The Language of Sycamores (6 page)

“Really?” Kate seemed politely skeptical. “We’ve always thought Joshua took after Ben’s family.”

Jenilee shook her head. “He looks just like Nate. I mean, they could be twins. I’ll have to bring one of Nate’s baby pictures sometime. You’ll be shocked.”

We stood dumbfounded, not quite sure how to react to our first case of family resemblance. Something inside me turned a corner. I felt a sense of connection that went beyond words.

“Well, I guess we should go eat.” Kate’s tone indicated she was glad the excitement was over. On her way through the door, she picked up Joshua’s car on a string and said to him, “This is an outside game, Josh. You know that.” Then she glanced at Dell, whose dark eyes were slightly downcast. “Honey, please don’t help him tie strings on these anymore. The other day he ran past Rose and knocked her off her feet.” Dell looked like she was about to cry, and Kate immediately backpedaled. “It’s all right, Dell. It was just an accident.”

Jenilee quickly chimed in, “It was no big deal, really. It’s O.K. I shouldn’t have been standing in front of the door.”

That seemed to reassure Dell. She and Jenilee stood looking at each other like a couple of shy toddlers, and since I was in the middle, I quickly made the introductions. “Jenilee, this is Kate’s neighbor, Dell. Dell, this is our cousin Jenilee.”

Dell glanced at me, seeming surprised to be included in the formalities and unsure of how to react. “Hey,” she muttered finally, looking at the floor.

Jenilee smiled at Dell and said, “Hi, Dell.” Then she leaned closer
and whispered, “Don’t worry about the toys. My little brother used to do that, too. My mama didn’t like it much, either. Moms are funny that way.”

Dell fluttered a glance upward, and to my surprise, she smiled back. A kindred look passed between the two of them as we headed into the kitchen.

Lunch went by without any major disasters or pickle-platter incidents. We filled the time with the basic introductory chitchat of getting to know one another. I felt a little sorry for Dell. None of the family business meant much to her. She had the bored look of a kid trapped at a grown-up dinner, but it was pretty obvious that she didn’t have anyplace better to go, so she stayed.

When baby Rose woke up halfway through lunch and started babbling over the baby monitor, Dell jumped out of her chair, saying, “I can get her.” She waited a moment to see if Kate would say it was all right.

“Thanks, sweetheart,” Kate said. “If she has a messy diaper or anything, just call me and I’ll come take care of it.”

“I can do it,” Dell rushed out.

Kate seemed uncertain. “She’s pretty wiggly on the changing table these days.”

“I’ll use the seat belt thingy.”

“All right.”

“Wo-hoo!” Dell headed for the door, with all of us looking after her, confused.

Ben shook his head. “I wish I got that excited over a messy diaper.”

“I wish you did, too.” Kate lowered a brow at him playfully, and Ben curled his lip in reply.

“Smart aleck,” he said.

Dell’s voice came softly over the baby monitor. “Hi, Rosie. Did you have a good nap? Did you see Grandma? I bet she sang you that song, didn’t she? Shew, I smell a stinky. Com ’ere—now, hold still. I gotta put on this seat belt thingy. There we go.” Then the ripping of diaper tabs, and Dell groaned. Clearly, she wasn’t so thrilled about the diaper changing anymore. “Oh, yuck. Gross.”

Kate started to get up, then willed herself to leave the situation alone. “She’s always trying to earn her way.” Her frustration was evident, coupled with a hint of sadness. “It’s like she thinks if she doesn’t do things for us, we’re not going to want her to come over anymore. I don’t know how to get across to her that people should love you because of who you are, not because of what you can do for them.”

“Sometimes that’s a hard thing to understand,” Jenilee said quietly, her gaze meeting Caleb’s. “Especially if you’re used to being around the other kind of people. It’s pretty hard to believe that someone could love you just because of who you are.” Caleb smiled tenderly, an obvious conversation of hidden meanings going on between them. Jenilee understood where Dell was coming from because she’d been there.

The phone rang and Ben jumped up to answer it. The room had grown uncomfortably silent, so that everyone looked toward the ringing phone with a sense of relief.

Ben answered, then turned to me, saying, “Hi, James. Sure. She’s right here. Yeah, I know. She’s AWOL, huh? I’ll let you talk to her, and she can explain.”

My heart went into my throat as I walked to the phone. I’d been so caught up in Kate’s preparations and Jenilee’s visit that I hadn’t thought about Boston in hours. Having James as close as the phone line brought back a crushing sense of reality.

Taking the phone from Ben, I turned a shoulder to the table as the lunchtime conversation resumed. There was nowhere to go for privacy. I stood bound by the curly black plastic wire that brought James’s voice through the receiver.

“Karen? Karen, are you there?”

I took a deep breath, trying to sound calm, casual. I didn’t want him to ask a bunch of questions. Not now, in front of everyone. “Hi, hon.” My voice shook. I wondered if everyone could hear it. Clearing my throat, I went on with something I hoped would sound more normal. “Where are you?”

“Dallas. Karen, what’s going on? Why are you in Missouri?”

“It’s a long story.” Something heavy and leaden pushed the breath out of my lungs. “We can talk when you get here.” The words were
barely a whisper—a thin, desperate ribbon of sound winding through the phone line to pull him closer.

The line was silent. I sat listening to the low hum in the old receiver. “What’s wrong?” he asked finally.

“James, please, we can talk when you get here,” I repeated, closing my eyes and rubbing my forehead. I heard the conversation at the table continuing, but it seemed far away. I wondered if Kate was listening, watching me and guessing the truth. James was probably imagining all kinds of things. I swallowed hard, trying to do some damage control. “Kate has a big weekend planned. She has a long-lost cousin of ours here, and we’re going to read through some of Grandma’s old letters. It seemed like a good time for a visit, you know?”

Surprisingly, James accepted that explanation. “All right. I’m flying my last two legs, Dallas to Denver, and ending up in Kansas City, so that should put me there sometime late tonight.” The concern left his voice, and he actually sounded cheerful. “Tomorrow I can take you down the road and show you how our little chunk of land is looking. I’ve been doing some work out there when I’m in town. It’s really shaping up.” He went on talking for a minute about eventually building a vacation cabin on the land. I realized that he was so willing to accept my excuse for being here because he didn’t
want
anything to be wrong. He wanted everything to be easy and normal and convenient, just like always.

What was he going to say when I told him things weren’t going to be
normal
anymore, at least not for a while? Depending on what Dr. Conner found, maybe not anywhere close to normal.

“That sounds good, hon,” I heard myself reply in steady, measured words, like a high school actor poorly performing lines.

James didn’t even notice. “Yeah, sounds like fun,” he agreed. “A little R and R.”

“Sure,” I said, wounded because he didn’t ask again, dig deeper, question one more time, as if he wasn’t interested in anything below the surface.

“All right. Well, I’ll see you when you get here,” I said, the forced enthusiasm so strong, I knew he’d catch it and ask again what was going
on. But he didn’t, so finally I finished with, “I’m staying out in the little house, so if you get here after everyone’s asleep, just come in there.” I thought about not having to sleep alone tonight, and the image was comforting. I wanted to curl up and cry like a baby. I hadn’t done that in years—since the miscarriage, when they told me I’d lost the baby and they thought I had cancer. Later that night, we received the news that my mother had been in a car wreck on the way to the airport. One minute she was on her way to Boston to comfort me. The next minute, she was dead. After that, everything went numb.

I wondered if James was even aware that, in a way, we’d been drifting for longer than just the past two years, and there was more to it than my obsession with saving Lansing. We kept ourselves busy and distracted for a reason. Standing in my sister’s kitchen, I realized that we’d been numbing the pain for years now—with jobs, with vacations, with possessions. Ever since the miscarriage, we’d maintained a hum of activity that kept us from having to talk about the questions that accidental pregnancy and the loss of it brought into our lives.

But now, here at the farm, everything was silent. I could hear it all—the pain I felt at the loss of that baby, the grief he didn’t seem to share or recognize, his focus on the cancer, his fear that I might die like his mother, his unwillingness to talk about the baby, or whether we wanted children in the future.

As I hung up the phone, I felt all the unanswered questions returning like the dull roar of a jet far off in the distance.

What would the sound be like when it finally touched down?

Chapter 6

A
fter lunch, Ben offered to take everyone on a tour of the farm. The idea of driving by the family cemetery on the hill overlooking the back of the farm, of seeing my mother’s grave and Grandma Rose’s, was more than I could face, so I told them I was tired after getting in so late last night and I wanted to rest before going through the old letters Jenilee had brought.

I stood on the porch of the little house, watching as they climbed into the old flatbed farm truck by the barn. Dell said something to Kate, then headed across the newly planted cornfield toward the river, toward home, I supposed. Did anyone at home keep track of her at all? She’d been at Kate’s the entire day, and no one had called to check on her or to see whether she was staying over for lunch.

What would that be like? Kate and I had always had someone monitoring our activities, making sure we had meals to eat, clean clothes to wear, homework done. There was always someone looking after us, even if it was a hired someone. Our days were scheduled and tutored. We were always safe. We were never like Dell, running unbridled in the woods and the hills, passing the unplanned hours of the day, searching for somewhere to be. I thought about it, watching her disappear into the lacy undergrowth at the edge of the pasture. In a way, I was like her now. Suddenly, all the normal underpinnings
were gone, and I was drifting in a world that seemed vast and unpredictable.

The noise in my head started growing again, so I went inside, sat down at the piano, and began to play. My fingers wandered through a long, slow melody, and peace washed over me like the warm river water in summer. I abandoned myself to the sound of the music and the smooth feel of old ivory beneath my fingers. My thoughts went back to some long-ago afternoon, when I sat with Grandma Rose at the old piano. It was in the main house back then, the strings perfectly tuned, not slightly off-key as they were now.

Grandma Rose loved to hear me play, but she seldom took time from her household chores to sit down and listen. That day, she sat on the bench beside me, closed her eyes, and lost herself in the music. When the song was over, her cheeks were damp with tears. I asked why she was crying, and she told me the music reminded her of someone, but she wouldn’t say whom.

“I could stop playing,” I said.

She kissed my hair gently. “No.” Tears trembled in her voice. “It’s a good memory.”

“If it’s a good memory, why are you crying?” I asked, unable, as usual, to figure her out.

She let out a long, slow breath. “Because it’s a memory of someone”—pausing for a long time, she gazed out the window, seeming to forget I was there—“who is gone.” She asked me to play the song again, so I did.

Now, all these years later, I could feel tears damp on the keys again. Her tears, my tears . . .

A sound in the room interrupted my thoughts, and I looked up. Dell was perched in the chair by the doorway with her knees curled to her chest, watching me through thoughtful, dark eyes.

Wiping my face on my sleeve, I turned to her. “You’re back.” I couldn’t think of what else to say.

“I just went home to see if Uncle Bobby come by. Granny was sleepin’, so I left her be.”

“Oh,” I said. “Well, maybe he’ll come later.”

She didn’t seem excited by the prospect. “Maybe,” she said flatly.

We sat silent for a moment, Dell studying me while I absently tested the piano keys, one by one, listening to how far out of tune the notes were. “You might be able to catch up with Kate and the rest of the group.”

“I don’t like to go to the graveyard.” She wrapped her arms tighter around her knees.

“Me either,” I admitted, and the conversation ran out again. I tested some more of the piano keys, then played a few notes of a soft, slow melody. I couldn’t remember the name.

“I know that song,” Dell piped up, sitting a little straighter in her chair and watching the keys with interest. “The one you were playin’ just now. I know that song. Grandma Rose used to sing it.”

“Really?” I asked. I hadn’t been thinking about what I was playing, or why. “I’m not even sure what that song is called. It’s just been running through my head all day.”

“ ‘Turn Your Eyes on Jesus,’ ” she informed me. Lowering her feet soundlessly to the floor, she crossed the entryway and sat down beside me. “We sing it in church some, when I get to go. Grandma Rose used to sing it, too, out in the flowers. I learnt it from her.”

I tapped out the first notes of the melody, and the words played in my mind.
Oh, soul, are you weary and troubled. . . . No light in the darkness you see. . . .

The same words I’d heard floating up from the riverbank that morning. “Was that you singing this morning? I heard someone singing down by the river. I thought maybe I was imagining it.”

Dell watched my fingers intently as I replayed the beginning of the melody. “Grandma sung that song while I was sleepin’, and when I got up, I thought about it. I sung it while I was walking over.”

Gooseflesh prickled on my arms. All this talk about her seeing Grandma Rose in her dreams was too much mumbo-jumbo for me. It probably wasn’t something to encourage, either, so I changed the subject. “You have a beautiful voice. Do you sing in the choir at school?”

She knitted her brows as if she thought I was making fun of her, as
if I couldn’t possibly mean it. “Huh-uh. Choir’s after school. I gotta get home after school to help Granny change her oxygen and stuff.”

“Oh,” I said, again getting a glimpse of her life. “Well, really, it’s a shame to have such a beautiful voice and not do something with it. I could talk to Kate. Maybe she could help you get back and forth to after-school practice.”

For a split second, Dell seemed to entertain the thought, even be excited by it. Then she refocused on the piano keys, shaking her head. “Kate’s busy. She’s got a lot to do all the time with Josh and Rose.”

“Yeah, I know.” I’d already noticed that, as much as Kate and Ben seemed to care for Dell, she was mostly a shadow on the fringes of all the baby activity. “That has to be kind of disappointing sometimes, huh?” Some strange urge compelled me to reach over and brush her hair away from her face. “It’s not always fun being an older”—I realized that I’d been about to say “sister,” but Dell wasn’t Josh and Rose’s sister—“being older. But it’s nice that you’re around to help Kate and Ben. I know they like it when you’re here.”

She didn’t reply, but instead motioned to my hand on the piano keys and changed the subject. “I can do that.”

“Hmm?” I wasn’t sure what she meant. “Do what?”

Sliding her hand over, she studied the keys for a minute, tentatively pressed the first one, then tapped out two bars of the melody with one finger—every note perfect.

I sat looking at her, amazed. “I didn’t know you played the piano.”

“I don’t know how, but I can hear the way it sounds,” she said simply.

“You mean you memorize the notes?” I asked. “You saw which keys I was pushing and you remembered the order?”

She shook her head impatiently. “No. I hear it in my head, like this”—she tapped out the first few bars to “How Great Thou Art”—“and I
know
which ones to push.”

“That’s fantastic.” Something that my old piano teacher had said ran through my mind.
Great musicians don’t learn the music—the music is already inside and they only learn to bring it forth.
“What else can you play?” My pulse sped up with an anticipation that surprised me. I felt like I’d just unearthed a hidden treasure.

“I dunno. I do it on the church piano sometimes when no one’s there.” She shrugged, then started tapping out the melodies to song after song—hymns, pop songs, and finally, the theme to
The Brady Bunch.

“Wow!” I gasped. “You’re amazing.”

She drew back at the compliment, then slowly broke into a wide, slow grin that lifted her face and made her eyes sparkle. I had a feeling no one had ever said that to her before.

“How about if I teach you a few things?” I tasted a sweet sense of purpose that pushed away the lingering salt of my tears. “You should learn to play with all of your fingers. If you can do that . . . well, there’s no telling what you’ll be able to play.”

“ ’K,” she agreed, seeming a little uncertain. “What if I can’t do it?”

“I think you can.” I didn’t wait for her to change her mind or decide to turn shy again. Taking her hands, I gently laid them over the keys, and we began.

We spent the next hour working together—an unlikely student, an unlikely teacher, finding perfect harmony at the keys of an out-of-tune piano. It was as my old piano instructor had told me—the music was already inside her, and it was only a matter of coaxing it forth.

When Kate and Ben came back with the group, we were doing a duet on the piano—Dell playing melody and I the harmony chords. Dell was singing the words to “Over the Rainbow,” which she said she had learned from Grandma Rose. She didn’t notice that we had an audience at the door.

I winked at Kate and gave a shrug toward Dell. Kate widened her eyes, then mouthed, “Wow,” and just kept shaking her head in shock.

Joshua finally squealed and started to clap, and Dell realized they were watching. She blushed and stopped singing.

“Hey, how about that!” Ben cheered. “When did you learn to play the piano?”

“Karen taught me just now,” Dell replied matter-of-factly, as if everyone learned to play the piano in less than an hour.

I stood up, raising my hands helplessly. “Don’t ask me. She’s a quick study.”

“Karen’s a really good teacher,” Dell bubbled, and she gave me an exuberant hug.

Kate blinked in surprise. There was, I thought, a hint of jealousy in her look, though she was trying hard to hide it.

Dell didn’t notice Kate’s expression. She hurried to the door and scooped up Joshua, looking happier than I’d seen her since I arrived. “It was fun! Want me to teach you the piano, Joshie?”

Joshua said yes, and I stood up so the two of them could have the piano bench. Dell began carefully explaining the notes to him, and of course, he quickly frustrated her efforts by banging on the keys so loudly that it drove the audience onto the porch.

Ben screwed one eye shut, shaking his head. “Sounds like the piano needs tuning.”

The rest of us laughed, because we knew the piano wasn’t the problem.

Kate leaned in the door and told Dell we were going to sit on the porch of the main house, and she and Joshua could come join us when they were done.

“ ’K,” Dell chirped, and went back to trying to teach Joshua the theme song to
Sesame Street
. “No, push this one, then that one, Josh. You gotta hear the music in your head, like this. See? No, don’t push those four all at once. Ja-osh!”

The rest of us started across the lawn. Jenilee and Caleb stopped by their truck to get the box of letters, and Ben veered off toward the back door to take baby Rose in for a diaper change.

Kate and I walked slowly past Grandma’s rose garden. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen Dell that excited about anything,” she commented.

“I know.” It sounded like I was boasting that I had outdone Kate’s efforts with Dell, so I quickly added, “It’s the piano. She’s amazing with it. I’ve never seen anyone pick up the notes that fast. Has she ever had any kind of music lessons?”

Kate frowned thoughtfully. “I doubt it. They took music classes out of the elementary school a few years ago because of the budget crunch. I think they have some kind of extracurricular vocal music program after school, but that’s about it.”

“She should have music lessons. It’s almost a crime if she doesn’t get to develop that talent. She’s amazingly gifted.” My mind rushed ahead, trying to work out the details of how Dell could continue playing piano after I left. “Who’s the pianist at the church these days? Is it still Shorty’s daughter? Does she give lessons? Maybe Dell could go after school, or something. I’ll . . .” I stopped short. One look at Kate told me I was stepping all over her toes.

“Karen, you don’t understand a thing about Dell,” she snapped in a way that caused me to back off. Kate stopped walking, and so did I. “In the first place, she can hardly even bring herself to talk to people she knows. There’s no way she’ll want to go take music lessons from a stranger. In the second place, it’s almost impossible to get her anywhere on a regular basis. We can’t even get her to church on Sunday, and I can’t tell you how many times Ben’s gone by to give her a ride to school, and she’s wandering around the woods or gone to some medical appointment on the dial-a-ride van with her grandmother. The last couple weeks, every time I turn around she’s off somewhere with this Uncle Bobby, whoever he is. I don’t have a clue what’s going on there, and Dell won’t tell me.”