Sing for Me (16 page)

“Don’t worry. I comb through the produce so carefully there’s not a chance that one of these fellows makes it from the packing crate to the floor. You see this one?” Nils strides over to a rust-colored beetle with ferocious-looking pincers. “He crawled out of a bunch of grapes. I’m not kidding.” He adjusts the frame, moves to the next display. “I keep glass jars and a bottle of formaldehyde in the back room at work so I can capture my finds before they suffer damage or perish in the cold. Just this past fall, I started tracking the delivery trucks so I could be even better prepared when they arrive, and that led me to the trains pulling into the yards from Central and South America. The engineers and dock workers got to know me, and next thing I knew, they were letting me have free rein of the freight cars. Some of the fellows down there have even started saving specimens for me. At the oddest hours, that’s where you’ll find me, scouring crates and barrels for beauties like these.” He taps the glass sheltering a luminous green
moth, and adjusts this frame as well. “I guess you could say this is my passion.”

“I guess so.”

“Truth is, I always wanted to be a scientist. If I could do anything in the world, I’d be a lepidopterist. I’d study moths and butterflies.” Nils is quiet for a moment, gazing at the beautiful creature. Then he turns resolutely toward me. “But that’s just a passion, of course, and passion won’t put a roof over your head.” He shrugs. “We do what we have to, right? And when we can, if we can, we find ways to do what we want.”

Nils reminds me of Dad, and Mother, too, working so hard to get ahead, stay afloat, survive. And Nils reminds me of myself as well, doing what I have to, not what I want.

Nils might be able to spend the rest of his life like this. But can I?

TEN

L
ast night’s Scripture reading has influenced Andreas’s message this morning.

“John the Baptist might seek refuge at the Pacific Garden Mission today. Then again, Jesus might be found there, too.”

A framed painted portrait of Jesus hangs on the wall behind the pulpit where Andreas stands. This Jesus has long, radiant hair and a serene, sad expression. His fair skin is smooth and clean. He doesn’t look at all like the type who’d wind up at a mission.

Andreas’s suggestion makes me a little uncomfortable, truth be told. I’d venture to say that more than a few other members of the congregation feel the same. Nils, for instance, sitting with his parents across the aisle from me. What strange specimen is this? Nils seems to wonder, leaning forward, scrutinizing my brother.

If Andreas senses the scrutiny, he ignores it. He says that we live in fear of the John the Baptists in our midst, the John the Baptist in ourselves. “We must cast aside our fear as Jesus cast out demons,” Andreas says.

Something tickles my back, startling me. Thank goodness Mother is holding Sophy today, or I would have jostled her mightily. I turn around. Rob stands behind me, impishly grinning, wiggling his fingers near my throat now. And who but Dolores Pine stands by Rob’s side. Dolores is dressed in a prim blue cotton dress that’s stiff with starch. A long black coat drapes her shoulders. A dusty black hat with the wide brim that was so popular balances precariously on her head. Dolores must not go to church much, if at all, if she thinks she has to dress like someone’s grandmother in order to be welcome here. I hold out my hand to her, and she grabs it like a lifeline, clutching my fingers so tightly that my knuckles grind together. Her mouth twitches in a nervous smile. She wears no makeup, and her freckles seem to float on the milky surface of her pale skin.

Andreas says, “Maybe it’s time we examine our fears, so we can prepare the way for Jesus.”

“Time you examined your fears, Laerke,” Rob whispers in my ear.

Dolores lets go of my hand and slides into the pew beside me; Rob follows her. Mother nods hello. Sophy cranes her neck to see what’s happening. Spittle has collected at the corners of Sophy’s mouth, but Dolores doesn’t seem to be put off. She gives Sophy a little wave as I clean her mouth with a handkerchief. Sophy blinks hard at Dolores, her way of waving back.

“ ‘Like a voice crying in the wilderness’—a John the Baptist voice. This is the voice for which we need to listen. We need to stop running away from the blessed voices in the wilderness all around us.”

Dolores fishes a pencil from her pocketbook. She scribbles on her bulletin, shows it to me.

Your brother?

I nod.

She scribbles some more.

Rob said he was a wonderful preacher.

I nod again. She scribbles again.

I’ve never been to a Protestant church. (Raised Catholic.) Glad I came.

I take the pencil and the bulletin and, careful not to bump Sophy, I surreptitiously tuck the bulletin down on the pew between Dolores and me. I write in tiny, cramped letters so Mother can’t see:
How did you get here?

Dolores’s turn.

Rob invited me. He took your advice on Tuesday night and had a little nap in the car. I must have dozed off, too. Whoops! Our woozy ride home turned into breakfast at a diner. Drank lots of coffee. Talked lots. Subject of church came up. Rob’s no saint, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t concerned for sinners like me.

Dolores smiles drolly, then sits back against the pew and listens to the rest of Andreas’s sermon. Soon she’s as caught up in what my brother is saying as the rest of us. When Andreas says, “Amen,” Dolores chimes in immediately and loudly, “Amen!” She blushes prettily as she realizes we are not that kind of church. But Andreas nods in her direction.

“ ‘A voice in the wilderness,’ ” Andreas says. “It startles us, shakes us up, wakes us up. Just like this young lady’s ‘Amen.’ ” Dolores stares at him, her eyes widening as he raises his hands. “Let’s try it, brothers and sisters. Try it with me. Echo that life-changing voice. Lift up your amen!”

A few of us, Dolores and myself included, haltingly lift up our amens. Rob turns and gives Dolores a smirk, but she doesn’t
see. Amen said, she is absorbed in the work of her hands now. Her fingers are quivering as if her nervousness hasn’t abated in the least, but still she manages to fold a delicate paper bird out of a page from the bulletin. Leaning across me, she flutters the bird before Sophy’s eyes. When Sophy smiles, Dolores perches the bird on Sophy’s lap. The folds of Sophy’s dress make a nest for the little paper thing, and Sophy kisses the air.

It is the offertory now, and though I have been fretting all morning, still unsure of my song, I know in this moment exactly what I’m going to sing.

I take one last look at the little paper bird in the nest of Sophy’s dress, walk to the front of the sanctuary, stand before the congregation, and close my eyes.

Come Holy Spirit, heavenly Dove,

With all Thy quickening powers,

Kindle a flame of sacred love

In these cold hearts of ours.

At coffee hour, Mother, Sophy, and Andreas talk with Rob and Dolores in one corner of the church basement while Nils guides me to another. “Wonderful singing,” he says. “You’re by far my favorite soloist.”

I’m about to murmur my thanks, but he’s caught my hands in his. “Guess what?” he exclaims. And then he’s telling me about a phone call he received early this morning from the train yards. An engineer found a tarantula even bigger than the one Nils has in his collection. “Mammoth” is how Nils describes the spider. He’s going down to the yards today to collect it.

“You want to come along for the ride?” Nils asks. “I’ll buy you lunch.”

“Lunch sounds nice. A ride, too. But do I have to touch the thing?”

“Wouldn’t let it near you.”

I laugh. “Are you protecting me from it or it from me?”

“What do you think?” Nils flicks his eyebrows, teasing as he used to when we were kids.

“That’s not a proper answer!”

Before Nils can supply one, Rob strides up to us. Rob is wearing his nice suit again, and the gray-green tie that matches his eyes. He’d look quite dandy, except that a shirt button has popped open at his belly. I reach out to button it, but Rob bats my hands away, and sheepishly does it himself.

“Wonder how long it’s been like that.” He snaps his jacket into place. “Better?”

I nod.

“Good.” Rob glances over his shoulder at Dolores, who is talking quietly with Andreas now. When Rob turns back to me, there’s the sheen of perspiration on his upper lip. He likes Dolores, I realize. I’m glad there’s someone new in his life that he seems to really care about. It may mean his grief is lessening, and if his grief lessens, he may stop drinking so much.

“Listen, Rose,” Rob says quietly, “Dolores and I are coming over to your place for lunch. Your mom just invited us. But Dolores will feel uncomfortable without you, she says. In fact, she’s asked that I take her home if you’re not there.” Rob grasps my hands in passionate appeal. “Please, Rose, don’t tell Dolores I told you this, but something about Andreas really makes her
skittish, and Andreas will be at lunch, too.” Rob lowers his voice and leans close so only I can hear. “I think my mom will like her, Rose. And if my dad were here, I think he’d approve, too. She’s a little wild, sure, but she doesn’t want to stay that way. We’ve got that in common, and a lot more.”

I can’t imagine Rob’s parents would approve of a girl he met at a bar—a Catholic girl, at that. But Rob seems so smitten that I don’t say this.

“I’m sorry, but Nils just invited me to lunch,” I say instead. When Rob frowns, I explain more about Nils’s invitation, hoping that a trip to the train yards will appeal to Rob’s sense of adventure. But at the word “tarantula,” Rob rolls his eyes.

“Please. A spider?”

“Tarantula,”
Nils says.

Rob gives an exasperated sigh. “There will be other spiders, Rose. Nils, take a rain check, will you? Please? Just this once?”

“Well. If it’s that important.” Nils gives me a long look. “I guess it would be pretty unfair if I had you all to myself two times in twenty-four hours.” He casts Rob a sideways glance. “And, yes, there will be other
spiders
.”

Rob slaps Nils hard on the back. “Thank you! Knew I could count on you, buddy.”

Nils shakes his head. “Rose is the person you really should thank, Rob.”

I could just about hug Nils for saying that, but of course we’re surrounded by other members of the Danish Baptist Church. So I ask him to call when he can and tell me about his new specimen instead.