The Lyre and the Lambs

by Sydney Avey

  Sophie goes into the kitchen to start dinner while the rest of us retreat to our rooms. Roger and I walk out on our patio and look up at the shadowy hills bathed in the orchid glow of a winter sunset. He pulls me close under his shoulder. Peace blooms in my heart like the lily I sketched last week at Hakone Gardens in Saratoga. It floated on a safe haven of flat green pads in still dark water, its creamy petals cradling a warm sun that glowed orange at the center. We stand like this in the silence of evening and I send thankful prayers to God for His mercy. I pray for Scott’s soul, for his grieving parents, for healing for Lukas, for protection for Miren.

  Sophie calls us for dinner. Roger goes in to wash up but I’m rooted out here, treading water like the lily. Threads of darkness pass across the clear face of the moon. I try to hold focus on the shiny globe but my vision kaleidoscopes. Faces of lost boys float before me, boys who will not live past their teenage years because they won’t survive a fall. A spasm shoots down through me and my eyes fill up with hot tears. God help our children who stumble in darkness.

  In Memoriam

  In Memoriam

  On a Saturday morning we gather with our neighbors in the Saint Matthew’s Memorial Garden and Columbarium, a vestige of what was once a small but thriving community of Anglicans before the church was torn down and the congregants dispersed. We huddle in coats on metal folding chairs that want to sink into wet soil.

  Father Mike takes us through the liturgy for the dead, which balances the joy of resurrection with the sorrow of those who grieve. He focuses on the love we bear each other in Christ, healing words for people who have been at each other’s throats over annoyances that seem not to matter much in the face of death. Even Carlo and Marjorie attend.

  After that awful night, the Santorinis left to spend a month in Italy. The trip seems to have done them good. They have a new puppy they take with them everywhere. A funeral is no exception. Marjorie cuddles her pet through the service, a black toy poodle dressed in a red sweater against the cold. Carlo pretends to ignore the dog, but I see him sneak a hand over to pat its head from time to time. I doubt we will ever see little Piccolo tethered outside.

  A surprising number of young people show up to remember a kid who hung around the edges of society. After delivering the liturgy, Father Mike invites anyone who wants to pay tribute to Scott to speak. The young people share memories of a Scott I never knew, the eager Boy Scout, the classmate who helped them work on their cars, just a normal boy before he disappeared behind a dark curtain. Elinor clutches a tissue and looks straight ahead. Walter wipes copious tears from his eyes. These are the kids from the sensitivity group. Father Mike trained them well.

  After the service, we go to lunch at the Los Altos Country Club. More people turn out to pay their respects than were willing to gather on a chilly morning in the park. During coffee and dessert, Walter rises to thank people for honoring the memory of his son and announces the family foundation. Checkbooks come out, donations are made, and handshakes are exchanged. As we struggle into our raincoats, a tug on my arm turns me around and I find myself face to face with Elinor.

  “We’ve never properly met,” she reaches for my hand, “I’m Elinor Schwartz. Would you have time to sit down with me for a minute?”

  I look over at Roger and then scan the room for the kids. They sit at a large table of young people, still enjoying their food. Valerie, jostling the baby, stands by the door with Andy. It’s time for Miren to eat.

  “Roger, why don’t you go on home with Andy and Valerie. I’ll catch a ride home with the kids.” I follow Elinor into the bar, a quiet place on a day that’s too wet and cold for the weekend golfers.

  A waitress appears and sets the table with coffee cups while I try to anticipate what Elinor’s first words will be. Ignoring the fuss, she begins.

  “First, I want to apologize to you for Scott’s behavior. I’m sorry that you and your family had to get involved in what was happening to Scott.”

  “Did you know about...”

  “...the drugs? No, I didn’t. Did I know he was mentally ill? I knew that.”

  The waitress returns with a coffee pot. We are silent as she splashes the hot liquid into our cups.

  “Will that be all for you, Mrs. Schwartz?” Elinor nods and smiles the young woman away. Then she returns her attention to me.

  “I didn’t know what to do about it. Walter would hear nothing that had to do with any deficiency in his son. He had his own theories about adolescent angst and growing pains, but I knew different. I’d seen this before. Scott was an odd child, just like my brother Oliver was. He went down the same path Oliver did.”

  “What happened to your brother?”

  “He killed himself when he was seventeen.”

  A million questions swirl in my mind but now is not the time to pull stories out of Elinor.

  “I’m so sorry,” I say.

  “The point is, no one talked about it then and all these years later, still no one talks about it. That has to change. That’s why I want to talk to you.”

  “I don’t understand. I recognized that something was wrong with Scott but I didn’t know what it was. Maybe if I had known...”

  “Nothing would have been different. That’s the point. You would not have known what to do any more than I did. Dee, I don’t blame you for trying to push Scott away.”

  My face burns. How does she know that’s what I did?

  “Father Mike came to us. He spent time with us and helped us understand the pain Scott was in, the drugs, the mood swings. Scott was a textbook case, but this is knowledge we had no access to.”

  So that’s what Crusader Mike has been up to. While I was missing his comfort he was holding hands with the Schwartzes. I shake these thoughts out of my head and replace them with prayers. God forgive my selfish heart. Help me understand what Elinor needs from me.

  Without missing a beat, Elinor goes on. “That is what I want the foundation to be about, making knowledge about mental illness accessible to people, to mothers and sisters who keep silent when they know something is wrong. Dee, I’m not going to let Walter commandeer this foundation. It was my idea and I will run it. I want you to be on my Board of Directors.

  “Me? Elinor, I’m not qualified...”

  “Yes. You are. You were a business woman in a man’s world. A foundation is a business. You have compassion for young people. You invited them into your home in spite of the pressure your neighbors put on you. You were discreet during the investigation. You know how to handle yourself. Our cause won’t be popular. I need a woman like you.”

  I spit a mouthful of coffee into my cup in laughter I can’t suppress. “You need an unpopular woman who knows how to annoy people?”

  “Dee, you have no idea what your reputation is, do you. You are a peacemaker. It hasn’t escaped notice that many of your neighbors quietly rallied around you while Gunther and Carlo schemed and carried on.”

  My heart is beating fast. I let my breath out slowly. I say no to the voice in my head that tells me I need to protect my time for my art. I say yes to the passion for justice that wells up in my heart. I say yes to Elinor.

  Mike and Laura

  Mike and Laura

  Laura missed Scott’s memorial service. News came from her brother in North Carolina that their mother’s cancer had returned and it was not likely she would leave the hospital this time. Something always seems to happen to separate Father Mike and Laura, I told Roger. He narrowed his eyes at me and asked if I thought her mother’s impending death presented Laura with an inconvenience. Father Mike would have pointed out my lapse in compassion in a gentler way, but Roger is right. He’s not being mean, but the sandpaper he uses on my edginess is coarser. I kick at him and we both laugh.

  We are preparing for our second Christmas in the Glass House. The young people come and go, absent more than they are present. The boys have set up cots in the warehouse space Andy helped them obtain in Palo Alto. We see them only when they need to do
their laundry and, at my insistence, on Sundays for dinner.

  Sunday is my favorite day. The new parents have decided that regular church attendance is good for them. Valerie wants a church with children’s programs. Andy proposes that the Catholic catechism fills the bill. Roger and I have been attending a Presbyterian church that has enough formal liturgy to satisfy me and enough plain talk to appeal to Roger. One Sunday, the Ibarras visit First Pres with us and find themselves quickly folded in by other young couples with children. For now, this works.

  Danny, David, and Sophie show up and we sit down to family dinner Sunday afternoons. What would Leora think of our bustling household, built from the ashes of her summer cottage that hid behind a hedge now trimmed low?

  Miren slumbers in a baby swing while the grownups help themselves to pot roast, carrots, potatoes and lime Jell-O salad. We women are planning a shopping trip to San Francisco to see the Christmas tree at the City of Paris and shop at Union Square. We don’t even try to engage the men, who are talking business and golf. A football game competes for their attention on a newly installed television set in the living room. When Roger leaves the table to turn up the volume, I remind him of our agreement to keep the TV off during meals. He obliges and the men quiet down a bit so they can shovel dinner into their mouths faster and catch the third quarter.

  “Is that the doorbell?” Sophie sets her fork down and sits up straight, as if she is expecting a visit from Santa Claus.

  Boofus runs to the door, nails clicking sharply on the tile and tail swiping Puffy in the face as he zips by the old cat. Whoever it is pushes through the door with a ho, ho I recognize immediately. Father Mike. And right behind with a hey, ho comes Laura. We start to rise from the table but Mike signals for us to stay seated. I ignore him and go give Laura a hug.

  “You’re back!”

  Roger goes for the extra chairs and pulls them up to table.

  “I’m sorry, we didn’t know you’d be eating,” Laura sets down a shopping bag filled with wrapped gifts.

  “We have plenty!” Sophie has already gone into the kitchen and returned with extra plates.

  “We just came from the airport,” Mike says. “We ate something on the airplane, I’m not sure what it was but I know we have room for dessert and coffee.” Mike makes googly eyes at the German Chocolate sheet cake Sophie is slicing at the buffet.

  “Laura, I’m so sorry about your mother.” I pat the chair Roger has placed next to mine.

  “Thank you, Dee. I am so glad I got there in time to spend a few days with her before she died. And that Mike was able to come out and spend time with my family.” Father Mike stands behind Laura’s chair. “And that we were able to share our news with Mom before she went home to Jesus.”

  Father Mike rests his hand on her shoulder. As she reaches back to place her hand on his, the light from the window catches the dazzling sparkler that circles her third finger.

  “You did it!” I squeal. I look up at Father Mike, warm tears filling my eyes. “You did it,” I whisper. “I’m so happy for you, for both of you.”

  Father Mike rocks side to side on his feet and smiles. Then he claps his hands together. “Yes! We did it! We sealed the deal. Well, we are going to seal the deal in two weeks, because the future Mrs. Mike Matheson and I need to be settled in Berkeley by January. I’ve been accepted as a PhD candidate at the Graduate Theological Union.”

  “In what field?” Roger asks.

  “Christian Spirituality, so I can teach in universities and at retreat centers. I want to take the message past the church doors into the places where people struggle to integrate faith into daily life.”

  “We will continue to serve in the church, but this will give us flexibility. As Mike’s wife, I get to take classes too.” Laura glows with hope for her new life. What a team they will make.

  “Where are you going to get married?” I can see Valerie trying to fit wedding somewhere onto her long to-do list.

  “We’re thinking a small ceremony with just...us.” Laura looks around the room. “Then in the spring we’ll have a big outdoor reception in Los Altos, or Berkeley, or somewhere.” She scrunches up her nose and looks at Father Mike.

  “Well, then, get married here.” Laura looks at Valerie. Valerie points to the fireplace. “Over there, in front of the fireplace, next to a huge Christmas tree. It will be perfect.”

  “You don’t want a church wedding?” I ignore Valerie. She doesn’t understand how traditional Mike and Laura are.

  “There’s no time for that.” Mike says. “I need to marry this woman now!”

  I raise an eyebrow. “Really.”

  Really? Are Mike and Laura perhaps far less traditional than I thought?

  Mike laughs. “Dee, we’re not teenagers in love with the idea of a wedding. We are two people at a crossroad who are ready to start a life together. As it happens, that life begins with the winter term and we’d rather go house hunting than wedding chapel shopping.”

  “Okay then, it’s settled. Pick a date.” Valerie goes to the kitchen counter to get her date book. Roger claps Mike on the shoulder and says something flip; like it’s about time you got yourself domesticated. Andy confers with Valerie over possible dates. Danny helps himself to a second piece of cake. David reaches for Sophie’s hand and squeezes it.

  R

  Laura and I sneak off to Stanford Shopping Center, leaving the Matheson wedding planning and the Moraga clan Christmas preparations in the capable hands of Valerie and Sophie for a day. It makes no sense that we call ourselves the Moraga clan. We are Carter, Ibarra and Russell, but our roots are in this property my mother owned and the connection we have to the Moraga brothers, Alonso and Iban, my father and uncle. We encourage our neighbors to stop referring to the Glass House in favor of the old Moraga place.

  Throughout the valley, the orchards are coming down and ranch style homes are popping up side by side like token pieces on a Monopoly board. We take our cue from some of the holdouts. Family farms that refuse to sell to developers post signs at their gates and set up produce stands in their driveways. We don’t go quite that far, but I would like to see our name preserved. Valerie jokes that we may have to can plum preserves and label them Moraga Orchard to make the name stick.

  The future Mrs. Matheson and I trot through The Emporium, Joseph Magnin, and Saks before heading over to Saint Michaels Alley on Emerson Street for coffee and pastry. We tuck ourselves into a corner and have fun trying to identify the genuine beatniks in a colorful crowd. Local characters wander through, laden with knapsacks or guitars, carrying notebooks spilling with manuscripts, clutching unwashed coffee cups. They rub shoulders with people like Joan Baez and Ken Kesey, or their look-alikes, and trip over the feet of students attempting to hold onto tables in the popular coffee house.

  It’s not easy to manage a conversation, but we try.

  “I think my little flock is dispersing,” I pour cream into my coffee and nibble a scone. “I thought I was making a home for David and Danny and Sophie. Now I’m not sure what I was doing.”

  Laura’s green eyes sparkle with humor. “You were playing the ten string harp.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It’s a little joke Mike and I have. When one of us is in the middle of chaos, we look to the other for soothing and refreshment, like King Saul did when he asked David to play his lyre.”

  “Well, I certainly have seen you both pull each other down off the wall, but I don’t see how that applies to me and the kids. I don’t think anyone would call me the soothing sort.”

  “You gave them safe haven. The home that you and Valerie established for your admittedly oddball collection of family renewed their spirits. That’s what a lyre does.”

  I shift my head and narrow one eye in her direction. “I don’t get it.”

  Laura sighs. “Dee, you are so hard on yourself. Yes, you screw up with people. But you do so many things right. You let each of your kids find their own voice, their own way in
life. You kept strumming the chords of love, acceptance and encouragement and the demons of doubt and fear left them. Look at them, Dee! The boys are full of hopes and dreams for a business that has every possibility of success. Despite several setbacks, Sophie has found joy in faith, dance and...,” she winks at me, “David. Valerie has the home and family she wanted, and a nice teaching and writing career besides. You helped that happen by letting God lead you in how you responded to crisis and taking open pleasure in your tribe. You set an example.”

  I rest my chin in my hand and say nothing.

  “Dee, you have a hard time with compliments. Take some time to rest in the peace you have helped bring about in your kids’ lives. It won’t last forever, you know.”

  “I love you, Laura. You know that, don’t you?”

  Tears spring to her eyes and she reaches her hand across the table for mine. “I do.”

  I pull my napkin off my lap and plop it into my empty coffee cup, shoving my chair away from the table. “And that is exactly what you will be saying to Father Mike Matheson in less than a week, so we had better finish up our errands.”

  R

  Valerie and I are the decorations and food committee. After much discussion, we have decided to leave the aluminum tinsel tree in the box. We send Roger to the Christmas tree lot for the biggest fir tree he can hunt down and load in the truck he borrowed from Carlo.

  It has been a challenge to turn the living room into a wedding chapel the Saturday before Christmas. Mike and Laura have asked for a simple six o’clock evening ceremony followed by dinner. Heavy rain and severe flooding to the north of us required a Plan B should the electricity fail, so we bought out the candle shop.

  Danny and David might have worked at Triophonics straight through the holidays had I not given them a stern talk about the importance of family celebrations. Laura and Father Mike are family, I told the boys, and handed them a list. I don’t know where Sophie found the time, but she made Laura’s wedding dress. She used a simple dress pattern but spent hours doing bead work on the bell sleeves.