When Mockingbirds Sing (9781401688233)

by Coffey, Billy

  Marshall doffed his hat with those last words. Mr. Barney and Sheriff Barnett as well. Allie was impressed that Mr. Doctor did the same. Maybe he wasn’t so city after all. People wound their way through the crowd and stopped to say hello, though few introduced themselves to Mr. Doctor and no one bothered to speak to Barney or Mabel, not even the mayor and his wife. Allie munched her popcorn and wondered how people could be so mean.

  “Tom,” Mary asked, “where would your Ellen be? I’d love to tell her how grand this all looks.”

  “She’s over with the cake,” Tom said. “I’m sure she’d be happy to meet you.”

  “Where’s your daughter, Mr. Doctor?” Allie asked. “I ain’t saw her yet.”

  “You know Leah?” Tom asked.

  “Nosir, I just know her face. I was in fourth grade last term and Leah in third, but we rode the long bus together. Most kids said Leah shoulda rode the short bus since she lurches her words, but they’s just mean.”

  “Allie,” Mary said.

  Allie shrugged a What? “I didn’t say that, Momma. Promise.”

  “It’s okay, Allie,” Tom said. “Leah’s just shy. That’s why Barney came up with the idea to invite everyone.” He settled his hands on his hips and looked out over the summer day. Not to where people were, Allie noticed, but where they weren’t. He pointed to the end of the yard. “There she is, up on the hill there. Why don’t you go tell her the cake’s ready?”

  “Okay,” Allie said. “Great party, Mr. Doctor. Sheriff, I’ll tell Zach hi if I see him, but I probably won’t. Bye, Momma and Daddy and Barney.” She raced off with popcorn in hand, stopped, and turned to yell, “I love you,” to Miss Mabel. The old woman’s eyes were closed, her head slumped down toward her chest. Allie blew her a kiss instead.

  Chatter and squeals gave way to breeze and birdsong as Allie approached the hill. Leah sat curled up under the pines writing in a notebook. Her pretty yellow dress was spread out around her. She would mark on a page and look into the air beside her, speak and then listen, then write again.

  “Hey there,” Allie shouted. She waved as she ran, jostling popcorn from the bag. Her pigtails smacked the sides of her head. “Hey, Leah. Happy birthday.”

  Leah looked up and dropped her pencil and notebook. Her heels dug into a pillow of brown pine needles, pushing the rest of her deeper into the trees until her back met the white fence. She looked as though she were about to be attacked by a wild animal.

  “Hey there,” Allie said again. “Don’t do that, you’ll get your dress all sullied.” She reached the hill and peered into the trees. Leah’s knees were drawn into her chest. The look on her face was absolute horror. “Hey, I’m Allie. We rode the long bus together.”

  Leah’s mouth trembled. The muscles in her throat went tight/loose/tight. Allie thought something was about to come out of Leah’s mouth, and it was something not nearly as nice as a Hey there back.

  “Hey,” she said, softer this time, “it’s your birthday. Your folks are pretty great to go all out and invite everybody, huh? Not even the carnival’s this nice. Are you going to the carnival next week? Maybe I’ll see you there. Happy birthday, by the way. Why are you up here all by yourself? Are you okay? You look like you’re gonna yark. Who ya talkin’ to up here?”

  Leah’s cheeks puffed out like a squirrel with a mouthful of nuts. Her lips trembled and then parted. What came out wasn’t as good as Hey there and not as bad as her breakfast, but instead something in the middle—a wet, cavernous belch that sounded very much like BAAAAWP.

  Silence followed. Allie looked at Leah and Leah at Allie, her eyes too frozen to look away. The color in her face matched the white on the fence.

  “D’you hear that?” Allie’s eyes darted from one side of Leah to the other. She drew a finger to her lips in a motion so slow it could have been made in molasses. “Shh. I think there’s a rhino in here. Must be the same one that follers my daddy round. That sorry thing’s always makin’ noises and tryin’ to get my poor daddy embarrassed. Sorry about that.”

  Leah blinked. And then—almost—a smile.

  “Happy birthday, Leah.”

  Leah swallowed hard and managed, “Th-thuhuh-thanks.”

  Allie wiggled herself between the branches and found a small spot in the bed of needles beside Leah. The mass of people below looked like ants that had happened upon lunch. Children ran and played (Zach was now introducing himself to Mr. Doctor, and the sight of him made Allie’s stomach flutter as if hungry), the adults laughed. Birds darted from tree to tree looking for scraps of food. Allie offered the little popcorn that was left in her own bag. Leah shook her head no.

  “Whatcha doin’ up here all by your lonesome? You’re the birthday girl. This is your party.”

  Leah wouldn’t say.

  “Hey,” Allie said, “I know all about your stammer. It’s okay. Way I figure it, you don’t mix your words nearly as bad as most folks round here do.”

  “It’s buh-better up h-here,” Leah whispered. “Everybody luh-looks s-smaller.”

  “That’s kinda weird. Hey, what’s this?”

  She picked up the notebook from the ground. Leah’s hand moved to snatch it away but returned to her lap. Her thumbs rubbed together.

  “Hey wow, these are great.” Allie flipped through the book one page at a time and realized Leah hadn’t been writing, she’d been drawing. There were pictures of her father and mother, of herself, of their big house on the hill. “I mean, these are, like . . . awesome.”

  “Thuh-thanks,” Leah managed.

  Allie reached the last page, a half-finished sketch of a smiling man with big eyes and music notes coming from his mouth. She held the picture up to Leah.

  “Hey, who’s this?”

  At first she didn’t think Leah would answer (or could—the horror in her eyes had dulled but was still there). Finally she said, “Thuh-that’s the R-rainbow M-man.”

  “See,” Allie said, “you can talk. I talk a lot. Daddy says it’s my spiritual gift. I take that as sweet talk even though I know he’s just makin’ fun.”

  “H-he was suh-singing to m-me,” Leah said. “Puh-Pops couldn’t hear h-him earlier. He couldn’t even see h-him.” She paused. Allie thought it was either to take a breath or rest her sputtering lips. “C-c-can you s-see him?”

  “Nope.” Allie closed the book and looked at Leah until the shy girl’s eyes looked back. “You mean he’s here right now?”

  “He’s b-beside me.”

  Allie leaned herself around Leah’s shoulder and winced when a branch poked her in the ear. Nothing was there but the blanket of pine needles and one lonely caterpillar that didn’t look like a rainbow man at all.

  “Leah, you know that thing about my daddy’s rhino weren’t real, right? I was just tryin’ to settle you is all.”

  Leah sighed and rubbed her thumbnail again. “You don’t buh-lieve me, d-do you?”

  “Didn’t say that, I was just makin’ sure. You really see something there?”

  Leah nodded.

  “You mean he’s, like, a spirit?”

  Leah looked near to where the caterpillar rested. “He luh-looks m-more like m-magic. Do you buh-lieve in m-magic?”

  Allie nodded. “I imagine so. What’s he revealin’ to you?”

  Leah looked to the caterpillar. “He’s suh-saying I have to buh-lieve in the M-Maybe.”

  “What’s the Maybe?”

  “I d-don’t know.”

  Allie shrugged and said, “Well, lotsa folk round here believe in the magic. See those mountains yonder?” Leah’s eyes looked up to the rounded spires beyond town that rose like giant blue waves against a clear sky. “Folks say they’re fulla magic and that sometimes it spills out over town and flies over people. They say Mr. Andy Sommerville found the magic awhile back. Mr. Sheriff Jake Barnett found it too. That was after, out in Happy Holler. His son Zach told me that, Zach bein’ the boy I’m gonna marry. But I can’t say no more about that, you bein’ from Away.”

>   “I duh-don’t think my puh-pops buh-lieves in m-magic,” Leah said.

  “Well, maybe you should ask him.” Allie took Leah’s hand. “Speakin’ of which, come on. Your daddy said it’s time for cake.”

  Leah jerked her hand away. “I’m juh-just going to stuh-stay here. The R-rainbow M-man’s walking duh-down for me. He suh-said he’d b-be back in a m-minute.”

  Allie saw no caterpillars between them and everyone else, though she reckoned she could’ve missed plenty, given all that fluffy grass. Still, the only rainbows she saw were the clusters of balloons below.

  “You can’t just stay here.”

  “Why n-not?”

  “Because I’m your friend now. That means you gotta go where I go.” She grabbed Leah’s hands again and pulled her out from under the pines. “Come on. Let’s go down there. I wanna see if I can catch a sight of the rainbow man too.”

  Allie ran, giving Leah the choice to either follow or dislocate her shoulder. She chose the former. The two skipped down the hill toward the mass of people below.

  4

  Reginald Arthur Goggins—Reggie to the good people of Mattingly every Monday through Saturday, Preacher Goggins or Reverend Goggins on the Sabbath—made his way through the gathering and considered his a job well done. Barney had been hawking the city folks’ coming-out party to everyone he saw for over a week, with little result. That was to be expected. As much as Reggie thought of his fellow townspeople, he knew Barney’s entreaties would fall upon deaf ears. It was hard to get people to listen when they were too busy pretending the person doing the talking wasn’t there. Which was why in the end it had been Reggie himself who had spread the word that people should come. It would be the Christian thing to do.

  He greeted Hettie Mayfield by the back porch of Henrietta Fox’s old house, where people gathered for pieces of a cake that was big to the point of brazenness. The old woman took his hands as he prayed aloud for the cancer in her body. Jake Barnett, Kate, and Zach helloed. Reggie whispered a warning to Kate that she’d better lock her boy up in a few years, Zach would be driving the girls crazy by then. Kate replied that a forty-year-old man of God who still retained all of his hair and most of his physique would do well to heed that very advice, especially considering the honey-eyes certain unattached ladies of the choir offered while his back was to them every Sunday morning. Mayor Jim Wallis and his wife, Gloria, politicked with voters by a set of fancy banquet tables. Trevor Morgan—Gloria’s nephew and editor of the Mattingly Gazette—stood by them scribbling in his notebook. Reggie greeted them all, asked how they were and how he could pray for them, told them if they needed anything, anything at all, the church was always open.

  And it was. Day, night, and every time in between. Because Mattingly was God’s town and Reggie Goggins was God’s servant.

  “Hello, Mrs. Carver,” he called to a woman near the Moon Bounce. “Lovely singing last Sunday. You have the voice of an angel if I’ve ever heard one.”

  Lisa Carver waved back, the smile on her face brighter than the sun shining down on her. Reggie moved on and took in the balloons, the music, the fancy Moon Bounce, satisfied that he’d accomplished another of the tasks before him. The truth was that Lisa Carver couldn’t hit a note to save her immortal soul, but the truth was also that Reggie had overheard Lisa’s husband, Rodney, tell her such after last Sunday’s service. The hurt on Lisa’s face was a pain Reggie felt was his duty to set right, even if it did require a lie. Reggie comforted himself by saying it was all music to the Lord, and praise be to Him.

  He found the Moores and Grandersons by the popcorn machine with two people whom Reggie took as the hosts. Barney waved him over and shook his hand.

  “Tom, Ellen, this here’s Reggie Goggins. He preaches down at the First Church of the Risen Christ, biggest church in town.”

  Ellen extended her hand. Tom, however, did not. Reggie thought this odd but took no offense.

  “Nice to meet you, Reverend Goggins,” Ellen said. “We appreciate you stopping by today.”

  “A pleasure.” Reggie said hello to Marshall and Mary and bent down to see if Mabel was awake. He kissed the top of her head and nodded toward Barney, who offered a not-so-hidden sigh of relief. The poor old man always feared Mabel would one day fall asleep and never wake again. “And it’s Reggie, ma’am, least on Saturdays. Beautiful house you have, simply wonderful. Called on y’all once or twice since you moved in, but no one was here. Nice to finally meet you both. Where’s the birthday girl?”

  “Allie was on the hill with her a bit ago,” Mary said.

  The hill was clear but for grass and pines. Tom and Ellen scanned the crowd, their lips pursed. Ellen reached for Tom’s hand.

  Reggie didn’t see reason for their worry and supposed it was still the city in them. He tried to break the tension by offering, “Never can tell with kids, I suppose. But ‘children are an heritage of the Lord: and the fruit of the womb is his reward.’”

  “Amen,” said Barney and Marshall.

  Reggie turned to Tom—a psychologist back in the city, rumor had it—and said, “Tom, plenty of fine churches in Mattingly. Your lovely family would be welcome to visit mine, of course. The Moores and Grandersons can attest to its standing.”

  “I appreciate that, Reverend,” Tom said. He still hadn’t offered his hand. “We don’t go to church.”

  Ellen said, “We’re spiritual but not religious.”

  The only sounds were the crowd’s prattle and fiddle-play from the speakers. Reggie supposed it was his place to say something, he being the beloved town pastor and the Norcrosses being spiritual but not religious, but it was Barney who asked what most everyone in the group wondered.

  “What the heck’s that mean, Miss Ellen?”

  “I suppose it means we ask the same questions religious people ask; it’s just that you believe there are answers to those questions and we don’t.”

  Tom’s eyes were on Reggie, jaw muscles flexing, ready to . . . what? Pounce? Reggie thought no, it couldn’t be that. But it was as if the wind had changed and dark clouds had gathered around them. Something had struck the mean place inside Tom Norcross’s heart, and Reggie had no idea what or why.

  Barney raised his hat and scratched his head. Mary waved to someone. Anyone.

  “What good’s a question if there ain’t no answer to it?” Marshall offered.

  Before Ellen or Tom could respond—and Reggie was very much looking forward to that answer—Allie appeared alongside a little girl so pale and fragile she looked sickly. Their cheeks were flushed, their mouths panting. Tom and Ellen looked genuinely surprised. To Reggie, their reaction only added to the ambiguity of the moment.

  “Hey there, Preacher Goggins,” Allie said.

  She hugged Mary and then Marshall. Leah followed suit with her own parents and then wedged herself between them. She apologized to Ellen for the condition of her dress. Reggie took a step forward and put his hands on his knees.

  “You must be Leah. Happy birthday to you.”

  The little girl grinned at the grass and said nothing.

  “Get some good presents?”

  Still the silence. Tom nudged Leah’s shoulder and whispered for her to say something.

  “M-Mr. Buh-Barney m-made m-me an easel,” she mumbled. She tried to look at Reggie but somehow couldn’t. “I’m s-supposed to muh-make him a p-p-picture to s-say thanks. It’s what he nuh-needs.”

  Barney smiled and said, “Why, thank you, little Leah. That’s awful kindly.”

  “Leah saw a spirit,” Allie announced. “He was a-singin’ to her up on the hill there and then he came down here. Y’all seen a spirit, Momma?”

  “Can’t say we have,” Mary said.

  Chuckles spread through the group. Reggie thought that perhaps had more to do with the relief of moving past what had just been said than anything else. Still, he noticed the only one other than himself not laughing was Tom, who looked more concerned than amused.

  Ellen looked
at Leah, who had now found something on the front of her dress to take her mind off her shoes. “Did you see something up on the hill, Leah? Maybe it was someone at the party.”

  “There wasn’t anyone on the hill,” Tom said.

  “It was luh-like m-magic,” Leah told them.

  Reggie took that opportunity to say, “Would you like to see some magic, Leah? Real, true magic?”

  Leah’s chin moved upward to Reggie in slow motion.

  “I already h-h-have,” she said.

  For reasons Reggie could not understand, those words gave him chills despite the hot day.

  “Well, if you want to see more, you just come down to First Church this Sunday. Plenty of magic there. Allie here can tell you that, can’t you?”

  “Yeppers,” Allie said, though at the moment she seemed more concerned with looking for Leah’s spirit than being a good fisher of men.

  “Life on earth is a wonderful thing, but life with God is better.”

  “What’d you say?” Tom asked. He stepped forward to Reggie. The two men stood like boxers before a fight—Tom snarling, Reggie wondering why. They were not much different in size or age, though the good doctor had puffed out his chest and lifted his chin to appear both taller and bigger. Marshall took a step forward and looked to Reggie, unsure what was happening. “Tell me that again.”

  “I said life with God is better.”

  “That so?”

  Tom was closer now. Reggie could feel puffs of air on his face from the doctor’s nose.

  “Tom,” Ellen said. She left Leah’s side and grabbed her husband by the elbow. His body turned toward his wife, but his eyes remained on Reggie. “What are you doing? Not in front of our guests. I’m so sorry, Reverend.”

  Reggie looked past Tom and said, “No apology necessary,” though one surely was. Not to the Grandersons, who stared slack-jawed at Tom, nor to Barney, still rubbing his head, nor Mabel, who had, to Barney’s relief, now awakened to offer a barely there ahhh. Not even to Reggie himself. No, Reggie thought, the apology should have gone to Leah, who huddled against her mother and began polishing her thumb. Her head bobbed up and down as if listening to a faraway song.