A Song of Home

by Susie Finkbeinger

  A calendar was tacked to the wall. Every night before bed Aunt Carrie would mark an X through the day that’d passed. She’d told me it was how she kept track of the date.

  That day was the fifteenth day of March and I wondered just how many days would be slashed through before Mama left us again.

  I wished she’d just save us all the bother and be gone before we woke up the next morning.

  It was an ugly thing to hope for and I knew it.

  But the sooner she went away, the sooner I’d stop missing her.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  If ever I’d believed God might go back on his promise to never destroy the earth with flood waters again, it was that week. The rain came down all day and all night for more days in a row than I could remember.

  Mama didn’t want me to so much as step out into all the rain for fear it might get me sick. When I’d pointed out Bert was splashing in the puddles even though his father was the doctor, Mama’d told me not to talk back.

  But there was no anger in her voice, no sharpness to her face. She almost looked like she’d plain given up.

  We heard on the radio about a flood in Pennsylvania. There’d been more than one hundred people who’d died in it. I tried not to allow my imagination to take hold of that and picture the ways there were to die in a flood. My heart just could not take something so sad as that.

  When I’d asked Daddy if he thought the flood might spread all the way to Michigan he’d shook his head and said he hoped not.

  “What would we do if it did?” I asked after supper one night.

  “Well, darlin’, I guess we’d figure it out then,” he answered. “I don’t want you worrying about it.”

  “Bert said it don’t flood much here,” Ray said.

  “Doesn’t flood much,” Mama corrected him.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Ray answered back. “He said the river might get high, but that’s about it.”

  “I’ll tell you what, the farmers aren’t upset about this rain,” Daddy said. “Not for now, at least. Gus said Pennsylvania’s getting a hundred-year flood, is all. It’s not normal.”

  Still, every time I looked out the window I checked to be sure we still had a yard and a porch and that the street hadn’t turned into a river.

  Seemed about time for something to go wrong.

  That night I dreamed of water. It rushed and roared, splashed and rippled along the street right in front of our house. It rose all the way to the window in my bedroom, surrounding the whole house.

  I tried calling out to Mama and Daddy, wanting to scream for them. Hoping they still had their heads up above the rushing water. But the only sound that came was choking and gagging, as if something was stuck in my throat.

  Pulling and tugging, I tried to open the window, thinking if I could just get to the roof I’d be safe. I could holler out for help. But the window wouldn’t budge and even my fists couldn’t smash through the glass.

  Out that window I saw Mama being dragged away by the rush of the water. She flailed her arms and her head bobbed up and down, under the water and then back up into the air. Going, going, going, she wouldn’t have been able to get back home even if she’d tried.

  Daddy went after her, beating at the water with his hands and kicking his feet up and down, up and down. He went faster than any man had ever swum before. Putting my hands on the glass I watched, not blinking, hoping he’d get to her in time.

  One more swing of his arms, one more flipper-flap of his feet and he’d have gotten her. But just before he could grab hold, she jumped at him, using her hands and pushing him under the water.

  I screamed and screamed, calling out for her to let him up. To let him go. Slapping at the glass I thought sure I’d break through. But even if I did I never could have helped him. Not in time.

  Daddy didn’t fight her. Didn’t try to come back up. He just let her push him under where she held him until there wasn’t anymore life in him.

  The whole time she kept her eyes on me.

  I woke, gasping and fighting the blanket off me. My throat stung like I’d screamed myself raw. Sitting up straight, I had to blink hard and whisper to myself, “It was just a dream. Only a dream. It’s all over now.”

  But I knew it would be the kind of dream to stay with me all day long. Like a canker sore in my cheek that my tongue kept poking at, that dream would stay in my mind and I wouldn’t be able to stop thinking on it.

  It was still dark but I couldn’t fall back to sleep.

  I didn’t know that I’d have wanted to anyhow.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  The rain hadn’t let up, and come Monday the ground in the schoolyard was nothing but mud puddles and slick grass. So we got permission to practice our dance steps in one of the unused classrooms. Miss De Weese’d said it was fine just so long as we paid extra attention during our lessons.

  The days leading up to the spring dance were visited by the best-behaved kids any teacher in Bliss had seen since the founding of the town. At least that was how I imagined it.

  We’d pushed the dusty desks and chairs to the edges of the room and swept the floor. Somebody’d even wiped down the windows with an old piece of newsprint so the light would shine through and we could see what we were doing.

  It wasn’t so big as the schoolyard, our makeshift dance hall wasn’t, but it was good enough just so long as everybody kept an eye out for their neighbor’s swinging arms and kicking feet.

  Bert came too most days that week, even though some of the other boys had made fun of him. He’d pretend not to hear them calling him a sissy or hollering something or another about him tripping on the hem of his dress.

  I’d have smacked those boys in the mouth for saying such nasty things, but Ray said it wouldn’t have helped Bert one bit.

  “They’d just make fun of him harder,” he told me.

  I knew he was right.

  The rest of that week, Ray came along with us in the mornings, saying Bert was the smartest boy in town, spending his time where all the girls were. He didn’t dance, he just sat on top of the pushed aside desks with a discarded reader he found in the classroom.

  By Thursday he was counting to eight to keep us in rhythm, waving his finger in the air all the while, like a conductor.

  We danced right up until Miss De Weese rang the bell, calling for the beginning of the school day.

  “Hey, Pearl,” Bert said to me, tapping me on the shoulder before I stepped out of the room.

  “Yeah?” When I turned to him I could about see him shaking from head to toe and his eyes were wider than I’d ever seen them before.

  “Pearl,” he said, his voice cracking a little. “You promise to save a dance for me tomorrow?”

  If he’d asked me something like that just two years before I might’ve pushed him down and told him I’d rather suck an egg. A year before and I probably would have walked away from him without saying so much as a word.

  But I’d learned a little something about being a friend. I’d learned that being kind didn’t cost me a single cent. And I’d come to know that it took more strength to be gentle than it did to be hard.

  “Sure,” I said, giving him a closed lip smile.

  As red as his face turned, I worried he might boil his brains.

  “I promise I won’t step on your toes,” he said.

  “That’s fine.”

  He flashed me a silly smile before taking off to get to his desk.

  I wouldn’t have admitted it to anybody, but I felt a blush in my cheeks, too.

  Mama hadn’t wanted me to go to the dance. All that week she’d come up with one argument after another, trying to convince Daddy I should stay home. And he had an answer for every single one.

  “She’s too young,” she’d said.

  “Whole town’s invited,” he’d said back to her. “I hear they’re even letting babies in if they want to come.”

  “She’ll wear herself out from all the excitement,” she’d said.

>   “Nah,” he answered back. “Doc Barnett thinks she’s doing just fine. A little exercise never hurt anybody.”

  “I don’t want her getting hurt.”

  “Nobody’s gotten hurt at any of the dances,” he said.

  “Not yet, anyway.”

  “I’ll keep my eye on her the whole time.”

  “It’s not a crowd for a young girl to be around.”

  “There’s not been one problem since we started those dances.”

  By Thursday afternoon she’d given up and resigned herself to the fact that I was going whether she liked it or not. But she sighed whenever we said one word about it, and I knew she hoped I’d give in to her and stay home that Friday night.

  But no amount of sighing or slumping of shoulders would make me miss out.

  Mama’d had errands to run after I got back from school. She hadn’t told me what kind or how long she’d be gone, but it little mattered. For the first time since she’d come home, I had the house to myself. Daddy was working and Ray was off wandering around with Bert.

  It was just me in that big house and I knew just what I wanted to do.

  Turning the dial on the radio, I moved it up and down until I found a good song, one with a good deal of what Opal would’ve called swing. I got myself to the middle of the living room and tapped my right toe, counting up to eight over and over until the rhythm set itself in the beating of my heart.

  Opal had showed me how to do the Charleston not two weeks before, with all its forward-and-tap-and-back-and-tap mixed with step-and-tapand-step-and-tap and arms going side-to-side-and-side-to-side.

  “Now just add a spin here and there and a stomped foot and you’ll have a whole new set of moves,” she’d told me. “And you don’t even need a partner holding you back. This one you can do all on your own.”

  I sure had liked the idea of that.

  I imagined the music coming out of the radio to be made by a band that’d set up in the corner of the living room which had turned into a dance hall by some great act of magic. In my daydream I did not care one bit if I was all alone. There was just something about dancing that made me feel free. The trumpets and drums and my moving feet were all there was in the whole wide world.

  The sides of my hair fell loose of the braids Mama’d crisscrossed on each side of my head earlier in the morning and my dress kicked up. But it just did not matter. Besides, there wasn’t a soul in the house to see me dancing.

  I didn’t hear the door open even though it probably made its clunking and rubbing noise against the frame. And I didn’t notice the bags she’d put on the floor by the closet door. It wasn’t until I felt her take my hands in hers and smelled the rose of her powder that I realized Mama’d come home.

  I stopped right then, breathing shallow and scared she’d get after me for dancing.

  “Don’t stop,” Mama said. “I haven’t done the Charleston in a coon’s age.”

  “You know how?” I asked.

  “Course I do.” She nodded at me.

  “You sure you should?” I looked down at her belly.

  “It won’t hurt a thing.” She smiled. “Ready?”

  We danced to the end of that song and into another, our swiveling feet moving us all the way up to our hips and our kicking almost knocking us both off balance but for each of us holding on for dear life to each other’s hands.

  “Oh,” she said. “I’m feeling a little dizzy.”

  Mama stopped, still holding my hands, and smiled right into my face.

  “You all right, Mama?” I asked.

  “Yes. I’m good, Pearl.” She looked down into my eyes. “Just need to catch my breath.”

  “You dance nice.”

  “I had a good partner,” she said, winking at me. Then she touched her stomach. “Oh, he must’ve liked that. He’s dancing around in there.”

  “It’s a boy?” I asked.

  “Well, I’m not sure. I’m just guessing.” She put out her hand to take mine. “You want to feel it?”

  “I’ll be able to?”

  “Yes.” Her eyes lit up as she put the palm of my hand, spread open, onto her stomach. “Now wait just a half minute.”

  I shut my eyes so I could put all my mind toward feeling whatever it was Mama wanted me to. Against my hand was the soft cotton of her dress and the warmth of her body under it. Her breath cooled the back of my knuckles and then I felt her hand moving mine to another spot.

  Then a bump, so light I might have missed it. And another. And another. It was nothing more than a moment, nothing more than a gentle touch. But I’d felt it.

  I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been so happy.

  Opening my eyes, I looked right into Mama’s. Hers were watery and her mouth was spread in a wide smile. The best one I’d seen on her in far too long.

  “Did you feel it?” she asked.

  I nodded. “Was that the baby?”

  “It was, darlin’.”

  “Do you think it knows I’m here?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” she answered. “But wouldn’t that be something?”

  She moved my hand again so I could feel more and more. I would have stood there with that baby bumping up against my hand all day if I could have.

  And I let my imagination open up. I pictured myself sitting on the davenport, holding the baby wrapped in a yellow and green plaid blanket, singing softly to him until he fell asleep, his tiny fingers wrapped around one of mine. Then holding him once he was stronger, face-to-face with me so I could make him laugh. I imagined his dark eyes squinting up and his gummy smile wide and full of gasping baby laughs.

  I’d be the one to get up with him in the night, sometimes at least. I’d soothe him with stories and soft words and gentle kisses.

  When he was big enough, I’d kneel on the other side of the living room, hands out and ready to grab him after he tottered across the room. I’d show him how to use a spoon and drink out of a cup and how to say “Pearlie.”

  My heart felt fit to bust for how much I loved that baby that I’d not even seen yet, no matter if it was a boy or a girl with dark eyes or light. And I would always love it no matter if it was Abe’s by blood.

  I would love that baby all the days of my life.

  “Isn’t it wonderful?” Mama asked, her voice just a whisper.

  I nodded, afraid that if I opened my mouth I’d start crying and never stop. Instead, I smiled up at her and she grinned back at me.

  It was her. It truly was. She stood there, the Mama I’d known before. I kept my hand on her stomach even though I couldn’t feel anything anymore. It didn’t matter. I had her and I wasn’t like to let her go.

  I was sure she was back to stay.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  I gave the first dance of the night to Bert, to make good on my promise. We took it slow so he could get all his footwork in without tangling up and tripping on his legs. He didn’t look at my face the whole time but kept his eyes on my shoulder. That was fine by me. I thought if he’d let his eyes meet mine he might’ve realized what he was doing and lost the rhythm.

  As it was he counted to eight over and over under his breath. I didn’t mind one bit. I did like Bert Barnett. Maybe not in the Valentine card and nervous dancing sort of way. But he was an all right kind of boy and the type of friend I was glad to have.

  The band that’d come to play was set up on a stage to the far end of the dance hall. They were good enough to keep a pounding beat and steady tune and that was all we needed. I wished they’d had a singer, somebody to croon out the slower songs or holler out the faster ones. But it was all right.

  The girls from school had gathered in a corner of the floor, following the steps I’d taught them, pairing up among themselves. I felt the kind of pride I guessed Miss De Weese might’ve felt when we learned how to work out an arithmetic problem or used our best penmanship.

  And when Hazel caught me watching her dancing with Ethel, she didn’t give me a stink face or roll he
r eyes. Instead, she gave me a smile. The kind friends might share with each other. I gave her one back.

  It didn’t cost me anything at all.

  Opal had danced with Lenny all night long, and the way they looked at each other I’d have thought they believed there was nobody else in all the world. Their feet moved quick and their arms flew all over the place, but their eyes never broke from each other.

  I decided the next time she told me he wasn’t her boyfriend I’d let her know I thought that was a pile of bologna.

  I found Daddy sitting all by himself off to one side of the dance floor. He had a cigarette between his fingers and a glass of punch resting on his knee. He smiled when I walked over to him and took the empty seat to his left.

  “You having fun, darlin’?” he asked.

  I told him I was.

  “That’s fine.”

  “How about you, Daddy?” I asked.

  He shrugged and took a long pull on his cigarette, letting the smoke settle into the deepest part of his lungs before blowing it back out.

  “I used to dance with your mama all the time,” he said. Then he nodded at Opal and Lenny. “Not like that. I never was that good.”

  “You’re a good dancer, Daddy,” I told him.

  “Thanks kindly, Pearlie.” He winked at me. “We never danced like that when I was younger, though. All you kids take off faster’n a shot. In my time we were slower. Smoother.”

  “You think you’ll dance with Mama tonight?” I asked.

  He looked over to the other side of the room where Mama stood talking to Mrs. Barnett, her hand resting on the curve of her stomach. I wondered if the baby was moving around and I hoped he could hear the music.

  “Nah,” Daddy said. “It wouldn’t be good for the baby, I guess.”

  “She danced with me yesterday,” I told him.

  “That so?”

  “We did the Charleston in the living room.”

  “How about that?” He looked over toward Mama again, his eyebrows pushed low the way they did when something worried him.