Sing Them Home

by Stephanie Kallos

  And later, back home, she tries to work while she waits for Bonnie to call. She eats the cookies and brownies that Viney sent home for Esmé, achieving the sensation of a full-term pregnancy—a distended stomach, her diaphragm unable to descend on the in-breath, she can only sip air by the quarter-teaspoon—a new sensation arises, unfamiliar and disturbing. Her chest feels like an aviary, alive with papery, irregular flutterings.

  So this is it, she thinks, too sated on starch and sugar to feel fully afraid. Cardiac arrest. They’ll find me in the morning, facedown in the chapter on Rogier Van der Weyden and The Ascension.

  But after a time, the birds in her chest quiet, taken down perhaps by something bigger, fiercer, more predatory, more powerful. Or maybe they’re simply wearied, exhausted to death by their failed attempts to escape. And whatever else lives in the cage that holds Larken’s heart is once again still.

  Hope’s Diary, December 1963:

  All I Could See Was Her

  I’ll never ever doubt the occurrence of miracles ever again, never slander my own body, no matter how often it has let me down. All has been redeemed by this little girl, this warrior. Or should it be warrioress? Given what the two of us have been through, I think we deserve a gender-specific version of that title.

  The OB just left. Pompous ass. For a full week he pooh-poohed my insistence that yes, really, truly, the pain is quite severe, it’s hard to walk, I think the baby is coming: “Just wait until the pains move around to the front, dear,” he kept saying. “Then you’ll know you’re in labor.” The goddamn pains never did move around to the front, and then there were new pains I knew to be wrong and I started bleeding. God knows how many traffic laws Llewellyn broke en route to Beatrice, and in the ER I heard them say, “She’s abrupting, get her to the O.R. now!” and then the C-section, the “twilight sleep” they call it, but I battled through with enough awareness to realize that there was nocry, no sound at all, and when they rushed her to another part of the room—a blur of white and maroon, as if she’d emerged from my womb slathered in whipped cream and raspberry sauce—I knew something had gone wrong. L. clutching my hand, his face blanched, his eyes frightened above the sterile mask, and then finally, finally a hearty, pissed-off howl, just the thing you long to hear from your newborn baby, Whitman’s “mighty YAWP!” if ever there was one, and then they brought her to me, swaddled and wailing and with eyes big and brown like her father’s and wearing a face so fierce you’d have thought she’d been kidnapped. “This is NOT what I’d planned!” she seemed to say with her expression.

  Meanwhile, the doctor reappeared, his intrusion triggering a kind of chemical revulsion. I felt allergic to him. He puttered around doing doctorly things and then started asking annoying questions related to my eyesight. Kept demanding that I look this way and that, follow his finger, focus on the little light at the end of his pen, which I found impossible. “Can’t we do this later?” I wanted to say. “We are a brave new world unto ourselves, this baby and I, and will not readily admit ready access to this planet that is us. No trespassers allowed! We banish incompetent, heedless obstetricians brandishing penlights and trivial questions! Ask us something important!”

  But I remained speechless. I was aware of a feeble light tracing blurry lines through space, like a sparkler, the way a sparkler produces a kind of magical writing, visible for an instant and then you realize that what you’re seeing is an illusion, a shadow light, a visual echo that still hangs there. A remnant of time passed, a record of something that only just happened, a vapor trail, a ghost. Something that was, but is no more.

  Someday I will tell my girl about the babies that came before her, her older brothers and sisters. But maybe she already knows.

  After so long a time, for her to finally be here.

  Of course my vision isn’t normal, Doctor.

  All I can see is her.

  PART TWO

  The Mother Plant

  I am a history

  A memory inventing itself

  I am never alone

  I speak with you always

  You speak with me always

  I move in the dark

  I plant signs

  —Octavio Paz

  Hope’s Diary, 1964:

  Hail Mary at the IGA

  Larken sleeping, thank God. I should take a nap too but have to write about the morning.

  Went up to Beatrice. I wanted to go to the IGA to get a few special things for the dinner party Saturday that I know the Moores don’t carry here in town. What was I thinking? Stupid. Larken doesn’t take kindly to any deviation from our normal routine. I know this. I know it well so it’s my own fault.

  She didn’t fall asleep in the stroller after our walk—she might be teething, anyway that’s what Alvina Closs told me at the post office the other day and a woman with four children probably knows what she’s talking about. (There’s another reason to feel inadequate: Alvina Closs, young widow with four children, went back to nursing school and is about to graduate. How on earth does she do it?) Anyway, I thought if I put Lark in the car and drove up to Beatrice, she’d go down and I could do some shopping with her sleeping in the cart.

  But she still didn’t fall asleep and because they were doing road work again at the blind driveway and had everything narrowed to one lane, the going was slow and we didn’t even pull into the parking lot until 11:30, almost lunchtime. Still, she seemed fine. Very interested in the clouds today—a big wind, and much shape-shifting in the sky. Maybe she’s turned a corner, I thought. Maybe she’s becoming more adaptable. All the way in the car she stared out the window and slobbered happily until her chin was glistening and the front of her sleeper was soaked. Totally awake, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.

  I checked her diaper, did a quick change in the parking lot, and by then she was starting to get a little fussy, but only a little. So we trundled into the store.

  It was as if every other mother in Gage County had the same idea, all of us stir-crazy at the near end of winter, home alone with our babies and toddlers, desperate for any excuse to get out of the house, and what better place than the grocery store! Cabin fever, spring just around the corner, all of us dying for some form of social contact even if it was born out of necessity. The whole crop of new babes were there. And I swear, every blessed one of them was asleep except Larken.

  I’d made a list—I know I had—but when we got inside the store I couldn’t find it anywhere. I hate it when that happens. And it happens frequently. I feel conspired against by the wind, the way it grabs at things you think you’ve battened down. So I was shopping without a list. The whole trip was really doomed from the git-go.

  In the produce section, there was a beautifully coifed blonde woman with an equally blonde and beautifully coifed little girl, three years old maybe. Dressed in identical dotted swiss mother-daughter outfits. They looked like they belonged in a magazine.

  I kept wishing my hair was more perfect, my wardrobe spiffier. Shouldn’t I be able to be a mother without losing my good grooming habits? I felt decidedly unspiffy and wished Larken wasn’t slobbering so much and was dressed in something besides a sleeper, something like one of those highly impractical but darling little baby girl outfits Lillian keeps giving her: pink and ruffled and held together by impossibly small buttons shaped like flowers or baby ducks and which my hands cannot manage even when we’re not in a hurry.

  The mother gave the little girl a cantaloupe to hold, then went about explaining and demonstrating various squeezing and thumping techniques. The child mimicked her with perfect, calm obedience. The mother looked up once, saw me staring, and smiled beatifically. Her teeth were perfect. There was a newborn in her shopping cart, too, a little boy guessing from the blue blanket. Of course, he was sleeping, hands balled into little fists just under his chin, like a boxer-in-training.

  Larken and I look so different—she’s got L.’s coloring and physique and a face that belongs to no one but herself. No one would know we were mothe
r and daughter, I don’t even think matching outfits would identify us as kin.

  In the canned veg section, another mother was speaking angrily to her toddler. That part of it I could relate to—I don’t think one ever really comes to the feeling of being at the end of your tether until you’re a mother—but she was manhandling him in a way that made me furious.

  In frozen foods, another mother—cool as a cucumber to use the appropriate cliché—was trying to buy some Swanson’s TV dinners while holding a screaming baby. This must have inspired Larken—or at least reminded her that she hadn’t had a nap—and she joined in.

  That did it.

  Soon, the eyes of the entire store were upon us. My girl can outcry any baby in Christendom, I’d bet everything I have on it. Her cries when she gets wound up are truly horrific, so full of rage and frustration you’d think she was being tortured. I abandoned the cart and fled before someone called Child Welfare Services.

  On the drive home (L. fell asleep, of course), I realized that I’d looked at every woman with a child as competition. There’s suddenly this compulsion—not just to be a “good” mother, but to be the “best” mother.

  No one expects fathers to be perfect. Fathers are not bombarded with images of themselves, serenely cradling a newborn, lounging about, immaculately and stylishly clad with their equally pristine toddlers.

  Why didn’t God come into the world as a woman, one who gave birth? That expression—“God couldn’t be everywhere, so he invented mothers”—is amusing until one examines its implications. If God came into the world as a baby girl and lived the life of a mother, then he would have really understood something about humankind and the complexity of love.

  When I lose my patience with Larken, I feel like the world’s most unfit mother, but Christ, doesn’t anyone else have a child that cries and cries nonstop for hours on end and then finally out of sheer exhaustion falls into a sound sleep, but only at five P.M. so that the hell of it is she’ll be awake again sometime in the middle of the night, needling, needing, something, who knows what because the damn thing didn’t come with instructions.

  I really should take a nap.

  No.

  SHIT.

  There’s Larken. Awake.

  Help me help me help me help me help me help me help me help

  Well, that was grim.

  It’s been a few days since I’ve written. I vowed not to return to these pages until I was capable of something besides babbling incoherently, and/or whining.

  I’m snatching some time while waiting for Llewellyn—one of his patients just called. Why is it that medical emergencies always begin occurring at suppertime and persist until dawn?

  L. takes the issue of patient/doctor confidentiality very seriously. An ethical man, my L. All the secrecy and nocturnal comings-and-goings are starting to make me feel like the wronged wife in a melodrama. Some women’s husbands have mistresses; mine has a medical practice.

  I am starting to worry about how hard L. is working. His patients come from as far away as a hundred miles in all directions, and L. is rare in that he’s willing to travel: a real country doctor, the last of a dying but still much-needed breed. The success of his practice—and its growth—is pleasing, but I can tell that L. is very tired.

  Anyway, not sure when he’ll return. He said he’d call, but we haven’t heard anything yet. I’m keeping dinner warm in the oven in the hope he’ll be back soon and able to spend some time with Larken before her bedtime. She’s busy at the moment rearranging the contents of the bottom kitchen drawer; my time at these pages is directly dependent upon how long she’ll be able to amuse herself. (Note to self: Buy more Tupperware!)

  So. I’m feeling better, at least for the moment. Ran into Alvina Closs again, at Olson’s Drugstore this time, both of us on errands related to our firstborn children, as it happened: me in search of teething medicine for my four-month-old, she in search of acne cream for her teenaged son. Alvina (she asked me to call her Viney) is one of the few women in town who doesn’t look at me like a stranger—even though L. and I have been here for two years now.

  We had a great chat about colicky babies and those hellish hours between four and six o’clock in the afternoon. She commiserated with me on both subjects, was especially funny about the latter, saying, “Why do you think God invented Happy Hour?” I laughed so hard I almost fell over.

  She invited me to her house for a cup of coffee; I was worried about interrupting Larken’s routine, but I’ve been so lonely that I agreed, figuring there would be hell to pay and we’d have to leave soon. Instead, Viney held the baby and rocked her until she dozed off. My Larken, asleep in a strange house! I couldn’t believe it.

  “What’s your secret?” I asked.

  She laughed. “No secret. She just knows that I’m not you.”

  Viney put Larken down in the first-floor bedroom, closed the door, and we proceeded to chat for an hour and a half. Adult to adult! What a treat it was.

  Viney asked me why it was that L. chose to open his practice here, and I told her how it was mostly my doing, how I’d fallen in love with Emlyn Springs the first time I came here.

  “I can’t say that I’ve ever heard of anyone falling in love with a town before,” she said. “At least not a town like this one.”

  “You sound like Llewellyn. I know Emlyn Springs isn’t exactly thriving”—and Viney laughed at this—“but there’s so much to love about this place.”

  “Well, we could certainly use some fresh blood around here, that’s for sure.”

  I don’t know what came over me—probably I just got carried away by the fact that I was in the presence of another adult—but I took Viney’s comment as permission to give voice to some of the things I’ve been thinking about, and started chattering: “There’s so much I hope to do here once the baby is older and I have some time. Hazel Williams told me there used to be an opera house here, is that true?”

  “My grandmother used to talk about that. And a fine hotel, too.”

  “So many things have been let go—I know that a lot changed when the railroad stopped coming through, but I just don’t think that’s any reason for giving up on a place. It’s beautiful here, people just need to have faith that this town doesn’t have to be a dead end. Do you know what I mean?” Having uttered these words (and now transcribed them), I feel a bit Pollyanna-ish, like a billboard for the Better Business Bureau or the Rotary Club, but there you have it: It’s how I truly feel. I would like to be part of making some positive changes here: see the library’s collection augmented, become involved in restoring the downtown area, maybe get a community theater started up again, a historical museum. All those empty downtown buildings just going to waste. It breaks my heart, when there’s a hundred constructive ways they could be used.

  Viney patiently listened to me ramble on—I feel so foolish now for having monopolized the conversation.

  I told her that I was in awe of her—being able to go back to school while raising four kids.

  “You’d be surprised how many people in this town disapprove,” she said.

  I found this astounding. “I can’t imagine anyone not admiring you for what you’re doing for your family.”

  “That’s a nice thing for you to say. But when you’ve lived here as long as I have, folks expect you to behave a certain way. It’s as if they’ve already imagined your life and get truly, deeply upset if you don’t play your part the way they’ve written it.”

  “But nobody has any expectations of me, surely.”

  “Oh, but they do, honey!” Viney said. “You’d be surprised.”

  “Well then, I’ll just have to do my best to meet them.”

  She laughed. “I can’t see that happening.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She smiled and shrugged. “I could be wrong. Oh! Here’s my kids …”

  Larken didn’t even wake up when I put her back in the stroller; she slept in the car on the way home, and then another
hour, and finally woke up cheery as could be. And here we are.

  I keep thinking about what Viney said—how people have expectations of me. It distressed me to hear that folks could be so close-minded about her going back to school. She’s so brave, reinventing herself after a tragedy. I’m trying to imagine how I’d react if L. died and left me a young widow. It’s too awful to contemplate.

  Well, in any event, I feel as though I’ve made a friend.

  Viney’s graduating from nursing school soon. She told me that she’ll look for work in Beatrice. Will talk to L. about hiring her. Lord knows he could use the help. And—quite selfish of me!—if she can work in Emlyn Springs I’ll see her more often.

  Must go. Larken bored with Tupperware and eyeing the extension cord with interest.

  Chapter 12

  Wooing Wales

  All this time and attention given over to the newly dead has an economic impact, of course it does, but it’s minor really and no one grumbles. The cost of living in Emlyn Springs is small. And among the lessons impressed upon youngsters—Always wear light-colored clothing at night … When walking on a street without a sidewalk or a shoulderless road, always walk against the traffic, on the left—is one related to funeral preparedness: Always have at least one week’s worth of money and supplies set by. Those who are caught unprepared—for whatever reason, no questions asked—are assisted by a closely monitored community fund specifically allocated for the purpose.

  The shortest time between deaths—and the longest period of enforced unemployment—was back in 1943, when the town lost three boys from the Groathouse family in a single hour during the Battle of Midway. Those boys were buried side by side and on the same day, as they would have wanted, but they were mourned individually, consecutively: George Jr. first since he was the oldest, then Harold, and then young Jerry. The town shut down for three whole weeks. At the time, it hardly seemed long enough.