Twang

by Julie L. Cannon

  “Feeling mad.”

  “I hear the Hair Chair calling our names big time.”

  I shook my head, but smiled at Tonilynn, thankful for her attempt to lighten the mood. Behind her, out the window, I noticed it was raining hard.

  “ ’Bout time to build an ark, hm?” Tonilynn pressed another piece into place. “Speaking of the ark, Old Noah was a man of great faith.”

  One thing I did not need was a conversation about faith. We sat quietly for a while, Tonilynn sorting puzzle pieces by color and me waiting for the right moment to ask her to drive me back to Harmony Hill. Riverfront Park opened daily at six, and I’d never been that early, but something in me thrilled to think about visiting the Cumberland in darkness. Surely the rain would let up shortly. Thinking about Riverfront Park led to thoughts about the upcoming CMA Festival. My chest tightened at the thought of singing, though I reminded myself that having the river beside me would help me get through it, and that I’d quit the music scene totally after my festival performances were done.

  “People of faith can change this world.” Tonilynn reached for her Diet Coke. “Jesus said faith is strong enough to move mountains.” Her eyebrows were raised up high over eyes soft with concern. “Faith can change the way we see our world now, Jennifer. Also the way we look at things tomorrow, and also, maybe most important for you, the way the past has shaped us.”

  I frowned.

  She paused to sneeze, and for a moment I relaxed, thinking she was going to hush about it. But in the next breath, she asked, “You hear what I’m saying? Praying, mixed with faith, is a mighty force.”

  Tonilynn was getting a little too close for comfort, and I stood up to go back to my room. She grabbed my hand. “Doesn’t it feel good to have gotten that memory out, hon? That there’s no more hiding from the past? No more running from the pain? Now it’s time to go to the One who can totally set you free. Who’ll help you forgive your father.”

  I wouldn’t even try to play along. Nothing, no one was powerful enough to help me forgive that man! Like she could read my mind, Tonilynn said, “Jennifer, to forgive him doesn’t mean you’re excusing what he did, or saying it didn’t matter. Because it did! He victimized you, and your anger is understandable! I promise you, God’s mad about it too. Your forgiving your father won’t exempt him from the just judgment of God, doesn’t mean he won’t be held accountable for what he did to you.

  “But if you keep living with such bitterness, you’re chaining yourself to your father and the hurt! I know some people who are so obsessed with revenge that their whole life revolves around it. They’re captive!

  “Forgiveness is so liberating. Remember when we were talking earlier and I said that when you fantasize evil toward your father, you’re giving the enemy ground? Satan loves that! On the other hand, Satan trembles when we pray. So, please, hon, listen to Tonilynn—pray and ask God to help you get rid of the hate and the bitterness. If you don’t, it’ll destroy you!”

  I focused on the rain pelting the window.

  “Jennifer, look at me. If you really wanted to get even, you could do it easy enough. You could run his name through the mud. Everyone would hear what Jenny Cloud had to say! But would that erase what happened? What purpose would it serve? Knowing you, you’d probably feel even worse. You’ve got to think of forgiveness as a powerful weapon.”

  Tonilynn reached for my hands, held them in hers, running her thumbs over the calluses on my fingers from years of playing guitar. A little thought snuck in. What if my heart had become calloused too? But just as quick I cast it out. It wasn’t that I didn’t think what Tonilynn had, her faith, was real. I believed that, for her, it was a very powerful solution, a healing to her wounded past. But I knew for me, someone whose innocence had been stolen, my anger was my soul’s way to reassert its worth. I had a lot invested in my bitterness. Without my fury, who would I be? a doormat like my mother? some weird, wacko religious nut? I didn’t see the benefit of all this self-denial, this “letting God redeem your past and use it for the glory of his kingdom.”

  A wave of mental exhaustion hit me, and I almost said, “Okay, I forgive him, now will you drive me back to Harmony Hill?” But Tonilynn would know it was a lie. I picked up a corner piece of puzzle and turned it this way and that, pretending to consider where it fit. “Please drive me back to Harmony Hill?”

  “Oh, Jennifer.” Tonilynn took the piece from me and fit it in its place precisely. “It’s not an experience that will bring us down or shatter us. It’s our response to that experience. You know who Fanny Crosby is?”

  Reluctantly, I nodded.

  “When she was six weeks old, the doctor seeing to her didn’t do right, he fouled up certain procedures, which caused her to be blind! Being blind was no picnic, but Fanny didn’t get bitter and all eaten up with mad. She forgave that doctor, and she wrote more than eight thousand hymns! She used her adversity.”

  “What happened to her is totally different, Tonilynn.”

  “Not really. You and Fanny were both given a gift—the gift of music. Gifts are easy—they’re given, after all. But forgiveness is a choice, a choice that can be very difficult. And she forgave, Jennifer.

  “See? You can fill your heart with revenge or release, hate or hope, fear or faith. Bad stuff can have eternal value if you view it from God’s perspective. The things that hurt you can have a purpose. He’ll use them for your good, make you stronger, and you can use them to minister to others.

  “Hey, I know!” Tonilynn slapped the table and the puzzle jumped. “Jennifer, you need to write a song about this topless dancing incident!”

  “What?!” I felt like running outside in the pouring rain. “That’d be the worst thing to do! Believe me, I know!”

  “Jennifer, Jennifer. First, forgive your father, and then you can use the energy of your anger in a positive way. I’m convinced your own healing is through your music. It’ll be cathartic to write a song about it. You know how powerful music is. Think of the words on that poster at Flint Recording! ‘Music can transport, transcend, and transform.’ ”

  I didn’t answer.

  “Your song can be somebody’s therapy.” Tonilynn was standing now. “There’s a lot of hurting, vulnerable people out there. What if you knew there was some young girl experiencing the same kind of thing you did, but she’s afraid to speak up? You could speak up for girls who have no voice, or don’t know how to use it. You could help some young girl find her own strength. Wouldn’t that be reason enough to brave the heartbreak?”

  Tonilynn hit a nerve. I recalled the heart-stopping terror of opening my mouth about what my father had done—to anybody except my mother that one time. I was scared people would be disgusted with me, or judge me if they knew what had happened. Afraid they’d think I’d somehow invited it. It really was some heavy baggage to lug around. Guilt and shame are powerful emotions, even if they’re unwarranted. But did they excuse me from caring about all the young girls out there being abused, victimized by men in their families? Girls who were scared to speak up?

  Wasn’t that just like Tonilynn to pack my bags for a big guilt trip! Saying a star like me could speak out and do wonders! I turned away from her, mad. There was only so much one singer could do. In a way I was outraged that Tonilynn wanted me to throw myself on the altar! Into my mind’s eye came Roy Durden, saying, If you need that kind of stuff, a crutch to lean on. Did I not realize on the day I first sat in the proverbial Hair Chair that Tonilynn was simple? That Tonilynn wasn’t dealing with reality?

  I was ready to lash out at her, though that very next instant I also felt an enormous compassion expanding inside me. I remembered how Tonilynn had drawn me under her wing from the start, showering me with her friendship, restoring my dignity when it came to Holt Cantrell. She’d made me laugh with her Aunt Gomer stories, accepted me into her family, held me in her arms, and cried right along with me, saying, “I know it hurts, hon.” All this shot through me like a current, shorting out my superior air
s. If I had anything good, any friend on this earth, it was Tonilynn. She knew the entire me, and she loved me. And here I was acting like an ungrateful snot! A snob.

  The rain came down in sheets, and I swallowed my argumentative words. Later, there would be a time to tell her just the way it was going to be. First I needed to get myself to the Cumberland and organize my thoughts. I reached across the table, took Tonilynn’s hand in mine, and said, “Let’s get this puzzle finished.”

  Tonilynn shook me. “Huh?” I said, in a fog of confusion.

  “Wake up, hon. I need to tell you something.”

  The serious note in Tonilynn’s voice made pin pricks on my skin. I opened my eyes. I was in the guest room at Cagle Mountain. The room was murky, and I heard the steady drum of rain on the tin roof. Tonilynn looked bad: deep circles of exhaustion beneath eyes wide with fear. I was scared to ask what, but I didn’t have to.

  “Aunt Gomer’s had another stroke. She can’t move a muscle, can’t say a word. I called and an ambulance is coming to fetch her. Bobby Lee’s going to ride with me to the hospital. Help yourself to anything in the kitchen. I’ll call you.”

  I heard her talking to Bobby Lee in the hall, her voice panicky, a far cry from the sure and sassy Tonilynn I was used to. When they were gone, I lay still. The clock said it was a little past two p.m.

  Perhaps it was from sleeping odd hours in an unfamiliar place, the shock of being wakened with bad news, or fear of what might happen to Aunt Gomer, but I was feeling unreal. It was all too much on this first day of May, after everything I’d been through. Plus, my feelings were hurt at the way Tonilynn had rushed around without even inviting me to go with them to the hospital. Did she truly think I was family?

  I knew my imagination was going wild, and I got mad at myself because I also knew in my gut that this was not about me. It was only concern for Aunt Gomer that was in Tonilynn’s mind now. And the idea of what Aunt Gomer was going through was horrific. What if she had to go in an old folks’ home? What if she died? Feeling panicky, I wrapped myself up tight in the quilt and concentrated on the drumming rain. When I heard Erastus’s muffled sigh as he poked his head into my room, I was overjoyed. “C’mere, sweetie!” I called, hugging his ribs when he sidled up next to the bed. When he decided to head out, I swung my bare feet to the pine floor and followed him to the kitchen.

  The Eiffel Tower in springtime covered half the table. I got one of Bobby Lee’s Pepsis out of the refrigerator and turned to Erastus. “You need some water?” I filled his bowl at the kitchen sink and slumped down in a chair at the table. After lots of lapping, Erastus plopped down at my feet. A quarter ’til four and the afternoon sky was so overcast it seemed like night.

  “How about let’s see what’s on television,” I said after a good quarter hour of watching my cell phone.

  “. . . record-breaking torrential downpours are causing flooding in parts of Nashville . . . thus far, the southeast side of town has been hit the worst . . . many streams and creeks, normally slow trickles are now raging torrents, and there are reports of trucks submerged on the highway, residents chased from their homes by rapidly rising waters . . .” The weatherman’s face had a look of seriousness like it was carved from granite as flood advisory warnings scrolled across the bottom of the television screen in bold letters.

  I stood stock-still, my head spinning and my heart pounding as the cameras panned the dark brown waters of many swollen creeks and tiny streams now turned to raging torrents. There was the Cumberland, big drops of rain hitting the surface hard enough to splash up and bounce before they melded in with the rest of their kind. Overhead the clouds gathered and roiled, like froth on cappuccino, so thick you couldn’t even see the city skyline.

  I couldn’t watch anymore. I turned the television off and dialed Tonilynn’s cell phone. No answer. I stepped over to the window at the kitchen sink and looked at my reflection in the window glass. Could things get any worse? It made me feel dizzy, like I needed something to grab hold of and hang onto for dear life. Erastus pressed his nose to my hand and I sat down on the floor and hugged him. For a while, we stayed like that, staring wide-eyed at nothing.

  A half hour later, there was still no word from Tonilynn. I stepped outside and Erastus watched me from the porch. Rain hit my hair and trickled down to my scalp, ran down my forehead, my neck, and soaked my chest. Hard drops hit the dirt yard, making a giant puddle, flattening Aunt Gomer’s irises. I kept seeing the Cumberland in my mind’s eye, the television images of those people evacuating their homes.

  It was around five o’clock when I went back in, dried myself on a kitchen towel, and hesitantly turned the television back on. It seemed the water had stopped rising. I wept in relief and released a breath I hadn’t known I was holding. “Oh, thank God! I cried out, and in the next instant wondered where in the world that had come from. I sure wasn’t in the habit of communicating with him.

  “Well, buddy,” I said to Erastus, “looks like we can breathe easier now. About the flood anyway.”

  I dug around in the refrigerator and made a bologna and mustard sandwich on white bread, then poured some dog chow into Erastus’s bowl, and we ate supper together. At last, a little after seven, my phone rang.

  “Aunt Gomer’s suffered a major stroke,” Tonilynn said wearily. “She’s in ICU.”

  I swallowed. “She’s a tough old bird. I’m sure she’ll be fine.”

  The line was quiet for a moment, then Tonilynn said, “Doctor says to prepare for the worst.”

  Seized by fear, I stammered, “She made it through the last one.”

  “She still can’t move a muscle, can’t utter a word. I can just tell she’s not in there.”

  “What do you mean she’s not in there?” I clutched my phone.

  “She’s gone on to wherever saints go when the spirit leaves the body.”

  I didn’t know what to say. “Well . . . you never know. Miracles happen. Hey, did you hear about the flooding?”

  “Some.”

  “Well, thank goodness that’s over. Looks like dear Nashville’s safe now.”

  It seemed Tonilynn was too distracted to pay attention to what I’d said. “We’re staying here at the hospital tonight.”

  My heart sank.

  “Would you mind staying there to keep an eye on the place? Look after Erastus?”

  “Sure. You can count on me. Will you be home tomorrow?”

  “Guess I better get back to Aunt Gomer. I don’t want her to . . .” Tonilynn’s voice faded and the line went dead.

  I sat down at the table, resting my head in the crook of my arm for a long time, thinking about how disposable, perishable, temporary, the human body is. What struck me hard was how much I’d miss Aunt Gomer if she died. I had some things I really wanted to tell her, like how beautiful her flowers were and how seeing the sunrise with her had been priceless. Things on Cagle Mountain would sure be different without her around.

  I didn’t want to be alone, and I didn’t know if Erastus was allowed in the featherbed, so close to nine, I made a pallet on the floor of the front room from an old army-green sleeping bag I found in the coat closet. I lay down and invited Erastus to join me. “Lie down, boy,” I told him. “Let’s go to sleep.” But I stayed awake for a long time, waiting for what I did not know.

  I awakened around six the next morning to a loud clap of thunder. Erastus buried his head underneath the sleeping bag and his hindquarters trembled. “It’s okay, buddy,” I crooned, and lay for a while on my pallet, wondering what was going on with Aunt Gomer and how early was too early to call Tonilynn. Then I started thinking about getting back to Nashville, to Riverfront Park for my missed time at the river. Whenever I missed a visit—and that was rare—it felt like an important piece of me was missing, and I was not myself. I was lost somehow.

  Finally, I let Erastus outside, went to the bathroom to cup my hands and splash water on my face and made my way back to the kitchen. As I was scooping coffee into the percolator
and pouring food into Erastus’s bowl, he came barking at the back door. When I opened the door to let him in, his fur was slick from the drizzle, and the land beyond him stretched out dreary and wet.

  I can’t say I was surprised when I turned on the television to see more warnings about flooding in Nashville. The rains continued. Roads were submerged and houses were surrounded by water where people were climbing out of windows into boats. The sight of a house trailer tipped on its side as it floated by made me draw in a breath and hold my hand to my mouth. The deluge was incredible! It seemed almost like a movie: concerned officials warning, citizens stunned and stuttering, their hands slicing the air as they described what was happening. The camera panned to a woman sitting in a rescue boat. Her voice was shaky, her red hair falling crazily into her distraught face. “It’s all I have,” she said, nodding toward the floating mobile home. “We never dreamed . . .”

  Moved to tears, I pulled my eyes away, and just as I did there came a long rumble of thunder laughing at me. “It’ll be okay, boy,” I sang to Erastus as he quivered beneath the kitchen table.

  That entire May weekend record-breaking amounts of rain fell in Music City. If I turned on the television, there were muddy rescue people, reports of power outages, gloomy skies, and gloomy forecasts. Erastus and I paced the farmhouse, listening for word from Tonilynn. Through lunch it rained, and all that early afternoon, steady, soaking, and surreal.

  At three my phone rang, and I hit the Talk button while looking out the window at trees slumped dark and dreary in the downpour.

  “She’s gone, Jennifer.”

  I held the phone, Tonilynn’s words like a punch in my stomach.

  “Jennifer?”

  “What? What do you mean?”

  “Aunt Gomer crossed the Jordan at 12:14 p.m. She’s with Jesus now.”

  “No!” Tears bloomed in my eyes.

  “Yes, and I’m glad,” Tonilynn said in a faltering voice that belied her words. “Aunt Gomer didn’t want to suffer the indignity of growing feeble and losing her faculties. Anyhow, I wanted to warn you that when the news hits the church’s grapevine, there’ll be ladies by the dozens bringing food to the house. If I’m not back yet, could you please let them in and keep up with who brought what?”