A Song of Home

by Susie Finkbeinger

  “So, you took her to the hospital?”

  He nodded.

  “When can she come home?” I asked.

  After I asked that it was like the whole world decided right then to slow down to a snail’s pace. All the sounds from outside drew out longer than usual—Bert and Ray’s hollering at each other, the sound of a car driving by, the high-pitched trilling of a bird. The tic-toc-tic of Meemaw’s old clock took more time between each toc-tic-toc. Even my heart seemed to pump longer and lower.

  I waited for Daddy to answer, half fearing he might say that she couldn’t ever come home. That she’d gone into the hospital a permanent patient. And as I waited for him to say something, I worried maybe he never would, that he’d just shake his head and keep his mouth shut tight.

  When can she come home was a question that had a heavy dose of hope to it. Hope I didn’t have to spend.

  Daddy blinked. His lids seemed heavy and I knew it was on account he didn’t get much sleep on a good day, let alone when life was harder. He lifted his eyes to mine and cleared his throat like he was about to say something important.

  It was then that I knew the question wasn’t when Mama would come home, but if.

  I bit at my lip to keep myself from crying.

  “Your mama, she’s all turned around right now,” he said. Where he’d hardly been able to force a word out before, now he got the words out fast and tumbling like a waterfall. “See, she’s changed. Losing somebody will do that. Moving a thousand miles from your home will, too. A lot’s happened. A whole lot. She’s not sure who she is anymore. I wonder if that’s why she took off with Abe, because she couldn’t seem to remember who she is.”

  “She’s Mama,” I said, wondering if that wasn’t enough for her anymore.

  “When I told her that Doctor Barnett said she should go to the hospital, she was mad. She fought me. I didn’t know that we’d make it in one piece. I thought sure she’d jump out the truck door while I was driving,” Daddy said. “I’ve never seen her so mad.”

  “Why was she mad about it?” I asked.

  “I don’t know exactly. But if somebody tried taking me to a place like that, I reckon I’d be upset too.”

  “Is she going to get better there?”

  “I hope so, darlin’,” he said. “I’ve got to believe she can get back to herself again.”

  “Can Opal come back and help us?” I asked.

  “I’ll have to ask her,” he said. “I’m sure she’d be glad to have the work.”

  He held my hand tight, like it was keeping him from floating off into midair.

  “Will Mama be able to come home,” I asked, “if she gets better?”

  “If she wants to.” He nodded, looking back at me. “She’ll always have a home with us. That is if she wants it.”

  “What if she doesn’t?”

  “Then we’ll make do,” he said. “And we’ll be all right after a while.”

  I got up and climbed onto his lap, resting my head against his shoulder. I knew I was too big for such a thing, but the way Daddy put his arms around me made me believe he was glad I’d done it anyway.

  We sat like that, not talking, for a good long time, just listening to the clock tic and toc along even though it seemed our family had come to a dead stop.

  “Daddy?”

  “Yes, darlin’?”

  “You won’t go away, will you?” I asked.

  “Nope,” he answered. “My home is here with you.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

  Miss De Weese had let us out a whole thirty minutes early on Friday. It was the last day of school until fall and she’d said she didn’t think she could hold our attention a minute longer anyway.

  Ray and the few other boys who’d stayed in school on account they didn’t have farms to work with their fathers went off into the schoolyard with bat and ball to play a game of baseball. Hazel and her group of friends went to sit along the side of the game to watch.

  As for me, I wasn’t inclined to sit on the grass and pretend to be interested in either a game I would never be allowed to play or whatever it was those girls might talk about while they watched.

  And I sure didn’t want to go home where I knew I’d be all by myself.

  Instead, I went to the library.

  Mrs. Trask sat at her desk, her head hanging forward so her chin rested right on her chest. It wasn’t the first time I’d caught her snoozing and I’d learned it was best to let her wake up on her own. Otherwise she’d just get confused and then embarrassed. So I made my way to a shelf where I knew I could find a good book or two. That day, like most others, I wasn’t disappointed with what I’d found.

  The sun beamed in through the half-open window, warming me as I sat, spread out, on the seat built right next to the glass. If I listened close enough, I could hear the cracking bat and the hollering boys from the baseball game.

  I read of a woman named Ida who lived in a lighthouse on a rock right along where the ocean met the land. It was her job to keep the lights burning whenever it was too dark for the folks on the ships to see the jagged beginnings of the shore.

  Seemed no matter how bright the light that spun around and around in the tip-top of the lighthouse, boats would still crash into the rocks somehow. Whether during a storm or because somebody wasn’t paying enough attention, they’d wreck their ships and end up bobbing along in the waters, floating on pieces of wood.

  When that happened, Ida would get right into her rowboat and paddle her way to them. No matter how strong the winds or how wild the waves, she’d get in that boat of hers.

  I imagined her bringing the folks back to the home she made in the lighthouse. She’d wrap wooly blankets around their shoulders and heat up homemade bone broth for them to sip.

  “You’ll stay here until morning,” she’d tell them. “Then it will be light and the storm will have passed. Then you’ll be able to find your way home.”

  The folks she saved would sleep deep and easy and they’d wake to a day that was just as Ida’d told them it would be.

  I wondered if when they reached home it looked a little different to them. A little more beautiful, a bit more warm.

  That night I dreamed I lived in a lighthouse. One very much like Ida’s, with the light spinning on top and a boat tied to the dock, bobbing up and down until I was ready to hop in it.

  A storm had stirred up the waves. High winds caused the lighthouse to sway here and there, to and fro. I stood looking out the window at the ocean as it rose and fell, splashing up on the rocks and pulling at my small boat as if it wanted to steal it away from me.

  The crashing waves sounded like cymbals, the moaning wind like trumpets. Rain pittered and pattered on the roof like the tinkling of piano keys and thunder roared and banged like a drum.

  There outside my window folks were paired up and dancing to the rhythm, getting drenched by the storm. The waves reached up every now and then, grabbed hold of a couple and pulled them into the ocean.

  “Come in,” I screamed, holding the door open.

  But my hollering couldn’t break through the ba-ba-booming. The music of the storm out-shouted me.

  Again and again, the hungry waves took another and another. The water splashed up, wetting my shoes, my stockings, the hem of my skirt. I had no choice but to slam the door shut, leaving what few pairs remained out in the storm.

  Still, they kept on dancing.

  “The music,” I whimpered. “It doesn’t make sense.”

  We make it up as we go along, I heard Opal’s voice along a howl of wind.

  Finally, the waves licked at the legs of the one last dancer. She had curly dark hair and a dress the color of blue-green pigeon feathers. Opal’s face turned to Mama’s and back to Opal’s. Then Beanie’s face. Back to Mama’s.

  It was all three and not any of them at the same time, the way people can be, but only in dreams.

  “Let me in,” she yelled.

  I tried the door, but it was locked. St
uck. I didn’t have the key or the strength to pull it open.

  “Pearl,” she screamed. “Please! It’s coming for me!”

  I pulled and pulled but the door wouldn’t budge. She banged with her fists, her kicks, over and over.

  “Help!” she yelled.

  I sat up with a start, sweat all over me like I really had been fighting a door to get it open. I had to tell myself to be calm, to breathe deep.

  My heart pounded and my head ached.

  I was in my bed, I reminded myself, not in a lighthouse. The weather outside was calm, no rain in sight. And I was just eleven years old, not a full-grown woman living all by herself in a lighthouse on the edge of the ocean.

  I was just a girl.

  I couldn’t have saved anybody.

  Not even if I’d tried.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

  I couldn’t fall asleep after that dream. Whenever I thought I might drift off again, some noise would jostle me back awake. I decided I might as well get out of bed and see if Daddy was still up. I hoped he was. Nothing could calm my spirit better after a bad dream than being with Daddy.

  “Did I wake you?” Daddy asked when I came into the living room.

  I shook my head.

  “I had a bad dream,” I said.

  “I’m sorry, darlin’.” He closed the book he had on his lap. One of his history books that he’d brought with us from Red River. “Come on over here, Pearlie.”

  I did and sat beside him on the davenport and rested my head on his shoulder.

  “Wanna tell me about it?” he asked.

  I commenced telling Daddy about my lighthouse dream. He listened, not interrupting me even once. He did rub my arm and kiss my temple as I told it and that helped me feel not so much alone.

  “I couldn’t do anything,” I said. “All I could do was watch her trying to get in and hear her screaming.”

  “Does it have you feeling upside down and inside out?” Daddy asked.

  That was just how it felt. I nodded, glad to have a daddy who understood.

  “Do you ever have bad dreams?” I asked him.

  “Sure I do,” he answered. “I think everybody—”

  But he didn’t finish. Somebody’d knocked on the back door. Knocked hard enough to wake the dead, let alone alarm folks that were already wide awake.

  “Now, who could that be?” he said, more to himself than to me. He got up from the davenport. “Stay right there, hear?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He went to the door, opening it just far enough so he could see who was out there knocking. After just a couple words, he stepped to the side. Opal came inside, holding a piece of paper in her hand. That white sheet of paper shook so hard I thought sure Opal must’ve seen a ghost.

  “Mr. Spence,” she said, her voice trembling. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know where to go.”

  “Are you all right?” Daddy asked, looking down at Opal like he didn’t know what to make of her. “What happened?”

  “It’s just …” she said, looking down at the paper. “I was gone, with Lenny. When I got home, this was stuck to the door.”

  She handed the paper to Daddy. He read it over and shook his head and clenched his teeth in a way I knew meant he wasn’t all too happy about something.

  “Any idea who would have done this?” he asked, folding the paper in half. “Anybody around town been bothering you?”

  “I—”

  “Tell me, Opal,” Daddy said, making his voice soft. “This isn’t your fault. You aren’t in trouble. You have done nothing wrong.”

  “It could have been anybody,” she said, shutting her eyes and making a tear dash down her cheek.

  “You stay here tonight,” he said. “Pearl, help Opal find some kind of night clothes of your mama’s, all right?”

  “Can she stay in my room?” I asked.

  “That’s fine, darlin’,” Daddy answered. “Opal, I’m going to see this doesn’t happen again, all right?”

  I let Opal be in my room by herself to get out of her dress and into one of Mama’s old nighties. Even though the door was closed, I could hear her crying. I thought of how sometimes when I had cried real hard, Mama would bring me a washrag soaked in cool water to soothe my face. I got one for Opal, hoping it might help her feel at least a little better.

  “You can sleep in my bed,” I told her. “I don’t mind the floor.”

  “I don’t know that I could sleep if I tried,” she said.

  She sat on the edge of my bed, dabbing under her eyes with the wash cloth, cleaning a bit of makeup off her face in the process.

  “Are you okay?” I asked, sitting next to her.

  She shook her head and told me she wasn’t.

  “Did somebody hurt you?” I asked.

  “No,” she answered then sniffled. “They just wrote a nasty note.”

  “What did it say?”

  She squinted her eyes like she was about to start crying again and looked at me.

  “It called me some bad names. Names I won’t repeat to you. And said that I need to stay away from Lenny,” she said. “Or else.”

  I thought of what the Ku Klux Klan men had done to Nehemiah Carson just because he’d married a white woman. It took a couple real hard blinks to get the picture out of my mind of men smashing their fists into Opal. Just the thought of it about made the hair on the back of my neck stand up on end.

  I turned and reached for the curtains, pulling them together in case whoever’d written that letter was poking around looking for Opal.

  “Are you scared?” I asked.

  “I am,” she said. “I should have known better. I knew nothing good could come from being around Lenny.”

  “Does he love you?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “I think he might. But I don’t love him.”

  She turned toward me. All the crying she’d been doing had made her eyes the prettiest color of gray-green I’d ever seen.

  “There aren’t many in this town that treat me like I’m just as much a person as they are,” she said. “Lenny always has. You and Ray and Mr. Spence, too.”

  She didn’t say anything about Mama, and I knew that was on account Mama wasn’t so good at hiding how she felt about folks with a little more color to their skin.

  “Who do you think wrote the note?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” she said.

  “I hope Daddy puts him in jail,” I said. “Whoever it was.”

  “What am I going to do, Pearl?” Opal asked, shaking her head.

  “We’ll take care of you,” I told her. “Daddy won’t let anything bad happen to you.”

  “I don’t know. He doesn’t need me making life more difficult for him.”

  “You wouldn’t.”

  “Well, maybe not me. But there are some who’d like to see me gone.” She licked her lips. “Knowing how some people around here are, they’d run me right out of town first thing in the morning if they could.”

  I thought about what Meemaw’d say whenever somebody got to worrying. She’d tell them they shouldn’t be all bothered about what was about to happen the next day. “Today’s got plenty trouble all its own,” she’d said. “Tomorrow’ll be another batch of trouble you don’t got no idea about yet. Can’t worry yourself silly over somethin’ you don’t know about yet, can you?”

  “Can I just worry about today, then?” I’d asked.

  “No, sweetheart,” she had said. “Today you gotta cast your cares upon Him. You know what I mean when I say ‘cast’?”

  I’d started to nod, then caught myself in the lie and quickly shook my head from side to side.

  “Means you gotta throw those cares and worries right at Him,” she’d said. “He’ll catch ’em and take ‘em. Every one. He takes them cares on account of His great and perfect love, darlin’. Love casts out fear, don’t it?”

  I tried to think of a way to say as much to Opal. But I couldn’t think of the kind of words that’d make her feel better
the way Meemaw always had with me. So, instead, I thought I’d do unto her what I’d like somebody to do for me.

  “Do you want a glass of water?” I asked, getting to my feet. “Maybe it’ll make you feel better.”

  “That would be nice,” Opal said. “Thank you.”

  I let the water run out of the kitchen faucet until it was good and cold. And I cut a biscuit in half, spreading a thick layer of butter on each side just the way I knew Opal liked it, bringing it upstairs on a plate even.

  Because I cared for her.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

  Millard had once told me about a whole town that’d gotten itself eaten down to the nails by termites. He’d sat beside me on the courthouse steps right in the smack-dab of Red River, the two of us sucking on the little pink candies he liked handing out to the kids in town, and he told me his story.

  “See,” he’d said. “It all started with just one little termite. It got itself into the house of the carpenter in a load of wood. It was full up of eggs, that one termite was. Fit to bust.”

  Millard’d said that the carpenter carried that termite around all day without knowing it was even there. He’d gone to the baker’s and the butcher’s and the doctor’s. He’d gotten his hair cut at the barber’s and had even sprung for a clean shave while he was there. All the places he went, the termite dropped a handful of eggs.

  “Other folks in town,” Millard had told me, “they had some of the same plans that day as that carpenter. And no matter where they went, they all ended up with one of them termite eggs. Good Lord, how those eggs made their way all over town. Got into all the houses even.”

  Then one day, all the eggs hatched at once. Baby termites bit through the wood of the walls and the tables and the chairs.

  “Before long, wasn’t nothin’ left for nobody to sit on,” he’d said. “Weren’t no place for nobody to live no more. All them termites ate it. And all just from one little critter.”

  The gossip about the letter left on Opal’s door spread around Bliss quick as termite eggs in a carpenter’s toolbox. Problem was, nobody seemed able to tell the same account twice. It took on all kinds of different flavors, that story, fitting the taste of whoever happened to be telling it at the time.