Songs of Willow Frost

by Jamie Ford

  William took hold of one end of the long strand. The expensive-looking chain was elaborately woven—a sturdy keepsake, meant to last a lifetime.

  Charlotte sighed. “She said this would be the key to my salvation.”

  William listened to the choir.

  “Maybe you should join the order,” he said, trying his best to lighten the dour mood. “Become a nun. I bet they’ll let you stay then.” Sister Charlotte.

  She didn’t laugh. But she didn’t frown either. William thought he detected a smile, if only a slight one. He watched as she tucked her long strawberry hair behind her ears. And he noticed for the first time just how pretty she was—maybe it was because she’d be leaving soon. His mother’s spotlight had made him see just how far his shadow of sadness had been cast and what that darkness obscured. He realized that Charlotte had always been there, a blind girl hoping he would finally open his eyes and see her as more than a friend. He watched her gentle movements, trying to imprint her image on his heart so that he’d never forget what she looked like. He tried to count every freckle. They seemed interesting since they were so uncommon in Chinatown. Most of the people there had birthmarks or moles, if anything, and these were viewed as omens—symbols of good fortune or bad luck. If that were true, then the tan sprinkles that dappled Charlotte’s nose and cheeks represented a windfall, of one or the other.

  He reached out and laced his fingers through the soft warmth of her hand.

  “I’m sorry you’re leaving,” he said.

  She held on tight.

  “I’ll never leave you, William. I promise.”

  THE RUMOR OF Charlotte’s refusal spread like the plague through the barracks, breeding jealousy and dissent between the older boys and aching confusion among the little ones, who didn’t believe such a refusal was even possible.

  “Who does she think she is?” Dante asked as the lights went out.

  The responses were legion.

  “Maybe she’s dim as well as blind.”

  “I heard her father was a bootlegger …”

  “She’s an addlepated pinhead—should be with her own kind anyway.”

  “… I told you she was stuck-up.”

  Hardly, William thought. She’s more accepting than anyone I know.

  “She can’t see what she’s missing,” someone said. And snickering followed.

  Sunny threw a sock at William, who was trying to go to sleep. “I think she has yellow fever if you ask me,” his friend said quietly.

  William ignored him, unsure of what he could, or should, share. Sacred Heart was gossipy enough without him adding more cabbage to the stew.

  “I’m just kidding,” Sunny whispered. “But the two of you taking off together—it was the talk of the town. You’re lucky you’ve got me, Sunny Truthseer. I heard the girls haven’t been as understanding. They’ve been teasing Charlotte something fierce. Going on about her being with a boy and—you know, an Oriental and all that.”

  William suddenly felt terrible. He’d never considered the damage he might have done to Charlotte’s reputation. He’d never planned for any outcome beyond that afternoon at the 5th Avenue. He realized how self-centered, how preoccupied he’d been. He was still dying to run away again, to find his ah-ma before she left town. Or to muster the courage to demand more answers from Sister Briganti, but Charlotte had to come first, at least for a few days. He owed her that much.

  “That’s okay. I’m sure they’re all just jealous,” Sunny said. “Who wouldn’t want to spend time on the outside, in the real world? And for a girl that walks with a cane, she’s easy on the eyeballs. I’d have done the same.”

  William didn’t feel like talking. He rolled over, hoping his friend would get the hint. He waited in the dark for Sunny to run out of steam.

  “I understand why she doesn’t want to see her dad.”

  William rolled back over and opened his eyes. He couldn’t see his friend’s face in the pale moonlight that spilled through the high windows of the room. But he could see Sunny’s faint outline in the bunk next to his. “What are you talking about?”

  “It didn’t make sense at first,” Sunny said. “But I’m in the same boat—I wouldn’t want to see my dad either. My mother dropped me off at the library and said she’d be right back. But my dad, he’s nothing but trouble—he didn’t even go that far. Some dads are like that. I don’t remember much …”

  I don’t remember Leo at all. I barely remember the man my mother called Colin.

  “You never told me that,” William said.

  “That’s because I never told no one.”

  “What else is there to tell?”

  Sunny paused, and when he spoke again William could hear the change in his friend’s voice. Sunny spoke in soft, sniffling bursts.

  “My dad took a job out here in the canneries, but then ran off with some woman and we never saw him again. He never wrote. Nothing. My mom, she brought me out to Seattle and we went looking for him. But we ran out of money and no one would take us in, so we had to sleep in the street. She got an infection in her hip from living out-of-doors and couldn’t take care of me and had to say goodbye. She said I should forgive him for running away and that I’d understand these things when I got older, but I hated him—I still hate him. I hate his name too—so much that I refuse to say it, even to this day. Growing up on the reservation, I always wished I had a name like Sunny Goes Ahead or Sunny Not Afraid. So when the sisters came for me, I gave up on him and chose a tougher name, Sixkiller, hoping the other kids wouldn’t mess with me. I read the name in a book one time. It’s Cherokee, but I’m from the Crow res. I’m not from anywhere, anymore. No one around here knows the difference anyway. I’m just another prairie nigger.”

  William paused to take it all in.

  “I’m sorry, Sunny.”

  “It’s okay, Will. You know how it is now. And Charlotte, she probably knows this better than anyone. I mean, her dad went to jail and all, but I heard he was worse than that. I heard he used to do things—kiss her while she was sleeping. How creepy is that?”

  William felt sick to his stomach.

  “We don’t get to choose our parents,” Sunny said. “If we did, some of us might choose never to be born at all.”

  Charlotte’s Eyes

  (1934)

  William woke to another gloomy, drizzly morning, the sun hidden beyond an overcast sky, pale and cadaverous. He shivered as he peered through the October mists of Puget Sound. The horizon was a wet blanket of gray, without any real definition. Just fog and haze. The inverted weather system was perpetually coiled up, ready to sneeze.

  When William arrived in his main classroom, someone handed him a note. He recognized Sister Briganti’s handwriting immediately. The note was actually an exhaustive list of cleaning duties to fulfill before he could return to class. Evidently he would learn the broom and the coal shovel, and study the washing board and the scrub brush, long before he’d be reconsidered as a suitable candidate for book learning.

  Is this to keep me away from the other kids, or to keep me away from Charlotte? William wondered as he found himself mopping the second floor of the main school building, sloshing soapy water about the wooden surface. He thought about his estranged father as he worked on an old, stubborn shoe-polish stain, and he remembered the startled, stricken, distant expression on his mother’s face when she’d first seen him. He debated whether she was an actress who occasionally played the role of a mother, or a mother who was given to acting. In his memories she was a lioness, but in reality, she was meek, tamed, caged.

  He was wringing dirty water from the mop when he heard excited whispers and the squeaking, rasping sounds of metal chairs on a wooden floor. He peeked into a half-empty history classroom where students had been working on extra-credit projects. They had all left their books open and their papers on their desks and rushed to the windows, crowding in closer for a better look.

  “What is it?” William asked anyone who might be listenin
g.

  “Get in here and check it out for yourself,” Dante answered without turning around. “That must be him down there—the joker’s a day early.”

  “Who?” William asked as he walked toward the window.

  Dante looked over his shoulder and said, “Charlotte’s papa.”

  “I heard he’s an ex-con that got let out after Prohibition,” another boy said. “He just got out of prison, Walla Walla or Sing Sing …”

  “He doesn’t look that scary,” a girl added.

  William looked down into the courtyard, where he saw a slender man standing next to a DeSoto coupe with white-rimmed tires. The man was chatting pleasantly with Sister Briganti. William thought that he didn’t look like a felon or a monster either; he wore a suit and tie but didn’t have a hat. In general, he looked like an average father.

  William ran downstairs and lingered near the front door with a dozen other onlookers—boys mostly, who’d been fascinated by the thought of a hardened criminal paying a visit to Sacred Heart.

  “Don’t look him in the eye,” one of the boys said.

  “He doesn’t look that tough,” someone retorted.

  “Is that him, is that really Charlotte’s dad?” William asked, but he didn’t need to hear an answer. As the man walked toward the wide double doors, it was clear by his nose, his cheekbones, his hair, even his smile—he was the spitting image of Charlotte, which was comforting and yet disturbing. William had expected a bald, tattooed ogre of a man, with visible scars, wearing a blue, sweat-stained work shirt. He had pictured Mr. Rigg with a five-day beard and chewing the unlit stump of an old cigar. Instead, this man was rail-thin and looked quite pleasant. His shoes were old but had new laces. And he carried a plush brown teddy bear beneath his arm.

  “You must be William,” the man said as he walked up the steps and extended his hand.

  William shook it absently. The man’s grip was soft and warm and damp.

  “Sister here was just telling me all about you—how you’re Charlotte’s comrade in arms. Like two blind mice—see how they run.”

  William wasn’t sure if that was a joke or an accusation, until the man smiled. William noticed that one of his front teeth was chipped. Aside from that slight imperfection, he was a handsome fellow, with a gentle, likable carriage.

  “Boys and girls,” Sister Briganti announced with fanfare, “this is Mr. Rigg—he’s come to visit our good Charlotte. And next week, saints be willing, she’ll be going home. Let’s keep them in your prayers.”

  I’ll be praying that something heavy falls on this man. William thought Sister Briganti looked self-satisfied, as though this news was the fulfillment of her mission—solving familial puzzles, no matter how poorly the pieces fit back together. What about me? William thought as he stared at the stranger with freckled cheeks and a short, ruddy beard. What about my family?

  The rest of the orphans looked upon the curious man with the shiny car as though he were Saint Christopher, the Easter Bunny, and Santa Claus all rolled into one. They reached out and touched the mohair bear, petting it as the man passed smiling through the crowded hallway.

  But Charlotte wasn’t among the happy children who were so easily impressed.

  “William,” Sister Briganti said, “why don’t you run along and tell Mr. Rigg’s daughter that her father is here and that he’ll be over to visit her shortly?”

  Thanks for making me the messenger of misery. William watched as she led Charlotte’s father down the hall toward her office. Mr. Rigg looked back and frowned.

  William knew that parents had to be interviewed before reclaiming their children. He’d seen quite a few moms and dads fail that part of the process, much to their children’s disappointment. Too often parents would show up twitching, lice-ridden, or reeking of booze—demanding their sons or daughters, then leaving emptier than when they’d arrived. And sometimes a home inspection was required as well. But the whole routine seemed ridiculously unfair when compared to fresh adoptive parents, who merely had to show up and sign a few papers before taking their new children to some unknown home where they’d be living with strangers. They were unfamiliar, William mused, but they’d never given up one of their own. That obviously counted for something.

  As William walked down the hall and out the door, he realized that word of Mr. Rigg’s arrival had spread faster than William could travel. He overheard dozens of girls gossiping. They all seemed bitter, probably because they were jealous. Mr. Rigg’s visit and Charlotte’s pending departure were reminders of how much everyone else had lost and how badly they longed to have their loving parents back—their homes, their siblings—to be part of the outside world. Family reunions were fleeting, like sunshine on the horizon, seen from beneath perpetual clouds of cold mist and rain.

  As William walked up the hill to Charlotte’s cottage, the boys outside seemed giddy. But William didn’t smile. He couldn’t even fake it. He felt more like a postman delivering the death notice of a loved one. He heard her voice before he knocked.

  “The door’s open,” she said. “Please tell me that’s you, William?”

  As he walked in he realized that Charlotte’s cottage didn’t have any lights—no lamps or curtains. She remained in shadow. Her worldview never changed.

  “He’s here, isn’t he,” she stated. She’d been standing near the open window counting the beads on her rosary. “It’s been years, but I recognized his voice.”

  William didn’t know what to say. “He has a car.”

  “He shows up in a car and we all get taken for a ride.”

  William shook his head. Sister Briganti had once shared that unwed mothers received a government stipend each month. William wasn’t sure if such a thing applied to fathers—probably not, but perhaps because Charlotte was sightless he would somehow be compensated in her mother’s absence.

  “He looks nice enough,” William said, hoping to ease the tension.

  “You don’t know him like I do. He’s not an honorable person,” Charlotte said. “How would you feel if your uncle Leo showed up and wanted you back—wanted to suddenly have a son and be a father and play house after all these years?”

  Would it be much worse than this? William didn’t have an answer for such a damning question. He’d shared his mother’s story about Uncle Leo with Charlotte, but he never considered the possibility of his showing up. He supposed he’d run away again—William planned to anyway, regardless of the hazards. He desperately wanted to reconnect with his ah-ma; even if she didn’t want him, he would speak to her, face-to-face. He needed answers. But he didn’t want to leave Charlotte either, not now. “Maybe when you leave …”

  “I told you, William, I’m not leaving.”

  He corrected himself. “If you leave.” He paused, waiting for her to argue. “And if you’re on the outside, I can come visit you. I’m leaving anyway. I have to see Willow again. If she takes me back, maybe I can help you …”

  William heard a knock on the door and saw Charlotte’s body stiffen.

  “Knock, knock. Anybody home?” Mr. Rigg stepped into the room. “There she is, my gingersnap. Look at you—you grew up when I wasn’t looking.”

  “You weren’t able to look,” she said.

  “Well then, that makes two of us,” Mr. Rigg said.

  William watched as Charlotte took a step back and bumped into an old sofa. She seemed lost in the cottage that she knew so well. She sat down and stared ahead as though recognizing something in a dark corner of her childhood. William stepped toward the door as Charlotte’s father handed her the bear.

  “I brought you something. It’s a Steiff,” he said. “You know, this is the best teddy bear money can buy. Its arms and legs move and everything. Here …”

  She flinched when the stuffed toy brushed her cheek. Then she took the bear and touched its soft fur. She felt along the snout and the head, which gently swiveled back and forth. She caressed the ears and found the silver button punched through one of them as a label of
authenticity. William relaxed and exhaled as she brought the teddy to her face and smelled its plush, velvety coat. Mr. Rigg turned to William and frowned again, nodding his head as if to say, See—a father knows his daughter. He held the door as William stepped out. William looked back as Charlotte smiled when she found the bear’s eyes. Then she gritted her teeth and ripped them out, dropping them to the floor, where they skittered away. The door closed as bits of thread and torn batting floated in the air between father and daughter.

  Blackbird

  (1934)

  William waited at breakfast, pushing his lumpy oatmeal around his bowl, uncovering and reburying cooked weevils as he waited for Charlotte to arrive. The night before, William had watched from the stone steps of the main building, waiting for her or her father to leave. William had stared through the murky twilight as Mr. Rigg finally departed about thirty minutes before sundown, just as Sister Briganti appeared to usher the remaining boys back into their dormitory for the evening. William had hardly slept all night. And when he did he dreamt of dancing shadows, menacing shapes that resembled an imaginary Uncle Leo, a thin-lipped, scowling Mr. Rigg, and the pious yet condemning Sister Briganti. They laughed and twirled while Willow sang a sad lullaby, a haunting melody from his childhood.

  “You gonna eat that?” Dante asked.

  William shook his head as the larger boy traded bowls with him, then scooped out the bad parts and proceeded to eat the rest in large, heaping spoonfuls. William counted the girls as they walked in one by one. Charlotte was still missing. Maybe she went home? Maybe she ran away in the middle of the night. Either seemed possible. Maybe Mr. Rigg did something to her …

  She walked in as William was struggling to cast those thoughts out of the dark hollows of his imagination. She looked the same as always. She took a bowl and a spoon in one hand and tapped her way to the table, where she sat across from him.

  “Are you okay?” William asked. The question seemed ludicrous in the way people can pull someone from a smoldering train accident, bruised and broken, covered in shards of glass, and ask, Are you okay, mister?