Goshen Road
Page 24
On top of the piano, out of reach of the youngsters, was Mom’s Redemption Hymnal and family photos: Baby photos of all the children, including my two boys. Little Lux in his Marine Corps uniform. Ronnie’s middle school graduation with his shaggy blond hair hanging on his head like a sheepdog. Lux, just come down the hill from turkey hunting, still dressed in camouflage, all eyepatch and toothy grin, with a dead gobbler hanging upside down in each hand. Glenn hoisting Lissy in the air in her wedding dress. Mom and Dad smiling sweetly from the boardwalk in Ocean City. It struck me that Mom was as old in that photo as I was, at that moment, probably, midforties, but already settling into middle age. How can that be, I thought.
Dessie shook her head, running her hands through her hair. “Well, I wasn’t really thinking about makeup. What would you say to this idea?” She looked over at the piano and then back to me. “Last night,” Dessie said, “it came to me that I might start teaching Jasmine to read through the hymnal, maybe even give her singing lessons with the hymns.”
Oh Lordy, please preserve us, I wanted to say. Mom would have tried that, and we girls would’ve hated it. I wanted to make some joke about what could happen if she took away Jasmine’s Michael Jackson tapes and replaced “Beat It” with “Gimme That Old Time Religion.” It was a bad idea. But she was my only sister.
I took a deep breath. “Des,” I began, “no girl of eleven is going to want to set next to you on a piano bench while you try to convince her to sing the old hymns. She’ll break out the power of negative thinking and add more ‘damnits’ to her ‘no.’ If I was eleven, I wouldn’t do it, if even if you bribed me.” I stopped. Something struck me at that moment. “Why don’t you stop over to the library, see if they have a Michael Jackson piano book? If they don’t have one, they might be able to tell you who to ask.” I saw Dessie nodding. “She needs something like this, I bet.” As best as I could, I hummed the first song that popped into my head, the opening to “Billie Jean,” clapping my hand to the rhythm, so she could see my point.
“Don’t you know, she plays that one all the time,” Dessie said. “I wonder if I could play the chords for that on the piano? Maybe she could learn to pick out the words from a songbook? I’m sure she already knows them by heart. Or maybe I could listen to her tapes and practice reading and writing the lyrics with her?”
I nodded, wondering if maybe next Saturday I should try stop in to help out, but then I decided not to. This had best be left to them to find their own way, I thought. But I wasn’t above volunteering Lissy. “Maybe Lissy could bring Jeanie over too, or you can pick Jeanie up?” I said instead. “They both can work on reading, and singing too.”
Dessie brightened up, and thought I saw the younger Dessie, the one who sang at the top of her lungs if she loved a song on the radio, just for the pure joy of it. Then she became thoughtful. “I was wanting to ask what you thought about another little project. It would be something for the kids, and maybe you too. Lux used to say he wanted to do something to that ugly old storage room downstairs, behind the crawlspace. You know, we could paint the walls and the cement floor, even heat it.” She was on a roll, and I let her keep talking. I knew where this was going to head. “It could be a playroom, maybe I could put in a little sink and a little table and shelves for art supplies? Then you could help out too, as many hours each week as you would want to. I know you could do art and even put on little plays and do makeup, too. We could take more kids that way, weekdays and after school.”
I listened to this, trying to be open-minded, half-believing that it was possible. I nodded. Here’s the thing I liked the most. As Alan Ray would say, she was starting to fire on all cylinders. I also liked that I was being recruited into Dessie’s army.
“Wouldn’t that be something! That’s a plan and a half!” I said. “I can picture it all” I said, trying not to actually promise anything. I was hoping I didn’t just climb out on a limb and start sawing it out from under me. Ideas can come and go, and there is no telling which ones will stick. On the other hand, I should try to keep some extra money coming in for winter. “I need a chance to run it by the committee, you know, and the chairman of the board,” I said.
She smiled. “Just something to keep on the back burner,” she said. “I will pray about it.”
“Sounds good,” I said, and walked over to give her a hug goodbye. We rarely did that, but it just sort of happened. Her arms, her shoulders, her whole frame seemed to freeze, like a mannequin in a clothing store. I stepped back. “Oh, sorry,” I said, though I didn’t know why I said that.
“Wait, wait, Billie,” Dessie said. “Let’s try again,” she said. She exhaled, relaxed. She took a step forward and opened her arms, and we tried again. My cheek brushed her cheek. My arms wrapped loosely around her back. Her arms wrapped tightly around my back. All I could think about was how strong she was, my sister: hammer-slinger, wall-builder, piano player, Holy Roller, child fixer.
IT HAD been a dry September, the ground was firm beneath my gardening shoes, and the last few fireflies were rising over the hayfield. Mars, already bright, hung just above the ridgetop in the southern sky, a red ball set against pale lavender clouds. There was a glow in the west from the setting sun, and one in the east, as the moon was getting ready to rise. Though it wasn’t full into fall yet, there was a chill in the air. Crows called back and forth as they settled into the pines behind the house. Soon it would be bow season, then youth hunting, then gun season. Maybe once Alan Ray and the boys were up the hollow, I could stop by Dessie’s some Saturday afternoon, to see how things were going or lend a hand.
Midway back to the house through the hayfield, I stopped, amazed as always at how tall some volunteer sunflowers had grown. They reminded me of a ramshackle unit of sentries, defending the creek bank on the edge of the Goshen Road. The gray-green stalks were easily twice my height, broad leaves like Jack’s beanstalks tapering up to round, bowed heads, wider than dinner plates. Tiny yellow finches chattered and darted around them in the dusk.
I began to think about Jasmine, the girl with the mystery past. She might already know how to read, she might be keeping her secrets to herself, but at least she was in good hands. She’d be looked after by my sister, the one who was just bumping her backside like a backup dancer for the King of Pop. I pictured a gawky, preteen version of me, saw her wearing my red Mickey and Minnie sweatshirt, sounding out the lyrics to “Billie Jean” while Dessie set the tempo on the keys of the Baldwin.
Off to the west, wisps of clouds glowed, lavender flowed into rose and peach. Random sounds of the night filled my ears. I waited to hear whether the screech owl had returned, but thankfully it was needed elsewhere. But there was something in every direction. The whole evening was alive. Katydids sawed away, grinding like a grain mill. Alan Ray had the Pirates game going on Dad’s old radio at the workbench in the barn. Tommy, AJ, and Bertie were tossing a football out beside the garden, Tommy’s husky voice snapping out the plays, Bertie cheering, AJ racing down the field with the ball. Where do these sounds go, I wondered. Could I call this September evening up in six months, in a year? Could I hold this moment, these sounds, each noise so perfectly blending into the next, but also, as clear as they can be in their own way? Could I lock it all into place in my brain, in case I need it someday to help me remember who I am?
The air had that glow, the one that settles on the ridge as the last rays of light slip away and the shapes of trees slowly begin to vanish. Just because it seemed like it couldn’t hurt, I sent out a small prayer to whoever sets the tempo of the spheres up there. I did not want to ask for much, just that someday before too long, with a little grace and a little luck, this valley would echo out with one more joyful noise, the beat of the piano, a little R&B, joining with these sounds of life, all of it rising up from either side of this rough old road, to the tree line and the narrow strip of sky above. Holy sounds, all.