had swallowed it, and all was stilled.
