All for a Song (31 page)

Fearing a descent into the same argument, Lynnie forces a grunt from the back of her throat to bring the attention back to her.

“Of course, happy birthday, Great-Aunt Dottie. If I can get one of these two to open the door, we’ll get things set up.”

Grumbling, RJ complies. Darren wheels Lynnie, who stares at Penny’s bustling behind, made even more entertaining as it wriggles beneath a pair of dark-blue stretch pants.

“Well, isn’t this nice?” Penny says with enough enthusiasm to make it so. In truth, the celebration room is modest in its glory. It’s warm in here—as always—and the tables have been covered with colored cloths that look like so much confetti. In the center of each is a glass vase with one or two plastic flowers—standard centerpieces for all occasions.

It turns out the answer to the question “Is anybody else here?” is yes. Seven people, actually, representing three generations: RJ’s son—another Roy—his daughter Kathleen and her husband, Patrick, and their four children, whose names Lynnie has never bothered to learn. They all start with
K
, a practice she has always found maddening, and as far as she can remember, she’s never had a single conversation with them beyond the obligatory thank-you and good-bye. Right now all of them—children, parents, and grandparents—are engrossed in their individual electronic gadgets, which accounts for the silence on the other side of the door.

“There you are,” Kathleen says, rising from her chair. She is every bit as portly as Penny, though she dresses more fashionably to accommodate the extra weight. “You said two o’clock. We’ve been waiting in here for fifteen minutes.”

“Well, I had to pick everything up, and the cake wasn’t ready, and then I couldn’t find a parking place . . .”

Penny’s litany of complaints goes on, without the slightest attempt to hide her frustration.

“Next time let me know and I’ll help out.”

“Oh, next time? For the hundred-and-eighth?”

They find resolution in laughter, never acknowledging that Lynnie is there, waiting, listening. Instead, Penny forges on, dropping the cake on one of the tables and unpacking the grocery bag with boxes of crackers and plastic packages of cheese cubes.

“Kids,” Kathleen says as she counts out a stack of paper plates, “go say happy birthday to your great-aunt Dottie.”

“Great-great-great-aunt Dottie,” Penny says, delighted. “Isn’t that something?”

None of the children move until their father nudges one with his elbow. Then, with eyes rolled to the ceiling, the oldest—a surly-looking teen—takes to his feet and shuffles over to where Lynnie has been parked near the window.

“Hapbirthdaygrauntdottie,” he mutters, not bothering to look away from the screen in his hands. It’s a wonder he can see anything through the shock of hair in front of his eyes. One by one they follow suit, looking either at their electronic games, at the floor, or at something slightly behind her. Only the youngest—a five-year-old surprise—stares at her with unabashed terror, forgetting completely what she has been sent over to say. A helpful older brother slugs her in the arm hard enough to knock her off balance.

“Say ‘happy birthday,’ stupid!”

Her round little mouth struggles for the words, but ultimately tears win out and she runs back to the safety of her father, who absently gathers her into his lap.

“What a doofus,” the slugger says as he rejoins his family at the table.

It seems only fitting that Darlene’s descendants are as unpleasant as her own children, though were she still alive and in this very room, she would deny any hint of rudeness.

Lynnie raises her eyes.
You’re the lucky one, dear sister.

Oh, that she might be spared another repeat of this day.

The men congregate in muttering uselessness while the women putter about. Kathleen bops her finger, counting, and says, “Are we it?”

“I think so,” Penny says. “Aunt Margaret simply couldn’t make the trip. And really, at her age, what’s the point?”

Aunt Margaret, of course, is Darlene’s youngest child—the daughter she so hoped for—who married promptly at the age of eighteen and lived all over the world as an officer’s wife before retiring in Orlando, Florida. She and all of her family had flown in to celebrate when Lynnie had lived a mere century. That party was not held in the celebration room. Rather, they had rented nearly an entire floor of the new Hampton Inn, and the party lasted most of a day with a catered dinner, a four-tiered cake, and champagne. A full hour was taken by each family member’s heartfelt good-bye, each sure this would be the last they would see her this side of Glory.

Most were right. Today, only the St. Louis remnant has assembled—those living in the shadow of Finest Automobiles, Roy’s car dealership, which RJ and Darren took over upon his retirement. It was a family joke that Finest Automobiles was a crucial third party in Patrick and Kathleen’s courtship, and to think—someday Roy’s legacy would be handed down to the sullen teen with nickel-size holes in his earlobes.

“We’ll still be finished by three, right?” Patrick says, readjusting the daughter on his lap to better see his phone. “I have two clients to see.”

“Yes,” Kathleen says, indulgently. “It’s just cake and snacks.”

Penny looks disgusted. “Would it kill you to put work aside and enjoy one hour of family time?”

A smile tugs at Lynnie’s mouth as she envisions him setting down his phone and keeling over. The kid might take a tumble, but children are resilient. Most of them, anyway.

“Besides,” Penny continues, pouring punch into red plastic cups, “how many more opportunities like this do you think we’re going to have? Maybe Christmas—”

“We’re going to have to come back here for Christmas?” the slugger whines. Kathleen shoots him a warning look and sends a long-distance jab with the sharp cake knife.

“We’d give anything to have one more celebration with our mother,”
RJ or Darren says, and everyone in the room has the decency to look sad, though half never had the opportunity to meet her.

Suddenly, she is moving, being pushed by Penny, who—as always—smells like cake.

“Here we go,” she says in that singsong voice that lets Lynnie know she’s being addressed. “Let’s get you up to the table and get you a snack.”

Kathleen, the soul of efficiency, slides a plate of cheese and crackers onto the table.

“Can she eat those?” Penny asks above her head, whispering. “You don’t think she might choke?”

“I hadn’t thought of that,” Kathleen says, and the food is whisked away. “Will she be able to eat the cake?”

“I think so. We’ll have to watch and see if she needs any help.”

“Maybe we should do the candles now, so we can all eat whatever, whenever.”

“Sounds good,” Penny says, and once again Lynnie is in motion, coming to a stop in front of a half sheet cake. The icing is white, with streams of colored frosting strewn down the sides. In the center, the words
Happy Birthday, Dothy
are piped in red.

“I’m sorry they misspelled your name,” Penny says. “I couldn’t decide if I should put Dorothy or Lynnie or Dottie or what. . . . That’s the last time I order a cake over the phone.”

“It’ll taste the same,” Roy III says, contributing his first wisdom to the gathering.

“That it will,” Penny says, obviously hoping her cheerfulness will energize the room and gather them all in its warmth. “Now, Great-Aunt Dottie, we wanted to put on all 107 candles, but we were afraid the fire marshal wouldn’t approve.” She allowed for the unenthusiastic, obligatory laughter before continuing. “So I thought we’d each put a candle in the cake and take turns giving you a birthday blessing.”

While Penny speaks, Kathleen is dutifully handing a tiny candle to each person—young and old—all of whom look bewildered to be in possession of such a thing.

“Uncle RJ? You’re the oldest, so why don’t you start.”

The birthday candle looks silly in the old man’s hand—undignified, somehow. He stares at it, as if seeking inspiration, then says to Penny, “I don’t know what you want me to do.”

“Just say something nice about your aunt Dottie. Something she’s meant to you.”

Her answer seems unhelpful, and he shifts his gaze to Lynnie, studying her.

“What’s your favorite memory?” Penny prompts.

“She taught me to sing ‘Glow-Worm,’” he says finally. “She played it on her guitar and taught me the words.”

Lynnie remembers that day and can almost see the young boy behind the old man’s carefully groomed face. She taps a rhythm on her lap and hums the tune, pleased to find the occasional note escaping to her audience.

“That’s it,” RJ says, then clears his throat. “‘Shine, little glow-worm, glimmer, glimmer . . .’”

The two of them—he aloud, she in silence—sing the song through its first jaunty verse. For a moment, it’s a summer’s day and she can smell his sweaty head tucked against her arm, fascinated as her fingers find the chords. Her eyes rim with tears at the memory, and in the midst of the smattering of family applause, RJ takes her hand in his and brings it to his lips.

“You were as wonderful a mother as our own,” he says, and it’s the first moment she has ever truly loved him.

“Now, put the candle in the cake, Uncle RJ,” Penny says, her own voice choked with emotion. “Daddy? You’re next.”

RJ, however, does not put the candle on the cake. Rather, he hands it to Penny and takes himself back to his table to wait.

“Our mother loved you very much,” Darren says. He places a dry kiss on the top of her head, hands his candle to Penny, and joins his brother.

“You’re not doing it right,” Penny says, exasperated as she wedges the candles into the cake. “Roy?”

RJ’s son looks lost and uncomfortable. Finally, he says, “I wish I’d
known you better,” before handing his candle to his cousin and joining the other men.

“Well, this is not what I had in mind at all,” Penny says. “This sounds more like a funeral than a birthday party. I mean, look at this woman. One hundred and seven years old! That’s more than a century! Imagine the things she has seen, how the world has changed.” She kneels beside the wheelchair. “I’d give anything to hear the stories locked up inside that head of yours.”

“You had fifty years to hear them,” Roy says. “You should have asked her back then.”

“When I was a kid,” she says, directing her comments to the children, who appear to have no intentions of listening, “I didn’t care about the exploits of some old woman. And now it’s too late.”

“Wouldn’t have mattered,” RJ says. “Mom wouldn’t let her tell them. Neither would Grandma. I remember hearing them up late at night right after Margaret was born saying what happened in California wasn’t anybody’s business.”

“What happened in California?” Kathleen says. She has a Ritz cracker piled high with cheese cubes and pops the whole thing into her generous mouth.

RJ shrugs. “Never asked. All I remember is that she ran off right before her wedding.”

“But she came back, didn’t she?” Penny is still holding her candle aloft, not quite finished with her birthday blessing.

Lynnie listens to all of this with her heart full of unspoken secrets. No wonder she is a stranger to these people. How harmless it all seems now, hardly worth a lifetime of supposed scandal. Flesh and blood they may be, but Kaleena could have wheeled any old woman down the hall and parked her in the celebration room, and no one would have been the wiser. Not one person has mentioned seeing her on the
Today
show, and nobody has even a single picture to pass around and share memories. They could take a lesson from that Charlotte Hill. Her and her gadget with its pictures and songs.

The celebration room has a window that looks out onto the hallway,
and, seized with a longing for someone familiar, Lynnie cranes her neck around Penny’s frothy mass in response to the feeling that someone on the other side is looking in.

There she is, the familiar pointy face and unnaturally black hair. She stands against the wall, arms folded, watching. Lynnie lifts one shaking hand, intending to beckon Charlotte inside. She, after all, holds the answers to all their questions. Her slouchy satchel holds the evidence of that secret time. Charlotte can clear her name and free her conscience, deflating whatever infamy Darlene’s progeny have imagined.

But her hand is captured between Penny’s soft, frosting-smudged ones.

“My birthday wish for you,” she says, her mouth wide in a clownish smile, “is that we can all gather here together just like this next year. And that God will somehow touch your mind so you can realize just how much we all care.”

There’s no escaping the embrace to come. Lynnie’s face is impaled on a hard bit of plastic—part of the autumn-themed embellishment on Penny’s sweatshirt.

“Somebody take my picture,” she says, her voice loud in Lynnie’s ear. “Use my camera.” Then Penny twists around, making the two of them cheek-to-cheek. She can smell the woman’s face powder and imagines a smudge of makeup will be left behind when this ordeal is over.

Kathleen stands ready and says, “Say cheese,” which one of the children thinks to protest as being cruel, given that the old lady can’t talk.

“Penny can talk enough for both of them,” Roy says, and the flash erupts in a moment of genuine laughter.

“Ah, that’s nice,” Kathleen says, walking over. She shows the image to Penny, who furrows her brow and claims to look fat before bending to show the picture to Lynnie.

She doesn’t want to look, not while the young woman in the red dress is still so fresh in her mind. Penny, though, ever forceful, brings the camera around to invade her line of sight, and there they are—the essence of Darlene and the old woman she wouldn’t live to become.