Return of the Song

by Phyllis Clark Nichols

  Six years in this studio apartment of longtime family friends Sam and Angel Meadows had only numbed the pain. Coming to Moss Point and living at Twin Oaks provided privacy, a place to teach piano, and the nearness of two friends who had loved her all her life, but her wound was still fresh and deep, oozing with despair and loneliness. She kept it bandaged well so no one would notice.

  But lately her life dangled like the dominant seventh chord or the unfinished scale she used to play at the end of her piano lesson as a prank on Mrs. Cummings, her childhood piano teacher. Countless times Caroline had run her fingers up the scale—do, re, mi, fa, so, la, ti . . .—stopping just shy of the last do. She would run out the door and wait for Mrs. Cummings to play the last note of the scale. Mrs. Cummings always did. That was resolution, the kind Caroline longed for now.

  The pendulum clock struck three. Her tea no longer fogged up the window, and the darkness remained. Memories absorbed her when she needed to think about her future. Nothing and no one would appear through this window to change the course of her life again. And important issues were converging in the next few days: her twenty-ninth birthday, the end of another year of piano teaching, and the deadline for a decision that could take her from Moss Point and from this studio that had become her glass cocoon.

  She moved back to the piano, sat in the deafening silence, and remembered other windows and unfinished songs. Oh, that morning would come and drown this darkness and the quiet that screams of my solitary existence.

  But for now it was still night. She was alone with her piano, and she looked through this window where the night lights danced on the pond’s surface amid the silhouettes of magnolia leaves.

  She set her teacup down and started to “doodle,” conjuring up a melody to accompany the moonlight’s waltz across the water. She instinctively darkened the melody when she noticed a shadow moving at the water’s edge and she heard the rustling tea olives outside her window. Nighttime shadows nor stirring shrubs frightened her, for playing her piano ushered her into another reality where she was safe.

  Breakfast with the Meadows

   April mornings in Moss Point, Georgia, were God’s peace offering for the long January nights and early March’s blustery breezes. With a steaming cup of coffee in hand, Caroline sauntered through the garden and took her seat on the bench at the pond’s edge. Fingers of morning light stretched through the weeping willow and played on the water. She measured each morning’s unfurling of the fiddlehead ferns and watched the rosebuds swell until color peaked through the green cradles of leaves.

  She sipped her coffee. There really is life after a cold, dark winter. Wish there could be a million April mornings. The irises will disappear in June, and the roses will wilt in July’s blistering sun. The ferns will curl crispy brown in August. Then it’ll be winter again.

  Caroline returned to the kitchen for her second cup. The phone rang, and before the receiver ever reached her ear, she heard, “You are my sunshine, my only sunshine. You make me happy when—”

  She didn’t let him finish. “Good morning, Sam.”

  “ ‘Good morning, Sam’? How’d you know it was me?”

  “There are only two people in the world who’d be singing to me at seven o’clock in the morning. One’s my daddy, and he’s a tenor who can sing. That leaves you, my friend.”

  “Well, if you’re going to be that way, I won’t tell you that Angel is flipping flapjacks over here, and yours are almost ready. The bacon’s crisp, the maple syrup’s heating, and how do you want your eggs?”

  “I’ll pass on the eggs this morning, but I can’t resist Angel’s pancakes. Give me five minutes to get presentable. Oh, and, Sam, I’ll bring my coffee, and tell Angel I’ll bring her a cup too. She doesn’t like that swamp water you drink any more than I do.”

  Sam broke into song again. “You’ll never know, dear, how much I love you—”

  “Five minutes, Sam!”

  The morning sun, blasting through the east windows, spotlighted tea stains on the floor in front of the sink. A reminder of last night’s restlessness. She knelt to wipe the stains with a damp sponge. These pine floors were from the elementary schoolhouse Sam had attended seventy-five years ago. He’d acquired the yellow pine before the building was demolished and used it to build this art studio for Angel for their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. Floors, walls, ceilings, doors—everything but the twelve-foot walls of glass was white. The studio had been Angel’s unblemished canvas where she painted until a few years before Caroline moved in. Now Caroline, grateful to call it home and her piano studio, kept it spotless like her mama had taught her.

  A short hallway led to the bathroom. She brushed her long, wavy dark hair, inherited from her father, and pulled it away from her face into a ponytail. Gray sweats were fine for her trip to the big house. They’d be having breakfast on the back screened porch, and it was still cool.

  She returned to the kitchen, poured coffee into a carafe, grabbed her own cup, and started over. It was this stone path, laid thirty years ago and worn smooth by Angel’s trips to the studio, that led to the main house about a hundred yards away. Just this winding through the garden usually lifted Caroline’s spirits, but her sleepless night had taken the spring out of her step.

  She climbed the steps and opened the screen door with her one available finger, angling her body through the doorway as she heard Sam’s trumpetlike voice from the kitchen.

  “Caroline, don’t—”

  “I know, Sam. Don’t slam the door. You tell me that every time I come in. It would have taken you less time to get the spring on the door fixed.”

  Angel’s “Amen!” came from the kitchen.

  Caroline set the coffee down on the white wicker table already set for breakfast. Sam, holding the platter of crisp bacon in one hand and a pitcher of warm maple syrup in the other, came through the kitchen door. He leaned down and kissed her on the forehead. “I always liked my women short. Makes me feel so tall.” At eighty-four, Sam was still a solidly strong man with a six-foot-two-inch frame that had not yet given in to the weight of his years. Balding with only a few wrinkles in his tanned face, he could easily pass for mid-sixties. In his youth he had been an athlete, and he’d continued his workouts at the YMCA on almost a daily basis up until a few months ago. Now his morning jogs had turned into afternoon walks, and his workouts were in the garden.

  Caroline stepped into the kitchen and pecked Angel on the cheek. “Angel, you are a wonder woman, flipping pancakes with one hand and eggs over easy with the other.”

  “Yep, don’t know if it’s my cookin’ or something else that keeps Sam around.” Angel winked at Caroline. “Thought he might decide to dump me for Evelyn Masters when my waistline disappeared and I traded in my belted slacks for floral muumuus.”

  “Sam crossed Evelyn off his list sixty years ago. Oh, he just thinks of you as his floating flower garden.”

  “Guess that’s better than a floral fire hydrant.” Angel flipped another pancake.

  Caroline giggled. “I’d say it’s those quick brown eyes and that feisty disposition of yours that keep him around. Here, let me help you.”

  “Gladly, my dear. Put that spatula to those pancakes. I’ll do the rest. You know how Sam is about his eggs. Did you bring me some coffee?”

  “Would I show up for breakfast without it? Still can’t figure how Sam drinks that stuff.”

  “He’s been doing it for years, and it’s too late to change him now.” Angel patted Sam’s eggs with paper towel to remove the grease as Caroline put the last pancakes on the platter. She followed Angel step for step out the kitchen doorway onto the porch.

  Sam seated them both and proceeded with the blessing. With oratorical voice and King James English, he prayed as though God was high in His heavens and might have trouble hearing him.

  Their food—and possibly the neighbors’ too—blessed, Angel looked at Caroline. “Oh, honey! I always said when God was passing out eyes, His basket was empt
y when He got to you, and He just decided to put in sapphires instead. So tell me, sweetie, why are those pools of blue surrounded by pink this morning?”

  “Just a bit of trouble sleeping last night.” Caroline took some butter and passed it to Sam.

  “I know you. Normal people have nightmares, but you have ‘songmares.’ Too many tunes echoing in your head again?”

  “Not only can you put pancakes, eggs, and bacon all hot on the table at the same time, now you’re into mind reading.” Caroline hoped that Angel wouldn’t require further explanation.

  “If she can read minds, then I’m in for some trouble,” Sam said.

  “You’ve been in trouble for the last sixty years, but right now I want to hear from Blue Eyes over here.”

  “You mean a song? Or what?” Caroline skirted the issue again.

  “I mean ‘what.’ ”

  Caroline stared at her plate, stirring the melted butter into the syrup. “Well, it’s an anniversary of sorts. Six years today David didn’t return home from Guatemala. The what-might-have-beens always steal my sleep.”

  Sam dabbed his mouth with his napkin. “So that’s why we didn’t see you all day yesterday.”

  Caroline jumped at the chance to change the subject. “You did see me yesterday, Sam. I played for Ross Abner’s funeral and sat there trying to figure out whose eulogy you were giving. You couldn’t have been talking about the man in the casket, dressed in his bowling shirt with his bowling ball beside him.”

  “Sam’s been here so long he’s done more eulogies than all the preachers in town. He’s got a file drawer full of them. Just reaches in, pulls one out, and hopes it fits. You know Sam—he won’t speak ill of the living, much less the dead, even if they do deserve it.”

  Butter and maple syrup oozed from the short stack as Caroline cut into the pancakes. She paused before taking a bite. “That was another thing I couldn’t understand. I heard GiGi Nelson say you put Ross in jail three times. Why in the world would the family ask you to do the eulogy?”

  “So you heard it from old GiGi, did you?” Sam put his knife down so hard it jarred his plate. “She thinks everybody in town calls her GiGi because she’s cute. I guess I’ll let the truth be known when I deliver her eulogy, if I live long enough. And by the way, whoever saw a cute orange-haired prune?”

  “Sam, I just got through telling Caroline you wouldn’t speak ill of anybody, living or dead.”

  “Well, I didn’t think it was ill or gossip if I’m just telling the truth. Besides, GiGi’s not just anybody. And to answer your question, Miss Caroline, no, I did not put old Ross in jail three times. He put himself in jail. When you break a man’s jaw with your elbow, shoot your neighbor’s dog lying on her back porch, and get caught for driving under the influence as many times as Ross did, the jury tends to find you guilty of something. I just told them which thing it was this time. How about passing the syrup pitcher?”

  “Seems you knew as much about Ross Abner as anyone else in town, and his family hedged their bets you wouldn’t mention most of it.”

  Sam drained the syrup pitcher. “There’s some good in most everybody. But for some, like ol’ Ross, you just have to look maybe a little harder . . . like how hard I’m looking for the last drop of maple syrup in this pitcher. Angel, are you rationing this syrup with that last can of macadamia nuts you thought I didn’t know about?”

  “Sam Meadows, that sugar must have already gone to your head. You poured the syrup in the pitcher this morning. And, no, I am not rationing the macadamia nuts.” Angel turned and whispered to Caroline, “Guess I’ll have to find a new hiding place.”

  As they finished breakfast, two men dressed in overalls and plaid shirts and carrying homemade toolboxes approached the screened door. They stood side by side at attention as though awaiting orders. Sam looked at his watch, got up from the table, and greeted them with a booming voice. “Good morning, gentlemen. You’re right on time.”

  Angel leaned over and quietly said to Caroline, “After all these years, he still can’t call them ‘Ned and Fred’ with a straight face.”

  Caroline had become fond of these identical twins who had proudly taken care of Twin Oaks for the last forty years. Ned and Fred were in their early sixties, still single, and living together at their old home place just outside town. There was a certain goodness and honest simplicity about them that made them vulnerable to a few reprehensible townspeople who took advantage of them on occasion.

  The twins stood together on the doorsteps, but only Ned did the talking. “Good mornin’ yourself, Mr. Sam. We’re here just like you asked us. We come to fix the fence again. We keep thinkin’ it’s about time you got rid of that ol’ thing and put in a new one. We kinda hate takin’ your money for fixin’ something that ought not to be fixed again.”

  “I hear you, Ned. But I’m determined that fence’ll last as long as I do. Jake noticed when he was pruning the roses on the back side that some of the boards need replacing.”

  “Now, Mr. Sam, that’s another thing. You know them climbin’ roses ain’t no good for wooden fences. You want us to take ’em down when we fix the fence?”

  Caroline waited for what was coming.

  Angel was the Pendergrass brothers’ strongest advocate, but she had seen too often what they inflicted on her flowers. “Ned Pendergrass, if you cut one stem of anything that even looks like a climbing rose, I’ll paint pink polka dots on that green truck of yours before you leave today.”

  Caroline watched Ned chortle and Fred gasp. She knew Angel was teasing about the paint job, but she imagined thoughts of pink polka dots on his papa’s old Ford truck would indeed catapult Fred into panic mode. Fred, the silent twin who had a passion for anything with a motor, had kept the unmistakable truck’s engine tuned up for the last three decades. He’d painted the truck a shiny pea green and proudly lettered the sign on both doors himself: NED & FRED PENDERGRASS—WE CAN FIX ANYTHING. The truck bed had long since rusted out, and Fred had designed and built a new one out of wood, using picket fencing for the side bodies. The tailgate resembled a garden gate but was adequate for keeping their tools from leaving a trail down Moss Point’s avenues.

  “Not to worry, Miss Angel,” Ned said. “The only thing I might do is pick you one of them good-smellin’ roses. But I know Mr. Sam would chase me off this property with that twenty-gauge shotgun of his if I come awalkin’ up to this door with a rose for you—even if it was one of your roses to begin with.”

  “You’re a smart man, Ned,” Sam said. “I don’t think I’d bother with those roses if I were you. Just go get what you need to do the job, and I’ll pay you for your time and the materials at the end of the day.”

  As the twins started to their truck, Caroline said, “Oh, Ned?”

  Ned and Fred both turned like mirror images of each other as the talking one said, “Yes, ma’am, Miss Caroline?”

  “Best be careful if you’re working in the area of the tea olives. There was some creature stirring around out there last night. I’d hate for you to scare up a raccoon, or worse yet, a skunk.”

  “Thank you for them words of wisdom, ma’am. You gonna be playin’ that pretty music while we’re workin’? We don’t even bring our radio when we come to Mr. Sam’s place. We like your music.”

  “Why, thank you, Ned. I’ll be practicing later.”

  Angel got up from the table. “We’d best hurry. May’ll be here before long. She’s doing a good job of keeping up things around here even if she is like a drill sergeant about dust and grime. But she can’t cook like Hattie. I know she’s aiming for the job when Hattie retires, but I’m used to Hattie, and after forty years she’s used to me.”

  Caroline asked, “When will Hattie be home?”

  “She won’t be back until early July. We gave her the vacation to see all of her kids. She deserves it.” Angel began to clear the table. “Well, my dear, I hope you have some time to rest those pretty eyes before you start your teaching schedule today. I can ju
st imagine that ‘The Indian War Dance’ and even ‘Fur Elise’ will make your eyes glaze over when you haven’t had a good night’s sleep.”

  “Oh, Angel, you just haven’t heard Eric Morgan play ‘The Indian War Dance.’ According to his mother, he would thrill recital-hall audiences everywhere with his prodigious rendition of anything.”

  “It’s Mrs. Morgan again, is it?” Sam pointed his index finger at Caroline. “Now, Miss Blue Eyes, you know I’m proud of you, but frankly, I cannot believe you’re still taking her money for that boy’s piano lessons.”

  “I know, Sam. Sometimes it really bothers me, but I’ve had two very straight conversations with her about Eric’s lack of interest and talent. She simply won’t hear it. She says, ‘If you don’t teach him, then I’ll drive him over to Pine Hill for lessons.’ ”

  “And you’ve decided to save her the gas money?”

  “No, I’ve just decided to take her money and use it for my own gas. Speaking of gas money, I’m going to Fernwood this weekend. Mama arranged for me to meet with the family who bought my childhood piano. Daddy sold it to the Whitmans, and they gave it to their daughter when she married. Unfortunately, she moved to Atlanta, and the piano went with her.”

  “Caroline, you have a fine piano,” Sam said. “And I enjoy sitting out here on the porch with my cup of coffee and listening to you play, especially on April mornings when your windows are open. Why in the world would you go looking for that old piano?”

  Angel stood in the kitchen doorway. “Because she’s a determined woman, and you should know something by now about determined women. She wants her piano, and that’s that.”

  “I’ve dreamed about it for years, and it’s time to start the quest and see where it leads. I’m afraid the trail is getting colder and the price tag’s getting higher. Daddy bought that piano for six hundred dollars and sold it nine years later to pay for my college education. It’s probably worth forty-five thousand now—way out of my range, but I just have to know where it is and who’s playing it.”