Voices of Ash

by Jill Zeller

  “I never took up singing. It seemed stupid and frivolous, maybe it was because my mother sang like Christel Goltz, that famous German opera soprano. Weddings, funerals, and church. She made the rounds. I suppose Connie and Carl got their voices from her.

  “I just remember one day, sitting in church, listening to my mother sing. I was maybe nine years old. It was winter in Oklahoma, gray and cold, not even the sweetness of snow to block the bleakness. But I remember as I sat there, listening, bored, the sun came out.

  “The church walls changed, somehow, to blue or turquoise; the people sitting in the pews took on color, black and brown and gray transformed to gold and scarlet and green. It was my mother’s voice that did that. She could change things, just by singing. I wanted to learn how.

  “I couldn’t sing like her but I could talk. People told me I sounded like a damn lawyer. I could argue the corn cobs off the stalk. I argued with crows and cows. I always made my point and I always won.

  “I’m not going to bore you with the story, again, of how I got myself into law school, talked my way in, really. That’s not why I’m writing this. Oh, maybe it is, as a way of explaining what I did, not the why of it, but the ‘what’ of it.

  “I met your father, Kenneth Cleveland, that summer before I left for college. My mother, for all her faults, was determined that I would go to college and be schooled like she never was. You’ve heard the story. Your dad was riding a bicycle out from Waynoka, right near the cemetery. I was driving my mother’s old Ford into town for groceries, with her in the passenger seat telling me to slow down or speed up or hold the wheel a certain way. We saw the car ahead clip him and over he went into the ditch.

  “Now comes a part of the story you didn’t know, Hank, and this is only for you. I had never met or heard of Kenneth Cleveland. Oh, I knew about the Cleveland farm, a big, prosperous place north along the river. But my mother knew who he was, this young man lying in the ditch with a broken arm. She never said anything, but I could tell she knew him and she didn’t like him.

  “So, when we started up, your father and I, we kept it secret. Oklahoma Law School opened in 1923 in Norman, Oklahoma and I was one of the first students. Norman was as far from my mother as I could get in those days. Your father came with me and worked in a grocery store. And we got married there, in secret.

  “But you know all this, or at least, this is nothing I kept secret from any of you. But there is something.”

  Looking up, Hank caught Luz staring straight ahead, a deep vertical line on her forehead, as if behind that wall of bone and skin she was shuffling memories faster than an adding machine. Getting off his chair, he slid to the grass, to be closer.

  “My mother found out. She came on a visit to surprise me—strange because Mother hated traveling. And of course your father was there and it was all too plain to her that we were married.

  “Mother flew into a rage. I had never seen her so angry before, and she had a temper. She kept asking if Joel Cleveland, Ken’s father, knew we were together. The look of her face, beet red, will always live in my mind.”

  Luz’s hand slid onto Hank’s shoulder. He froze, didn’t turn to look up at her, because if he did, she might disappear. His heart turning over in uncomfortable leaps, Hank kept reading.

  “Mother kept shrieking about an annulment. Ken kept demanding to know why. Your father, a quiet, reliable man, really learned the power of his voice that day, because Mother had to give up. She couldn’t out-shout him.

  “And when Mother answered, her voice cracking with hoarseness, ‘ask your father!’, a terrible thought slid into my mind.”

  On Hank’s shoulder, Luz’s hand tightened. “She knew,” she breathed.

  Luz’s voice made Hank falter; he lost his place, found it again.

  “And so, yes, we learned the truth, but it was never from Mother or Joel Cleveland. It was from your grandmother’s best friend, Rosie Gantry, who is still alive, I believe. We traveled back to Waynoka but we didn’t tell my mother or Ken’s father we were in town.”

  Lines were crossed out, blackened with swipes of the pen so that Hank couldn’t read them, as if Mom had tried to begin this paragraph and kept revising.

  “I learned that Joel Cleveland was my father. Mother made up a story about my father dying in a grain silo. I’ve told you children that same story, all these years. Joel Cleveland, a well-off farmer, married to your grandmother Annette, who died in the influenza epidemic was both Ken’s and my father. Now I knew why Mrs. Cleveland, who headed all the church and school committees, hated my mother and me.”

  “She knew,” Luz said again. “That picture of your grandmother, and your grandfather. I saw that in her face. A broken heart, and deep, deep anger.”

  Everything in Hank’s body, stomach, heart, sank toward the cool grass underneath him. Mom and Dad were half-brother and sister. But they stayed married, raised children, made a life for themselves as far away from Waynoka, Oklahoma as they could get.

  There was more, in the letter, about Grandpa Joel, and how he had known all along. Ken told him about the girl, Bess Ronert, whom he loved. And Grandpa Joel did nothing about it. He just let it happen.

  A strand of Luz’s hair brushed Hank’s cheek. She was leaning over him, staring at the letter, or at the ground. The scent of cinnamon encircled Hank. His heart thundering, Hank reached for her, to press her closer so he could kiss her. He felt her moving, soft, pliant, coming closer.

  Susan emerged from the studio with the Cyclist. Luz pulled away. They watched Susan load it into the re-heated kiln.

  Getting up, Luz picked up her handbag. “A cyclist, huh? I should get going. It’s late.”

  Near the kiln, Susan said from the shadows, “The Red Car is closed by now. Let me drive you home.”

  Hank watched Luz shake her head. He stayed on the grass, as if all the power of his legs had been sucked into the earth.

  Susan was insistent; she seemed to want to get Luz away—had she heard the content of the letter, from inside the studio where she was working?

  Hank was helpless to make her stay with him. He had no right to ask. Luz probably hated that he and his brother were even here to see this private little ceremony. And now she knew the shameful fact of his parents.

  Following them to the driveway, Hank said to Luz as she got into Susan’s car, “I’ll come by tomorrow.”

  “Don’t Hank. We’re busy.” Luz looked at him over the car roof, the way Carl had looked at him.

  “I will. I’ll sit outside on the sidewalk until you talk to me again.”

  Shaking her head, Luz disappeared inside the car. Susan didn’t wait, reversed out of the driveway in a hurry. Hank stood alone in her yard with only crickets for company.

  Curling up on the chaise under the blanket, he stayed awake, and when the alarm went off, dutifully turned off the kiln. Resisting the urge to open it and see the cyclist because he knew the risk of damage, he got back onto the chaise lounge, found a few swallows of whiskey in a bottle under the table.

  Mom and Dad, brother and sister, growing up in the same town and never knowing. Deciding to stay together even when they did know. And Hank thought of Carl and Connie, and what they admitted to doing that afternoon all those years ago when Hank walked in on them. Barriers that he always thought rigid and tall, like prison walls, were crumbling to dust.

  Why did Mom throw Luz out of the house? Dad and Mrs. Del Mar? Hank couldn’t picture it. Dad might have his little dalliances with young blond actresses but Rosa Del Mar?

  He had been lying there maybe thirty minutes when he heard Susan’s phone ring. Who would call this time of night? Joseph did not seem up to answering it, or maybe he was too drunk or tired, but it rang and rang. Stopped. Started again.

  Cursing, Hank got to his feet, and trailing the blanket behind him, crossed the kitchen, found the phone on the table against the dining room wall and picked it up.

  “Hank, is that you? Where is Joseph?”

  “Asle
ep. Luz?”

  “Yes, yes, it’s me. You have to help us.”

  A shock traveled through him; his blanket fell to the floor. He was fully awake. “What happened?”

  “Diego. We can’t find him. He must have wandered off.” Her frantic voice cycled higher, was cut off. He imagined her clapping her hand on a sob.

  He put the phone down. He could hear her calling his name. When Hank got to the driveway he rolled up his cuffs, swung his leg over the Peugeot and pumped into the street, through the brisk night, heading for East LA and Luz.

  Twenty-Nine

  He whizzed through intersections, cadence rapid, dodging the occasional car. Even now, at 2 in the morning, people were out driving around.

  All Hank could think about was getting to Luz’s house. She had called him, of all people, to help her find Diego. He wished for the speed of experimental jet planes, fold time and be there in seconds, not hours.

  Thirty-five miles to Luz’s house in East L.A. If he could maintain a speed of twenty-five miles per hour, he would get there in less than two hours. It seemed an impossibly long time, and he slowed, considering. There had to be another way. He had no car. By the time he rode home and took Mom’s car, no time would be saved. Pounding the handlebars in helpless frustration, Hank blew through an intersection and ran straight into a crossing car.

  Hitting the brakes, Hank slid sideways, saving the front wheel from warping, but slamming into the rear passenger door. Before he could get his balance, he bounced off the ground.

  Hank heard the car’s brakes squeal and saw it lurch to a stop. Scrambling to his feet he lifted the bike to check the wheels and gear. Pain stabbed his left elbow, the same one he had fallen on weeks ago, and he nearly dropped the Peugeot.

  A woman stood near her driver door, clinging to the handle.

  “Oh, thank god you’re all right. Can I take you anywhere? Does your bike work? I didn’t see you, honestly. I didn’t see you.”

  She rambled on from her place near the door. Hank couldn’t answer. His heart thundered in his ears; he knew she was offering him a ride and was concerned and all that, but it didn’t matter. Thoughts flashed through his mind, bits of film on a screen, distracting bits.

  He thought he shook his head. He maybe even said ‘No thanks I’m fine’. The next thing he knew he was on the bike, riding. It was working fine, even though a biting pain paralyzed his left elbow. The bike was working fine. And he knew where to go.

  These were not the memories he was seeking, but they were there, firm and splendid in his mind, in Technicolor with sound and music. His legs, shivering with adrenalin, moved him swiftly through the night; the tongue of ocean breeze licked his skin and fingered his hair as he went.

  He knew he was halfway to Sepulveda on Washington when he hit the car. Now he headed west, back toward the beach and Mission Way.

  The thing with the baby. He remembered that now, and the puzzles snapped neatly into place. The thing with the baby.

  It was about the same time, he thought, spring heating into summer, school about to let out.

  Now, in sharp focus, as if it were yesterday, he remembered. Connie had been sick and now he knew why. She didn’t go to rehearsals and stayed in her room and would only talk to Mom. Hank didn’t care so much about that, but Carl was very upset by the whole thing. Sitting in the kitchen with Joaquin, eating a pile of scrambled eggs, thinking about going for a long ride, Hank was astonished to see Connie enter the kitchen, snag a Coke from the fridge and leave again with only a smile and a wave.

  Dressed to perfection in a white suit with red polka-dot collar and cuffs, tight skirt and white heels, she looked stunning. She was nineteen then, the Cleveland Twins getting lots of auditions and just starting to land small roles in musicals.

  Hank had only seen her once or twice the last five days leaving her room to go to the bathroom, hair mussed and crushed, in an old bathrobe and barefoot, pale and looking terrible. Mother said it was the flu, and the boys should stay away from her.

  But now Hank knew what was really wrong with Connie back then and what was wrong with her now. He coasted along Mission Way under marching ranks of palms. To his left, the Pacific gurgled and crashed under the safety of darkness, invisible but ceaselessly present.

  That sunny spring day three years ago, Hank just rolled into the driveway after a sixty-mile ride, feeling drained and pleasant, gnawing pain gone for a little while, drained along with his muscles and brain. Emerging from the garage, he came in through the kitchen and a wall of voices and weeping met him.

  In the front room, as Hank stood in the doorway, curious, he noticed first the incongruity of two policemen standing near the mantel. They were large, strong men, holding their caps. One was older than the other—the young one looked completely overwhelmed at the sight of Connie pacing back and forth on the other side of the sofa from them, crying, shaking her head. Mother spoke rapidly with the older cop, who was looking at her with a cold expression. Carl and Dad did not appear to be home.

  “You see she is distraught,” Mom was saying, her voice calm, almost delicate. “She has had a recent trauma and is not coping well. She didn’t know what she was doing. I will take full responsibility for this. Anything that needs to be done, I will do.”

  The policeman kept his eyes on Connie as she walked back and forth. She still wore the pretty suit, but now it looked wrinkled, and there was a grass stain up one side of her skirt. Hank’s mind wandered over the possibilities and the ones that came into his mind made him smile.

  Mother’s back was to him and she hadn’t seen him yet. Connie was evidently not seeing anything, just walking back and forth, straightening her jacket, squeezing her hands.

  “Mrs. Cleveland, the Los Angeles Police Department will let you know if there will be any charges filed. The family is pretty upset about it. Luckily there was no physical harm done.” The cop put on his cap, and the younger one copied him.

  “This won’t happen again,” Mother was saying, turning toward the door. Hank drew back, dipped down the hallway and into the dining room, out of eyesight but not earshot.

  “She will be properly looked after. Please assure the family that I have everything in order and that if there is anything I can do for them, it will be done.”

  The older cop paused as Mom opened the front door. “Mrs. Cleveland, this is a serious matter, you understand. The family may not understand that your daughter is, er, disturbed. You shouldn’t contact them under any circumstances, unless they ask to speak with you.”

  “Of course, officer. Absolutely no contact. Thank you for bringing her home, and not to the jail. I do thank you for that.”

  Now Hank wondered if Mom had bribed the cops to keep the incident secret. It certainly died away, not a whisper in the papers. The family of the stolen baby must have been well compensated.

  Hank remembered everything as he approached downtown Santa Monica in the cool darkness. Mom had closed the door behind the policemen, gone into the living room, took Connie by the arm, and led her upstairs.

  All the while, Mother’s voice moved like a river, talking, talking, low and constant in Connie’s ear as they went. Hank followed, trying to catch what was being said. Mom had no idea, he thought, that he was there. And Connie, evidently, would never remember.

  “You need to rest, sleep, forget about everything. You are hurt and tired . . . .” Mother’s voice faded as she closed Connie’s bedroom door behind her. Hank pressed his ear against the space between the door and the door jamb.

  Connie. “Oh Mommy, I’m so sorry. I never meant to hurt anyone. I just wanted to hold her. She could have been mine, right? That sweet, golden baby. She was sitting up in the buggy, looking straight at me. I knew she was mine—what was she doing in that stranger’s buggy?” Connie’s voice rambled up and down the scale, and all the while Mother’s voice encircled the room in clouds of words, obscuring everything.

  Hank remembered trying to catch Connie’s voice in Mom’s floo
d of words sweeping memory away. Like he was swimming in the water of voices, trying to save Connie. He thought he knew by now what had happened; Connie’s short illness followed by this crazy, desperate act. He heard the word ‘abortion’, not from Mom, but from Connie, over and over. She wanted the baby. She wanted to marry the father. He had offered to marry her.

  He remembered now wondering if Carl was the father. But he was wrong about that, had been. Besides, he had the feeling now, as he coasted onto the sidewalk in front of the Lady Windermere Hotel, that he was about to meet the father of the child Connie never had.

  Leaving the Peugeot in deep shadow near the private garage behind the hotel, Hank found the back entrance, always unlocked for certain people coming to the hotel who did not want to be noticed. It led through a dark, vacant kitchen to the service elevator.

  Mother’s voice, the very voice she now had lost forever, low and soft, always a buzzing his ears, background, controlling everything. Hank knew that Bess Cleveland had something to do with his not remembering Connie kidnapping a baby. He wondered what Connie remembered; did Connie understand why she had done what she had now done?

  As he rode the elevator to the eighth floor everything slowed. His body was asleep, he felt, but his mind sharp and alive, an electric thing.

  The hallway was silent, smelling of floral spray and cigarettes, framed in dark wood and the swirling pattern in the carpet in muted blues and browns. He tried to imagine the colors of the Cyclist fused with Grandfather Joel’s ashes.

  As he closed on the room, the same one he borrowed months ago to meet Susan, Hank stopped, his body, for the moment, refusing to function as he understood the next epiphany. Where Diego was had nothing to do with the accident or the pain in his elbow. This memory leaked from his mind in Mom’s flow of words, from the smell of the ashes as they baked.

  He knocked on the door of 818. There came a sound like breathing, a soft rustling, footsteps; the door opened.

  Connie gazed at him, her face drawn and blank, as if she were addressing the postman or milkman. Then her eyebrows moved, her eyes sharpened.