All the Dancing Birds (23 page)

“But when your PaaPaw brought out his banjo, Lord, didn’t your father run to the car to grab his guitar… a smile finally on his face. You remember how well your father played guitar, don’t you? Let me tell you, there’s nothing better than a porch night on a warm Carolina evening, with a banjo, a guitar and a couple of well-fed men picking out
Poor Ellen Smith
.

“Your MeeMaw and I sat on the swing, our toes tapping with the music, smiles of satisfaction on our faces. And all around us were stars… stars just like those on your purse, Allison. It was a starry night, all right, smiling down on us… and all was well. Your father was the first boy I’d ever brought home to meet your MeeMaw and PaaPaw. And the last boy, come to think of it. I suppose it was the stars that made everything right. Of course, your father’s handsome smile helped some, too.”

I look back at my plate and resume poking at my food. I seem to have used a month’s quotient of words and I’m once more silent as a ghost at the table.

“That was a lovely story, ma’am,” my woman says. “Really lovely and told with such an authentic accent. I’ve never heard you speak so… well, so Southern.”

YOUR EYES. Your eyes drift up from the table in time to see a secret look pass between your children. You’ve seen that look before, that startled exchange. It’s a swift widening of the eyes, the jaw lowering only enough to elongate the face without causing the lips to part, a slight rise of the eyebrows. It causes your heart to sag. You can’t blame them for their silent mockery, but you’d so much rather have your children look at you with favor for your wisdom rather than with rolling eyes and near laughter simply because your brain is sticky and there’s nothing you can do about it. You’re aware of the inventory of your losses that add up daily. You know. You know. Before your eyes fall sadly back to your plate and the difficult task of working the fork in your hand, you do what every mother would do‌—‌you bless your children with every ounce of forgiveness that is left within your fragile, falling-down mind.

After our meal is over, after my children toss goodbye kisses onto my cheek and my woman takes me by the arm to lead me to bed, I find my mouth has taken to trembling. A small whimper escapes my downhearted lips.

“Is something wrong?” Jewell asks.

“I think so, but I… .” My eyes begin to water. “I don’t know how to
say
it.”

“I have just the cure for all that ails,” Jewell says. “Let’s get you settled in bed and I’ll read one of your letters.”

“No. I’m tired of letters.” I place my lips into a pout. “My birds… I want to dance with my birds.” I begin to cry again.

“How about we read one letter for the birds and then we go to sleep so you can be ready for your big day tomorrow?”

“The birds are bored of my letters.”

Jewell laughs at my assertion.

I sigh and dramatically toss my head to one side. “Okay, just one letter,” I say.

When I’m settled under the softness of my quilt, my woman retrieves the letterbox and fishes around for a new letter.

“Here, let’s try this one,” she says. She unfolds the paper, careful that it will remember its creases. Before she begins to read, she places one hand on my forehead and strokes my hair away from my forehead. She continues to stroke my hair as she reads.

My dear hearts,

Oh, you kids! You have fought and bickered over every little thing from the time you were babies. Even riding through most of every day in my arms, straddled one on each hip, you still managed to poke and hit each other, if not with your round little hands, at least with your words and neener-neener taunts.

I suppose I should tell you why I allowed you to behave like little tyrants and boors with each other.

You’ll laugh over this, I’m sure. I allowed your sibling rants because I wanted you to know the joy of having someone else to fuss with. Your little fights were‌—‌if you can imagine this‌—‌music to my ears.

I didn’t have a brother or sister to spat with.

Have you ever wondered how different your life might have been, had you not had each other? I don’t know why I should ask you, except that I recall wondering about such nonsense now and then when I was a child. I remember one particular day when a heavy, pelting rain kept me indoors. I was suffering from the kind of boredom that causes a child to sigh and whine and press their young face to the window, as if doing so would change the weather and the mood.

I seemed always to be a lonesome and impertinent girl who sighed at the rain and cursed my fate to be an only child. With a sibling or two (I thought), I would have had someone with whom to play a game of pick-up sticks, or at the very least, had someone to bicker with.

Thank the stars you had each other. Thank the heavens (while you’re at it) that you still do.

Your MeeMaw should have had a dozen children clambering after her apron and PaaPaw should have had at least a couple of little sons trailing after him into the woods to hunt squirrels and gather fallen wood for the fireplace. I could have had sisters to braid my hair and fight over which color ribbon to wind into the coils and brothers to take me frog gigging at night, or wrestle with across the lawn on sun-sparkled days.

And‌—‌here’s the best part‌—‌you would have had many aunts and uncles to send you birthday cards with money tucked inside. But alas!

Still, I never heard Ma or Pa begrudge me as their only child, and a girl at that. Still, it seemed odd, in that day and in that place, that our home should be nearly childless, except for me. While other homes were resplendent with wild and noisy children, ours was a home of quietude and orderliness. I guess God knew Ma would lose her sight before I was fully grown and a blind mother to a band of children would have been a cruelty.

I wish you could have seen the satisfied and puckered mouths of the other mothers, clucking after their brood of children, counting all the little heads to make certain everyone was present. It always caused me to wonder if there was something wrong with me that God should see fit to keep me alone and less a child than I would have been, had I been one of many. An only child grows into an adult well before her years catch up to the fact. In that odd way, it seemed I was always older than Ma.

And so I remember that one day‌—‌that one rainy, face-pressed-to-the-window day, when I was as irksome as any child could be.

After the third time I sighed as if the world were coming to a rainy end, Ma ushered me from my perch at the window and sat me next to her on the living room couch. She pulled her weathered Bible from the pocket of her apron. She placed it on her lap without opening it and then recited several of her favorite Psalms aloud as if they were flickering candles pulsing under the warmth of her breath. Now and then, she punctuated a specifically important concept or lesson with one pointed finger. By the time she finished, I was changed under her recitations of gratitude and kindliness.

Now here’s the point of this letter: It’s not that you have each other and that you continue to bicker and banter even now. No! That’s what brothers and sisters do‌—‌they stick out their tongues and say rude things to each other.

My point is that it saddens me terribly that I never pulled you from your own rainy-day windows to whisper the Psalms into your little ears, rather than letting you discover your own amusements. But then again, your MeeMaw was special. She may have been destined to become blind, but I’d like to think that whoever God might be,
She
made up for it by giving your MeeMaw a mother’s wisdom far beyond her years. To your detriment, I was as immature as any mother should be allowed.

You certainly have my permission to read the Psalms, as well as any other book that you want‌—‌even girlie magazines, if that’s what floats your boat.

Love as always,

Mom

My woman grins at me before refolding the letter, pulling my covers up high enough to touch my chin, and then lowering the light. It’s not long before I hear her singing in the kitchen and I’m soothed to sleep within the deep folds of her song. Tonight I sleep nearly three hours before waking.

Somewhere in those narrow hours between sleep and wakefulness, my legs forget how to walk on their own. My feet have lost their knowledge of which is left and which is right and how to step one foot in front of the other. These legs have turned to spindles suddenly unable to swing over the side of the bed. To stand. To walk.

I don’t know whether to scream in protest or be glad for my legs and their newfound independence from my body. I wiggle around hoping that I’m only having a momentary glitch, but it’s soon clear my legs have given up on me for good. I lie straight-legged and surrendered under my covers, consoling myself‌—‌if I can remember this new thing about myself‌—‌ that I’ll at least now stay in bed through the night. It’s small comfort, but when one’s legs suddenly and completely fall silent, there’s not much left to do but sift through the ashes and concentrate on being free from the limitations of an old woman’s halting gait.

To think I could have danced with the birds is a foolish thought, indeed. So, good riddance to my recalcitrant limbs, I say. Go ahead‌—‌let them be sticks, still and silent like tree branches in winter. It’ll perhaps do this family some good that we’re all free of the ill conduct of my midnight wanderings.

On the other hand, graceful, fan-fluttering acceptance is more than can be expected when half of one’s body turns to putty.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

S
o now I’ve become much like a tender birch tree, beaten down so often by the wind I no longer try to stand upright, but simply bend the way of the prevailing wind whether the wind is blowing or not.

I’ve seen them.

I’ve seen the trunks of sweet birches arching low in the Appalachian woods, agony waving across their shivering leaves. Obviously, the poor spindly things just gave up under the wind. I know how they must have felt as their branches could do nothing more than rub across the ground, giving off a miserable sound like a thousand beetle shells scraping over the dirt.

I’m now a person who requires tedious care. My own prevailing wind has bent me in half.

I don’t know how long I’ve been sick.

The Chinese pistache in the front yard has grown large and I don’t know when that occurred. There is room now for several birds to gather on its lengthening branches. Other things have changed as well. John Milton the Cat has thickened and settled into a body that appears almost paunchy and middle-aged. I see threads of gray sewn onto my woman at the temples and streaked throughout her hair. The rose stalks have grown thick as my wrist and the walls of the house are turning yellow and pale with age.

It seems that since I turned ill there have been several seasons of summer, each followed by a long and rainy winter. Still, I can’t be certain of the truthfulness of anything.

What I do know is that a long time has passed since I began to fail. Now a creeping weakness has journeyed into my legs, my arms, my body, settling all thoughts of my ever getting better. My legs are withering like stumps of fallen trees; they’re no longer able to stand on their own. I’ve fallen into disrepair and no amount of care or watering or feeding can cause me to be upright or whole again.

Today, Bryan brings a wheelchair for me and I cry.

He tries to make it better with a bumper sticker that reads,
Honk if You’re Horny
. My woman blushes all the way through her cinnamon-colored skin. Bryan laughs. I tell him I don’t understand what the words mean. Bryan sobers his face and peels the sticker off.

“There, Mom,” he says, crumpling the sticky paper in his hands. “We should make this the Queen’s carriage, rather than the streetwalker’s cab.” I still don’t understand, but I mirror his smile and that seems to make things better.

Bryan and my woman help me from my bed. My body‌—‌bent as low as those sad birch trees forever wounded by chronic winds‌—‌folds easily into the shape of the chair. Bryan and my woman smile over me.

“Beautiful,” Bryan says. “You’re an absolutely regal-looking queen in your beautiful new chair.”

“Very lovely, ma’am,” Jewell says.

“The hell with you both,” I say. “It’s a wheelchair, for God’s sake. I want
out
of here.”

Bryan looks wounded. “I’m sorry, Mom,” he stammers.

“Get me out of here.” I raise my voice. “Get me
out
of here.”

“Relax,” Bryan says, using his stern lawyer voice.

“Relax, hell. You try relaxing in this… this ridiculous… thing.” I try working my legs to stand, but it’s no use. They’ve forgotten themselves completely.

I start to cry out again, but I’m surprised by John Milton the Cat who jumps onto my lap. It seems he likes the chair. I decide not to argue any further and simply let the branch of my hand bend toward the softness of his gray fur. My woman takes the opportunity to wheel John Milton and me to the living room.

Somewhere during the journey between my bedroom and the living room, I decide to like the chair, but only because of the cat.

Bryan apologetically smiles his way out the door. After my woman moves herself to the kitchen to prepare today’s menu, I realize my predicament. I’m a still-youngish woman with a progressive brain disorder, stuck in a wheelchair with a cat on her lap. I try to remember how this occurred, but few words come to my memory.

It seems life is now more-than-spare and I can’t help but wonder whether my current state is a blessing or a curse. There is something, of course, to be said for an uncomplicated manner of living. At least I’m not saddled with the complexities that plague other women my age. There is no sense worrying about a wrinkle on my face when I have trouble locating the words that might describe the event that could have caused the line.