The Noise We Keep

“Peace isn’t the absence of noise—it’s the moment you stop needing the house to be quiet in order to feel at home.”

The muffled blare of some ridiculous television programme—voices pitched in synthetic urgency, underscored by an aggressive clang of sound effects, then punctuated by a burst of digital audience laughter that bore no resemblance whatsoever to genuine human amusement—leaked through the living room wall like an invisible gas, slow but insistent. It seeped into the fabric of the evening, an unwelcome presence that couldn't quite be shut out. I winced involuntarily at the intrusion. Honestly, I’d clung to the faint hope that slipping out into the back garden might afford me one clean breath—just a single moment unclaimed by anyone else’s noise, need or narrative.

But in this house, with its paper-thin walls and constantly overlapping demands, peace didn’t arrive gracefully. It had to be chased down like a feral thing—cornered, coaxed into staying put with the domestic equivalent of a biscuit and a thousand small compromises.

I nudged the glass sliding door closed behind me with my foot, both hands occupied by the evening tea tray. It was a familiar dance, this balancing act—literal and otherwise. Two ceramic mugs sat shoulder to shoulder, each bearing the wear of long service. Both chipped, both spidered with faint hairline cracks like fine wrinkles, each telling stories that only I seemed to remember. One bore the faded lettering from a Relief Society retreat—three callings ago, maybe four—back when I still believed those sorts of weekends might deliver transformative clarity. The other was a relic from our Kangaroo Island holiday, its cheerful design now faded to a warm, muted blur after years of washing. Both had outlasted countless trends in kitchenware, and somehow, that endurance gave me comfort.

Between them sat a stout stainless steel thermos filled with peppermint tea, still steaming gently in the evening air. I’d planned on making hot cocoa—something sweet and indulgent to mark the shift from daytime chaos to nighttime reflection—but the tin had been emptied. Scraped clean. I had little doubt Charles was to blame, likely sneaking spoonfuls of the powder straight from the container with the feral delight of an adolescent raccoon. I considered confronting him tomorrow. Or never. Some household crimes simply weren't worth prosecuting—particularly when the suspect would respond with the sort of shrug that translated roughly as: You're the only one making this a thing.

The patio light above blinked half-heartedly—one of those solar-powered fixtures that functioned brilliantly on days when you didn’t need them, and barely at all when you did. Luckily, the fire-pit Noah had built and lit earlier in the evening was performing with far more commitment. It pulsed steadily, a hearth in miniature, sending flickers of orange warmth into the blueing dusk. The scent of eucalyptus smoke drifted upward, curling lazily into the navy sky, and for the first time all day, I felt something close to grounded.

Noah was already settled nearby, crouched beside the fire’s metal ring with that quiet, methodical concentration he brought to nearly everything—be it mechanical or emotional. He was adjusting the kindling with earnest, as though fire were a riddle he could solve if only the twigs aligned just right. He wore his old navy wind-cheater, sleeves sagging from habitual wear, the zip stiff and slightly tarnished. A smear of rust-orange near the collar reminded me, with unshakable clarity, of one of Jerome’s early ‘science experiments’—an enthusiastic but ill-fated attempt to prove something about vinegar and base metals. The resulting mess had never quite washed out.

I’d tried to slip that wind-cheater into charity bags on more than one occasion—quietly, discreetly, as though rehousing it might restore some dignity to our coat rack.

It kept coming back.

“Any success with the domestic management?” he asked, glancing up as I approached the ring of chairs we’d dragged into place earlier.

“That depends entirely on how you choose to define success,” I said, setting the tray down on the little table between us. “We’re completely out of cocoa powder, Jerome is currently in the bathroom attempting to give Millie an unauthorised bath—she’s objecting strenuously—and Charles is watching something loud enough to rattle crockery in three rooms and probably breach at least one council regulation.”

“Sounds about right for a typical evening in the Smith household.”

I brushed a curling gum leaf from the seat of my chair and lowered myself into it with the kind of sigh that compresses both spine and soul. The wicker gave its usual creak of protest—aged, ungracious, and altogether honest in its response. Somehow, that small sound felt like a companionable murmur, a shared acknowledgement of the day’s trials. We were both holding on, me and the chair, worn but functional, no longer pretending to be elegant.

The fire crackled softly beside us, and I reached for the Kangaroo Island mug, cradling its familiar weight in my hands.

In that small, smoky circle of light, I felt the first threads of calm begin to return—not because anything had been resolved, but because, for the moment at least, no one was demanding answers.

The night air had sharpened considerably since the sun had dipped behind the neighbouring rooflines, taking with it the last vestiges of the day’s warmth. A chill moved through the garden now—bracing rather than bitter, but assertive enough to make its presence known against any exposed skin. Not quite enough to force us back indoors, but sufficient to ensure one remained acutely aware of knuckles, ears, and the vulnerable tip of one’s nose.

I pulled the woollen blanket more securely around my lap, its slightly scratchy fibres a comfort rather than an irritation, and reached for the thermos with fingers beginning to stiffen from residual cold. The warmth of it grounded me—a small, necessary tether.

Millie had made her customary appearance earlier, delivering one half-hearted scratch at the glass door before apparently deciding that Jerome’s unsanctioned bath-time experiment held more immediate interest. She’d vanished into the house without fanfare, as she often did, conducting her nightly inspections with quiet dedication. She was, in her way, the household’s unofficial warden—circling the occupants, cataloguing the drama, and choosing her preferred sleeping arrangement based on some internal metric I’d long since stopped trying to interpret.

I had no doubt she’d be back before long, bearing wet paws, a damp undercarriage, and her usual expression of faint, unspoken disapproval.

“I give it approximately seven minutes before she’s back at the door with wet paws and an attitude,” I muttered, unscrewing the thermos lid with a twist and tilting it gently to fill our mugs.

Noah extended his without a word.

The peppermint tea poured in a pale stream, rising in soft spirals of fragrant steam that curled upward into the darkness before vanishing into the cool night. I moved slowly, deliberately, trying not to spill, anchoring myself in the rhythm of the task.

He took a sip, paused mid-swallow, and winced with theatrical restraint. “Still quite hot.”

“Don’t sound so surprised by that revelation,” I said, feigning offence. “I do actually know how thermoses are meant to function, despite what you might assume after twenty-five years of shared crockery and conflicting advice.”

“Never doubted your technical competence for a moment,” he replied, though the glint in his eye was anything but solemn. That familiar spark of mischief softened his features—the same one I’d first noticed on a warm afternoon in 1992, when I’d brought my car in for a routine service and ended up talking with the mechanic far longer than necessary. He’d wiped his hands on a rag and asked about the painting supplies in my boot, and somehow, in that ordinary exchange, a kind of quiet recognition had passed between us. Not love at first sight, exactly—but something steady. Something that knew what it was looking for.

I eased back into my chair, tucking the blanket more securely over my legs, and lifted my own mug close to my chest. The ceramic warmth bled slowly into my hands, soothing and solid, a quiet resistance to the evening’s creeping chill. From the edge of my vision, the light from the television spilled intermittently through the vertical lounge room blinds—flashes of artificial blue and white flickering like lightning glimpsed behind thick cloud. An explosion burst from the speakers—loud, gratuitous, unnecessary—followed by a chorus of canned laughter, hollow and disconnected from anything that could reasonably be called humour.

I exhaled through my nose, slow and intentional. A plume of steam rose from my mug, scented with peppermint, and for a brief moment I felt it clear a small path through the crowded corridors of my mind.

“Do you ever genuinely miss silence?” I asked, the question forming itself before I’d had time to consider its weight. “Real silence, I mean. The kind we used to have before…”

I trailed off, gesturing vaguely in the direction of the house—toward the noise, the motion, the endless ripple of family life that barely paused long enough to catch its own breath.

Noah remained quiet for a moment, his gaze fixed on the fire as it pulsed and shifted. The flames reflected in his eyes, lending him an introspective glow.

“I honestly don’t think I can remember what complete silence actually sounds like anymore,” he said eventually, his voice thoughtful. “It’s been so long since I’ve experienced it.”

We allowed ourselves to sit in what passed for stillness under our current circumstances—or at least the closest approximation of it that was possible in this particular house, with this particular family. The soft hiss and intermittent pop of the fire-pit filled the natural gaps between other noises, offering a kind of ambient reassurance. It wasn’t silence, not really, but it was the sort of background sound that asked nothing of you. A gentle white noise that settled over the moment like a blanket, quietly soothing without demanding attention.

From the darker edges of the garden, a lone cricket chirped with improbable optimism—its rhythm steady, almost defiant. Either an unusually brave soul or thoroughly confused about the realities of winter in suburban Adelaide. I couldn’t decide which notion I preferred.

Somewhere beyond the fence, a car passed along the street, its engine a low, momentary hum in the cool air before it slipped back into obscurity. And layered beneath all these small, separate sounds, our house carried on in its usual evening symphony—glowing with the warmth of electric light, thrumming with the comfortingly imperfect noise of people who loved each other enough to drive each other quietly mad.

It wasn’t peace, not in any poetic or classical sense. But it was undeniably ours. The chaos belonged to us, shaped by our hands, our choices, our stories. Familiar. Worn. Entirely authentic.

“I made an attempt to read my scriptures this afternoon,” I said eventually, once a long, companionable pause had been allowed to settle and take root between us.

Noah looked over, raising an eyebrow with the faintest trace of a smirk already tugging at his mouth. He didn’t need to say anything. The expression alone carried the full weight of a shared lifetime's knowledge. He could probably already predict exactly how my spiritual pursuit had concluded.

“Let me take a wild guess,” he offered. “You were interrupted by someone asking where the good towels had mysteriously disappeared to?”

“Close, but not quite,” I replied with a resigned smile. “It was Jerome this time. He turned up in the doorway to ask if I thought Millie possessed what he called a 'complex emotional palette'… or if she simply barked for attention like any normal dog.”

Noah huffed a soft laugh, shifting slightly in his seat as he leaned forward to tend a stray log that had begun to slump. “And did you have a definitive answer to that profound philosophical question?”

“I told him to ask his father, obviously.”

“Diplomatically wise of you.”

I sipped from my mug again, slower this time. The peppermint tea had cooled just enough to be comfortable now, spreading through my chest like a warming ribbon, untangling tension I hadn’t even realised I was still carrying. These moments—so small, so easy to miss in the noise of everything else—these were the ones that made the relentlessness of family life bearable. Not just bearable, in fact, but quietly luminous in their own peculiar way.

Somewhere inside, the old bathtub began its usual protest as it drained—gurgling and spluttering like a stubborn throat clearing itself after an unwanted conversation. A few seconds later, Jerome’s voice rang out, all adolescent indignation and earnest logic, probably in mid-negotiation with Millie over the conclusion of her thoroughly unwanted ablutions. She responded with a single, barked syllable that somehow managed to sound both offended and resigned.

The television chose that exact moment to erupt in another burst of artificial applause, all overenthusiastic crescendo and perfectly timed hilarity, as if some ghost audience had been waiting all day for a mediocre punchline.

I closed my eyes for a breath—just long enough to hold onto the smile that rose, unbidden but real.

“And that,” I murmured, half to Noah and half to the flickering firelight that wrapped around our little sanctuary, “is the distinctive sound of a Friday evening at the Smith residence.”