The Song Reader (25 page)

“This must be so hard on her,” he said softly. “Being away from home.”

I shrugged but then I glanced at him. Juanita had made him worry beads for Easter. He had them clutched in his left hand and his thumb was rolling them, one by one.

I forced another smile. “You wouldn’t believe how good she looks. I was just telling Ben, I think she may be better a lot sooner than those doctors think.”

He didn’t say anything, but his hand relaxed a little. After a few minutes, his hand stopped moving, and not long after that, I realized he’d fallen asleep. I wasn’t surprised. He had to be tired, too, from taking care of Tommy. I knew he’d just waited up for me.

I walked over and gently took the beads, put them on the lamp table, next to his glasses, and then headed to the front porch. It was Saturday night, a warm spring night, and I was tired of thinking. I wanted to forget about Dr. Kaplan, Ben’s friend Aaron and all that blood, Mary Beth’s laughing at everything. I wanted to be a kid who didn’t know that damn near everybody’s secret was the same: that their life had been full of heartbreak.

By the time Mike pulled up in his truck, I was hunched over on the porch bench, knee-deep in self-pity. He was wearing a suit, which struck me as odd but then I remembered his new job at the condo development by the river. He was trying to save money for college now that he wouldn’t have his grandfather’s help. He’d said the hours were long, especially on weekends. Maybe it was true.

He sat down on the bench next to me, reached in his pocket, and handed me a letter. I couldn’t make out most of it in the dim porch light but I saw the letterhead. And I saw him beaming.

I looked up and smiled. “You got in to Stanford.” It was his first choice, and he almost didn’t apply because he was so sure they wouldn’t take him. He had great grades and test scores, but he was just a regular Joe from nowhere Missouri. That’s what he always said anyway. “Oh, Mike, this is so great.”

“They gave me a scholarship, too. Not all of it, but I really think I can do this.”

“I’m sure you can.”

He put his hands on my shoulders. “And now I think we need to go to the prom.”

“What?”

“It’s our last chance. In a month, I’ll be done with River Valley forever.”

“So? You hate River Valley.”

“Come on, Leeann. I want to do this for you.”

“But it’s so late.”

“Run in and get dressed. We’ll have plenty of time to dance.”

“You hate dancing.”

“That was before I became a gentleman and a scholar.” He smiled again. “Plus, I’m Maniac Mike. You never know what I’ll try next.”

I slipped inside, careful not to bang the door and wake up Dad. Fifteen minutes later, I was back on the porch wearing the only fancy dress I owned. It was an old gown of Mary Beth’s; Juanita had hemmed it for me to wear to her cousin Rafael’s wedding at the beginning of April. Luckily I hadn’t spilled anything on it. It was pretty but not exactly right for a prom. It was deep green with a high neck and little pearl buttons, a big flouncy skirt—not a single sexy thing about it.

But Mike loved it. He said it was very Victorian, and so tonight I would be Elizabeth Barrett and he would be Robert Browning.

“Unless you want to be married.” He had a corsage on the seat of the truck. He was pinning it on me. “Would you rather be Elizabeth Barrett Browning?”

I felt so happy I had to stifle a giggle. “Yes, I think I would.”

“Okay then, Mrs. Browning.” He did a very deep, very silly bow and held out his arm. “Shall we go?”

When we got there it wasn’t quite midnight, but the River Valley parking lot was almost empty. Most people had already cut out for a party or the river bluffs or anywhere where teachers wouldn’t be watching.

“All the better for us, Mrs. B,” Mike said, opening the door of the truck. “We can sail across the dance floor undisturbed.”

“Sail” wasn’t quite the word for what we did. Mike and I had to be among the world’s worst fast dancers. Slow dancing was better, mainly because we just stood and held each other while Mike recited his—that is Browning’s—poetry.

“If one could have that little head of hers, painted upon a background of pure gold, such as the Tuscan’s early art.”

I leaned back and looked at him. “My head isn’t little, is it?”

“How can you ask that? You know I dream of a red-rose tree. And which of its roses three, is the dearest rose to me?”

It actually fit pretty well with the Lionel Richie and Air Supply.

In between dances, Mike told everybody who would listen about Stanford. Only the teachers seemed to get what a huge deal it was. Mrs. Wood, our English teacher, had written one of his recommendations. She was manning the punch bowl and she damn near knocked it over, rushing around to give him a congratulatory pat on the back.

I didn’t see Darlene anywhere, but I did see Kyle and Amanda. They were prom king and queen; they probably couldn’t leave until it was over. When he walked by and gave me a smirky smile, I was glad Mike was looking the other way. He hated Kyle’s guts now that he knew what happened to me.

But all of that was over now. This was a new night, and I was in a dream, dancing with my boy. My gangly, beautiful Robert Browning.

I only knew one poem of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s. It was very late when I finally blurted it out. The song playing was Bonnie Tyler’s “Total Eclipse of the Heart,” which always made me emotional. It was popular when Mary Beth got sick.

“How do I love thee?” I said, pulling him closer. “Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height my soul can reach.” I paused, and tried not to sound as embarrassed as I was. “Nice, isn’t it? It’s my newest sonnet.”

“And I love thee,” he said. His voice was quiet, strangely serious. “Freely, as men strive for right, purely, as they turn from praise.”

I swallowed hard. “I love thee with the passion put to use in my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.”

He kissed my hair. “And I love thee with a love I seemed to lose with my lost saints.”

I could feel tears standing in my eyes. It was just hitting me that he was going to California. He would be so far away from Tainer, and from me.

The song was over but I didn’t want to let go of him. Finally I looked up and whispered, “I think I’m ready to stop squandering time.”

He knew what I meant. His voice was very surprised. “Are you sure?”

“Pretty sure,” I said, and smiled. “No, really sure.”

He didn’t seem as excited as I expected. Maybe he didn’t believe it would actually work out this time. But twenty minutes later we were parked at our secret spot at the river bluffs. It was my idea to stay in the truck. Tommy’s flu meant we couldn’t go to my house, but also the truck felt like our home now. Everything important to us had happened here: from the night he drove me home from Juanita’s party to the snowy afternoon he saved Dad and me at the mall and nearly everything since.

We’d barely started when I knew something was wrong. He wasn’t kissing me in the passionate way he usually did; his arm around me was heavy and motionless, a duty. When I tried to move his hand to my breast, he managed to drift up to my neck. I asked if he was okay and he said yes. I asked if he wanted to talk and he said no. It wasn’t until I went to unzip my dress—hoping to inspire him—that he whispered, “Stop.”

He sat up straight.

“Something is wrong.”

“Yeah,” he said, and exhaled. “I don’t think I can do this.”

My face was on fire, but I crossed my arms tightly across my chest and watched him open the glove compartment. He smoked for a while, and I listened to the crickets and an owl hooting in the distance as I wondered how this could be happening.

By his second cigarette, I’d settled on the theory that he wasn’t attracted to me anymore. I’d gained a few pounds since we moved to Juanita’s; maybe he thought I was fat. Maybe he’d realized how dumpy I always was that night in St. Louis, when I put on that T-shirt and old terry cloth shorts. He was so tall and elegant, especially in that suit. I’d never been more attracted to him, unfortunately.

“Remember when you told me I looked like my mom?”

His voice startled me out of my self-loathing. “Sure,” I said. It was after Christmas, the first time I went with him to visit her in the rehab, when she was well enough for visitors. But I couldn’t imagine what it had to do with anything.

“No one else had ever said that to me. Growing up, everybody said I looked like George.”

Mike never called him Grandpa anymore. Holly didn’t call him Dad. He was George. Just a guy they knew. No relation.

I turned to him. The breeze had picked up and the trees were blowing, making the moonlight dance across his face. “I don’t see that at all.”

“Because you haven’t seen the pictures.” He took a long drag. “They used to show them to me. Pictures of him as a kid. They said we could have been twins.” He put out the cigarette and leaned his arm on the window. After a minute he said in a harsh voice, “Old George used to talk to me about what this would be like.”

“This?”

“Sex. He talked like it was so powerful, like it could turn you into a person you didn’t recognize. It was one of his favorite sayings: a stiff dick has no conscience.”

“God.” It was still warm, but I was shivering a little.

“When we were in the hotel and you told me what Kyle did to you, I wanted to break his stupid neck. It was like Mom all over again. I couldn’t believe the two people I love most were hurt by some fucking guy.”

“You thought that?” My voice was soft, amazed.

“Yeah, but that wasn’t the only thing. I also thought about having sex with you. And I don’t mean for a minute. I mean constantly, the whole night. You were crying about your mom, and I was looking at your breasts. You were telling me how bad it hurt when that moron tried to force you, and I was imagining how you would look naked. Even when you were asleep, I was staring at you, wishing I could touch you.”

He draped his arms across the steering wheel. I heard what sounded like a barge moving down the Mississippi.

It took me a minute. “Is this why you’re always too busy to come over?”

“No. I mean, I have been working. But okay, yeah. I don’t want to hurt you. I’d rather not see you than hurt you.”

“Oh, Mike, you’re not going to hurt me.” I touched his arm. I was so relieved I almost laughed. “This is sweet but it’s crazy. You’re nothing like George or Kyle.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Because they’re jerks.”

“Maybe I’m a jerk, too.”

“Come on, they would never spend one second wondering what you’re wondering right now. God, Kyle still doesn’t think he did anything wrong at that party. You know that.”

“True.”

“And I don’t care what you were thinking in St. Louis. You were nice to me. You listened and held me and it was sweet.” Then I did laugh. “The main thing is, you’re not dumping me and you don’t think I’m fat.” I gulped. “You even said you loved me.”

“Because I do.” He took both my hands in his, lacing our fingers together. “I love thee with the breath, smiles, tears, of all my life.”

“Well then?”

“But—”

“It’s okay. We’re married, remember?” I smiled. “Kiss me, you fool.”

And finally he did. He kissed me and I kissed him until we were both out of breath. At some point, he pushed the seat back so we’d be more comfortable. He was sweating and I was definitely warm enough to take off my clothes when he reached for the zipper of my gown.

He told me he would take it slow. He made me promise to tell him if it hurt even a little bit. Then he whispered, “Are you afraid?”

“No,” I said. It was true. His fingertips were running over me like they were touching velvet. The feeling was as intense as if I’d just discovered the existence of my skin.

The moonlight was gone now, lost in clouds, but I could still see the woods. There were fireflies blinking in the trees. “Sparks of hope,” Mary Beth used to call them, when I was a little kid and she would catch them for me in Agnes’s backyard. The evidence, she insisted, that things would all work out in the end.

As I felt Mike’s chest rising against mine, his breath in sync with my breath, I thought the tiny flashes were just about the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. It was the last thought I had before I became my body, all eagerness and girlish desire, wanting nothing but this.

M
y sister left St. Christopher’s Hospital the third week of May. It was a Wednesday afternoon, and she checked herself out AMA: against medical advice. She had to sign a paper that said she was aware Dr. Kaplan did not feel she was ready. “But it’s just so I don’t sue them,” she said, grinning at the nurse who’d handed her the clipboard and pen. She turned to me. “And so you don’t sue them, if I walk out of here and straight off a bridge.”

I carried her suitcase as we walked down the hall. She was singing a song I’d never heard. “F means I’m forever walking on. R means I got rails to move along. E-E-D is all that’s left of need. O-M, omit the misery. FREEDOM, brother, is what I’m going for. FREEDOM, sister, is waiting out that door.”

“What’s that called?” I was just making conversation. I figured it had to be called Freedom, but she said she hadn’t given it a title yet.

“You wrote it?”

“Just now,” she said, and looked at her watch. “Maybe I’ll call it May 16, 1:42.” She shrugged. “Dr. Kaplan thinks I need to stop reading songs for other people and start writing them for myself. So I do, whenever I can remember. Well, I don’t write them exactly. I think them up, but I don’t care if they get saved.”

“Why not?”

“It doesn’t matter. There’s always more.”

“How many have you written so far?”

“A hundred? A thousand? I don’t know. Whenever I want one, poof, it’s there.”

I glanced at her, trying to decide if she was serious. She seemed to be. And she didn’t seem crazy or dangerous or whatever it was I was supposed to make sure she
wasn’t
before I agreed to take her home.

She’d called me at seven-thirty that morning. I was getting ready for school. Juanita and Tommy were already gone; Dad was at his table, drinking coffee and arranging the envelopes. I was very surprised to hear her voice, and even more so when she told me to come get her.

“You have your license now, right?”

“Sure,” I said. She’d sensed my hesitation. “Does Ben know about this?”

“No, and I don’t want you to tell him. Please.” She was whispering. “He’s done too much for me already.”

I said I wouldn’t, but I didn’t mean it. I also didn’t mean it when I promised not to tell Dad or Juanita. As soon as I hung up, I tried to tell them all. Ben I couldn’t reach. He was flying to a conference in New Mexico today. (I wondered if Mary Beth knew this. I had a feeling she did.) Juanita and Dad both had the same reaction: if she wants to come home, let’s go get her.

The problem was, she’d insisted I come alone. “Just you. You’re the only one. Please, baby. Please do this for your big sis.”

It was Dad who finally said I should do it. But Juanita made me promise that I would “check Mary Beth out” before we stepped one foot from that hospital. Make sure she’s not too nutty. Make sure she’s not gonna hurt herself. Make sure.

Was it nutty to make up a song about freedom when you’re leaving a mental hospital? Not to me it wasn’t. And Mary Beth had a really nice voice. Her high school chorus teacher had begged her to be in the school musicals but she was already working at the pizza place and didn’t have time.

Her ditties sounded really good. She had another one for the Ford. The freedom song had a gospel sound, but this one was pure punk. “My car and me, we don’t see eye to eye. I want to drive, it wants to up and die. This car is crap! The engine raps! The floorboard’s got a hole. It makes me lose control…of…my shoooooooooe.”

She laughed and so did I. It was fun, really. It passed the time until the Ford turned over and we were back on the road. Of course I insisted on driving. I wasn’t sure if she was up to dealing with all the midday St. Louis traffic.

“So what do you think of the city?” she said, waving her hand out the window.

“I like it,” I said, “but it’s a little crowded.”

“Where are all these people going? Do you ever wonder about that? When you look in the other cars, do you wonder what they’re thinking and feeling and doing? Like that car there.” She pointed at an old maroon Datsun in the left-hand lane. “Do you think that man is going to a funeral or just headed back to the office? Does he have a wife? Maybe he has two boys or five girls. Hey, pull up closer. I think he’s listening to the radio. I want to know what song.”

“I can’t get any closer. I’m already tailgating this Chrysler.”

“Fine. I don’t really care anyway.” She leaned back. “It’s just a habit. I mean, really, why
should
I care about all these people?”

I took a quick look at her. She didn’t look crazy, but she did look a little strange. The phrase that kept coming to mind was too bright. Like she was absorbing part of the sunshine. Like she might even glow once it got dark.

Of course that was a crazy thought, but it was my crazy thought, so it was okay.

“Are you hungry?” I asked.

“A little. They fed us constantly in that place, but the food was like cardboard. One time I told Ben if he didn’t sneak me in some fried chicken I was going to scream. The greasier the better. I wanted it dripping off my fingers.”

“Did he?”

“He brought back broiled chicken breasts and asparagus.” She shrugged. “He tried, but the restaurants he goes to don’t serve fried anything. It wasn’t bad, though.” Her voice was softer. “We sat on a blanket outside and ate lunch like we were any other couple.”

“Do you want me to stop at a KFC?”

“No, but thanks, baby.” She put her hand on my arm and exhaled. “You have no idea what a relief it is to be here. Just you and me, like the old days.”

She grew quiet as I pulled onto the entrance for the highway. Maybe the familiar signs for Cape Girardeau and Cairo were reminding her that we were heading south, toward home.

“Tommy is going to flip out when he sees you.” I smiled. “He was just telling me yesterday that his mama will be back any day now.”

Actually, he told me his mama would be back by this Saturday, and therefore, by a logic only a kid could follow, he didn’t need to clean his room. “She’ll sleep right here,” he said, kicking his legs against his mattress. When I asked him where he would sleep, he said, “Here, too, silly!”

“I don’t want to talk about Tommy yet,” Mary Beth whispered. She was tapping her foot like she was hearing music. Maybe another of her songs.

Dad and Juanita were expecting a call. I’d told them I’d get to a truck stop as soon as I had Mary Beth and we were back on the road. Mike wanted a call, too. He’d dropped by to take me to school this morning right as I was leaving. I was just wondering how I’d manage all this without her knowing I’d broken my promise, when she looked at me.

“You know, Dr. Kaplan talked about you a lot. She thought I should open up to you more. Your sister loves you, she kept saying.” Mary Beth was rubbing her thumb back and forth on the armrest between us. “You can trust Leeann.”

“It’s true.” My voice didn’t waver.

“That’s good to know,” she said, and then nothing for maybe ten miles. The car was hot and I felt my damp legs sticking to the vinyl seat. I decided if I didn’t get to a phone, it would be all right. We’d be back by supper. They wouldn’t have to worry for too long.

I was daydreaming about what it would be like, walking in the door with her. Especially seeing Dad and her together. What they would say to each other.

“Okay,” she said softly. “I’m going to trust you, honey. So here’s the thing. I don’t think I can go back.”

I inhaled. “That makes sense. I mean, I wouldn’t want to go back to that hospital, either.”

“I’m not talking about the hospital, Leeann. You know I’m not.”

I could feel her eyes on me, and it was true, I did know. She was talking about Tainer. She meant she couldn’t go back to our town.

I wasn’t that surprised. Dr. Kaplan had hinted that Mary Beth might be better off in a new place. Facing your problems is one thing, Dr. Kaplan said, but facing an unthinking mob is another. I told her Tainer didn’t have any mobs, but she said she didn’t mean it literally.

I had wondered many times how my sister would deal with being home after everything that happened. The antifamily calls had stopped since we went to Juanita’s, but the gossip hadn’t. George made sure of that, and since he owned the only hardware store for fifty miles, he had a damn near captive audience. People still needed nuts and bolts and wood glue. People still liked hearing rumors, even if they were as bizarre as the latest: that my sister was another Reverend Moon, and Holly and her husband and kids had been brainwashed into a cult.

When I glanced at Mary Beth and noticed her hands trembling, I remembered Dr. Kaplan saying she was afraid of losing my love. It was so hard to believe. Even as a little kid, the desire to please her was one of my earliest feelings. I vividly remembered having a fit when Mom wouldn’t buy me new crayons just because I needed a new violet. My old one was worn to a nub and I wanted to draw more pictures for my sister in her favorite color.

“All right,” I said slowly, “let’s say you did leave. Where would you go?”

“I knew you would ask that. Ben always says you’re the most pragmatic person. But I’m not complaining, honey. I’m gonna need your practical side to help me plan all this. Okay, well, I could go to Philadelphia. That’s what Ben wants, and I did tell him I would think about it. He has all these great plans for us: kids, a house, the whole nine yards. But the thing is, he still thinks I’m like he is, just an all-round good person, out to save the world. If only he knew, right? Ha, ha.”

She was talking so fast, I was having trouble keeping up. By the time it hit me what she meant, she’d moved on.

“So anyway last night, I went to the hospital library and studied the maps and I think I found the perfect spot. It’s a small town. Cities are so dirty and mean, you know? It’s still on the river. I can’t imagine living anywhere without the river, can you?”

I never cared much about the river but I knew my sister did. She used to claim she could feel its presence for miles. She was the only person I knew who drove to the bluffs to look at the Mississippi instead of a boyfriend or girlfriend.

“And the best part is the name,” she continued. “I just love this. Waterproof, Louisiana. I kid you not.” She slapped her knee. “Don’t you love that? Can’t you see the postcards? Having a great time in Waterproof, wishing you were here. I could send ’em to Tainer the next time it floods. Juanita would get such a kick out of it.”

I paused a moment. An eighteen wheeler was crowding me. I waved him past, and waited until he’d gone over the hill.

“What will you do for money?”

“I’m sure Waterproof has a restaurant. I’ll work two jobs if I have to. I’m a hard worker. Dr. Kaplan said so, too.” She let out a laugh. “I’ll have you know I was the star of occupational therapy.”

It made a weird kind of sense, but I suddenly felt like I had to know if all this was just crazy talk. Did Waterproof, Louisiana even exist?

“I have to go to the bathroom,” I said. “We can get gas, too.”

We pulled off at the next exit and into a Texaco. While Mary Beth was pumping the gas, I went into the office and asked to look at the atlas. Sure enough, Waterproof was real and right on the Mississippi. I thought the people who named that delta town had some sense of humor.

The phone was outside, only a few feet from the car. But I didn’t call them. I didn’t want to lie to her, and we were already halfway home.

For the next thirty or so miles, she kept up a steady stream of talk about what it would be like to move to a brand-new place. Her brightness was more intense than ever. It was more like a vapor than a light. It seemed to fill up the whole car.

“I can come back for Tommy,” she was saying. “As soon as I get work and a good place lined up. It won’t take long, I’m sure. A month or two, tops.”

I could see his big black eyes, hear his sweet lispy voice asking why his mama hadn’t come home yet. A month or two was an infinity to a little kid. Mary Beth knew that as well as I did, or at least she used to know.

But maybe she had to do this. Maybe the only alternative was more time in the hospital, or even worse, slipping back to where she’d been last November and December.

I wanted to be supportive but I was so confused. Shouldn’t I at least tell her that I would miss her? Or would that mess her up again? Dr. Kaplan had said many times that it was too much responsibility that led to my sister’s breakdown. But she also said Mary Beth was afraid of losing my love.

A Camaro full of teenagers passed us. The guy in the passenger seat was staring at her, mouth open. Maybe he saw the brightness, too.

“Well, it might work,” I said. It was just hitting me that this was the first time in years I’d been in the car with Mary Beth without the radio playing. No wonder our pauses seemed so loud. “Of course you’d have to call me and let me know you’re all right.” I forced a smile. “Let me know if Waterproof is living up to its name.”

“Call you? Oh honey, you don’t think I’m going without you? God, I could never leave you behind.” She touched my shoulder. “Don’t you remember? You’re my baby princess.”

I hadn’t thought about this in so long, it felt like a detail of someone else’s life. It was years and years ago, before Mom died, before Dad left. She was in high school; I wasn’t a baby, but I was younger than Tommy. She used to hold my hand, swing it back and forth, and sing. “My little dolly, cute as can be, she wouldn’t kiss any frogs. But then the prince came and took her away, oh, bring back my doll girl to me. I went across the whole wide, wide world, I found my dolly under a tree. Now it’s a baby princess I see, no baby could be sweeter. My baby princess, cute as can be, no prince can take her away from me.”