The Hum and the Shiver

by Alex Bledsoe

  Bliss almost laughed. “Doctor, I promise, Bronwyn’s injuries were real. What you see now is the result of rest, good home care, and following doctor’s orders. I’ve watched it happen. If it’s faster than normal, then it just is.”

  The doctor nodded, although he didn’t appear convinced. “I’ll make lots of notes about this, should Ms. Hyatt ever need them to pursue any legal action against the army. Or the Iraqis, for that matter.”

  “Thank you. I’ll make sure she knows.”

  After Bronwyn woke up, drank some water, and was able to answer basic questions, the doctor returned to explain the results of the surgery. “There’s a lot of rehab still to go. Realistically you’re looking at months, maybe years before you can walk fully unaided again. But all in all, it’s close enough to a miracle to have me looking over my shoulder for angels.”

  She looked down at her withered, pale leg. The sutures were fresh, the incisions stained orange by antiseptic and already starting to scab over. Patches of long, soft hair grew between the surgical sites. Her other leg, smooth and muscular, only made this one look even more deformed. She felt something in her chest like a sob struggling to escape.

  Bliss stroked Bronwyn’s hair and asked the doctor, “How soon until we can head back? I know it’s Saturday, but I’d like to miss as much evening traffic as possible.”

  His eyes widened. “Back? Tonight? I really think we should keep her at least overnight, just for observation.” Then he turned to Bronwyn. “Sorry, I don’t mean to talk about you like you’re not here. But you’ve been through a lot, not just today’s surgery, and I’d feel better if we waited.”

  “I’ve been observed enough,” Bronwyn said, her tongue still heavy with the dregs of sedation. “I want to be the audience, not the show. I want to go home.”

  “She’ll be in an ambulance with an EMT,” Bliss said. “And clearly, whatever she’s doing at home is working.”

  The doctor chewed one end of his mustache for a moment. “It’s against my better judgment. But you can’t argue with the results you’ve been getting.” He threw his hands up in a shrug. “Drive safely, ladies. And call me if you need anything.”

  * * *

  The trip home was uneventful; Bronwyn slept most of the way. Bliss hummed all the songs of comfort she knew. When she heard Bronwyn moan once, either in pain or a nightmare, she began to sing a tune originally written as a hymn. For the Tufa, though, its symbolism carried a far different meaning:

  When I can read my title clear

  To mansions in the skies,

  I’ll bid farewell to every fear

  And wipe my weeping eyes.

  I feel like, I feel like

  I’m on my journey home.

  I feel like, I feel like

  I’m on my journey home.…

  It was almost ten o’clock when they passed through Needsville, and twenty minutes later Bliss backed the ambulance up the hill to the Hyatts’ porch. Deacon carried his semiconscious daughter from the stretcher inside to the couch. Bliss undid the cast, exposing the sutures to the air. Bronwyn awoke to find Aiden, hair tousled from sleep, kneeling beside her and staring at her leg.

  Aiden said, “Wow.”

  “Yes, that’s where the pins went in,” Bliss said. “And came out. Your sister’s been through a lot today.”

  “Wow,” he whispered again, and tentatively extended one hand.

  “Touch them,” Bronwyn croaked, “and you’ll draw back a nub. I mean it.”

  “Leave your sister alone,” Deacon said firmly. “Go get her a glass of tea.”

  “Yessir,” Aiden mumbled and shuffled, head down, into the kitchen.

  Bliss turned to Deacon and Chloe. “The doctors were pretty surprised. She’s way ahead of schedule. I told them it was all this clean mountain air.”

  “Good an explanation as any,” Deacon agreed.

  “Thanks for taking care of her,” Chloe said to Bliss. “I’ve been worried all day, and tonight the wind’s been high in the trees.”

  Bliss nodded. “I noticed that. Best you stay close to home for now.”

  Brownyn closed her eyes and listened for the night wind. It lurked outside among the upper branches, waving them against the stars. It was hard to tell over the pain medication if the wind was dancing, or instead flitting from place to place like something stalking its prey below.

  “Not my mom,” Bronwyn whispered.

  “What, honey?” Chloe asked. But Bronwyn was asleep again.

  14

  “Good morning,” Craig Chess said to his congregation.

  All seven people, in a sanctuary that could seat three hundred, replied in unison, “Good morning.”

  He leaned casually on the pulpit. “I don’t think there’s going to be a mad last-minute rush, so why doesn’t everyone come down front?”

  Don Swayback looked at Susie. They rose from the last pew and came down the side aisle, passing through beams of sunlight tinted by the stained glass windows. On the opposite side, a well-dressed family of five left their seat on the next-to-last pew and moved in an orderly line to the front. The two groups took seats at opposite ends of the first pew.

  Craig almost laughed. “Thanks. I don’t have to shout this way, at least. I’d like to thank you for coming to my inaugural service, and I hope you’ll tell your friends and family about it as well.” He opened his hymnal. “I think it’s appropriate to begin both this service and my full-time pastoral career with ‘What a Day That Will Be,’ page one hundred forty-two.”

  He looked back over his shoulder. Mrs. Gaffney, the elderly pianist he’d recruited, began to play.

  Craig’s voice, a well-modulated baritone, was the loudest. His congregation sang softly, none of them risking any public display of enthusiasm. He knew George Landers had sent them from his own church to make sure Craig didn’t face an empty building on his first day. Later, when two hundred-dollar bills showed up in the collection tray, he’d known they originated with George as well. Still, seven people now faced him expectantly, if not exactly enthusiastically, and he owed them a sincere effort.

  “I’d like to read from Psalm 111, verses one through ten.” He concluded with, “‘The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom: a good understanding have all they that do his commandments: his praise endureth forever.’” He closed his Bible and added, “Which, as I’m sure you know from looking at the bulletin, leads into today’s sermon, ‘The Beginning of Wisdom.’”

  It wasn’t a great sermon; he knew it wouldn’t be. But he also knew it was the right sermon for this day. He told them about his own life, his crisis of faith, and his subsequent certainty that he’d been called to the ministry. He tried to be self-deprecating without being irreverent, and was rewarded by one muffled snicker from Susie Swayback. He was establishing, as much to himself as to them, his viability as a spiritual leader, and as he progressed he grew more certain, more comfortable, more right.

  The children fidgeted during his talk, but he held the adults’ attention. When the service ended thirty-five minutes after it began, he moved to the door for the exit meet and greet. He gave each of the three children a silver dollar, telling them they “fell from heaven just that morning.”

  After the family left, he shook Don Swayback’s hand. “We met at the Shoney’s the other day, didn’t we?”

  “That’s right. This is my wife, Susie.”

  “A pleasure to meet you. So, Don, were you ever able to find the road to the Hyatt place?”

  “No, I haven’t been back yet. But I intend to.”

  “If you want, give me a call and maybe I can ride out there with you. I’ve been meaning to go back out there myself, so surely between the two of us we can find it.”

  “We’ll see what my schedule is like,” Don said. “Thanks for the offer.”

  As they walked to their car, Susie said quietly, “You still haven’t done that interview?”

  “Not yet,” he said testily as he held her door.


  She swung her legs into the car and smoothed down her skirt. “I can’t keep working these double shifts, you know. You have to keep your job.”

  When Don had closed his own door and buckled his seat belt, he said, “I know that, Susie. I really couldn’t find the road, it wasn’t an excuse.”

  “Is it because of that state trooper everyone’s terrified of?”

  “Do you want to have to bail me out of jail?”

  She looked evenly at him. “If you’re in jail for standing up for yourself and what’s right, yes.”

  He felt a mixture of shame and pride. “Well, it’s a big county. I probably won’t ever see him again.” Then he turned on the ignition and slapped the old mix tape into the player before Susie could say anything else. They pulled out to the strains of “A Country Boy Can Survive.”

  * * *

  Craig watched the two vehicles depart. He heard Mrs. Gaffney closing up the piano behind him. He knew he should’ve been disappointed, but somehow he felt elated. He could do this. That last nagging bit of doubt in the back of his mind was now gone. This was his calling, and even if he only momentarily reached one out of the four adults, then it had been worth it.

  He looked up at the clear blue sky and said a heartfelt, “Thank you.”

  * * *

  “So,” Terry-Joe asked seriously, “what do you remember?”

  The morning sun twinkled through the trees as a breeze rippled the branches. A mourning dove plaintively announced itself. “Terry-Joe, I’m still a little fuzzy from yesterday,” Bronwyn said. “I did have surgery, you know. And we agreed to start tomorrow.”

  They sat on the Hyatts’ porch. Terry-Joe’s own mandolin rested across his knees. Brownyn’s leg was propped up and exposed to the air, per the doctor’s instructions; with the antiseptic stains and fresh scabs around the puffy, bruised incisions, it looked especially grotesque. She used the Sunday paper’s Parade magazine to shoo flies drawn to the shiny Neosporin.

  Terry-Joe made no mention of it. Instead he said, “I’m just trying to find out where you’re head’s at, so I know where to begin.”

  “Okay.” Bronwyn pointed at the instrument. “That’s a mandolin. How’s that for a start?”

  He smiled. “Sure it’s not a tater bug?”

  “Not with a flat back.”

  He held it by the neck. “Remember how to hold it?”

  She took the instrument and placed it under her right arm. He offered a small white pick. After turning the flat plastic in her fingers a few times she said, “It’s lighter than I’m used to.”

  Then she frowned. There was no conscious memory associated with that, but the pick did feel wrong in her fingers.

  He traded her a green one. “Try this.”

  She touched the pick to the strings, but before she strummed, she said, “The action doesn’t look right.”

  He scooted closer so he could see what she meant. “Show me.”

  “Give me a nickel.”

  He fished one from his pocket.

  “It’s too high. Look.” She slid the nickel under the twelfth fret. It lay flat against the neck, not touching the strings.

  He looked at her and smiled. “I think it’s coming back to you.”

  She realized he’d set the action high to see if she’d notice. It would make the instrument louder, but the fingering would be much harder. “That’s sneaky,” she said, but couldn’t repress a smile. “Have you got a screwdriver to adjust it?”

  He twirled one in his fingers. “Always.”

  After the action was reset, she plucked the two bottom strings and winced at the sound. “That’s not a G,” she said.

  “No, that’s a bug screamin’ right before it hits the windshield. You want me to tune it, or you want to try?”

  Despite the morning breeze, she was already sweating from the intensity. This had been second nature to her before she left home. The Bronwynator could retune a mandolin, make out with a boy, and sneak tokes off a joint without short-changing any of the tasks at hand. Now, though, she couldn’t quite recall how to tune the instrument, despite her best efforts. God, she thought, I hope I remember how to do those other things.

  Before she had to admit it, though, Terry-Joe reached around so that his left hand covered hers on the neck. This brought her close against him. “Here’s how you do it when you ain’t got a tuning pipe or a guitar handy,” he said, and guided her fingers to the pegs. “Keep plucking the fourth string for me.”

  She did. As he slowly adjusted the peg, the discordant sound of the two parallel strings merged into one clear note. “That’s it,” he said softly.

  She turned to him, and suddenly, like in the movies, their faces were millimeters apart, close enough to feel the other’s breath on their lips. They gazed into each other’s eyes, and all she could hear was her own blood pulsing.

  After a moment he blinked, smiled, and said, “Now you do the next one. Remember how?”

  It took real effort for her to turn away. “I think … you hold down the fourth and get the third to sound just like that, right? That gives you the D.”

  “Yeah,” he said. Her black hair brushed his cheek. “Tune the whole thing. That’ll be lesson enough for one day.”

  He went to the edge of the porch and looked out over the yard, his back to her so she wouldn’t feel nervous under his gaze. Bronwyn did as he instructed, adjusting the deliberately discordant strings into the correct tones. As she worked, her memory gave up little flashes of experience so that she gradually recalled the proper tuning.

  Movement drew Terry-Joe’s attention to the tree line at the edge of the yard. A greenish brown bird six feet tall, with long spindly legs and an erect neck, emerged tentatively into the open. It looked around, then darted its long neck down to test the grass. Two more emus peered out from the bushes, waiting for their scout to signal the okay.

  Bronwyn saw it, too. She put the mandolin aside and raised herself with her arms to get a better look. “What the hell—?”

  Terry-Joe waved his arms and shouted, “Hey! Get on outta here! Now!”

  The lead emu shivered, its feathers rippling, then turned and dashed back into the woods. All three vanished.

  Bronwyn said, “Was that an ostrich?”

  “Naw, one of Sim Denham’s emus.”

  “Does he know they’re loose?”

  “Know it? He let ’em loose. He had to file bankruptcy because of those stupid things, and when he couldn’t find a buyer, he just opened the pen and off they went. There’s probably a dozen of ’em in the valley, and if they survive the winter, they’ll start breeding.”

  “When did that happen?”

  “Back around the first of March, I suppose.”

  Just before the mission that made her a celebrity, she calculated. “Wow. That’s weird, even for here.”

  “Yeah. Most likely they’ll freeze to death, though.” He turned to face her. “So, back to work. How are you doing?”

  She ran the pick across the strings. The sound shimmered in the morning air.

  “Nice,” he said.

  “Thanks.”

  “So what sort of music did you listen to over in Iraq?”

  “Whatever everyone else was listening to. Hip-hop or country, pretty much. Not a lot of middle ground.”

  “Anything good?”

  She shook her head. “It all sounds the same after a while. And it’s all…” She sought the right word. “Mean.”

  He nodded. “I know. Gave up on the radio myself. Been listening to stuff from England lately, pipers and such. Ever heard smallpipes? Like a bagpipe, ’scept not as nails-on-a-chalkboard sounding.” He looked at his watch. “Okay, your homework: Get Aiden, if he ever wakes up, to knock Magda well and truly out of tune, then you retune her. Right now I have to get down to Jack Tenney’s to help him unload some seeds, but we’ll check your work tomorrow.” He met her eyes in a way that said more than any words. “It’s been a pleasure working with you, Ms. Hyatt.”
r />   “Thank you, Mr. Gitterman,” she said, knowing exactly what the look meant and more, how much courage it took for him to risk it. She’d been his brother’s girlfriend, after all. It made her feel good in a totally new way. He walked down the hill to his dirt bike, the mandolin case in his hand. His wide, straight shoulders and narrow waist lent an echo of Dwayne’s swagger to his stride.

  Terry-Joe’s bike passed another vehicle that pulled into the driveway and stopped. Craig Chess parked in the sun, willing to brave the hot interior rather than deal with the sticky residue dripping from the pecan tree. He waved to Bronwyn as he approached. “Good morning. Hope you don’t mind me stopping by.”

  Bronwyn managed to keep her voice steady as Craig strode toward her. Terry-Joe was a good-looking boy, but Craig was a man, and the awkward feeling in her belly returned. “Not to tell a man his job, but shouldn’t you be in your pulpit?”

  “Already done. The turnout was pretty light. Makes the service go quickly.” He sat on the porch steps at her feet. When he looked up at her, the sunlight edged her in a halo. It was a bit disconcerting. “You look like you feel better.”

  “I do. Getting the Eiffel Tower off my leg helped.”

  “I bet.” He nodded at the mandolin. “Do you play?”

  “I’m learning,” she said truthfully.

  “I read somewhere that music’s good therapy for head trauma. And, in my experience, for making life a little better in general.”

  “Do you play?”

  “I tinker. Piano, organ, some guitar. Never tried a mandolin, though.”

  Chloe emerged from the house, barefoot and wearing a comfortable summer dress. Her black hair hung loose. Craig immediately stood. “Mrs. Hyatt,” he said.