Winter Birds (24 page)

Seconds later a portly woman in a bright blue coat comes out carrying a large red poinsettia in a green pot. She descends the steps and waddles to a yellow sports car in the parking lot and opens the door. This will be a tight fit, I tell myself. She folds the front passenger seat down and places the poinsettia on the floor of the back seat, then walks around to get in on the other side. The car rocks as she sits down and slowly swivels herself inside. She rummages in her purse for several seconds before finally closing the door and fastening her seat belt. When at last she starts the car and drives away, I see her hubcaps blinking with multicolored Christmas lights. Someone has gone to a lot of trouble for this effect.

I think of the way mankind uses colors to hide the emptiness of life. I place a hand over the cloisonné bird pin on my sweater. I was once especially fond of the color blue. I think now of the picture of the painted bunting in my bird book. Some of its colors, the book says, result from a kind of optical illusion rather than genuine pigmentation. The book talks of light reflecting off microscopic particles in the feathers. I think of the optical illusions in life, of the many things we think are real or important that are only imaginary, of the ways we have perfected the art of disguise. I think of the painted buntings I have known in my life, their bright colors fading as the light fell and shadows deepened. I think of how time changes all things. I close my eyes and imagine a junkyard full of the rusted hulks of yellow sports cars.

Christmas is over, but the holiday has given me much to think about. For two days now I have replayed the Christmas dinner in my mind. Over and over I hear Della Boyd’s breathless exclamations and Potts’ sonorous courtesies. I see Mindy’s eyes imploring her mother to do something about the Meal Without End. I see Steve and Teri feeding Veronica by turns. I see them wipe her mouth and chin after each bite.

I smell the smells of Christmas dinner and taste the flavors. I feel the stiffness of the pink napkin in my lap, the lace edge of the white tablecloth. I see Rachel’s soft eyes scanning the guests, intent on their needs. I hear her announcing dessert, taking orders for the two pies she has made: chocolate and coconut cream. I hear myself requesting a small slice of each. I hear Potts say, “I like Aunt Sophie’s idea—I’ll have the same.” Though I have never had a black man refer to me as Aunt Sophie, I feel no displeasure over Potts’ words. Something radiates from this man.

Rachel serves dessert with Patrick’s help. She rises after everyone has finished. As she starts clearing the table, Potts joins her, quickly stacking plates and collecting silverware, as if from long experience. I hear Teri tease Steve, telling him to pay attention to how Patrick and Potts have pitched in to help.

And I hear Patrick’s words after the table has been cleared.

He stood again and here is what he said: “Rachel and I want to extend our heartfelt thanks to all of you for gathering around our table today. You are each a testimony to us of God’s answer to a very specific prayer of ours.” I glanced at Mindy, whose lips tightened. Again she gave her mother a quick worried look. It was a look that said,
Get me out of here
.

Teri appeared not to notice, however, and Patrick sailed on. “For some time Rachel and I have felt a need to be more connected with people on a personal level. Several months ago we began talking and praying about it. We were convicted by our unhealthy isolation and our failure to obey the Great Commission.” He gave no explanation of this reference to the “Great Commission,” and no one asked. Della Boyd gave a sympathetic murmur at this point, the kind one gives to encourage a timid speaker to continue.

But Patrick needed no encouragement. “Last summer we began praying,” he said, “that God would open our eyes to those around us and would allow us opportunities of ministry. Our prayer was twofold: that he would direct us to people and that he would direct people to us.” He paused, obviously pleased with this description of his twofold prayer, then continued. “It was less than a week later that we received a letter from my aunt Sophie concerning her need for retirement accommodations.”

I refused to look at Patrick, to see the self-congratulatory beam in his eyes. Hearing his voice was enough. He went on to tell of the “honor of housing such a quiet, dignified, intelligent woman” as I, his “mother’s favorite sister.” I wondered if Virginia had known that I was Regina’s favorite. I wondered if Regina herself had known it. I wanted to kick Patrick under the table to show what I thought of such oratorical claptrap. Again Della Boyd made an approving sound, as if tasting something warm and soothing.

Patrick moved on to describe the need he felt “to have a more compassionate outreach” with his fellow employees at the Main Office, to “view them as people with needs instead of mere workers.” He expressed great joy over the fact that “God guided the footsteps of Cicero Potts right to my office door” and that “the two of us enjoy a wonderful spiritual kinship.” He then exulted over the arrival of “our new neighbors across the street, the Lowes, who have allowed us the privilege of developing a friendship with them.” And it was his “earnest hope,” he said, that the house next door would soon sell and that God would “allow us the privilege of ministering in yet other lives.” And then the other two guests—Della Boyd and Teri’s aunt Helena—had to be mentioned as further proof of God’s “direct answer to our prayers.”

He and Rachel had wanted to have such a dinner at Thanksgiving, he said, but Rachel had taken sick and had spent Thanksgiving Day in bed. And he couldn’t miss the opportunity, of course, to give himself credit for stepping in to fill the gap by bringing home takeout turkey dinners from the L & K Cafeteria. He failed to say, however, that the Thanksgiving dinner from the L & K Cafeteria was a pathetic affair, consisting of pale, undercooked turkey, a spoonful of gummy dressing, hard green peas, and a dollop of institutional-style mashed potatoes with a small craterful of congealed gravy. Dessert had been mincemeat pie. If I were to make a list of all the desserts I have ever eaten, from best to worst, that slice of mincemeat pie would be the last entry on the list.

Somehow Patrick had finally wrapped up the speech and had ended the dinner by inviting us all to “join our voices” in singing one of his favorite Christmas carols, “O Come, All Ye Faithful.” Mindy shot him a look of disbelief, as if he had suggested that we all play Bingo or try yodeling.

“Why, that is such a
nice
idea,” Della Boyd said eagerly. “I just love Christmas carols, don’t I, Helena?”

“She starts listening to them in October,” Helena said.

Della Boyd laughed. “That I do! That I do!”

Patrick was nothing if not prepared. He had printed off copies of the carol, three stanzas and the refrain, which he now distributed around the table. Rachel rose and moved to the piano, an old upright model in the living room. I had never heard the sound of the piano since coming to live here. I didn’t know Rachel could play it.

And as it turned out, she didn’t play well, though her playing was no worse than our singing. Except for Potts and Steve—they outshone the rest of us. After the first stanza they began to harmonize. It was clear that they both had an ear for music. Della Boyd sang the melody in a high, light voice that could have been pretty at one time. Before the last refrain I stopped singing, ashamed that I had allowed myself to be coerced into participating. What was I thinking? It was the height of hypocrisy to sing “O come let us adore Him” when I had so long ago given up adoring anyone or anything, mortal or divine.

As the others finished the song, I said to myself,
My father was right. Christmas is much ado about nothing
. I thought of the play by that name, a play that Shakespeare did not intend to be taken too seriously, and of a song near the end of it. Claudio introduces the song thus: “Now, music, sound,” he says, “and sing your solemn hymn.” I remembered some of the words of the song: “Midnight, assist our moan, / Help us to sigh and groan, / Heavily, heavily. / Graves, yawn and yield your dead, / Till death be uttered, / Heavily, heavily.” Scholars agree that it is a song that makes no sense.

Much like “O come, all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant,” an entreaty that would yield a pitifully small turnout if the truth were known. As Patrick offered a “prayer in closing,” I looked around the dinner table. Who besides my nephew, I wondered, would dare to call himself “faithful”? Or “joyful and triumphant”? I looked at Veronica across the table. She appeared to be enchanted by the lingering echoes of the singing, her head thrown back and her mouth open as if she thought the music was something she might like to catch on her tongue and taste.

After Patrick’s prayer, Della Boyd said, “What a nice way to end our dinner, with a Christmas carol and a prayer. I’ll never forget the time I sang that same song at one of our school programs in Yazoo City. We teachers were putting on a little play for the pupils, and I had to dress up like a fairy godmother and walk across the stage singing that song.” No one spoke for a moment. Perhaps everyone was trying to imagine what kind of play would have a fairy godmother singing “O Come, All Ye Faithful.” Perhaps someone would have asked the question if Mindy had not suddenly risen from her chair and bolted through the living room and out the front door.

“Well, my stars,” Della Boyd said. “Is she all right? Did I say something?”

Steve and Teri looked at each other. Both of them started to speak, then both stopped. Teri started to get up, but Steve reached over Veronica and touched her hand. “No, don’t run after her,” he said. “Give her some time. She’ll be okay.”

It surprised me that Patrick had nothing to say at this juncture, no word of advice, no passage of Scripture to offer. Again no one spoke for several long seconds. And then Veronica suddenly made a quiet gagging noise and promptly deposited most of her Christmas dinner onto the tray of her chair.

“Oh no!” Teri cried. Steve jumped up and pulled Veronica’s chair away from the table. Teri bent over Veronica and spoke to her. “There, sweetie, it’s all right.” She brushed Veronica’s hair away from her face. The child seemed not in the least distressed. She looked vaguely at the tray before her but appeared to see nothing. Nor did she respond in any way to her mother’s words of comfort. I wonder if the ancient Mandarin language of Nushu was ever used for expressing the woes of a mother’s heart whose child was beyond her reach.

“I’m so sorry,” Teri said to everyone in general. “She usually only does this in the mornings. We thought she’d . . .”

Rachel stood. “Hand me the tray,” she said.

“Oh no, no. I’ll clean it up,” Teri said. “I don’t want . . .”

But Rachel stepped forward and took it out of her hands.

I see a hearse now approaching the funeral home. It pulls into the parking lot and around to the back entrance.

Patrick’s words come back to me: “It was less than a week later that we received a letter from my aunt Sophie concerning her need for retirement accommodations.” I turn around to look at the living room of my retirement accommodations. What a grandiose term for such a house. I take in the old piano, the faded pink sofa, the large framed print of a lighthouse, the worn braided rug, the small tacky Christmas tree. Yet I prefer the retirement accommodations here at Patrick’s house over those in what they call a “home” or a “facility.” Certainly I prefer them to the place across the street.

I turn back to look at Wagner’s Mortuary, its wreathed doors and gingerbread trim masking the horrors that go on inside. I wonder if the old couple who went inside are touring the casket showroom yet, listening to someone describe the various features of each model. Surely not yet. Surely they save that part until last.

Suddenly a movement catches my eye. The door of Steve and Teri’s house flies open, and Rachel emerges, holding Veronica. She takes the steps quickly and heads toward the street. She is walking faster than she normally walks. In spite of the burden she carries, she is in fact almost running. I realize that I am caught. At the rate she is coming, I cannot make it back to my apartment before she will arrive at the kitchen door.

I rise from the rocking chair and move it back to its place, then stand for a moment considering what to do. Perhaps I should meet her head on. Perhaps a plausible excuse will come to me. Or I could stay in the living room and hope for an opportunity to slip through the kitchen to my apartment if she should take Veronica back to the bedrooms.

But she opens the kitchen door and calls at once, “Aunt Sophie! We need your help!” I hear her go to my apartment door and knock, repeating her words: “Aunt Sophie! We need you. Can you help?”

I walk into the kitchen behind her. I see her shift Veronica in her arms, then knock again. “Aunt Sophie, are you busy?” She turns the knob and opens the door.

“Here I am,” I say.

She wheels around. She looks relieved. “We need you,” she says again. “Can you help?” She does not ask what I’m doing in the kitchen instead of in my apartment. Something far more important is on her mind.

I nod. “Yes, what is it?”

I hear the honk of a horn in the driveway.

“That’s Teri,” Rachel says. “We have to take care of Mindy. Can you watch Veronica?”

I don’t remember answering, but seconds later Rachel is gone and Veronica is lying on my bed. She makes no sound, but her eyes rake the ceiling. There is no sign of fear in them, however, and her lips are parted as if preparing to comment on the wonders of a new ceiling, one she hasn’t seen before.

Chapter 19

Like a Fair House Built on Another Man’s Ground

Bird watchers are often disappointed when they finally see their first glimpse of the elusive warbling vireo. Though known for possessing one of the most beautiful songs in the bird kingdom, the vireo has little else to distinguish it—no bright plumage, no unusual markings, no unique habits
.

It is New Year’s Eve. A time for reflecting on the past year. A time for establishing grand and noble intentions for the coming year. In Patrick and Rachel’s case, a time for going to church for a special prayer service. For Sophie, a time for sitting in her recliner as she does every night. Time for watching the images on her television. Waiting for something she cannot name. Wondering what is on the other side of now.