How Sweet the Sound

by Amy Sorrells

  I want some red roses for a blue lady.

  Mister Florist, take my order please.

  We had a silly quarrel the other day.

  I hope these pretty flowers chase her blues away.

  Wrap up some red roses for a blue lady,

  send them to the sweetest gal in town,

  and if they do the trick, I’ll hurry back to pick

  your best white orchid for her wedding gown.

  Weddings.

  Comfort and Solly should’ve been planning theirs, but no one mentioned whether or not it was happening since Daddy died.

  Did that cross Princella’s mind as she sang?

  I watched her a little while longer. She handled each branch like an infant, tender and almost breakable between her gloved fingers. Maybe she worked slow and careful to avoid the thorns. She wiped her face with her arm, then she sniffed, which is when I noticed a couple of tears splat onto the patio.

  Could she really be crying?

  I left the kitchen so she wouldn’t see me spying on her.

  “Anniston? Can I see you a moment?”

  Vaughn’s voice echoed through the front hall, and I jumped a half a mile, not knowing he was in his study as I walked by. “Yes, sir?”

  “You’re home early.”

  “A little.”

  “Your mama told me what happened.”

  “He’s a good friend—”

  “I’m not talking about Jed. I know he is. Come sit by me a minute, will you?” He motioned to me to come to the leather couch, where he sat holding a framed, black-and-white photograph. The scent of pipe tobacco and old books made the room feel strong and safe.

  He handed me the frame. “Recognize these people at all?”

  At first, I thought the Alabama Southern football player was Cole and the woman on his arm was familiar, but I couldn’t place her for sure. And the photo looked too old and gray to be that recent.

  “That’s me and your grandmother.”

  I looked closer at the unlined, clean-shaven, boyish face of Vaughn. Looked a lot like Daddy, actually. Then I looked closer at Princella. Decked out in her Alabama Southern cheerleader uniform, she was smiling from ear to ear, like she really had something to smile about. I never saw her as happy as she was in that picture.

  “She was the sweetheart of the team. I was crazy about her. We all were. She was the life of the party. Charming. Gorgeous. But she fell for the guy who snapped this photo. Cole’s biological father.”

  Cole’s father. The one who dumped her when he found out she was carrying Cole. No wonder she was smiling. She was smiling at the man she loved behind the camera. I suddenly felt very sorry for Vaughn. He must hurt, too, knowing she didn’t smile at him that way. Knowing she lost the part of the only man she truly loved when Cole died. Raising Cole and losing both him and Daddy.

  “I love her still, you know.”

  I didn’t know how he could.

  “Anniston, what she did to you is wrong. The way she raised her children, that was wrong too. But deep inside, she’s got a good heart. See, sometimes the parts of a person most broken are the hardest parts for them to forgive in themselves and in others. Their hate of themselves comes out as a hate of everyone around them, even the ones they should love most. They’ll never change until they look their hurt in the face and take it on.”

  I thought for a moment, sifting through what he said. I thought about Daddy and Comfort, being raised like outcasts in their own home. I thought about the Freedom Riders on the flaming bus. I thought about Jed punching Grady because he hurt me. How poetry and words should be real and red and true. And I thought about Princella out there crying in the middle of her rose garden.

  “How’s she supposed to look hurt in the face if no one hands her a mirror?” I gave the frame back to him and took my schoolbooks and my big white dog up to Comfort’s old room.

  “Happy birthday, Anni!” Mama set the caramel cake in front of me, candles lit, waiting for me to make a wish. But wishes wouldn’t come to mind.

  Finally, when the candles dripped wax onto the icing, I squeezed my eyes shut, still saw nothing to wish for, and blew them out anyway. I suppose I coulda wished for my daddy back. Or for a way to move away from Princella. But this was my place in the world, and no wishing would get me out of it.

  Princella sat across the table, and pushed a long, thin box toward me. “I know we haven’t been on the best terms, Anniston. But I do wish you well.”

  I glanced at Mama, who acknowledged I should go ahead and open it. Under the paper was a black velvet box, the first velvet box I’d ever received. I felt almost embarrassed by what I knew to be a generous gift even before opening the lid, especially after all that had happened between us. When I did open the lid, I was shocked.

  “Every girl needs a strand of real pearls. And you’re more than old enough to have your own.”

  “Thank you, Princella, ma’am.” When our eyes met, I saw a tenderness I was unaccustomed to, maybe even love. Or maybe an apology wrapped in money. Either way, I couldn’t help but be grateful.

  “You’re welcome.”

  “Kè kontan anivèsè nesans, child.” Ernestine, sitting next to me, patted my hand and set a small box in front of me.

  I pulled the brown paper off, to reveal a stack of colored blocks.

  “Pull up the top one. Try it.”

  I did, and the whole stack of blocks swung down, all of them held together by colored ribbons. I turned the top block over, and the same thing happened. Each time I turned it, the blocks flipped and fell into a new line, like an unending puzzle.

  “Have you seen one, child?”

  “No, I can’t say that I have. What is it? It’s super cool.”

  “They call it ‘Jacob’s Ladder.’” It’s just a toy. Something small. But I thought maybe it’d be something that helps bring you hope.”

  “It will, Ernestine. I know it will.”

  “I have something for you too, darlin’.” Vaughn, who’d stepped out for a moment, came back carrying a weathered guitar case. “Not much to look at, but maybe somethin’ you can use.”

  “Oh, Vaughn.” Mama put her fingers over her mouth and teared up.

  “This here acoustic guitar was your Daddy’s. His first one. I got the strings replaced for you, and tuned ’er up, so if you’d like to start playing, why then it’s all fixed for you.”

  “Thank you, sir. This really means a lot.”

  Mama piled the gifts on big time after that: summer clothes galore, books, and my own set of nail paint and makeup.

  And when the evening was over, as I was lying in Comfort’s old bed, next to Daddy’s old room, I thought of a wish.

  I wished this was how it always was at our house.

  Lespwa fè viv.

  “Hope makes one live.”

  CHAPTER 28

  Comfort

  Daddy brought me along for grafting every spring I could remember—like Rey brought Anni—to search for the best branches from trees producing the best tasting, strongest pecans. While the sky shines aquamarine, I help Daddy and Solly, Anni, Jed, and the other workers harvest the scions. I imagine the raw cut ends of the spring scions feel like I do, stinging from unwanted vulnerability. It’s progress, I suppose.

  Out in the orchards, surrounded by the familiar work that creates stronger, better trees, I feel. Here in the rows with my loppers and my grafting knife, I take, instead of being taken from. Shame and pain subside as I sever branch after branch after branch. Maybe I’m letting out vengeance. Maybe my fear is turning into rage as I force the arms of the pruners together, slicing through another green, inviolable branch. I wrap the raw end of the scion with damp paper towels and plastic wrap so the ends don’t dry before they’re grafted and the pruning isn’t in vain.

  When we’ve gathered
all we need, we take the scions, Daddy and I, to the rows of rootstock, where Solly, Jed, and Anni have already begun the second part of the process, called the “four-flap” or “banana graft.” Solly takes a sharp knife and makes an X across the raw end of a lopped-off branch, about the same thickness as the scions.

  Seagulls from the bay cry overhead, prairie warblers from the brush, Louisiana water thrush from down near the creek, and the awkward imitations of mockingbirds echo, all of them unaware or uncaring as we move among the rows. Rootstock grows like crazy this time of year, having soaked in the nutrients of the rainy season and the rays of the spring sun. The bark slips off easily, giving itself over to the annual opus of our hands.

  Anni and Jed come behind Solly and peel four sides of bark back until about four inches of the chartreuse insides of the branch are exposed and cut back. Then we put a rubber band around the four flaps until the scion is ready to tuck inside.

  With another sharp knife, Daddy whittles the bottom few inches of four sides of the scion, leaving slivers of bark along each corner. He tucks the new, bare, chartreuse stem inside the arms of the rootstock branch and wraps it with green tie tape and Parafilm. There, it rests for the summer and begins growing only after wintering and coupling with the arms of its surrogate.

  The others move farther down the row of rootstock, and Solly and I work together. I turn to grab another scion from the aluminum bucket on the stocky wooden ladder.

  Solly nuzzles the back of my neck with his lips.

  I jerk and recoil.

  The bucket dumps and clatters to the ground.

  “Comfort, it’s me. It’s just me.” I see the tears collecting in his eyes as he holds his arms out wide like the flaps of the grafts waiting to embrace the tender scion shoots.

  I step toward him, my arms heavy with wraiths of emotion, but I do not reach for him. Instead, I unwrap the fragile end of the scion, whittle four sides of bark away, and place it in his gloved, outstretched hand.

  Chen an ki yelps pa mòde.

  “The dog that yelps does not bite.”

  CHAPTER 29

  Anniston

  Daddy always said pecan trees don’t like wet feet, which explains why the ones on the tops of rolling hills grow taller and wider than others. Trees struggle in the low places, roots soaked and withering in water from all the spring rain setting stagnant in the silt and clay. Low or high, the orchards welcomed Jed and me as sure as the hot summer that greeted us at the end of the school year. I’d taken a summer job working the counter at the Curly Q on Saturdays when they needed extra help, and when I wasn’t there, I helped Jed in the orchards, which is how we made up for not seeing each other in school.

  Mowing and trimming around the acres of trees was our primary job, and Jed loved driving the mowers. Aside from that, we helped fertilize trees—especially the younger ones—sprayed for bugs, and emptied and reset squirrel traps.

  Depending on the time of year, Vaughn ordered zinc and lime to provide extra nourishment for the trees. Mostly he relied on nature to give the trees what they needed. Decades ago, the Harlans covered the ground of the orchards with what Daddy called “helpful and nutritious weeds” like crimson clover, which made the rows look like they were dressed in a red carpet. They planted arrowleaf, too, tiny bunches of yellow flowers that look awfully pretty when a boy like Jed hands them to you on a summer morning when the dew is still thick and glistening white on the hillsides.

  He handed a bunch to me, tied with a string of burlap, on the same morning I brought him a slice of peach-pecan pie to celebrate what I knew to be the occasion of his birthday. Mrs. Nowlan put all the summer birthdays on her bulletin board the last week of school so they wouldn’t be forgotten.

  “What are these for?” I took the bunch from his hand and considered how pretty weeds could be depending on the intent of the person giving them.

  “You.”

  “Wait, I have something too.” I handed him the paper bag. “Best not wait to see what’s in there.”

  “Mmmmmm. And what’s this for?” He stuck a finger’s worth of pie in his mouth and grinned. Crumbs from the crunchy, brown sugar topping stuck to his chin.

  “It’s your birthday, ain’t it?”

  His smile faded, and a knot filled my belly. Had I done too much? It was only a piece of pie. And I hadn’t even made it. Ernestine did.

  “I s’pose it is. Thank you.” He rolled the bag back up and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. When he lit one, the smoke twirled in the air above his head. “What do you say we head outta here for a while? I got a good piece of mowing done. Been out here since before seven.”

  “Sure, then. You shouldn’t have to work too hard on your birthday anyway.”

  He led me to the creek, near where I’d met him that first day, and we roamed the muddy places looking for fossils. The knot tightened inside me since he pretty much quit talking since I brought up his birthday. I couldn’t stand it any longer.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “For what?” He stopped where he was, ankle deep in the middle of the creek.

  “For bringing you pie.”

  He tossed his spent cigarette in the weeds, bent down, and poked around in the water some more. “Aw, Anni, it wasn’t the pie.”

  “Then what?”

  “I’m sixteen today.”

  “Sixteen! Well, are you having a party? Are the Devines having one for ya?”

  “Shoot, no. Old man John wouldn’t let Hettie have a party for herself, let alone me. Drunk as a skunk most of the time and asleep with ‘Do Not Disturb’ across his forehead the rest.”

  “I sure am sorry about that. Everybody should have a party when they’re sixteen.”

  He threw a fist-size rock into the creek so hard it scared me and every living creature within one hundred yards. “Aw, the heck with it.”

  He took off running down the creek, mumbling words I figured I’d rather not hear. He ran so fast I couldn’t keep up. And before I knew it, the world was silent. Only thing moving was the old swing Comfort used to swing me on when I was little. Now the rope hung limp, frayed, and lonely.

  Surely he’d come back.

  The silence, except for the trickling of the creek around my feet, reminded me of Shelley Cartright, who drowned in Mobile Bay a couple of years ago. A third grader at the time, Shelley and her family’d been swimming and searching for sand dollars off Dauphin Island, and while no one watched, an undertow swept her out to sea. By the time they realized it, Shelley floated facedown in the water, dead. The trauma of it near wrecked her mama and daddy, who blamed themselves. Now when I see Mrs. Cartright at the Piggly Wiggly, she carries a sadness about her and looks at me and other children like she can’t bear to see us living when her own girl is cold and still and buried under the dirt.

  We’d attended Shelley’s funeral, because they were members of our church. The crying was like garbled moans of warbler flocks settling in our orchards each spring. Like those broods of birds, all black and huddled in tight groups, the mourners shivered and hunkered toward each other, trying to keep in whatever heat or hope was left in them. There weren’t enough tissues to soak up the tears. The whole church smelled like lilies, and to this day I can’t stand that sweet, honey-thick smell. Those darn lilies smelled up the whole church at my grandma’s funeral, too, on Mama’s side, back in Anniston, Alabama, a few years back. Too much lily made me woozy, like eating too much chocolate at Easter.

  There was no way Jed could drown in this silly old creek, but the thought stuck and scared me, with his crooked walk. What if he slipped and broke something? I decided then to head down the creek toward town in case he needed help.

  “Jed? Jeee-eee-d?”

  A seagull called, lonely and wild and far, far away.

  My lungs tightened in the silent, unmoving air.

  “Disgusting!” I jumped ba
ck as a fat black mud snake slithered into the creek right in front of me. The scent of moss and mold and green stuff floated on the edges of the creek and coated my throat all thick and wet.

  “Anni! You’ll never believe what I found.” As fast as Jed disappeared, he was back—as soaking wet and happy as Molly after a day of swimming in the pond—splashing down the middle of the creek toward me. His legs flailed from side to side as he ran, pushing through the muck of the mud and water.

  I fell flat on my hiney, Jed scared me so bad, as worked up about that snake and the possibility of him lying hurt somewhere as I was.

  “What is it?” I said, using a sapling to pull myself up, and annoyed with the cold globs of mud soaking through to my backside.

  “Look what I found.” He huffed and puffed from his running. “It’s a super-rare brooksella. I mean, brooksella themselves aren’t really rare. They’re from the Cambrian age, and they’re all over Alabama. But this one—there’s two of ’em, stuck together. It’s a double brooksella. I’ve never seen one like this. Not ever. You keep it, Anni. It’s a great one to start your collection.”

  “You sure?”

  “Positive.”

  Most of the fossils he showed me looked like plain old rocks, and I looked them over real close to see the fossil embedded in the bumps and crannies. But he wasn’t kidding—this was something to behold. Etched across the top, like an ancient message, were two raised stars, each the size of a silver dollar, arms joined and clinging to each other and spread out like they were smiling and happy to meet us.

  My fascination disappeared when I saw widening spots of red on his drenched, white T-shirt. “Jed, you’re bleeding!”

  He looked at me like a puppy begging not to be punished.

  “What are those?”

  “I—I, uh—I ran into some high weeds and brush down the creek.”

  I stepped closer to him, and he stepped back. “You sure about that?”

  He turned from me for the second time that morning, saying nothing.