A Thousand Voices

by Lisa Wingate

  “Next door,” I answered, glancing at Jace, who gave me a covert wink. He set Autumn on her feet.

  Nana Jo grabbed a carved walking stick from the ground beside her, and scooted to the edge of her chair, causing it to rock sideways precariously. I stepped forward with my arms outstretched, to do what, I wasn’t sure. I was too far away to catch her if the chair collapsed.

  “Careful, Nana Jo.” The young woman next to her, Shasta, grabbed the chair arm. “You’ll get folded up in this thing again.”

  Nana Jo turned a shoulder to the comment, then quickly offered me Jace’s empty seat, on the other side of hers. “Come sit,” she said. It was more of a command than a request. Slipping through the crowd of onlookers, I slid into the lawn chair, tucking my hands between my legs, and thinking, Now what?

  Shasta leaned forward and shrugged at me apologetically, then readjusted the blanket wrapped around her shoulders.

  Nana Jo gave a royal wave toward the flute player, who’d abandoned the empty picnic table and headed for the food with his flute tucked carelessly in his back pocket. “Play something for us, Dillon.”

  Dillon, his hand suspended above a plate of hamburgers, quirked a brow.

  “Oh, no, it’s all right,” I said quickly, thinking that just a minute ago Nana Jo had been worried that Dillon would starve to death. “I don’t want to interrupt anyone’s dinner.” The scent of charcoal-grilled meat wafted by, and my stomach gurgled and rumbled.

  Smoothing her hands over her long broomstick skirt, Nana Jo relaxed in her chair, bracing an elbow on the armrest and assessing me with a narrow eye. I could imagine what she was thinking. “Have you had supper?” she asked.

  I was embarrassed to admit that I hadn’t.

  “I told her to come over when she got hungry,” Jace interjected, then turned from Nana Jo to me. “So I guess you got hungry?” In the firelight, his eyes were large and dark, his features distinctly Native American, though, unlike the flute player, he had his hair cut in an ordinary, if slightly long, style.

  My stomach rumbled again. “Yeah, I guess I am.”

  Nana Jo went into action. She grabbed her walking stick again and rose to her feet, her joints crackling like logs in the fire. She was only slightly taller than she had been in the lawn chair. Her long green broom skirt whisked the tops of well-worn leather sandals as she headed toward the kitchen area, her steps slow, her toes twisted and curled like the roots of a very old tree.

  Nana Jo was a small woman, but she commanded respect. At the food table, Dillon grabbed a handful of chips and backed out of the way. A thirty-something woman in tight denim shorts and a camisole top stood up from one of the chairs and came over to take charge. “I’ll get it, Nana Jo.” Laying her hand on Nana Jo’s arm, she patted gently. “You relax. You’re not supposed to be up and down so much.” There was a lilt in her voice that mirrored Nana Jo’s, making the words flow together like lines of poetry. “Come, sit back down.” Leading Nana Jo toward the chair, she cut a feline glance my way, her exotic, upward-tilted eyes starting at my tennis shoes and raking upward as she tossed a length of silky black hair over her shoulder. “What would you like, sweetie?” The sentence held an intonation that might have been used on a six-year-old who was just a little too much trouble. “You look hungry.” The words ended in an unspoken, Poor little thing.

  “I’ve got it, Lana.” Jace started toward the kitchen as the woman in the Daisy Duke shorts put Nana Jo back in her chair.

  “No, it’s fine.” I stood up, mortified by all the fuss, the fact that everyone was looking at me, and the fact that I was receiving less-than-welcome vibes from the cat lady, Lana. “I’ll get—”

  “I can do it.” Sidestepping Jace, Autumn slid her hand into mine. “I found her first. She’s my friend.”

  “I found her, too,” Willie protested, suddenly switching his interest from Matchbox cars on a blanket to me. “She was right over there.” Pointing to my campsite, he trotted around the fire and took my other hand.

  “Hush up, Willie,” Autumn scolded.

  “Well…I…did.” Willie’s head wagged back and forth with each word, his chin jutting out like he was facing off a school-yard bully. “When we was out behind the tents.”

  Jace took a step closer. “You two aren’t supposed to be out behind the tents.”

  Autumn threw her free hand up, then let it fall to her thigh with a slap. “Geez, Willie. You stupid.”

  Catching her eyes, Jace put a finger to her lips. “Watch your language, young lady.”

  “Yes, sir,” she muttered, ducking her head. “Sorry, Daddy.”

  Resting a hand on her hair, he tipped her face back so that he was looking at her very directly. “No going outside the tents. You know better.”

  “Okay,” she replied, fidgeting, obviously ready to be removed from attention central. “Can I go and help the lady get some food now?”

  “She probably has a name.”

  “Dell,” I answered, greeting the crowd with a self-conscious wave. “Dell Sommerfield.”

  Nana Jo squinted. “Sommerfield…Sommerfield…I don’t believe I know that name. Are you from around here?”

  I shook my head. “Kansas City.” You shouldn’t have told them that. What if they call James and Karen? The minute the thought ran through my head, I realized how idiotic it was. “I was…” Was what? On a mission to trace the long-lost family roots of a man who allowed his name to be put on my birth certificate, then disappeared, leaving me with only Thomas Clay and a potential Choctaw heritage? “I was…traveling, but all the hotels are full, so I ended up here. I have some genealogical research to do at the Choctaw Nation offices.” That sounded plausible, reasonable. No doubt people came here to research family roots all the time.

  Nana Jo’s lips parted in a wise expression. “Ah, I see. You’ll find that most of the genealogical information is at the tribal complex in Durant. Those offices will be closed until after Labor Day weekend, but while you are here, you shouldn’t miss the Labor Day celebration and the museum at the Choctaw Capitol Building in Tuskahoma, if you’ve never seen it. On the second floor, there is a copy of the original muster rolls listing Choctaw families in Indian Territory as early as 1832. You may see the names of some of your ancestors there. It’s important that we know where we’ve come from. Chahta imanumpa ish anumpola hinla ho?”

  I stood staring at her, wondering if my ears had gone haywire, or if she’d just asked me a question in some other language. Around the fire, everyone watched me expectantly. “Excuse me?”

  Willie let go of my hand, bored with the conversation and ready to return to his Matchbox cars. Autumn squeezed my fingers. “She’s asking if you speak Choctaw.”

  “Oh,” I said, feeling out of body. “No, I don’t.”

  Nana Jo grunted, and Autumn tugged my hand, pulling me toward the camp kitchen. “Nana Jo thinks all the young people in the tribe ought to know how to speak Choctaw. She doesn’t like it if they don’t.”

  “Oh,” I replied, sensing that I’d failed some test for which I could not possibly have prepared. I wondered if my father spoke Choctaw—if he talked to my mother in that odd, rhythmic language. I would probably never know for sure, but it was a nice thing to imagine—my father, my mother, gathered with a family like this one, spending a peaceful night around a campfire. Unlikely, but nice.

  “The food’s over here,” Autumn said as she handed me a plate and began offering everything from steak kabobs to hamburgers, a dozen different kinds of chips, homemade salsa and several varieties of desserts.

  “Food’s part of our celebration.” Autumn’s explanation was carefully worded, as if she were taking her position as official Reid family tour guide very seriously. “It’s a tradition.”

  Jace came to check on us after I’d filled my plate. “Now you know why we have to drag people over from other campsites,” he joked. “Where the Reids gather, there’s guaranteed to be three times too much food. They cook for a week ahead of t
ime, then empty out every fruit stand and Wal-Mart bakery on the way to the campground. Most of us live within an hour or two of here, but every year it looks like we’re moving in for the duration.”

  “I can see that,” I agreed, laughing as I finished arranging my plate and walked back to my seat. Autumn held my soda while I settled in, then handed it to me and went to sit on the blanket beside Willie.

  Lana passed by with a trash bag, picking up empty soda cans. She stopped next to Autumn and Willie. “You two should be in bed. Come on, you can brush your teeth in my camper, and then your dad can tuck you in. If ya’ll are tired of that old tent, I might even make you up a bed in the camper tonight.” When the kids didn’t move, she fluttered her long, slim fingers in their direction. “Come on. Bedtime.”

  “A-a-awww,” Willie groaned, “Aunt Lana, it’s not late.”

  Swiveling toward her father, Autumn made a pouty face. “Da-a-aaad.”

  Jace turned over a five-gallon bucket and perched in the space between Nana Jo and me. “They’re all right. I told them they could stay up late tonight.” Lana frowned over her shoulder, her gaze sweeping past me to Jace, and he added, “Thanks, Lana.”

  Shrugging, she continued on around the circle, picking up cans and used paper plates. I was glad when she disappeared into the shadows behind the kitchen area. Everyone else might have been jovial and welcoming, but Aunt Lana was clearly ready to wrap up the evening festivities and get rid of me.

  The fireside conversation fell into an easy rhythm again, and I was relieved to no longer be the focus of attention. Taking my time with my hamburger and chips, I listened absently to the conversations—Nana Jo and Shasta comparing lawn chairs and deciding which type was best; a heavyset young girl, probably about my age, talking about playing on the college softball team somewhere in Texas; a middle-aged woman giving child-rearing advice to her daughter; Jace and another man discussing the Little-League T-ball season; Autumn and Willie creating a pretend city on their blanket, and enjoying staying up late. The sounds made me think of home, of weekends on the farm when all of us were together. Except for the rhythmic lilt in some of the voices, this could have been one of our gatherings, filled with people sharing food and common experience, the universal sounds of family.

  On the empty picnic table, Dillon started playing his flute again, and I lost track of the conversation. I wondered what the song was called, then finally even that question left my thoughts as I sailed away on the music. When I came back, the leftover food on my plate was cold and Dillon had set the flute aside. He was trying to tune his guitar by ear, and not having much luck at it. I stood up, and took my plate to the trash, then waited there watching him. He was tuning the A string on the wrong fret.

  “Up a fret,” I said, then stepped closer and touched the string in the right place. “Right here. Tune it to the E string on the fifth fret.”

  Cocking his head to one side, he gave my advice an appraising look, then finally moved his finger up a fret and tried to tune the string. “I still can’t hear it,” he complained, setting the guitar aside and reaching for his flute again. “I’ve got an electronic tuner at home.”

  “Electronic tuners will ruin you.” Those were James’s words. My dad firmly believed in tuning his guitars by hand. He said it kept his ear sharp. Karen complained that he spent more time tuning than playing music.

  Tossing his long hair over his shoulder, Dillon arranged his fingers on the flute, then shrugged toward the guitar. “D’you play?”

  “Used to.” I couldn’t remember the last time I’d picked up a guitar. At some point during my years at Harrington Academy, I’d become so intent on piano, violin, and voice that everything else had gone by the wayside. Between school and private lessons, competitions and performances, it had seemed as if there was never time to sit around learning guitar licks from James. Now I wished I’d spent more time on the back porch, watching my dad play.

  Dillon grabbed the neck of the guitar and handed it to me, raising an eyebrow. “Think you can tune it?”

  “Maybe. I’ll give it a try.”

  “Go for it.” Bracing his elbows on the ragged knees of his jeans, he watched as I climbed onto the table and took the guitar.

  It felt strange in my hands, heavy and foreign, a cheap beginner instrument with the action too high and the strings too stiff. Nothing like James’s collection of classic guitars, which played silky smooth and practically fell into tune on their own. “Where did you get this thing?” I asked, laughing when I tightened the string and it fell out of tune again.

  “In Mexico on a youth trip. Twenty bucks.” Brushing a moth off his jeans, where a knobby knee showed through the tear, he added, “Why?”

  With my cheek on the guitar, I listened to the strings, picking E and A over and over until finally they were in tune and I could move on to D. “Well, it’s not your ear. This thing’s just hard to tune.” I stopped to listen again. “The action is really high, and the strings are shot. You might try a new set of strings. That may improve the action some and then it’ll stay in tune a little better.”

  “Cool.” Dillon seemed properly impressed with my long-lost guitar tuning skills. “There’s a Wal-Mart in Hugo. I can pick some up tomorrow.”

  Pausing over the D string, I frowned at him. “Go to a music shop. Real guitar players wouldn’t be caught dead buying strings in a place that sells milk and bread.”

  “Cool.” He held up his palm like a notepad, then made an invisible scribble with the end of his finger. “No Wal-Mart strings.”

  “Right. Wal-Mart for milk and bread. Guitar shop for strings.” That was another direct quote from James. Once when we were down in Hindsville, he drove all the way to a guitar shop in Springfield because he wouldn’t buy discount store strings. Some things in life you just can’t skimp on, he’d said. Karen thought he was nuts.

  “So play something,” Dillon urged when I strummed all the strings together. It still wasn’t perfect, but about as good as could be expected. “See if it sounds all right.”

  “I’m not sure I remember anything.”

  “You remembered how to tune it.”

  “That’s the easy part,” I said, then bent over the instrument and closed my eyes, wishing music would come the way it used to. These days, I couldn’t seem to play from the inside out.

  I heard Dillon take a breath and push air into the flute. He was playing “Tears in Heaven,” an old Eric Clapton song that still came on the music video channel from time to time, a tribute to Clapton’s son, who died in an accident when he was just a preschooler. It always made me think of my mama and Grandma Rose. When I was younger, I’d wondered if my mama, with all the things she’d done wrong, all the ways she’d failed Angelo and me, went to heaven. Brother Baker at Grandma Rose’s church said that God’s grace was sufficient for any sin, if only we would ask for it. I’d always wanted to know for sure: Before my mother died, did she ask?

  As “Tears in Heaven” drifted into the night, the question whispered through my soul again.

  Is my mama in heaven?

  The thought slipped away, and I felt the music. It swelled in every part of me as I curled my body over the guitar and began to play.

  CHAPTER 8

  I drifted away on the music, random images from my life floating by in a swirl of color, and light, and emotion—James playing “Tears in Heaven” at Grandma Rose’s funeral, when I was just ten. The same tune coming on the old clock radio at my real granny’s house later that night when I felt alone and lost. The sound was crackly and rough, but it wrapped around me like a blanket. I knew Grandma Rose was right there with me, only I couldn’t see her because she was on heaven’s side of the door and I was on mine. Later, when James taught me to play that song on the guitar, I told him about Grandma Rose being just on the other side of the door. He patted my hand and said that was a good way to look at it….

  When I played the last chord, Dillon tipped his head back and coaxed a long, wavering n
ote from the flute. As it trailed away into silence, I looked around the circle. The voices had gone quiet, and everyone was watching us. Jace rested his chin on Autumn’s head, and she looped her arms drowsily around his shoulders. His gaze met mine, his face filled with emotions. I wondered what he was thinking.

  Around us, everything was impossibly quiet. Finally Nana Jo raised her hands and clapped, breaking the silence. “Wonderful!” Her voice crackled like the clock radio at Granny’s house. “Just beautiful! Play something else for us. Something happy.”

  Dillon rolled his eyes. Wetting his lips, he raised the flute again and rattled off the beginning of “Yankee Doodle,” with a distinct lack of enthusiasm.

  Nana Jo clapped again. “Oh, that’s a good one. It’s one of my favorites. Play that one.” She turned to me. “Do you know it?”

  “I think I can follow along.”

  “All right, then.” Moving her hands like a drum major, Nana Jo struck up the band.

  With an exaggerated sigh, Dillon raised his flute and began to play. I settled my fingers on the guitar, and we skipped off on a happier note.

  Tapping both feet on the ground, Nana Jo clapped in rhythm, the loose sleeves of her shirt billowing in the breeze. “And e-e-everybody sing,” she commanded, as we finished the first verse and started over again. “Yankee Doodle went to town, a-riding on a pony…”

  “That’s on my movie!” Willie cheered, then stood up and started dancing on his blanket as Nana Jo coerced the others into singing along. Autumn climbed down from Jace’s lap and joined in the dance, hopping on one foot and twirling in the firelight, her short, sturdy legs silhouetted against the pink nightgown.

  Beside me, Dillon paused to catch his breath between verses, muttering, “I hope there’s nobody I know here.”

  I threw my head back and started singing at the top of my lungs. I felt free, light, filled with music. Here in the moonlight, among this odd family band, my normal existence seemed light-years away.