Sing for Me (7 page)

She sounds a lot like Rob, only her idea of getting out is quite different. When Julia gets out she follows all the rules. She’d delighted by the fact that I’m about to see Nils.

They’re upon us, Julia dropping down on her knees and catching up Sophy’s mittened hands, Paul giving me a brisk, efficient hug, and then the two of them switching places in a clumsy little dance. Julia clings to me, relieved to have support on her skates. Over her shoulder, I watch as Paul tries to shake Sophy’s hand and then, confused at how to negotiate Sophy’s stiff limbs, steps back. Ankles wobbling, Paul glances longingly over his
shoulder at the lagoon while Julia chatters on about the beautiful day, her frozen toes—“Frostbite! I’m sure of it!”—then on and on about their wedding plans.

Finally she runs out of steam. Breathlessly she asks if I’ll come shopping with her. “I need help deciding about my dress,” she says.

“Sure,” I say.

“How about this Thursday, or the next? The stores are open later on Thursday night. Sophy, you could come, too.” Julia glances down at Sophy. “Would you like that?” Julia gasps. “Oh, honey! What’s wrong?”

I look down to see my sister silently crying. Already her wet cheeks are chafed by the wind.

“We
want
you to come shopping with us, Sophy,” Julia says.

Sophy wrenches her head toward me. “Tea?”

The National Tea, she means. With my gloves, I pat her face dry. She needs some privacy in which to compose herself. I turn the wheelchair away from Julia and Paul.

“We’re on an errand.” I’m as good as Mother at forcing resolute cheerfulness into my voice. “We’d better get going.”

Paul takes the hint. He slips Julia’s arm through his and starts drawing her back to the lagoon.

“See you soon, then, Rose? You and Sophy, too?” Julia asks, tottering along.

I nod. “We’ll be at church tomorrow.”

Julia shakes her head. “I’m going with Paul’s family. We’re taking a drive around his parents’ neighborhood afterward. His mother says that the apartments in their part of the city are more affordable than almost anywhere else. And it’s a nice, clean neighborhood, too! We’re thinking of making our first home there.”

“Sounds nice.” I can see Julia’s future as clearly as I see her moving toward the lagoon with Paul now. Nice and clean. Easy-peasy. That’s Julia’s future.

“ ’Til some night soon, then—this Thursday, maybe, or the next definitely,” Julia calls. “Parting is such sweet sorrow!” With a wave, she turns away, then quickly back. “Wait! Can’t do this Thursday! We’re having dinner with some of Paul’s friends. So a week from this Thursday, okay?”

I holler okay.

“Promise, Rose?”

I holler my promise, and then, as Julia and Paul glide away on the ice, I bend over Sophy. She’s crying even harder.

“Sweetheart! What’s the matter?”

Sophy shakes her head.

“Try and tell me. Just try.” I pat her cheeks dry again. “Sophy, you’re going to be raw with windburn. Please stop!”

She closes her eyes. Tears slide from beneath her lashes.

“Are you hurting?”

She hisses through her teeth, her easiest way to say no.

I have to get her out of the cold. A seizure in the cold would be . . . well, I won’t let that happen. I step behind the wheelchair and start pushing. Hard, harder I push. We go fast—nearly too fast on icy patches—toward the park’s exit. The sound of traffic rushing by on the boulevard grows louder. We are nearly there when, surely to Sophy’s surprise and almost to mine, I turn the wheelchair into the shelter of a gazebo. Brown tendrils of dead ivy twine thickly through the gazebo’s latticed walls, sheltering us from the wind. Compared with the wide-open park, this little dank place is toasty.

I crouch at my sister’s feet. “Please tell me what’s wrong.”

“You.” She ducks her head, hiding her expression as best she’s able. “Tell.”

“Tell what?”

For a moment, nothing comes out of Sophy’s mouth but the throaty sounds she makes when she’s struggling to frame her thoughts with language. She memorizes all the baseball stats each spring with Dad. She can chime in on key words when Andreas reads from the Bible. She remembers whole passages from novels by James Fenimore Cooper and Rudyard Kipling (someone in the family reads to her nearly every night). Her speech just can’t keep up with her mind.

Finally she gets control of her tongue and says what she wants to say.

“No husband, children.” More sounds, and then, “For me.”

I suck in a breath. While Mother and I were settling Sophy down for her nap, swaddling her in old towels, nestling a hot water bottle between her hips, we took turns explaining what was happening to her. We told her about her time. I told Sophy nothing was wrong. This just happens to us girls. Mother took it a little further, mentioning God’s words to Eve in Genesis, the harsh consequences of forbidden fruit, plucked and briefly savored. The curse, the pangs of childbirth, far outweighed by the joys of children. When we were finished explaining, Mother and I left Sophy to rest while we went into the front room and talked with Dad. We didn’t think to ask if she had any questions.

Wind rattles the vines. Wind seeps between the leaves.

I never imagined this far into Sophy’s future. Her womanhood. Her grief.

“I’m sorry,” I say.

She nods. Though her expression is still pained, she is
calmer now, quiet and thoughtful again, not crying. We should press on. We should see the kinds of things she likes to see at the National Tea. We should find some distraction.

I grip the wheelchair’s handles and push Sophy out of our shelter. Surely the temperature has dropped in these last minutes. The air cuts to my lungs as I huff and puff, steering Sophy in her chair through the park’s gate.

There across the street is the National Tea. It will be warm inside. I will find a treat for Sophy, something she loves. She loves tapioca pudding. I will treat her to a little carton of that.

I bend down to tell her this. To reassure her, without explicitly saying so, that there are other joys in life besides songs you can’t sing.

Besides husbands and children you can’t have, I mean.

I trundle Sophy into the National Tea and park her chair at the front counter. I pull Mother’s list—
Just a Few Staples
, Mother has written across the top—and the nub of a pencil from my coat pocket. I add to the list:
¹
/
₈
lb of prepared tapioca without raisins. This would barely be a taste of pudding for me; it will be just enough for Sophy.

One of the apron-wearing boys behind the counter takes the list and runs off to collect the items. There are so few things we can afford now, so I know each and every item by heart. Oatmeal, milk, butter (only a little, but we’ll make it stretch, though this is
not
the Danish way), eggs, flour, coffee, potatoes, split peas, a ham bone.

“Warming up?” I lean close to my sister. She doesn’t smile or kiss the air, but she does seem to be taking careful note of the
stocked shelves, the displays of daily specials, the newfangled appliances.
A gas oven! Who ever heard?
We’ll talk about things like this when we get home. It will give us something to say.

“Hello, Rose.”

I turn to see Nils, smiling shyly down at me. He’s dressed like he’s already an assistant manager: neatly pressed black pants and green apron, a white shirt, a black bow tie, black suspenders. The only part of him that’s out of place is the shock of his honey-colored hair falling boyishly across his blue eyes.

“Hi.” This was where we stood when he presented me with the roses. The other employees and the customers applauded us both. I feel nearly as confused now as I did at that moment. Nils does that to me—this change in him that yields this change between us.

“I spotted you from the office.” Nils shoves that shock of hair into place and nods toward the back of the store, where a long window spans the top half of the wall. The store manager is at work there, riffling through a sheaf of papers. Nils lifts a hand to him, and the store manager lifts a hand back.

“I’m glad you were able to come out,” I say. “It looks busy back there.”

Nils nods. “Mr. Block has asked me to help with the bookkeeping. I have a head for figures, Mr. Block says. He’s the manager, you know.”

“That’s wonderful.”

Nils blushes, then ducks down and gives Sophy a gentle pat on the arm. “Hiya, kiddo.” By the time Sophy has said her own hiya back, his hair has fallen into his eyes again. Now up he comes, the long, tall length of him, shoving back that shock. When he takes his hand away a sheen of pomade glistens on his palm. Beneath that sheen I glimpse the shadow of newsprint.
Nils fancies himself a future member of a Chamber of Commerce, perhaps even the mayor of a small town out West one day, so he pores over the
Trib
whenever he has a spare moment, studying up on business and politics.

Silence stretches. Nils is looking at me that way again. I might be the sun, moon, and stars combined. A girl could get used to the expression on his face. But now Nils glances at Mr. Block and winces. Mr. Block is eyeing him, tapping the face of his wristwatch.

“Break’s over.” Nils takes a deep breath. “Listen, Rose, I got a coupon for a two-for-one dinner at Old Prague. I’ve yet to eat there, but I’ve heard it’s good. They have three meat specials. You can have your choice of pork, duck, beef, chicken, steak, or sausage . . . any three, with side dishes, soup, salad, and dessert. And coffee. I would love to have you as my guest at Old Prague this Saturday. Not
this
Saturday. Not tonight. I have to work late. Next Saturday, I mean.” He pauses for a breath. “What do you say, Rose?”

“Why,” I say, “thank you. That sounds lovely.” And it does.

“We’re set, then.” Nils holds out his hand with all the professional formality of an assistant-manager-to-be. We shake as if we’ve just made a deal. Only Nils squeezes my hand so tightly that I can feel the blood pulsing at my fingertips. I can almost feel his pulse, too.

He lets go of my hand and gives Sophy a quick peck on the cheek before he turns away. I watch him walk toward the back of the store and Mr. Block. Loping down the aisle like that, he looks like the high school basketball player he once was. He was the star of the team his senior year. I was proud of him then. I’m proud of him now. Any girl in her right mind would be proud of him.

FIVE

W
e sit in our usual spot at the back of the Danish Baptist Church. Here, Sophy has room to stretch out, which is necessary, because when she sits in her wheelchair for too long—these services can sometimes be close to three hours—her arms, legs, and back cramp up. If Sophy has a spasm or a seizure, she’s less likely to interrupt the worship. Most important, as Sophy sees it, people can visit with us as they enter or exit the sanctuary. People can linger, leaning over the back of the pew. This is the highlight of Sophy’s week, and Mother’s. And mine.

Forget Tuesday night. Forget Calliope’s and the music and the man who knows my name. And this isn’t the time to be thinking about Nils, either, though he is just across the sanctuary, glancing my way.