All the Dancing Birds (22 page)

Light floods my eyes.

“Ma’am!” My woman’s hands fold around my shoulders. “Oh. Oh, ma’am.”

She helps me stand and then holds me by my waist, leading me into the cool of the house where she lays me gently on the couch. She runs to make dampened cool cloths, which she pats on my forehead and cups behind my neck, all the time cooing over me.
Oh, ma’am. Oh, ma’am.

Her hands are like velvet; I love them more than I love anything.

After a time, when I feel less blunted by the heat, I push away the wet cloths.

“Help me up,” I say.

“Maybe you should rest a bit more. You’ve had quite a day of it.” Jewell makes her hands into a fan that she waves in front of my face.

“I’m fine… still a bit queasy, but… stop. I’m fine. If you want to be useful, you can stop fluttering your hands around like this.”

“Of course, ma’am.” She takes one of the damp rags and waves it through the air, making me blink with each pass.

“Please, stop. Here. Go get my… my‌—‌”

“Your what, ma’am?”

“You know. My
thing
. In the closet… my… you know, that thing with the paper inside. You know.”

“In the closet? Oh! Your letterbox.”

“Yes. I always feel better when I read my letters. Go get my letterbox.”

When Jewell returns, I let her select a letter. I hope for something new, but, truth be told, everything is new to me now. Everything is a new delight. Everything is a fresh wound.

“Here, this one’s on pretty paper,” Jewell says. “Let’s read this one.”

As always, after the selecting, there is the unfolding, the passing of eyes across paper, and then the quiet mystery that settles across the shoulders like a warm robe on a wintry day.

This time, though, instead of the quiet dim of the closet, the reading happens in the living room with sunlight streaming through the windows like shimmering flags.

Jewell settles the paper in her hands and begins to read. Her voice is deep and sultry, as if she is singing my letter. I close my eyes to listen.

My delightful children,

There’s hardly anything you don’t know by now. Still, there are two things we haven’t talked about. The first is how I want my funeral. The second is about the majesty of a sonnet.

Since the first of my chosen subjects might cause you to be sad, let’s talk about sonnets and how, when one studies such a thoughtful work, each reading can whisper a different truth. You should know that sonnets can tip your heart and change your soul.

If only I had gathered you up, one on each side and taught you that simple thing, life might well have been different for you. If you had known the wonder of a sonnet’s message all neatly wrapped within its fourteen lines, each line ten syllables long; if I had shown you the surprise of each rhyming pattern; if we had thrown our arms about one another as we read the final (and always astonishing) couplet, perhaps your lives would have been greater.

Sadly, I left you to your sidewalk chalk and jump rope rhymes. Of course, that wasn’t all bad. Allison, I can still hear your happy voice singing out‌—‌
I
like coffee, I like tea, I like the boys and the boys like me
‌—‌your freckled nose and pink shoulders flashing in the sun, your feet skipping across the concrete drive. I should have recorded your little voice, but of course I didn’t.

And Bryan‌—‌how I wish I had taken pictures of your sidewalk drawings. Your young fingers were so brilliant; I should have captured everything they did. Of course, there are no snapshots of your drawings, only memories of how I washed your creations away with the garden hose, sometimes grumbling for the extra work you gave me.

How awful of me! Yet, worse than anything ever deprived of you, I never gave you poetry.

If I had done that one little thing, maybe when your father died and left us scattered to our own desperate ways, we could have at least found the echo of his heartbeat inside the tempo of some lonely sonnet. Maybe we could have sat, one of you to each side of me, and found the instructions of life that hide within the elegance of a poem. Perhaps we would have discovered the comfort of words that match the heartbeat and strengthen the bones.

Please, at least now, sit with a sonnet or two and let its words speak to you. I promise you’ll find beauty you’ve never known before. Let that be our gift to each other, now that I’m gone.

I had intended to also discuss my wishes for a lovely funeral, but I’ll save that for a different, more instructive letter on that subject. All this talk of poetry makes me want to think of nothing else for the moment. Certainly, no sadness.

And certainly, not now.

With all love,

Mother

“What a beautiful letter, ma’am,” Jewell says. “Your children will surely love your writings.” She refolds the letter and replaces it in the box. “Oh my, it’s almost past your naptime.”

My woman takes my arm and helps me to my feet. When we reach the bedroom, I shake loose from her. I shuffle forward and backward, my arms stretched outward, fingers splayed apart, my lips pushed forward, my mouth opening and closing like a small beak.

Jewell takes hold of my arm again. “Are you all right?”

“Of course I’m all right. I’m practicing because the birds have invited me to join their dance tomorrow. I want to be ready.”

My woman smiles. “Oh, of course. I’m sure you’ll be their star dancer in no time.”

“I’m sure to work my way up the ranks.” I smile broadly. “But,
please
remember to fix better biscuits. They were very upset with you, you know.”

“Yes, ma’am. I’ll be sure to remember. Now into bed with you. We’re having a lovely dinner tonight and I’ll make a nice tomato and cucumber salad, fresh from the garden. I’m afraid your little peppers didn’t make it, but dinner will still be good. Bryan and Allison are coming and you’ll need your beauty rest so you can enjoy it.”

Chapter Twenty-Six

M
ost of my words now live in cavernous spaces deep in my brain where it’s neither light nor dark, neither good nor bad. I can only think it’s where the sweet art of existence lives, resplendent with color and sound and lovely, lovely songs. Sadly, though, it’s also a place where words enter but never leave. Still, it’s also where I seem to spend more and more time each day. Thoughts enter like a piano concerto, lively and in full sustained legato, only to return in diminuendo, a single wavering note in the room. I’m now not much more than a wordless, simple tone, wishing desperately for the return of the bright harmony of language.

The evening brings a cooling delta breeze, which pushes against the backs of my children until they’re propelled into my living room, windblown and flustered. They fuss over me with blustery hands and rushing words.

Allison arrives first, fluttering to my chair like a leaf swirling in the wind. She leans down to kiss my cheek and runs her fingers over me, arranging my hair and smoothing my face. I think her hands smell of coconut, but my nose is unreliable now and I’m not certain what scents are what these days.

“You look beautiful tonight, Mom,” Allison says.

“Thank you, dear.”

“I was thinking you might like to get out of the house and go to lunch with me tomorrow. Would you like that?” Allison’s voice is filled with beautiful round textures and endless possibility. “Maybe Jewell might like to go with us too.”

“When?” I ask.

“Tomorrow. For lunch.”

“Tomorrow? Oh, dear no. I’ll be in a dance recital tomorrow.”

“What are you talking about?” Allison calls toward the kitchen where my woman is preparing dinner. “Jewell, what is Mother talking about? A dance recital?”

“With the patio birds,” I say. “I’m going to dance… I’m in their troupe now.”

Allison stops fussing with my hair. She turns and prances to the couch. “Well, that’s just silly,” she says.

“I see you’ve forgotten your manners,” I say.

“I see you’ve forgotten reality,” Allison says, a frown on her face.

“Well, I
was
going to invite you to the dance, but not now. You’re very rude, and birds simply don’t
like
rude girls.”

“Mother!”

Bryan arrives, wisps of hair tousled by the evening breeze, a supermarket bouquet dangling from his hand. He kisses the top of my head.

“Love you, Mom,” he says.

“Love you more.”

“You’re looking good. Jewell says you had a hard morning.”

“I did?” I’m instantly confused. “She didn’t tell me I had a hard… a hard‌—‌”

“Never mind. You look like you’re just fine now. I brought you some flowers. Pink ones… carnations and little purple things with green flaky stuff. I don’t know what it’s all called.”

“They’re lovely. I’ll have my woman put them in a… in a… you know, that thing that sits on a… on a‌—‌”

“A vase? A table?”

“Yes. Yes. I’m so glad you know these things.”

Bryan turns and sees his sister. “Hey,” he says.

Allison sits glumly on the edge of the couch. She barely waves at her brother.

“Aren’t we all sweetness and light this evening. New shoes pinching your toenail polish?”

“I’m upset because Mom’s really, really out of it today. She’s talking about being in a dance thing tomorrow.”

“A dance recital, dear,” I offer. “With my friends… the birds.”

“See what I mean? She’s just off.”

Bryan pinches his eyes together. “Nice talk,” he says leaning in like a lawyer as if she’s a hostile witness.

“Well, it’s
true
.” Allison’s eyes pull tightly at their corners like a drawstring purse.

My woman comes out from the kitchen. “Dinner’s almost ready. Bryan, will you do the honors and open the wine for you and your sister? Ma’am and I have some special Martinelli’s tonight.”

Bryan seems relieved to be distracted by something other than his sister’s pinched eyes and distasteful manner. Allison goes with her brother into the kitchen. “We need to talk,” she says, following on Bryan’s heels. I lose the sound of their voices as they round the corner into the kitchen.

I wonder if I ought to join the conversation, but the thought passes. Instead, I busy my mind with anticipation for my dance debut. I decide to ask Jewell if she’ll have time to sew a costume for me. I bemuse myself with thoughts of costume drape and design and how I shall look when I’m dressed as a bird.

I shall be a masterpiece of feathery beauty.

I practice holding my lips into the shape of a beak while the table is set and steaming dishes are carried from the kitchen.

The bustle and noise of dinner preparations crumble the infrastructure of my imaginings; I’m suddenly disoriented. I stop rehearsing how to work my mouth. I’ve forgotten where to place my hands, my thoughts, what few words I have left to me. John Milton the Cat rubs against my leg and I feel somewhat soothed. I’m happy for his soft company.

After dinner is placed on the table, my woman comes to escort me to my seat. I’m comforted by the simple act of walking to the dining table, my children seated and waiting, a candle flickering, serving platters and bowls filled with steaming food. Bryan and Allison seem to have finally made peaceful eyes at one another.

My children sit across from me, their faces milky and sweet. My woman sits next to me; she minces my food into small bites and helps me understand the confusion of my cutlery. I don’t remember if I’m supposed to use my right hand or my left. All around me, happy conversation swirls across the table. I’m unable to keep up with the swiftness of thought, the rapid exchange of words.

I think and think and think until it seems I’ve broken my mind and broken my heart and nothing is left except the thought that I’m so very, very broken everywhere. I hear words now only in abbreviated and nearly impressionistic forms. It’s like looking at a canvas, each color vibrant and significant, but for the life of me, I can’t put the colors together to form the whole of the painting. I understand some things and‌—‌for the rest that is beyond my grasp‌—‌I simply let them hang like not-quite-ripe fruit to be picked some later time.

While I wait to catch hold of a kernel of something, I wrestle with my fork and blink at the food on my plate. I look at my children, wishing to notice something better than Allison’s tomato-red blouse and Bryan’s mouth, busy with food. I want to join myself to them, laughing and clinking glasses over the dinner table. Instead, I’m stuck (as always) trying to figure out the tines of a fork and language that, more often than not, befuddles and eludes me. I’m like a child interested in the perplexing conversations of adults.

Allison digs through her bag for a tissue and takes the opportunity to show off her new purse. “Isn’t it darling?” she says. “It’s Van Gogh’s
Starry Night
. On my purse.”

A memory whirls through me like the midnight blue sky and wild yellow stars swirling across Allison’s purse.

“
Starry Night
,” I say, clapping my hands. Suddenly, I have words. Sentences begin to pour from my lips.

“I love
Starry Night
. I always thought it looked just like the night I brought your father home to meet your MeeMaw and PaaPaw for the first time. What a night that was.”

“You remember that?” Bryan asks.

“Of course, dear. It was just before the end of second semester. May third, three years before we married. Your father got all decked out in his best clothes. He was so nervous, the poor guy. You could have fed him lightning bugs for dinner and he would’ve swallowed them whole if he thought it would make a good impression. It was a beautiful spring night, frogs singing for joy that it was chicken on the table and not their big, thick legs. Your father’s hands were so sweaty; my goodness, he had to wipe them on his pant legs before he could shake hands with your PaaPaw. By the time we finished dinner and headed for the porch, your father must have lost more pounds worth of worry than he gained while politely eating every bite of your MeeMaw’s enormous chicken dinner.