Sing Them Home

by Stephanie Kallos

  “Also,” Mrs. Bauer continued, “your grandmother is not going to hell. Believe this. And lazy she is not either. Nor Mama. They have the grief bacon.”

  “The what?”

  “Hmm.” Mrs. Bauer paused and looked away, thinking. She brought one of her red, veiny hands to her face, burying her thumb in the fleshy spot beneath her chin, fanning her fingers out over her mouth. She started tapping her fingers across her lips, slowly, one by one, as if she were playing piano, the same four notes over and over again. It was an odd gesture, and for some reason it made it very easy for Viney to imagine how pretty Mrs. Bauer must have been when she was young.

  “It is difficult, but I will try to explain,” Mrs. Bauer said finally. “When someone we love very much dies, it makes us tired. Very tired. It makes us want to sleep and sleep, the way the animals do. You know the word? For what the bears in winter do?”

  “Hibernate?”

  “Yes. Hibernate. It is the body’s way, this tired. And like the bears, the body sometimes grows heavy, puts on …” Mrs. Bauer gestured as if she were dressing to go outside in the snow.

  “Layers?”

  “Yes. Layers. To protect. To keep …” She gestured again, shrugging her shoulders and crossing her arms in front of her body as if she were wrapping herself up in a heavy blanket. “It is hard to say, to translate, to English. My family called it Kummerspeck. The grief bacon.”

  Viney considered. “Well, I don’t like it. I don’t like the grief bacon.”

  “Think of it this way, honey. Maybe our bodies do this so that the dead—who are still near to us—can visit our dreams before they get too busy.”

  Viney didn’t feel exactly comforted by the notion that the dead could not only appear in dreams, but get busy (doing what? she wondered), but it was reassuring to hear that, in Mrs. Bauer’s opinion anyway, being a bad housekeeper and taking naps in the middle of the day weren’t sins. This meant a lot, considering the source. Mrs. Bauer had the shiniest windows and the cleanest floors in Emlyn Springs. At least that’s what Mother always said.

  “Oh, look!” Mrs. Bauer said. “I find a four-leaf clover for you! You know the poem about four-leaf clovers? By Miss Ella Higginson?”

  Viney shook her head.

  Mrs. Bauer recited: “‘One leaf is for hope, and one is for faith, and one is for love, you know, And God put another in for luck. If you search, you will find where they grow.’”

  Viney regarded her clover: four oval-shaped leaves attached to a stem. One of the leaves was shriveled and tinged with brown; in Viney’s mind, this surely had some dire significance that undid whatever good luck the four-leaf clover might bestow. She accepted it to be polite, but planned to get rid of it later.

  “Mother and Grandmother will be okay,” Mrs. Bauer went on, giving Viney’s shoulders a sqeeze. “You’ll see. Now, come over to my house, why don’t you? I have icebox cookies and nice cold milk. And while you have your snack I will copy down for you Miss Higginson’s beautiful poem.”

  Viney is awakened suddenly by the sound of someone opening and closing the front door.

  “Wally, honey, is that you?” she asks, squinting across the darkened room.

  “No, Mrs. Closs, it’s me, Eli.”

  “Eli?” Viney sits up and rubs her eyes. “Oh, yes. Eli. Hello.” How long has she been asleep? What time is it? The TV is still on—a commercial—but the sound has been muted. There are three TV trays set up, and somebody put an afghan over her. Bethan must have come in and found her asleep. How embarrassing. This just won’t do.

  “May I please use your washroom?” Eli asks.

  “Of course, honey. There’s a bathroom back there.” Eli starts to cross the room. He has that terrible, wooden way of walking that boys get when they’re trapped between childhood and puberty, their bodies growing and changing so fast that it must feel as though they wake up every morning to find that someone snuck into their bedroom during the night and replaced their perfectly good arms and legs with an ill-fitting set of prosthetics.

  “Thank you so much for your help,” Viney adds. “It’s been hard keeping up with the yardwork since … Well, I really appreciate it.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  Eli goose-steps into the bathroom. Poor thing.

  The news comes on. Viney unmutes the television: Welcome to the KLAN-KHAM midday report, where we bring you the latest in local and national news, sports, and weather, with our team of professionals …

  And then there’s the sex part: wet dreams and uncontrollable erections and all the shame that goes with it. It’s so much worse for them, in Viney’s opinion, because boys aren’t good at hiding the way girls are—behind clothes and hairdos and makeup and a predisposition for cruelty—and because they wear their sex outside their bodies. What was God thinking, for heaven’s sake, making males so guileless and vulnerable?

  Our top news story this hour …

  Viney has always regretted the way that she—and especially Welly—let Gaelan down when he was that age. And they did, she knows it. When he was going through all that, they were both still reeling from Hope’s death, the guilt, the shame, the not knowing …

  Eli comes back. “This was on the floor,” he says, handing Viney the fallen angel.

  “Oh, thank you,” Viney says. The angels’ hairdos date them; this one, with her layered Farah Fawcett curls—must be pushing thirty.

  “You make those, don’t you?” Eli asks.

  “I did, yes. I used to make them all the time. Not so much though, anymore,” Viney says, feeling suddenly sad and guilty about neglecting her hobby. The hymnbook angel population hasn’t increased in years. She really should get going on these again.

  “The Jewish faith doesn’t allow physical representations of angels,” Eli replies. “It’s considered idolatry.”

  “I see,” Viney comments. He really is an odd child—an old man in a young body. Sweet, though. “How do you feel about it?”

  Eli shrugs. “I’m ambivalent.”

  “Would you like to sit down?” Viney offers. “I’m sure you’re tired. Raking leaves is hard work.”

  “Thank you.” Eli takes a seat on the sofa next to Viney. He seems very interested in the news; the program is half over before Viney registers the strangeness of his presence here in the middle of the day.

  “Say,” she asks suddenly. “Why aren’t you in school?”

  “I’m homeschooled.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “My mom and I decide what I’m going to study and when.”

  “But you don’t go to school? With other young people?”

  “Nope. I do most of my work on a computer.”

  “Isn’t that lonely?”

  He looks away from the TV. “What do you mean?”

  “Well, school isn’t just about learning. It’s about friends and class parties and dances and trying out for sports and things.”

  “I’m shy at dances. I don’t really do any sports. I’m planning on being a writer.”

  “Still.”

  … and now with a preview of our five-day forecast, here’s Gaelan Jones …

  Eli’s attention snaps back to the television.

  “Well,” Viney murmurs, “my boys would find it lonely, anyway …”

  Gaelan begins his segment: Sorry to put a damper on your weekend plans, folks, no pun intended, but …

  “He looks tired,” Viney says to herself.

  “Besides, we’re not staying in Emlyn Springs,” Eli adds.

  “You’re not? How come?”

  “We’re just here until, well, until my Mom feels better.”

  … what the radar picture seems to indicate is that we’ll be experiencing an extended period of …

  “What’s wrong with your mother?”

  “My dad died last spring.”

  Oh my God, Viney thinks. How could I be so stupid? “I’m so sorry, honey. I forgot.”

  … gravestones …

  �
�And anyway,” Eli says distractedly—like Viney, his attention is focused on Gaelan’s petit mal mini-breakdown—“I have to go back for my bar mitzvah.”

  Viney is confused. “Did he say ‘gravestones’?”

  “I think so.”

  … grave showers …

  “Your mother is much too young to be a widow,” Viney adds.

  “My dad was kind of old. He had another wife before my mom, and they had kids together. They’re like almost Mom’s age.”

  … scattered spoons …

  “I see.”

  “Mom and Mr. Jones were boyfriend and girlfriend once,” Eli comments.

  Viney looks at him. “That’s right.”

  “Why didn’t they get married?”

  “That’s private, honey, between your mom and Gaelan.”

  There’s a noise at the kitchen door. Bethan is standing there, holding two plates piled with food. She too is staring at the television.

  … an extended period of rain turning to scattered showers … Back to you, Greg.

  Bethan crosses the room quickly and sets the food down on the TV trays. “Excuse me,” she mutters, and then rushes past them toward the bathroom.

  “This looks absolutely delicious,” Viney observes.

  Eli adds, “It’s kosher.”

  From the bathroom comes the sound of Bethan, sobbing. “Is your mother all right?” Viney asks. “Is there anything I can do?”

  “She’ll be okay,” Eli remarks, digging into his dinner. “She always gets sad when she sees him on TV.”

  Bonnie is kneeling on the wood planks of what used to be Tinkham’s Five and Dime, setting out mousetraps.

  She found the mousetraps online after Googling humane rodent control. Technically, they’re called mouse “houses,” and they consist of a rectangular, green-tinted Plexiglas box with a small sloped roof—exactly like a little one-room house. They’re ingenious contraptions: you slide out one of the walls, press down on a sprung platform, place a fragment of peanut-butter-smeared cracker inside, replace the wall, and then when a mouse sniffs the cracker and steps in, the spring is triggered and the trap closes, leaving mousie with a food supply and air holes until s/he can be relocated. The traps were on sale. Bonnie bought thirty-two.

  Her newest entrepreneurial undertaking—BJ’s Bikes and Repair—is housed in the same building as Blind Tom’s piano hospital. Wanting to prove herself a responsible tenant in her conservation of utilities, Bonnie is working in the dark.

  When Bonnie stood up at the town meeting and talked about how nice it would be to make better use of some of the downtown buildings, Blind Tom jumped right in and supported her. Noting that he had twice as much room as he needed to display his restored pianos, he offered to share his space.

  The only major impact to the piano hospital has involved an entrance change: since the front door of the building is on Bonnie’s half, her customers enter there; Blind Tom’s customers are now directed via new signage and an arrow to park and enter through the back. Bonnie was initially very worried about inconveniencing Blind Tom and his patrons in this way, but Blind Tom reminded her that, having been an Emlyn Springs fixture since 1871, his business has excellent name recognition and would likely survive this new arrangement with minimal negative impact.

  Blind Tom is on the other side of the plywood wall that divides their workspaces, tuning a recently restored piano that is ready for sale. It’s a comforting sound, the sprinkling of single notes in octaves.

  “You can turn the lights on, you know,” he calls.

  Bonnie is puzzled. She wonders how he knew that the lights were off, but decides it would be rude to ask. It would make it a bit easier if she could see what she was doing.

  The piano falls silent. Blind Tom wanders in with Sergei.

  “How’s it going?” he asks.

  “Almost done. I’ll have to check these at the same time tomorrow. The manufacturer says they don’t live longer than twenty-four hours in these. Okay if I give Sergei a treat? It’s organic peanut butter.”

  “You’re gonna spoil him.”

  “He deserves to be spoiled. Here, Sergei.”

  “Thanks for doing this,” Blind Tom adds. “The traps, I mean.”

  “No problem. I like mice as well as the next person, but I don’t want them making nests in the piano strings or the wheel spokes.”

  Blind Tom laughs. “It has been a problem, yes.”

  Bonnie has a sudden thought. “Have you ever been on a bike?”

  Blind Tom considers. “Gosh, I guess I must have been, but it would have been a long time ago. I don’t exactly remember.”

  “You never forget, you know.”

  “That’s what I’ve heard.”

  Bonnie has the strange sensation that he can see her.

  “Do you know what Mouse represents in Native American culture?” he asks.

  “No. What?”

  “Scrutiny.”

  “Really? That’s interesting.”

  He stares at her—or rather, appears to stare at her; his downward tilting face is aimed in her direction. Bonnie waits, expecting to hear more about Native American wisdom on the subject of mice—she loves animal stories—but after a few moments he calls Sergei and turns to go.

  “I’ll leave you to your work,” he says.

  Bonnie wishes he didn’t wear those dark glasses all the time. She’d like to be able to see his eyes.

  Chapter 16

  The Speed of Prayer

  On the morning it arrives (par avion, bearing exotic stamps, postmarked the day after Welly’s death, covered with handwriting she’s never seen before), Viney rips the envelope open—a gesture executed with more energy than she’s expended in weeks. She withdraws the letter, snapping its folded pages open with a sense of entitlement and righteous anger, as though it’s an enemy combatant she intends to give hell to.

  Dear Llewellyn, the letter begins. You sound down. You must be experiencing one of those spiritual eclipses we have spoken of before. I am sorry to hear you so pessimistic, so discouraged. I wish I knew how to be of comfort.

  These temperate words—written by this stranger, this intruder whom Welly invited into their lives without asking permission—have a softening effect that Viney doesn’t like. She skims the rest of the letter, only slowing down again near the end:

  Some people are beset with a terrible disunity of spirit—that is how I think of it. It is as though their outward achievements have advanced to the front of that long line of identities that make us what we are, that parade of selves. These confident selves—professional success, financial success, good reputation—march on, oblivious to the tender, untended soul at the end of the line, barely keeping up, holding no one’s hand, never reassured, always afraid.

  You have achieved so much in this life, Llewellyn. Given so much—to your family, your patients, your community. Try to remember that. Hold that knowledge close.

  The dark night comes to us all. But for you, my friend, it seems there are words that can never be heard enough, and so I will remind you of these simple truths:

  God does not hold grudges.

  You are a good man.

  You have paid for your wrongs.

  You are forgiven.

  Viney refolds the letter and slips it back into its envelope.

  She has informed the unknowing. She has acknowledged every condolence that came her way. It’s only polite that she reply to this letter as well—even if it means consorting with the enemy.

  “I need to learn how to use one of those,” Viney blurts, pointing to one of the library computers. “Is there anyone who’d have time to help me?” she asks the librarian at the information desk.

  Having failed several attempts at a handwritten reply to Brother Henry (the addition of liquid courage led consistently to a vitriolic tone, not to mention illegibility), Viney has concluded that a new approach is called for. To that end—and riding a burst of energy and resolve—she’s driven all the way
up to Beatrice.

  I can do this, she tells herself. I can learn something new.

  Of course, she could have gone to Wymore and been there half an hour ago; the Wymore library has computers and the Internet and all that, she knows because Larken and Gaelan go over there sometimes when they’re visiting to check their email.

  But Viney knows the librarian in Wymore. If she’d gone there Betty would’ve asked all kinds of personal questions and Viney is just not in the mood to be showered with sympathy or listen to someone kvetch about how terrible it is to be living alone at this time of life and how important it is that you get OUT now and then, TREAT yourself, SOCIALIZE. If she’s going to make the gargantuan effort to get dressed and leave the house in the first place, the last thing she wants to do is waste her time chitchatting with other lonely old women.

  “I’d be happy to help you,” the librarian says, coming out from behind the information desk. “Follow me.” This librarian is no pinched, spin-sterish matron wearing a cardigan and spectacles. She’s a big girl, twentysomething, and she walks like a man. She has greasy hair held in place by numerous rhinestone-covered bobby pins and she wears fish-net stockings and hideous shoes and a name tag that says ADDISON. Young women have such interesting names nowadays.

  “Have a seat,” Addison says when they arrive at an unoccupied study carrel.

  “I’m here to write an email letter. Can I do that?”

  “You bet.” The girl lays her hand on a silver, dinner-roll-sized object on the desk and expertly starts sliding it around. Periodically, it emits a single, light, ticking sound. It puts Viney in mind of the voices of fledglings and fox kits and she finds it oddly soothing. A thin gray cord flows away from it and down through a circular hold in the desk where it joins up with a lot of other cords.

  “This is called a ‘mouse,’” Addison remarks. “Sadly, it’s the only named part of a computer that has any poetry.”

  “Aaaah,” Viney says. A mouse. Clever. She likes this.

  Addison keeps moving the mouse around, causing images on the computer screen to come and go so quickly that Viney barely has time to register what they are. “Okay. Now. Let’s get you set up with a user name so you can write and receive mail online.”