Sing for Me (32 page)

“S
he was convicted of a crime she didn’t commit. That’s where the scars came from.”

Theo runs water into the sink and adds soap, carefully submerges dishes, glasses, and cups. I pick up a tea towel and watch his hands stir the water.

“I was a sickly kid, and Mary was a sickly newborn,” he says. “That’s what happens during hot summers in certain wards down in New Orleans. Some bug bites you, or you drink water from the wrong tap, and next thing you know, you’re barely alive. My mother lost her job, doing laundry for a big hotel there—they wanted to hire cheap Irish labor,
white
labor, instead—and there Mary was, barely six pounds, not taking milk or water, shaking with fever. And me, eight years old, not much more than skin and bones, shaking with the same. The doctor said we needed some kind of medicine. Expensive medicine. Without it we’d die. So Mother did what she had to.” Theo lifts a glass from the soapy water and wipes it clean with a rag. “One night, she left Mary and me with the pastor of her church. She went down to the French
Quarter. She walked the streets. First hour out, she gets picked up by the vice squad before any vice has happened. Next thing she knows, she’s in jail. Next thing after that, she’s a licensed convict, working a plantation like her mother before her. Only my mother’s not a slave, because slavery’s been abolished. She just looks like one, feels like one, lives like one in chains for seven long years. The cheapest labor known to man.” He’s still wiping that same glass. Now he drops the rag into the water and begins to rinse it. “When she finally gets out, she comes looking for Mary and me. I don’t recognize her. Not right away. Not with those scars. She’s changed in every way. But our pastor recognizes her. Papa, we called our pastor. When our mother never came back, he found a way to get that medicine for us, and he didn’t get caught. Papa never told me what he did, but he saved my life and Mary’s, too, and I believe God has forgiven him, regardless of what some earthly judge might say.”

I nod, though Theo hasn’t asked a question.

“When I saw what they did to my mother, something snapped tight around my own neck, wrists, and ankles.” He’s still rinsing that glass. “I was a fifteen-year-old boy, but I started living like a crazy man—drinking myself sick and doing much, much worse. I stopped playing the piano. I started playing with knives. Papa said we had to get out of New Orleans. The memories weren’t doing my mother any good, either. So she packed Mary and me up, and we headed north. Along the way, I found God again. I told you about the tent meeting. I found God there, or I let God find me, then we settled here, started a new life.” Theo gives me a hard, long look. “But still, the anger stalks me, and the fear. I grow hopeless sometimes.” His gaze softens as he looks at me. “But then I remember good folks like Jim and Ira. I
remember Dex, a black man like me, who somehow, by the grace of God and his music, lives an unchained life. And I remember you, Rose.”

He sets the glass on the drying rack. I’ve wrapped that tea towel tightly around my hands. He takes my bound hands in his own. He frees my hands from the towel. It slips to the floor as he laces his wet fingers through mine. His palms are dusky pink, my palms are the palest pink possible, but they meet, they fit together, our hands hold fast. He bows his head and presses his forehead to mine, and we stand together like that as time stops, and water cools in the sink, and the glass dries on the rack. Then he gently kisses my forehead, and I stand on my tiptoes and kiss his forehead, too—so this is how his skin feels, smooth and soft as silk—and we look at each other, sober and serious,
this is serious
, and then he picks up the towel and gives it to me, and we turn back to the dishes, help his mother the best way we can, do the work we’ve been given to do.

It’s late in the afternoon when I finally tell Theo that I think Sophy and I had better get home. In a couple of hours Dad will be back for dinner, and possibly Andreas, too. With Mother staying the night at the Nygaards’ house, it’s up to me to have dinner ready. And though Sophy is having the time of her life, she’s a little worn out, I can tell. We’ve spent much of the afternoon listening to repeats of
The Lone Ranger
and
The Shadow
on the radio. In this past hour, we played charades. Theo, Mary, and Sophy were one team, Mrs. Chastain and I were the other. Sophy had never played charades before, but she and Theo made a great pair. With Mary’s help, she acted out a famous person.
While Sophy reclined on the couch, Mary mimed lining Sophy’s eyelids with kohl and painting her glossy nails Sunrise all over again. Mary fanned Sophy with a pretend palm leaf, popped pretend grapes into Sophy’s mouth, and Theo snapped his fingers. “Cleopatra!” he said. “That’s right!” Mary shouted as Sophy kissed the air.

Now Sophy’s eyelids are drooping, and Theo agrees that it’s probably time for us to go.

On the way, Sophy sleeps, and Theo and I confirm what we’ve already discussed this afternoon. What with Mother working and my parents’ disapproval, I will have to miss rehearsals. I’ll make it to the gigs, but just barely, and only if Rob can give me a ride. Who else could I ask? Zane is too unpredictable; his parents complicate things. Nils is too wounded.

Of course, the answer—the answer I want—is sitting right in front of me.

“Or maybe you could take me?” I ask, hoping.

Theo looks at me in the rearview mirror and smiles. “No maybe about it. Just tell me where to be and when, and I’ll be there.”

When we pull up in front of the apartment, I point out the alley, the fire escape, and the shadowy place where Rob has parked. Theo promises he’ll be waiting there tomorrow night, and I thank him.

He doesn’t hesitate, hoisting Sophy’s wheelchair down from the rumble seat, wheeling it into the courtyard of our building, parking it in the foyer, then helping me carry drowsy Sophy up to our place. But he is carefully distant, not talking or looking at either of us along the way. I understand why. I can feel it, too. We are being watched from windows and street corners, and
there are a group of kids playing in the alley who peek around the side of the apartment building and boldly stare.

Theo lays Sophy down on the love seat in the front room, then looks quickly around, taking note of the luxuries my family has managed to maintain. I feel heat rise in my face. Our cluttered pomp and preciousness stand in sharp contrast to the sparse, simple style of Theo’s home. I’d say we were poor, too, that my mother has suffered also, but I know there’s no real comparison to be made.

I walk Theo to the door. It’s almost five thirty; Dad will be home any minute. I have to work myself up to make some excuse about Sophy’s nails. I’ll say a friend did them for free, which is true. And if Mother or Dad makes a fuss, I’ll find a way to get the polish off. I should probably call Mary and ask her what’s the best and cheapest way to easily remove it. I’ll call her when Theo leaves.

For this moment, Theo and I stand at the door, stand close to each other. We take this moment, and this one, and this. And now, as Theo bends down to kiss my forehead, I lift my face to him and our lips meet instead.

Tuesday night just past ten I slide out of bed, open my dresser drawer, and slip into my blue dress. Sophy is sleeping, and Mother and Dad, too, and Andreas is not home yet. Still, I am shaking with nervousness. They’ve outright forbidden me to do this, and I am doing it anyway.

Then again, they forbade Sophy to wear nail polish, but she’s gone and done that, and after a brief scene last night they gave in to her, didn’t they? That’s what I tell myself as I put on my coat and pick up my silver satin purse. Quiet as can be, I go to the
window, raise it, plant my foot on the sill, climb out onto the fire escape. The wind is almost balmy, stirring the skirt of my dress. With this break in the weather, I might not have needed my coat. That’s what I’m thinking as I start to lower the window, and I hear Sophy say my name.

“Rose!” Again she calls to me, loudly enough that Mother and Dad might hear.

I clamber back through the window and lunge at the bed. I do something I’ve never done before. I clap my hand over my sister’s mouth, silencing her.

She glares at me in the moonlight.

“Will you please be quiet?” I whisper.

She gives a fierce, angry nod, and I draw back my hand.

“I’m going out,” I whisper.

She glares. “Nils?”

I look at her. She looks at me.

I don’t lie. I don’t find a good excuse. I remind myself that this is my sister, my Sophy, and she doesn’t want me to be the Little Mermaid. She wants me to sing.

I tell Sophy that Theo is picking me up in his car. Right now, he’s waiting out there for me. I’m the vocalist for a band called the Chess Men, I tell her. We’re going to make some music tonight at a club called Calliope’s. I’m going to sing the kind of songs they play on the kind of radio stations Mother doesn’t like, and I’m going to get paid. I promise I won’t do anything wrong. “I’m going to be okay,” I promise. “No. Not just okay. I’m going to be happy, singing.”

Sophy says, “I know.”

There’s a sharp intake of breath—me, gasping. “You know what?”

“Everything,” she says.

I clap my hand over my mouth, this time, trying to suppress a burst of nervous laughter. After a few moments I compose myself and lower my hand. Sophy watches me, smiling, satisfied that for once she’s taken me by complete surprise.

“How do you know?”

She takes a deep breath. “I know more than you know,” she says—the longest thing I’ve ever heard her say. And then, “I know what makes you happy. And who.” She jerks her head and I follow her gaze to see the Little Mermaid plate on the wall behind us.

“Be happy,” Sophy says.

I don’t need her permission. I know that. But when I’m on the fire escape again, closing the window, and she smiles at me, I feel sweet, deep relief. Her blessing. That’s what she’s given me.

That night at Calliope’s I look out into the crowd and see Nils, sitting alone at a table near the bar. I falter, singing, and my sense of blessing seems like an illusion. I can feel Theo watching me. The rest of the Chess Men are aware, too. Together they cover for me. They make music where my voice should be. They wait for my voice to return. I lean toward Nils. I lift my hand in a discreet wave, and I smile. He doesn’t smile back.

I am faced with the choice all over again. I close my eyes and listen, and I hear God’s voice, and I remember mine.

Eyes closed, listening, I work my way back into the song. Theo gives a little high trill of the keys.
Welcome back
, the trill says. I focus on the music, open my eyes to the crowd. Only when the number is finished and applause fills the room do I look back at Nils.

He’s gone.

I have to walk away from the microphone. I have to take a quick circle around the stage. I have to compose myself. Once I have, I quietly ask the fellows if they’re okay with us doing a ballad next. Something in a minor key. “Sure,” they say. Only Theo looks worried, but he says, “How about ‘Red River Valley’?” I nod. That’s perfect. We’ve been working on old folk songs, playing with them, exploring their possibilities. This is our first time trying one out in public, and I pour all my sadness into the words:

From this valley they say you are going.

We will miss your bright eyes and sweet smile.

For they say you are taking the sunshine

That has brightened our pathway a while.

We finish the song, and the stunned silence tells me that our experiment has failed. I look away from the frozen crowd; I look toward Theo for reassurance.

“Beautiful.”

Theo’s lips shape the word, but I don’t hear him say it. The burst of applause is too loud.