Sing for Me (40 page)

I have to confess something,
I write.
When I first met your mother, her still-waters-run-deep spirit reminded me of the lake at the edge of the spruce forest on Aunt Astrid’s farm. Julia wants to be married by that lake. If only you could be there, Theo. She’s asked me to sing a song. If only you could play it on the piano, the way only you can.

Theo writes that he is leaving New Orleans.

He’s decided to drive up the coast to New York. He’ll stop in a few cities along the way, but his real destination is Harlem. There’s got to be a club in Harlem that’s like Calliope’s.
There’s been so much going on in Harlem. It’s a renaissance, people are saying. I want to be a part of it. I want Dex, Ira, Jim, and you, most of all you, to be a part of it, too. Oh, Rose. I hope. I have hope again.

I slide this letter back into its envelope, and put it under my pillow with the others. When I rest my head on my pillow at night, the paper rustles like a whisper.
I’m coming home to you.
That’s what his letters say.

TWENTY-THREE

T
he Saturday before Labor Day, I walk across a freshly mown field to the still-waters-run-deep lake on Aunt Astrid’s farm, a bouquet of black-eyed Susans, baby’s breath, tiger lilies, and roses the color of sunset in my hands. The spruce forest rises on the other side of the lake, and as I approach the water, wind stirs the pointed tops of the trees, and they bend and bow and beckon gently to me:
come closer, it’s time
. Julia and Paul’s guests, many of them my family and friends, flank me on either side, and as I pass, the children wave, the women smile, the men nod. Close to the front, Sophy catches my eye. If she’d been able-bodied, she would have been a bridesmaid, too. As it is, Dad pushed her down this path before me, and Mother walked beside her, strewing flower petals with each step. Sophy beams at me now; she’s content with her role. If Theo were here, my happiness would be complete.

I walk up to the gazebo that we spent much of yesterday building at the edge of this field, right beside the lake. Constructed of scraps of wood and cast-off pieces of tin, decorated
with dried grapevines and thick chains of wildflowers, the gazebo is another kind of hidden garden, a shelter from the elements, a beautiful testament to Julia and Paul’s love. We erected an altar inside the gazebo, too—a simple piece of flat fieldstone, set up on four thick logs of a recently felled oak tree. Rob was the one who found the two long iron nails, pulled from railroad ties, in Aunt Astrid’s barn. He bound them together with twine to make a cross, then hammered the point of the vertical nail into a plank of wood and set it on the stone. Paul and his best man stand to one side of the altar and that cross now. Andreas stands before the altar. He’s positioned himself so that everyone walking down the aisle can see the cross, and I keep my eyes on it as I step into the gazebo’s shade. My gaze briefly meets Andreas’s. My brother smiles at me—his old, tender smile, the one I remember from childhood when I was playing the right way; this smile is not burdened by judgment. I smile back at him, and then I turn to look at the bride. With her arm hooked through her father’s, Julia slowly draws near, her sandaled feet gliding gracefully through the shorn grass, her butterfly sleeves fluttering in the gentle wind. I hear Paul sigh. He is as radiant as Julia, and as ready for this day.

Julia pauses beside me. “I love you, cousin.”

“I love you, too,” I say.

She holds out her bouquet of roses and lilies and, taking it from her hands, I spot Nils in the crowd of guests. Like everyone, he is standing (to save energy and time, we left all the chairs under the reception tent, which is nestled a little farther back in the field, on a rise of land that will allow us to enjoy a view of the sunset and stars). Nils drove up yesterday with a group of friends from our church; he stands now by a young
woman I don’t recognize. Perhaps she is someone he met back in Chicago, and invited here; perhaps she is a local girl. Regardless, they look happy together, and Rob, standing in the row just in front of them, looks happy, too. Rob wears another new suit. This whole weekend he has tormented me by saying that he’s going to spike the punch at the reception later; however, I don’t think any of the aunts, let alone his mother, will let him get away with that. And I don’t let his teasing get in the way of my high spirits. As far as I can tell, he’s drunk nothing but Coca-Cola so far this weekend. His gray-green eyes are still clear and serene.

Satisfied, I step closer to Julia and enter into the service. Andreas’s message is simple and sweet. When the vows have been exchanged, I turn back to the guests. Without any accompaniment, I sing “At Dawning,” as Julia and Paul requested:

When the dawn flames in the sky I love you;

When the birdlings wake and cry, I love you;

When the swaying blades of corn

Whisper soft at breaking morn,

Love anew to me is born,

I love you, I love you.

The song would sound so much better with Theo playing beside me. But I won’t let myself dwell on this.

Julia and Paul fairly glow with love for each other, for all of us, as we gather under the reception tent. And when Julia lobs the bouquet directly at me, I allow myself to catch it.

After the wedding reception, true to Julia’s wishes, we extend the celebration to dinner. As the heat of the day fades,
the night proves balmy and clear, so we decide to leave the tent behind and lay out a feast in true Danish style by the lake—a
smørrebrød
with all our favorite foods. We eat and laugh and lounge and talk, and someone carries out Aunt Astrid’s gramophone, winds it up, and we play one wax cylinder after the next, one wonderful old song after another. These are the songs of our parents’ youth. This music makes everyone happy.

The nights are long this far north, and this night stretches even longer. It may be nearly nine o’clock, the sun may be lowering on the horizon, but the party shows no signs of winding down. Sophy is nodding off in her wheelchair, but she doesn’t want to go lie down on her bed in Aunt Astrid’s house. Sophy never wants to miss out on a party, and parties where all of our family are gathered together are rare. So she asks that I simply push her over to sit beneath a willow tree that rises beside the lakeshore. Here, we’re only a stone’s throw from where the others have gathered. She can watch the revelry from this vantage point, but she can look out at the peaceful stillness of the lake as well. She can rest as she needs.

When I’ve settled Sophy in a favorable position, I realize that I’m tired, too. It’s a relief to put so much activity at a distance for a moment. I am with my sister. A loon calls, and the haunting sound echoes across the water. The willow’s branches whisper back and forth above us; some of the longer branches touch the ground, and when the wind stirs they make a rustling sound. The longest branches of all trail across the skin of the lake and trace patterns there. Sophy dozes in her chair, and soon I’m swaying a little on my feet. A good kind of tired, that’s what I am. We keep a blanket in a basket attached to Sophy’s chair, and I take the blanket out, spread it on the ground. I sit down on the
blanket. In a matter of hours, somewhere in Harlem, Theo will be listening to music, or playing it.
More than New Orleans or Chicago, Harlem seems a good place for the Chess Men to be right now,
he wrote.
There are clubs that will headline us, I think. I can’t wait until you see this place, Rose. I long for you to be here. I long to be with you.

I lean against Sophy’s chair and close my eyes. I try to imagine what song I’ll sing when Theo and I come home to each other.

It’s coming on October. Chrysanthemums bloom in the Conservatory. Through the brilliant leaves of maple trees, I glimpse the building’s glass walls, a kaleidoscope of garnet, amethyst, and amber, as I walk alone through Garfield Park this late Saturday afternoon. Sophy has gone out for ice cream with Dolores and Andreas, Mother and Dad are working, Rob is readying himself for a date with a girl I don’t know—
She’s the real deal, Rose! You’ll see what I mean when you meet her at Calliope’s tonight!
—and Theo still hasn’t returned to me. His letters say he is figuring out how to do just that.
My hope is growing ever stronger
, he writes. But sometimes, walking alone like this, watching couples enjoy their last swan-boat rides of the season, I wonder if my own hope is fading. The cottonwoods have shed their brown, heart-shaped leaves; they lie brittle and broken at my feet. I wonder if my hope is like that.

If I keep walking I will reach the National Tea. Soon Nils will be loosening his black bow tie, hanging up his green apron, calling it a day. I could be waiting for him outside. But Nils has a girlfriend now, and from the way they sit side by side in church,
she seems the real deal, too. Why tamper with this? Why confuse my own feelings further? Why doubt my hopes? Why not doubt my doubts instead?

I turn and walk back to the apartment, where my dress from Julia’s wedding hangs in the closet, filmy and delicate, a sheath of silvery gossamer with capped sleeves. I put it on, and the dove-gray shoes from the wedding, too. I fix my hair and apply the little bit of makeup I wear on nights like this—just a hint of the face paint I wore that first night in the DeSoto, when Rob offered me a blue dress, a silver purse, be-still-my-beating-heart red lipstick, and the city on a half shell. The night I entered a place I’d never imagined where a gentle man I’d never dreamed of first learned my name.

I gather my things, lock the apartment door behind me, and take the El to that place once again.

I want to sing a new song. We’ve been practicing it, trying to get it right, and tonight Dex, Ira, and Jim agree to spring it on the audience during the second set. “Sing your heart out,” Dex tells me on the downbeat, but there’s no need for him to say that. Every word of this song will hold the heart of me. “Autumn in New York”—I’ll sing my heart there.