A Song of Home

by Susie Finkbeinger

“Nope,” he answered.

  I pushed the door open to find him sitting cross-legged on his bed and staring out the window. He was watching Bert and Doctor Barnett, a box of tools between them and what looked like a makeshift bird cage sitting in a wagon.

  “What’re they doing?” I asked.

  “Riggin’ up a wagon so Bert can show that bird off in the parade,” Ray said.

  I leaned down just in time to watch Bert smash himself on the thumb with the hammer. It wasn’t right to laugh at a thing like that, so I covered over my mouth with my hand.

  “Looks like they need some help,” I said.

  “I ain’t up for it.”

  I climbed onto his bed, crossing my legs up under me. “You sad today?”

  “Don’t know if that’s the word for it.”

  I waited on him to go on. He would if he wanted to. If he didn’t, I wasn’t going to be the kind of friend to force him to. Ray’d never been one to say a darn thing unless he wanted to.

  He reached into his back pocket and pulled out an envelope. It’d been folded in half. Handing it to me, he turned his face so he could watch out the window again.

  Unfolding the envelope I saw Ray’s handwritten address. It was a letter he’d sent months before, sent right back to him. Next to his mother’s name, Luella Jones, was penned “RETURN TO SENDER” with an arrow drawn to show there was more on the back. I turned it over. In a neat hand was written, “This person, Luella Jones, has not resided at this address for nearly three months. She left no forwarding information. Please stop sending mail to her at this address.”

  “How many letters did you send her?” I asked.

  “One every week,” he answered. “That’s the address she give me.”

  “Well …” I started, but didn’t know what else to say.

  “I don’t even know what all that means,” he said, flicking at the envelope with his middle finger. “Can’t understand them bigger words.”

  I knew he meant he didn’t know how to read them. He didn’t like to say out loud that sometimes letters didn’t stay in order when he tried sounding out words.

  “You know what they say?” he asked.

  “I think it’s saying that your ma moved and didn’t tell anybody where she was going to,” I answered.

  I couldn’t bring myself to look at him. Just kept my eyes on that neat handwriting and the words that were bound to break Ray’s heart all over again.

  If I’d have known Mrs. Jones’s address, I wasn’t sure I’d have given it to him. What I’d have done with it is write her a letter all my own telling her how she needed to stop hurting Ray the way she did. And I’d have told her to leave him alone for good.

  It was my firm belief that he was better off with us anyhow.

  “Where would she’ve gone?” Ray asked.

  I knew it was the kind of question he didn’t expect an answer for. Still, I tried thinking of something to say to him.

  “Maybe she got herself to California after all,” I said, scooting myself forward so we were knee to knee. “You know she wanted to go out there. Maybe she heard about a job and got a ride with some folk headed that way. I bet right now she’s picking big, fat oranges off somebody’s trees.”

  “Bet them oranges taste like summer,” he said, his eyes down still, but one side of his mouth pulling into a smile.

  “Bet they do.” I nodded. “Maybe she got a job cleaning some movie star’s house, too.”

  “Maybe Shirley Temple’s house,” he said.

  “Picking up a hundred dolls that girl plays with all day long,” I said. “Bet your ma’s gotta iron all the dresses for those dolls. Can’t imagine Shirley Temple’d let her dolls wear anything with so much as a tiny wrinkle in it.”

  “Yeah.” He looked up at me.

  “And there’s gotta be a thousand empty rooms in that place. She’d let your ma have her pick of one, I’m sure of it.” I leaned forward. “Probably got her own bathroom, even.”

  “She’d like that,” Ray said. “With a flush toilet?”

  “Sure.”

  We sat in quiet a minute or two. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Bert had gotten that bird out of her cage and was holding her loosely. She didn’t make to fly away. She just stayed put right there in his hands.

  “Seems he got that bird to feel to home,” Ray said, nodding at Bert out the window.

  “Yup, seems that way.”

  “I seen her sittin’ on them wood eggs I made.” He smirked. “Darnedest thing, ain’t it?”

  “Sure it is.”

  The two of us kept on watching Bert walking around the yard with that bird like he wanted to show her around. His mouth moved around words I couldn’t hear but I would’ve bet a nickel he was talking real gentle to her.

  “You ever think you might go looking for your ma?” I asked.

  He shrugged, his eyes still following Bert.

  “Wherever she is, I bet she’s finding a way to be happy,” I said.

  Ray breathed in deep through his nose. “I just hope she’s all right.”

  “I have faith she is,” I whispered.

  “How do you do that?” Ray asked, leaning his face against the window frame and looking at me.

  “Do what?”

  “Think up stories,” he said. “Like the one you made up about my ma.”

  I shrugged and turned my face toward him. “Just do.”

  “It’s special,” he whispered, looking me right in the eye.

  I shook my head and looked down at my hands, hoping he didn’t notice a blush in my cheeks.

  “Guess y’all got stuck with me a little longer,” Ray said.

  “We don’t mind,” I answered.

  And that was the whole truth.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

  Daddy brought Mama home the day before the Fourth of July. Between Ray and me and with a lot of help from Aunt Carrie, we’d cleaned the house as best we could so Mama wouldn’t have to worry about it for a good while yet. We’d even made a cake. Vanilla with powdered sugar sprinkled on top. Mama’s favorite.

  When I heard the rumble of Daddy’s truck I felt sick with worry. It would have been horrible if she came back worse than she’d left. Or if, like I’d seen in a movie, they’d electric-shocked the sense right out of her head. And I worried she’d be home for a day or two just to take off again, making us feel the loss of her all over again.

  Ray had run out to meet them, in case they needed him to carry anything.

  As for me, I stood in the middle of the living room, still as could be so as not to wrinkle my dress or mess my hair. I wanted to look the perfect lady for Mama. I wanted to make her proud of me. And I did all I could not to sneak a peek out the living room window at her. I wanted my first look of her to be when she stepped inside.

  “Go on in, sugar,” Daddy said.

  I shut my eyes like I was hoping to get a surprise.

  Mama had worn hard-soled shoes that day. They clipped and clapped against the wood floor. Lavender-scented powder and the feeling of a body close to me made me open my eyes.

  Mama stood right in front of me, her real smile spread across her face.

  “You’ve grown another inch,” she said.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “And what a beauty you’re becoming.”

  She put her hands on my shoulders. How warm she felt and how near. I reached my arms around her waist, she wrapped her hands around my head, feeling of my hair and kissing the top of my head.

  Mama was home.

  She tucked me into bed that night. It’d been so long since she had, I didn’t know what to do with myself. When she came in, I was still sitting up and looking out the window at the woods, trying to see the tip-top of the twisted tree through all the branches heavy with leaves.

  “You want to say your prayers?” Mama asked, sitting sideways on the edge of my bed.

  I shrugged.

  “Don’t you say prayers anymore?” she asked.

  “No
t the rhyming ones.”

  “Oh. I guess you’re too old for them.”

  “Maybe.”

  She turned her eyes to her lap, smoothing the flowered fabric against her thighs.

  “Pearl, I did you wrong,” she said.

  “Mama—”

  “No. I did.” She swallowed. “I put the blame on you because it was too heavy for me to bear.”

  I waited for her to go on, not understanding what it was she was getting at. It took her a little while, she swallowed and sighed and brushed a tear out from under her eye.

  “I should have been the one to come after you,” she said. “The day of the big duster. But I … I told Beanie to holler out for you. I told her to find you. I never expected her to get lost.”

  I felt the sting in my eyes and I tried to fight the crying, but I didn’t think I’d win.

  “I thought it was just a normal one,” she said. “I didn’t know. Still, I never should have sent her.”

  “You couldn’t have known.”

  “It should have been me,” she said, lifting a hand to hold her head. “She would still be alive.”

  I wrapped my arms around my bent knees, digging my nails into the skin of my arms to remind myself not to cry.

  “And I tried finding every way I could to blame you,” she went on. “I told myself if you never went off, she’d be all right. If I could blame you, I’d be able to live with myself. But I couldn’t do it and it made me so angry.”

  “Mama, don’t.”

  “It was my fault, Pearl.” She shook her head. “Mine. I thought if I left I could forget about Beanie. I could forget I’d ever had a family at all. I could start over.”

  I wanted to beg her to stop, not to go on. It was too much. But I found I couldn’t hardly open my mouth, let alone form the words.

  “But I couldn’t.” She gasped, holding a hand over her mouth. “All I could see was Beanie. And you. The way you looked at me after I slapped you. You were so scared. And I hate myself for that.”

  She shook and sucked in shallow breaths.

  “I never wanted to be like my mother,” she said. “I never wanted to do to you what she did to me. But I did. And I can never hope that you might forgive me.”

  I couldn’t hold back. Not anymore. I moved so I was close to Mama and put my arms around her, let her rest her head on my shoulder, held her while she shook.

  “I forgive you, Mama,” I whispered, hoping it was loud enough she could hear it.

  “I don’t know why you ever would.”

  “You’re my mama.”

  It was all I could think to say.

  By the way she held me tighter, I thought it was right.

  CHAPTER SIXTY

  I couldn’t have been asleep long. Maybe a half hour, an hour even. But something had woken me, the creak of a floorboard and the sound of voices. For once, the words of Mama and Daddy weren’t angry or sad.

  It sounded like they were singing.

  When I got up from my bed and out the door I saw Ray standing at the top of the steps, already listening in.

  “What are they doing?” I whispered.

  He shrugged.

  I nodded for him to come downstairs with me.

  Once we got to the bottom we saw them, Mama and Daddy. She was in one of her nighties, one that looked like something a lady would wear in the movies. Her hair was down and looked soft with the curls falling perfectly down her back.

  They had their arms around each other. And they moved in time. Together.

  Their faces were so close that it seemed they might kiss at any moment. But they didn’t. Instead, they both sang about wishing on the moon and stars.

  Daddy reached his hand up and held Mama’s neck, pulling her head near to rest on his chest. He had his eyes shut and I saw how he had tears on his face. But he wore a smile.

  Ray took my hand and the two of us went back to our rooms, shutting our doors.

  I slept better than I had in a real long time.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE

  I stood in my bedroom, looking at my face in the mirror. Touching my cheeks and nose and jaw. I thought there hadn’t been too much change in me, not yet at least. It might take time, looking twelve years old. I couldn’t hardly expect to on the evening of my birthday.

  In my closet was a brand-new dress Mama’d made for me to wear at my party. It was a light shade of blue that she said would look nice with my eyes.

  “You’ll have to wear a slip under it,” she’d told me. “Soon enough I’ll have to take you to get a brassiere.”

  I’d thought I might just faint from embarrassment. Good thing Daddy and Ray weren’t anywhere near enough to have heard her say such a thing. I thought I would’ve just died.

  I slid the slip over my head and hoped I could avoid a brassiere at least a little while longer. Even at twelve I still wasn’t ready to be a full lady just yet. I stepped into the dress and buttoned up the front of it. It fit just right.

  “Do you have it on yet?” Mama asked through the door. “I want to see it on.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I answered.

  She opened the door and tilted her head from one side to the other, checking to be sure the dress laid right and the hem was even.

  “Spin around for me?” she said.

  I did and she nodded.

  “I like it, Mama,” I told her.

  “It makes you look so grown.” She crossed her arms. “Now, don’t let me catch you climbing a tree in that dress.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “And I won’t have you galloping around in the woods wearing it.”

  I nodded.

  “You look beautiful,” she said.

  I couldn’t help but smile.

  Mama’d made a cake for me, even though I’d told her she didn’t have to. I knew she’d have to skimp on something to buy the sugar, but she’d said it was worth it. She’d even found the candles she’d used the year before that still had a little length on them.

  They all sang to me as she carried that cake from the kitchen, twelve candles brightening up the room. Uncle Gus added his booming voice, and Aunt Carrie lent her sweet one. Daddy sang and so did Ray. But the voice that made me smile was Mama’s. Clear and light and altogether lovely.

  She put the cake on the table right in front of me and I waited until they finished singing before shutting my eyes to make my wish.

  I’d thought on that wish a real long time. And I knew just how I’d say it in my mind, careful not to so much as mouth the words for fear it wouldn’t come true.

  I wasn’t all the way sure that wishes did come true. Not too many that I’d made before had come to be. I’d never become an Indian princess or gotten a pony of my own. But, then again, a couple had.

  Ray was still with us and Mama had come back. Millard was still alive and happy down in Red River and Daddy smiled easy again.

  Once they finished singing I filled my lungs and held it as I thought the wish into the air.

  Fast as I could, I let the breath push out of my body, through lips shaped like a circle. All the flames flickered and went out with just one stream of air. The smoke curled up toward the ceiling, carrying my wish along with it, I imagined.

  I sat beside Daddy on the front porch of the house on Magnolia Street, his booted feet right next to my bare ones. It was just how we had sat together a hundred times before. I thought back to when I’d wriggle my toes in the grit of the porch and how Mama’d holler for me to wipe my feet off before coming in so I wouldn’t track dust all over her newly swept floors.

  A bubble of ache welled up in my chest. I sure did miss Oklahoma something awful. It didn’t seem likely I’d ever get the chance to go back there, it being so far away and all. Besides, with all the dust Millard said still blew through, I didn’t know that it’d look like home anymore. Far as I knew our house there right beside the church building could’ve gotten buried in the dirt or knocked over flat by the wind.

  “Whatcha thinkin
g about, Pearlie Lou?” Daddy asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

  “Just about home, I guess,” I answered.

  “Red River?”

  “Yup.”

  “You missing it?” he asked.

  “Yeah.” I rested my elbows on my thighs and held up my head on the palms of my hands. “I miss how the sky was wide and how I could see fifty-sixty miles if the day was clear.”

  “Bet you miss how hot it gets,” Daddy said, winking at me. “And the way a horny toad runs when it’s scared.”

  I smiled and shook my head. “Nah, I couldn’t miss those critters if I tried.”

  “I can’t imagine you would.”

  “Daddy?”

  “Yes, darlin’?”

  “You remember the day you found me?” I asked. “Back on the day I was born?”

  “I do.” He looked at me the way he did when he got what Mama might’ve called sentimental. His eyes were crinkled in the corners and were just enough watery that I feared he might cry.

  He didn’t cry and for that I was real glad.

  “When you took me into the house, did Mama hold me right away?” I asked.

  “She did,” he said. “She looked you all over real good, counting your fingers and toes and checking to be sure you were breathing okay.”

  “And I was?” I asked. “All right?”

  “Better than all right,” he said. “You were perfect. She gave you a bath and found one of Beanie’s old baby outfits to put on you. Boy, did you holler like the dickens through the whole thing.”

  “I did?”

  “Sure. That’s what newborn babes do.” He scratched his fingernails under his chin. “Once she got you all dressed and wrapped up in a warm blanket, she held you close as she could and worked at soothing you.”

  “How’d she do that?”

  “The way any mama would,” he said. “She sang to you.”

  Daddy lit himself a cigarette and I stayed by his side. A man walked past our house and tipped his hat at Daddy. A chug-chug-chugging jalopy shimmied down the road, so loud I didn’t know how the fella driving it didn’t go deaf. Across the street Mrs. Barnett was taking in the day’s last load of dry laundry. Inside our living room Ray had the radio playing some funny show or another.