“How do you know who I am?”
“I could say the stars told me but…” She points to a news alert running at the bottom of the television that says, “Hartford Socialite Jailed for Delaney Murder.” The screen is showing high school yearbook photos of Del and me. “Besides, Lila phoned to tell me the good news.”
She shakes her head. “What on earth was that Cricket woman thinking?”
“Celine, Cricket thought Mia loved Worthy Dill.”
She throws her hands into the air. “She must have been blind. Mia never gave that Worthless Dill boy the time of day.” She shakes a finger at Del. “That’s what she called him: Worthless Dill.”
Del chuckles nervously. “My dad called him that, too.”
I scan the room and find Mia’s remembrance candle, still lit.
Celine catches me looking and retrieves it, placing it before Del. “This candle is for you to extinguish, Delaney Pyne. I have kept it for your mother since she died, waiting for justice. I would like you to be the one to blow out this flame, now that her killer sits behind bars.”
He hesitates—perhaps preparing to say some silent prayer.
“Mona Lisa,” he says. “You did most of the work finding Mom’s killer. You need to do this with me.”
I nod. We both blow on the flame, hard. It flickers for an instant before snuffing out and sending a phantomlike trail of smoke all the way across the room.
I feel a jolt when I notice who is missing. “Where is Damerae?”
Celine points to the sky. “When the stars come out, you can see him shine.” She squeezes Del’s hand, “like your beautiful mother, Mia.” Celine plucks Angel’s strings and eyes the painted wings on Del’s guitar, dubiously. What’s this, Nephew?”
“This is my guitar. I named her Angel, after my mother.”
“I see.” Celine shakes off something, before patting Rosalita. “Mona also has her guitar with her. This is good. The three of us will sing today for Mia and Shankdaddy. He was your grandfather, and a great musician. Mona’s grandfather, Reggie, was not a bad musician, either. They jammed together, back in the day. But enough about yesterday. Today is about moving forward. We three will sing together beside the Delaney graves. Their burial ground is a short way from here.” Celine opens a closet by the front door and grabs some things that she stuffs into her giant raffia floral handbag. “Follow me.”
Her fast-stepping spiked heels make it hard to argue with her. But I’m not sure how I feel about this cemetery visit. Mia and Shankdaddy aren’t exactly dead to me. I’ve never visited Bilki’s grave because she’s not dead to me, either. Still, I know this visit is important to Del.
We pass an abandoned brick garment factory, a burned-out tire warehouse that still reeks of melted rubber, and a condemned elementary school that looks suspiciously like Colt High. Only our school will never deteriorate like this one because it’s scheduled for demolition soon. It will simply disappear in a rumbling puff of smoke, later this fall, which is probably best, considering its history.
This lengthy walk leaves us dripping with sweat. It’s been a hot September. Celine distracts us from the heat by telling family stories, not skipping the parts most people edit out, saying things like, “Do you know my fadda, Shankdaddy, mixed bourbon with his cereal on Sunday mornings before church?” and “My sister, Mia, used to make up the funniest rhymes that no lady could repeat.” She slaps her knee. “Oh how Principal Millicent Dibble hated her rebellious behavior. She thought that Cricket girl was a saint. I wonder what she thinks of her perfect little Cricket now?”
Celine shares some wholesome family stuff, too. “Whenever Shankdaddy sold a new CD, he played Santa Claus to the neighborhood kids, filling new athletic socks with gift certificates for video games and hanging them on their doorknobs.”
At the end of each story, Celine tosses back her head full of sapphire braids and wails with a laugh as big and bold as the crystal blue Jamaican sky.
Her well-told stories keep us from noticing exactly when the street crowds vanish and the music dies away. We’ve arrived at a place so far down Manburn Street that nothing is familiar. In fact, I wonder if we’re even on the same street. The pavement is eroded down to potholes and pebbles, exploding with hairy weeds. We keep going until there is no more pavement. We cross an open field of tall yellow grass, filled with glistening granite headstones. A cool breeze blows welcome relief. The wind whistles through the headstones like the open prairie, or some western ghost town. This place doesn’t feel like Hartford. I’m disoriented but fortunately not dizzy. I see no blue fingernails, no bluesy straw hats. I wonder if my dead friends are gone, now that Cricket is in jail. If they are, I may miss them.
Celine strolls past row after row of granite headstones labeled with names like Trevor, Desmond, and Paulette. These names hail from Jamaica, that warm Caribbean island bursting with emerald grottos, cerulean mountains, and ruby red ackee fruit. It’s odd to think of these vibrant islanders taking their eternal rest in a dull New England straw field, strewn with crooked gray stones jutting from the land like bad British teeth. Celine’s hibiscus flower dress swishes by their headstones, and they lean her way. She halts with breathless recognition beside two small markers set close together, taking up only one plot.
“I got stones in my passway, and my road seem dark as night,” quotes Celine.
I recognize those Robert Johnson lyrics and instinctively reach for Rosalita.
Del reads the names on the headstones. “Mia Mendoza Delaney and Dauntay ‘Shankdaddy’ Delaney.” A full bourbon bottle rests beside Shankdaddy’s grave.
Del asks, “Dauntay? That’s a Jamaican name, right?”
“Yes.” Celine sits by the grave and spreads her skirt around her like a tropical flowerbed. She slips into island speak. “Your grandfadda’s people were Irish and Jamaican. He met my mudda when they were both schoolchildren in Kingston. They weren’t much more than children when I was born there. They moved here a few years later. Shankdaddy was a wandering man. He left my mudda for some woman who played with his band. Then he replaced her with Anna Mendoza, a fan he met while touring with the Hoodoo Chickens in Mexico. Anna was Mia’s mother. She disappeared before Mia’s first birthday. Nobody knows where she went or why. That’s another mystery for you two detectives to solve, one day. My own mudda stayed in Hartford until I turned eighteen. Then she returned to Jamaica. Thanks to her, I was better off than Mia, growing up. She had only her fadda, and he couldn’t get her to behave, any more than he could get himself to behave. Shankdaddy and Mia lived up to their Irish namesake, ‘Delaney,’ which means ‘disobedient child. There now, you know your family story.’”
Del touches his mother’s name, engraved in the stone above the short years of her life:
Mia Mendoza Delaney 1976–1994
My mind floods with the power of Mia’s name: how Grumps and Del tried not to mention it to me in order to protect Will Pyne from wrongful imprisonment, and how hearing it made Worthy and Cricket flee their dining room, and eventually, fall apart completely.
Celine pats Angel’s gray wings and takes the guitar. “I don’t mean to offend, Nephew, but I must tell you: your mudda was no angel. She softly picks the opening notes of Bob Marley’s “Redemption Song.” “I knew she had a secret baby, but she never told me where you were. She was afraid my fadda would pry the information out of me if he ever heard about it. Lord knows what he would have done to Will. After Mia died, I tried to find you and failed. I know now that Lila couldn’t tell me where you were because your fadda, Will, asked her to keep your location secret, for his sake. He was sure he’d go to prison, if anyone discovered his whereabouts. When I heard on the news that you were in New Hampshire, the stars told me you would find me. The star beings know everything that happens on our planet. Earth and sky are connected.”
Celine notices Del’s heaving chest and stops playing the guit
ar. “It’s over now, Nephew. Your mudda’s killer is found.” She pats his heart. “We must let her go.”
She opens her enormous raffia purse and removes a familiar straw hat and an earring with the word “LOVE” carved across it. I can hardly breathe as she places these funerary items on the ground. Del’s face softens. Mine tenses up. These things are the property of my otherworldly friends. The thought of anyone else touching them feels like an invasion of their personal property.
Celine stiffens and eyes me flatly, which tells me she is about to lecture me on something. “Mona Lisa, in the old Jamaican way, the belongings of the restless dead must be broken to free them from their torment. You must be the one to sever their connection to this earth because you are the one who serves as their connection; for you have seen their ghosts.”
Del squeezes my arm apologetically, “Mona, I’m sorry I didn’t believe you about seeing Mom.”
“It’s okay,” I say, trying to focus on my final task for Mia and ignore the fire ants crawling between Del and me.
Celine hands me a pair of heavy wire cutters from her bottomless purse. “Here you go.”
They remind me of the day I found out Grumps had died and cut up my bed sheets, the day Mom cut her hair. The wind blows hard, tousling my hair. That’s enough of a sign from my dead friends for me to continue. I waste no time, cutting Shankdaddy’s straw hat in two and snapping Mia’s earring in the middle of the word, “LOVE.” Maybe this action will allow Will to move on.
I wince, recalling the pain of cutting my bangs after Grumps died. Only, this time, I don’t feel any pain.
Celine raises her arms, signaling we should stand.
“Now we sing, “ she says. “Mona, you play your Rosalita. Nephew, you play your Angel. I’m sure you play better than Mona’s band partner, Beetle-boy. He misses every B chord.”
Celine pokes Del with her well-manicured finger and they both laugh. I can’t laugh. I’m realizing for the first time that I’ve lost my band and Beetle. Soon Del will be gone, too. Solving Mia’s case has taken a lot from me.
Celine turns to Del dreamily, “You know, your mudda could really sing the blues.” She fluffs her dress. “I ain’t such a bad singer, myself. On occasion, I sang with the Hoodoo Chickens. Today, we three will sing Mona’s song, ‘Skinny Bones.’” She winks at me with a wide rum-ball eye. “I know Shankdaddy likes that one. I will begin.”
I open with an E7 chord—arpeggiated—and Celine’s harrowing set of pipes explodes onto the first line.
I walked into her room, wasn’t nobody there…
Del and I pat our guitars signaling we’ll both stick to instrumental accompaniment after hearing Celine’s otherworldly voice. Her dynamite rendition of “Skinny Bones” confirms Shankdaddy’s heavy hand in writing it. This is the tale of a stolen daughter, a murdered baby sister, a lost mother, and a woman frozen in time as a teenager. Just a child all her days. Celine’s voice whistles through the yellow grass and between the headstones, until the ground itself sings, calling down to Mia’s long gone skinny bones.
We head back to Celine’s place, sweaty, worn out and taking it all in. Del bends to tighten the laces on one of his heavy black boots. He’s been limping badly, so badly I’m wondering if he’ll make it the last few blocks.
Celine declares, “I have special presents for you when we return!”
This news gives us both a much-needed energy boost. When we reach the golden stairs of her stoop, he’s wincing but makes it to the top. Celine rifles through her closet and emerges wearing a gratified expression. She’s carrying a tombstone gray jacket and a pale green jazz hat.
“Here you go!” She holds the jacket up to me and it falls full length on my frame. “My father wore this jacket on a dinner date with a zombie woman, and lived to tell the tale. You cavort with restless spirits, which is almost the same thing. So you need its protection.” She hands the hat to Del. “This is for you. It was Shankdaddy’s good luck hat. It matches your eyes.”
My cell phone rings, startling us. It’s Officer Mealy, asking me if I can come downtown to sign a statement. The spell of our enchanted afternoon is broken. We say our good-byes, knowing it’s time for my blue-fingered friend and Del’s blue-haired aunt to fade away. I must return to the real world, where my band partner’s mom is headed for jail, and the stardust from Del Pyne’s lips remains on mine, as he heads for the altar.
Part III
Twenty
Silent Fall
It’s the first week of October, two weeks since Cricket’s arrest. I should be playing a concert in Boston this weekend. But my band blew up with a bang before our first concert date. Mom and I are both curled up on the stained navy futon she has cherished since college. She is bathing her sorrows in a steaming cup of Jamaican coffee, courtesy of Celine. The vapor rises and whirls upward, into two long steamy legs. She hops to her feet, reaching for that steam like it’s an old friend come to visit. But the vapor quickly vanishes, and she curls into a ball again.
We all see our “ghosts” in different ways. Mine breeze by with a feathery touch, stop by to jam the blues, emerge from the blue smoke of a dream, or appear as another teenager wearing a band tee shirt. I don’t know how to tell Mom that neither of us will be seeing her old friend, Mia, anymore, not in any form, solid or steamy. Cricket’s capture has allowed Mia’s spirit to fade into a field of yellow grass that lies somewhere between Manburn Street and forever. I thought Mom would be happier after Del and I caught Mia’s killer and got Will off the hook. But she has a new excuse for her depression: Dad told her that he wants a divorce. I have trouble sympathizing as I’ve lost both men who matter to me, having sent the mother of one to prison, and having refused to tell the other how I feel about him. At least I have plenty of material for blues songs. Plus, Mom and I are not alone in our despair; everyone in New England is depressed right now. A true catastrophe has hit our region. Our autumn leaves have failed to produce their usual radiant color.
I sit slumped beside Mom on the futon, watching a Sunday morning news feature on this problem called “Silent Fall.” The television blares gothic organ music, making Mom curl up tighter and me slump lower. The camera captures an aerial view of the banks of the Connecticut River, awash with dull beige leaves. The image looks more like a historic sepia photo than a live October foliage shot. A reporter stands in front of the Connecticut Science Center, dabbing her hollow eyes. The camera pans back and forth, from the building’s winding façade—designed to echo the form of the river—to the unnaturally bland landscape along its banks.
The camera lens closes in on the reporter’s tense face. She speaks somberly. “I stand beside the Connecticut River, a waterway that runs the length of New England, with its source in the four lakes of Indian Stream, New Hampshire.”
I stop nibbling my peanut butter, banana, and honey sandwich. I’ve never heard anyone in Hartford mention Indian Stream before.
The commentator’s mascara streams down her cheeks like war paint. “Today, this is our river of sorrow, as the leaves along its banks remain colorless. Dendrologists are baffled as to why New England boasts no colorful leaves this fall. Innkeepers, restaurateurs, and shop owners are devastated by the lack of autumn tourist reservations.”
Celine raises the volume of a perky reggae song to drown out the television. She bogles around the room as if there’s some reason to celebrate. It’s times like these that remind me why I love the blues.
She stops in front of the television, wagging a finger back and forth. “Sistas, men are like a splash of hot sauce. They flava things up, but you can easily do without them. It’s time to stop wallowing. Put on your Jam Doung colors. We’re going to Jamaica.” She resumes dancing to an upbeat island two-step.
Mom pretends not to hear her. Celine turns off the television. “Lila, your husband is gone. Maybe he’ll come back. Maybe he won’t. What’s the difference? You neve
r loved him. Now you can find true love. It’s never too late.”
Mom raises her hands in surrender. “Fine, I’ll go to Jamaica.”
Celine turns to me, reading my face like it’s an astrological chart. “You must come too, Guitar Girl.”
I squint, warily. “I’ll pass on the island fun. Enjoy yourselves.”
I know Celine is only including me in their vacation because she’s worried I’ll head to my cabin up north to wallow over Del’s upcoming nuptials, or more pathetic, that I’ll make some last-ditch effort to stop his wedding.
Her rum-ball eyes peer into my soul. “We both know Delaney Pyne is engaged to be married to another woman. Be careful not to set yourself up for a disastrous fall.”
“Don’t worry,” I assure her. “No hot sauce or moldy bologna for me.”
As soon as I hear them leave, I hop in my pickup and speed north on I-91, following the dreary Connecticut River foliage all the way to my cabin in Indian Stream.
Somehow, I hoped Indian Stream was far enough removed from Hartford to have avoided our tree trouble. I imagined that the oak, sugar maple, and white birch of the Great North Woods would glow with at least a hint of fall color. But none of these trees radiate their former light. Even the conifers have browned. I’m greeted by a beige woodland and a peace-less hush. It’s not the curious silence I heard when I came here a few months ago, or even the respectful quiet I sensed after Grumps died. This is a rigid, aching stillness, like a red-cheeked kid slapped by a drunken parent and told to shut up. This silence trembles.
Listless leaves droop off the high oaks like dirty tears. There isn’t a gold or crimson rebel in the bunch. Fallen pine needles heap in scorched stacks beside faded bundles of bittersweet, ivy, and bracken ferns. A mourning warbler stumbles through these crestfallen woods like a refugee wondering where her true home has gone.
Wabanaki Blues Page 24