The Song Reader (15 page)

This time when I tried to reach Dad, I wasn’t a fool. I didn’t write him a heartfelt letter expressing all my worries and concerns; I didn’t write as me at all but as my sister. I told him there had been a problem with some paperwork but I didn’t elaborate—I didn’t want to confuse him. I said he had to come to Tainer immediately and I suggested the Greyhound Bus, which I’d already called and got the schedule for. I told him when to leave Little Rock: a week from Thursday at eight-fifteen
A
.
M
., and I told him I’d pick him up at the station. I forged Mary Beth’s name to the letter and the hundred-dollar check I enclosed, so he could buy the ticket. Then I sent it off the next morning, on the way to school, and forgot about it.

By the cold light of day, it seemed impossible. It would never happen. He would have to work, he would ignore the letter. He’d moved again. It was too bad, sure, but then a lot of things were too bad in my family right then. By the next day, I was almost relieved. After all, I didn’t know him very well. Why make the situation any more complicated than it already was?

I did tell Juanita what I’d done on Saturday, when she dropped by to give me a break from child care and take Tommy to a movie. She thought it was a good idea. I’d already told her what happened with the suicide prevention guy and she was worried that might be a common reaction if it got around that Tommy and I were pretty much on our own right now.

“Of course you all could stay with me,” she said, seeming to brighten at the idea. “But it’d be better if he was here. And it might do a world of good for Mary Beth to see her dad, know what I mean?”

I was sitting across the table from her, watching her munch potato chips. She was trying not to smoke and she was downing them one after another. The stereo was playing one of Mary Beth’s Elton John albums—just in case my sister was listening.

“Maybe,” I said, as I wished I hadn’t mentioned that I’d written Dad. It will never happen, I reminded myself. And now I’ll have to feel like a fool twice: Thursday afternoon, standing at the Greyhound station, watching strangers file off the bus, and Thursday night, explaining to Juanita that Dad wasn’t one of them.

I listened as she told me how much she missed her father, who’d died ten years ago. “My poppy was a good man. He worked hard all his life for us. Hell, he treated Mom like she was a queen.” Juanita laughed harshly. “Mom always said she was lucky to have him. I know what she means now. The Dumb and the Arrested sure taught me.”

I paused for a moment; then I asked if Mary Beth had ever mentioned why our dad left. She shook her head. “We never talked about him. She told me a lot about your mom, all good stuff.” Juanita wiped her fingertips on her jeans. “Mary Beth thought your mom hung the moon, but I guess you know that, huh?”

“Yes,” I said, and stood up. Tommy was anxious to go to the movie; plus, I wasn’t in the mood right then to think about Mom.

When I wrote to Dad the first time, I hadn’t had that conversation with Ben where I admitted I was afraid of Mom. I hadn’t even admitted to myself that I thought she must have kicked out Dad. Writing to him now felt vaguely wrong, like I was choosing sides, even betraying her.

Of course it was ridiculous. Mom was dead, and Dad wasn’t going to show up anyway. That letter was probably in the trash already, or on its way back to me, marked undeliverable.

By Thursday afternoon, I was so positive he wasn’t coming I almost didn’t go to the bus station. Even as I drove there—twenty minutes late because I got stopped by a teacher on my way out the back door of River Valley—I was telling myself that, though it was pointless to do this, at least I’d get home early, be able to snack and listen to music, enjoy a full extra hour of free time before it was time to pick up Tommy.

And then I turned the corner and saw him, standing underneath the big Greyhound sign, holding a black duffel bag, looking back and forth for someone he recognized. I knew him immediately from the photo albums I’d been studying since I sent the letter—just in case. I was so surprised, I honked and waved and would have used the Bus Only lane to get there quicker if a Greyhound guy hadn’t waved me in the other direction.

“It’s my father,” I said. The window wasn’t unrolled; the Greyhound guy couldn’t hear me. “It’s my father,” I repeated, as I squeezed the Ford into a tiny parking spot in the second row, and flung open the door so fast it banged the car next to me.

All my thinking it would never happen had left me wide open. If his not coming had been a certainty, then his coming had to be a miracle. And how could a miracle disappoint you? How could a miracle be anything but a hundred percent good?

H
e didn’t look bad. I expected him to look disheveled, maybe even like a homeless person, but he was wearing a navy blue suit, a little worn at the sleeves, a little too large around the shoulders, but nice enough. His shoes were wing tips, a bit scuffed, but otherwise fine. His thick black glasses made him look intelligent, successful even—as long as you didn’t notice the duct tape holding together the left side of the frame.

He didn’t look bad, but he acted very odd. When I told him who I was, he didn’t hug me or say how old I’d gotten to be or say he’d missed me or any of the usual father stuff. He even repeated my name like it was a question, new to him, hard to pronounce. And he kept his eyes focused on his duffel bag. Even when I said how glad I was he was here, he nodded down at the duffel bag, not me.

I led him to the Ford, the smile still frozen on my face. We’d just pulled onto Main Street when he said, as though it explained something, “I was expecting Mary Beth. Her letter didn’t mention this.”

I nodded idiotically, but I felt like I’d been stepped on.
This
? Meaning me?

The light turned red; I stopped at the crossing on Elm. We watched two older women cross, then another woman holding hands with a toddler in a bright purple coat. Or at least I did. He was still looking at the duffel bag, stuck between his feet now.

The silence continued right through downtown and past the baseball field. I wanted to say something to break it, but my mind had gone blank several blocks earlier, when we passed the strip mall—and Holly’s father’s hardware store. We’d just gotten another letter from George yesterday, ranting how Mary Beth had NO RIGHT TO DO THIS TO HIM. (He loved using capital letters.) He also threatened a lawsuit, but he got vague when he tried to describe what he would sue my sister for, as though his lawyer had already told him he didn’t have a case. He didn’t mention Holly’s condition; he never did. I threw the letter away like any other junk mail.

We were passing River Valley when I glanced at Dad. “Do you mind if I turn on the radio?”

His only response was to lean down and move the stupid duffel bag so he could stretch his legs. So I turned it on, quietly. The song playing was a good one by Queen, but it didn’t distract me. I kept wondering what was going on. Wasn’t he even slightly glad to see the daughter he hadn’t laid eyes on for almost ten years?

“It’s supposed to get a lot colder tonight,” I said lightly. The song was over and the station had cut to the news. More about the invasion of Grenada. “It might even snow.”

Again, no response, even though this was the easiest topic in the world. Now I was getting irritated. Couldn’t he at least try?

It was several blocks later and he still hadn’t said anything when I finally blurted, “Do you even know who I am?”

My voice sounded sharper than I intended. I thought about apologizing, but before I could he answered my question—in a roundabout way. He said he’d been thinking about another day it snowed, a long time ago, when he and I had lunch with my mother at her office.

“I doubt you remember that day.” His voice was soft, maybe a little embarrassed. He still wasn’t looking at me. “You were so little.”

“I remember,” I said, and it was true, although I hadn’t remembered until just this minute. But it didn’t feel like a sudden revelation, that was the strange part.

I was in kindergarten, school was canceled. Dad had already dug out our old Chevy that morning, so we were ready to go. I was always happy to eat at the insurance company cafeteria. It was on the ground floor of the building, in a room with floor-to-ceiling windows across the whole back wall. And I loved having my own tray and sliding it slowly across the metal rails while I looked through the glass partition and examined all the different foods steaming in big metal tubs.

Mom didn’t know we were coming on that snow day. We planned to get there early and get our food first; then when she came through the doors to sit down at twelve-thirty, we would surprise her. When Mom came through the doors with her tray, Mr. Stanley, her boss, was right next to her. They were smiling already. When she saw me waving at her from the corner of the room, they came over and sat down: Mr. Stanley next to me and Mom across from me, next to Dad.

She was in a wonderful mood. She gave me a quick hug and said she couldn’t imagine a nicer surprise. Mr. Stanley told me he liked my blue dress, and told my mom I was turning out to be as cute as any child model. I knew that wasn’t true, but I beamed at him as I twirled my spaghetti around and around on my fork before I took a bite, so I wouldn’t get a single spot on my dress. And I was still smiling when Mr. Stanley asked me how Lilyboo was doing.

Lilyboo was my favorite stuffed bear. She was a Christmas present, and I had named her Lilyboo because she was white, and because she was afraid of ghosts and had to sleep with me. But her name was a secret. I’d only told Mom, Dad, and Mary Beth, and I’d made them promise not to tell anyone outside of the family.

The worst part was she didn’t even notice how embarrassed I was. When I didn’t answer, she told Mr. Stanley my teddy bear was fine and changed the topic. And she called Mr. Stanley “Will.” It was all Will this and Will that for the rest of the lunch. Dad didn’t say more than a few words, neither did I.

“I remember that day,” I repeated, but my voice was so soft, Dad probably didn’t hear me. We were almost home; the sky was getting darker. I had just pulled up to the stop sign on our block when I took a hard look at him. He seemed so shrunken and tired. His skin was pale with broken blood vessels on his cheeks and nose. His hair was gray and coarse and cut so short his ears stuck out. One of his lobes had a scab like an old shaving cut.

But he wasn’t as innocent as he looked, obviously. And he wasn’t going to get away with it.

“My mother was a good person,” I said. I’d just pulled into Agnes’s driveway, and I was staring at him, burning the truth into the side of his head—and into my own mind.

He wasn’t paying attention. He was looking up at our apartment, at the window of Mary Beth’s bedroom that used to be his and Mom’s. “It’s just as I remembered.” His tone was low, shy. And were his eyes wet? “I never thought I’d see this again.”

Part of me was touched but most of me wanted to shake him. For me, he couldn’t manage a sustained glance, much less a tear. Why all this emotion for the stupid house?

When we got inside, I made a point of giving him a tour of the place like any other stranger. Mary Beth’s door was closed, but I took him around the rest of the apartment, knowing he would see so many things he’d never seen before. The overstuffed white chair we got with Mom’s bonus when I was nine. The ferns along the kitchen window I’d kept alive since grade school. The transformation of my bed from little girl pink to the clean navy plaid I’d preferred since I was twelve. The oak bookcase my sister and I found at a garage sale when I started high school. And most obviously: the toys and clothes and pictures everywhere of the grandson he’d never met and knew next to nothing about.

He did know Tommy’s name. He said Mary Beth told him in one of her letters. I wondered how many letters there’d been but I didn’t ask. My plan to make him see the life we’d lived without him seemed to have worked all too well. We were back in the living room; I’d offered him a seat, but he hadn’t moved from where he was standing by the bookcase, still holding his duffel bag, like he was going to take off again any minute.

A decent hostess would have asked if he wanted coffee or a soda, offered him some food. But I couldn’t care about playing hostess, I was too unnerved. So I plunged ahead. I pointed to Mary Beth’s closed door and told him she was sick and needed help. I told him that was why he was here.

He seemed confused; he mentioned signing some papers, but I admitted that wasn’t really true. And then he asked, his voice so low I could barely hear it, “She doesn’t know I was coming?”

“No. But I’m sure she wants to see you.”

He blinked like he was trying to adjust to this idea, but he didn’t object when I told him we should go see her now. He carefully put the duffel bag down by the coffee table and followed me into her bedroom. I could hear him breathing nervously, but he kept walking, even when I stopped by her dresser. She was lying on her side, but not asleep. She was staring at the wall.

He was right next to her bed when he said her name. His voice was still shy, but there was a deeper tone, too. A rich, musical sound, hinting at a deep emotion (love?) that would have hurt my feelings if I wasn’t so relieved. And the look he gave her—no doubt about it, he cared. His lips were rolled together, but his eyes were big with compassion behind those black frames. His eyes were the deepest blue and exactly like my sister’s. I thought of Juanita saying it would do Mary Beth a world of good to see her father, and I was suddenly sure it was true. I’d done the right thing. It was all going to work out now.

And then she turned over and looked up at his face for a full half minute before she turned back on her side and curled into a ball.

At least she recognized him. I was sure of that, although it wasn’t much comfort. He was already stepping back, adjusting his glasses.

“Come on, Mary Beth.” My voice was a whine. “Don’t you want to talk to Dad?”

When she didn’t reply, I turned to him. “Maybe you should ask her how she feels.” Lame of course, but he did it. And she said nothing.

My sister’s room smelled vaguely bad, like sour milk. I’d pulled back her curtains this morning, as I did every morning, but it was too gray outside to change the mood. Dad was still messing with his glasses, shrinking into his too big navy suit. Mary Beth lay as immobile as stone.

It occurred to me again that I should wait. He’d been on a bus all morning and I hadn’t even offered him the bathroom. But Tommy had to be picked up soon, and I wasn’t ready to give up the hope that Dad could perform some kind of miracle so Mary Beth could save me from another evening of child care. I wanted that world of good so bad I could taste it.

I threw the clothes off the only chair in the room and dragged it over to where Dad was standing. He could sit, but he couldn’t leave this room. Not until he talked to Mary Beth.

“She’s been a little depressed lately,” I said, and gulped. What an understatement. “I was hoping you might…”

Finish this sentence please. I’m the kid here, remember?

“I don’t think she wants to talk to me,” he said, glancing at her back.

“But it’s not you. She’s like this with everybody.”

He cleared his throat but he didn’t say anything. I put my elbows on the dresser and propped my head up with my hands. The sudden hopelessness was too heavy. The room was thick with it.

After another awkward minute of silence, my mind was wandering. It was two forty-five. School would be letting out. Darlene and Denise would be getting in somebody’s car, heading to McDonald’s or Taco Bell, and griping about a stupid teacher, or a hard assignment, or an unfair grade. Mike would be getting in his truck, too, but he wouldn’t be thinking of these things. Maybe he’d have to hurry home to take care of his sisters or maybe he’d head over to the rehab, to see his mom. According to the gossip, he went there every day, although this fact hadn’t changed his reputation. He was still Maniac Mike, who would surely do something outrageous—and cool—if he ever got over this tragedy.

I barely knew Mike but I missed him. Maybe it was going to be my fate, I thought, to be always wishing for things and people I couldn’t have. It seemed so ironic: I had wished for Dad forever, and now he was here and I didn’t know what to do with him.

“I tried to visit you once,” I said. I wasn’t sure why; it had nothing to do with anything. “In Kansas City, after Mom died.”

“She was so young,” he said. He wasn’t looking at me or my sister, he was looking at the picture of Mom on the dresser, at my elbow. She looked good but not particularly young. Her hair was already gray.

“Mary Beth paid for the paint in your apartment.” My voice was firm, maybe a little harsh. “She gave money to your landlady, even though we had to buy my coat at a thrift store.”

I’d never connected the two events until I heard myself speaking. But it was true. My old coat wore out only a week or so after we got back from Kansas City. And this was before the life insurance. This was before Mary Beth even knew she would get the life insurance, since she hadn’t found Dad yet.

“I’m sorry,” he said, and his eyes clouded over, but it was his voice that really surprised me. The music was gone, and in its place was the anxious desperation I remembered from that day at the Laundromat, when he was trying to sort the clothes. “I wish you hadn’t…I didn’t mean for you—”

“It’s okay,” I said quickly.

“No.” He wouldn’t look up from his hands. “I never wanted you to see that.”

He was talking about the walls of his old apartment, but he was also talking about something bigger. Something inside himself. Whatever was wrong with him.

“I didn’t mind.” I tried to catch his eye. “Really. It wasn’t that bad.”

“Yes, it was.” He was fidgeting furiously with the ear piece of his glasses. His mouth was jerking like it was an enormous effort to get the words out. “I wanted it to be different for you. You would be safe.”

I was trying to concentrate on what he was telling me, but I was distracted by Mary Beth. She was breathing quicker, her blanket was moving, breathing, too. And she wasn’t looking away anymore; she had rolled over and was staring right at him.