All for a Song (37 page)

“I’m taking my break,” Don shouted, and she heard him only because his grip had tightened, wrenching her closer to him. Next thing she knew, her patent-leather shoes were barely skimming the concrete floor as her big brother took her away.

“What were you thinking?” he said when they’d once again met the sunlight.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know they would write—”

“I mean what were you thinking coming here at all? What happened to the little sister I left back home?”

Now
she
was angry, and she ripped her arm away. “That was five years ago, Donny. What did you expect?”

“Not this.” He folded the paper and shoved it deep into his
pocket. “This town isn’t the place for a nice girl like you—or at least like you’re supposed to be.”

“Fine time for you to become protective.”

“Let me ask you again. Why are you here? Who was that man with you?”

“Please,” she begged. “There’s so much. Can’t we sit down somewhere? And talk?”

“Explain on the way.”

He shifted directions and she began to tell him about her journey, beginning with the visit to Darlene in St. Louis. The Rudy Valentino movie, seeing Sister Aimee, the Chinese restaurant, her song, the theaters and trains, and finally, here. She let the photograph speak for itself. Throughout the story, Don remained silent by her side as they walked, playing the role of both brother and confessor.

“Then Roland—Mr. Lundi—made some phone calls, and we found you. And, well, here we are.”

The story seemed so insignificant when reduced to such a timeline.

“Sister Aimee,” he said, as if testing the name. “I’ve heard of her.”

“She’s wonderful,” Dorothy Lynn said.

“And you were onstage with her?”

“Briefly.” Already it seemed more like a dream than a memory.

They’d come to a place where twenty or so long wooden tables were lined up under a blue canvas tarp.

“The talent eats inside,” Don said, pointing to a nondescript building to the left. “I guess a week ago, you’d be in there. But today, with me . . . well, this is us.”

The two wove through the aisles between the tables to where a sort of wagon was parked at the front. A wide shelf extended
from it, on which metal trays were stacked. Don took a tray and set it on the counter.

“What is it today?” he asked of the man behind it.

“Corn chowder.” The stain on the front of his formerly white apron looked like he’d survived a tumble into the impressive pot.

“Two,” Don said. “And biscuits.” He turned to Dorothy Lynn. “Don’t be fooled; the food’s good. Are you hungry?”

“Yes.” She wasn’t, but if eating a steaming bowl of corn chowder was the price for sitting with her brother, then she’d gladly pay it.

Don dropped two nickels in a jar and took the tray laden with two bowls of soup, a plate of biscuits, and two glasses of water. The long tables and benches were designed so they couldn’t expect to have their own table, but he set the tray down at a spot where a buffer of space afforded some privacy. She sat across from him, and when he’d set their places, he reached for her hand. “Bless, O Father, this meal. Amen.”

It wasn’t until he said
amen
that Dorothy Lynn was fully aware a prayer was being said at all. She was closing her eyes as he opened his, and the guilt of it made her smile.

“You always did forget to say grace,” Don said with a hint of his familiar twinkle. “Does it still give you the tummyaches like Pa said it would?” He scooped a heaping spoonful of chowder, but the mention of their father made it impossible for Dorothy Lynn to follow suit.

“About Pa . . .” It was all she needed to say before the welcome bit of humor died. His knowing look spared her from speaking the final, fateful words.

“When?”

“Last winter. Doctor said he must have been sick for a long time, but none of us knew—not until close to the end. When he
got sick, we wrote to you at the last address—the one in Seattle, I think—but didn’t hear back.”

“I was already here.”

“Well, that explains it. Darlene wrote a letter here, too, to general delivery, but it’s one of the reasons I wanted to find you, to tell you in person. He would have loved to have seen you—”

“It’s not my fault he died.”

“Of course not.” She’d been stirring her soup listlessly and dropped her spoon, surprised at both his bitterness and his accusation.

“I have enough blood on my hands; I won’t take his.”

“Donny . . .” She reached to reclaim the companionable touch they’d shared as he blessed their uneaten food, but he recoiled as if she’d burned him.

“I’m sorry.” He took a drink of his water, his hand visibly shaking, and seemed calmer as he wiped his chin with the back of his sleeve. “What was the other?”

“The other what?”

“The other reason you came. You said one was to tell me about Pa.” He’d become still again, almost cold.

“Well, maybe there’s three.” She decided to dole out the news as slowly as she could to extend their visit. Surely some bit of it would usher her back into his affections. “Darlene just had another baby. A girl. Her third.” She added this last detail not knowing exactly how many of Darlene’s children he knew about at all.

His reaction was that of a distant relative—a cousin, maybe, in town for a long-postponed reunion—dipping his spoon into the chowder three times before saying, “That’s nice. And what about you?”

“Well,” she said, disappointed that he seemed so intent on rushing through her list, “I’m going to get married.”

“To that guy?” He gestured vaguely with a biscuit.

“Mr. Lundi? Of course not. He’s, well, more of a chaperone, I guess.”

“Looked to me like you need a chaperone between you and
him
.”

“I’m marrying a man named Brent Logan. Back in Heron’s Nest. He took over the pulpit after Pa died.”

“You’re marrying a preacher?” Again a hint of humor—light edging out the deadness in his eyes.

“Why shouldn’t I?” She took a defensive spoonful of chowder, finding it quite delicious.

“Grow up the preacher’s daughter only to become the preacher’s wife. No wonder you ran off.”

“I didn’t run off!”

“Then why are you here?”

“I came to find you, to tell you about Pa and ask you to come back.”

“I’m not going back.”

Their heated exchange had captured the attention of several of their fellow diners, particularly a group of young women who alternately sneered at Dorothy Lynn and cast longing, fluttering glances at her brother.

“Script girls.” He inclined his head their way after flashing them the same crooked smile that had always turned the young ladies of Heron’s Nest into twittering fools.

“What do they do?”

“They carry the scripts.”

“I see.”

“How’s Ma?”

“She’s good. Happy about the wedding, of course. And the baby. But she misses Pa. And you.”

“I can’t go home.”

“Of course not—not to stay. But since Pa can’t be there to give me away, I thought . . . I hoped you would.”

His face took on a look of pain more pure than she’d ever witnessed, strong enough that she could feel it pierce beneath her own skin.

“It’s your home, Donny.”

“No, this is my home.”

“Just for a visit? Is it the money? Because I have a little—”

“It’s not the money.”

“Then what?”

“I’ve already been back.”

The script girls were staring, but she didn’t care. She tossed her spoon into her bowl and shoved the whole mess onto the metal tray, causing a racket impressive enough to make them snicker into their Coca-Cola bottles. “When?”

“Right after the war.”

“Nobody’s ever told me.”

“Nobody knew. I was on the bus—or that horrible hay wagon with a motor they use for a bus. I was the only one, and it was late at night. Or dark, anyway. And the driver stopped right at Jessup’s road. You know the one? Leads right into town?”

She nodded. Neither the hay wagon nor the road had changed.

“So the driver said, ‘Welcome home, son,’ and up until then, I couldn’t wait to get back, to see everybody and taste Ma’s cooking and hear Pa preach, and even tussle with you.”

“We were waiting,” she said. “I remember we got a telegram, and for days and days Ma made your favorite supper.”

“Baked ham and grits.”

“Every night, in case you came home. Then one night she didn’t, and we haven’t had it since. What happened?”

He clouded. “You wouldn’t believe, Sis, the things we saw over there. Or what I did—what I had to do.”

She moved once again to touch him, and he didn’t flinch away. “It was war, Donny. But it’s over.”

“It’s never really over. Not in here.” He touched his head, and she noticed for the first time a small scar, previously hidden by his long hair. Was that the result of a war wound? Or something less traumatizing? Or even a remnant from childhood that she’d never given any mind to before?

“I couldn’t get out. I couldn’t bring all the ugliness and horror of those memories into home. I didn’t want to taint it. I didn’t want to frighten you, so I stayed away.”

“But staying away frightened us.”

“It’s what I had to do to stay sane. I had to get away from my old life, reinvent myself. I didn’t want to answer questions or tell stories. I couldn’t watch Pete Williams hobble around with that one leg or look Mr. Stubbins in the eye, knowing his son was shot to bits in France. I couldn’t get off that bus and pretend I was the same kid I used to be, so I stayed on it and became somebody else.”

“You can’t really become a different person.”

She could see him fighting for control. “Of course you can.”

“Not in your heart.”

“Do you know how much it hurts to even sit here with you? For me to know that you’re this close to me?” His lips barely moved as he spoke, and he held her hand so tightly she feared her bones would turn to dust in his grip, giving her a taste of the battle raging within him.

“You don’t think it will hurt me to get up and walk away? To go back home without you? What’ll I tell Ma?”

He released her hand and took a wide, sweeping glance
around, much to the delight of the script girls, one of whom shifted on her bench, crossing one leg over the other with a brazen shift of her skirt.

“You know what I love about this place?” His gaze was locked on the girls.

“I can probably guess.”

He turned back to her. “Not just the studio, although that, too, but California. Los Angeles. Nobody cares who I am or where I’ve been or what I’ve done. I don’t have to tell them anything. They don’t ask questions. And if they do, they don’t expect the truth.”

“You don’t think I’ll have to answer some questions when I get home?”

“You’ll have to deal with your own demons however you want.”

“I don’t have demons. I gave that all over to God. And maybe . . .” Her heart softened. All those nights watching audiences melt under the weight of grace. So many had been young men just like him, soldiers with wounds both visible and invisible, and she’d seen them weep with healing. “Ah, Donny. You need Jesus. Whatever horrible things you think you’ve done, confess them to him.”

He smiled—genuine, indulgent, and warm. “I’m at peace with God, for all that I’ve done. Every decision. Every choice. Running to California doesn’t mean I’ve run away from him. It’s . . . it was just what I had to do. I don’t expect you to understand.”

“Well, I don’t. I don’t know why you thought you had to run away from us.” She sounded petulant, but she didn’t care. Part of her envied his escape from the prying ears of Heron’s Nest, but then she remembered Ma at the window, Ma too scared to ask if there’d been a letter. How could he turn his back on her? “Can I at least tell Ma that you’ll write?”

“You can, but I can’t promise I will, and I don’t want to keep disappointing her over and over again.”

“So we’re supposed to just live with this hole in our family? Pa’s gone; there’s nothing to be done about that. But you’re here, alive. We deserve to know that much at least.”

“And now you know,” he pointed out. “But what difference does it make? Look how life has gone on without me. Pa died, Darlene has a new baby. You’re getting married. . . .”

“And you?”

“I’m . . . happy. Content, anyway.”

She believed him, thinking he had been—at least until this visit, when she’d dug up every buried anguish to lay at his feet. Might as well heap on one more. “Just a letter, Don. Please? To set her heart at peace.”

“You can speak for me. I’ve told you everything.”

At that point there seemed nothing left to say, and it was by tacit agreement that Don gathered their uneaten food on the tray and pushed it to the end of the table, where a young man in an apron cleaner than the chef’s carted it away.

“Will you walk me back? I don’t think I quite know my way around.”

He extended his arm. “I’d be honored.”

It was the final blow to the script girls. They rolled their kohl-lined eyes and turned up their noses in an oddly comical, somewhat beautiful choreographed motion. Still, Don stopped at their table. “Good afternoon, ladies.”

They mumbled something that passed for a greeting.

“I was wondering if you could settle a bet. You see, my sister here swears she saw one of you in
Orphans of the Storm
, but I’m not so sure. Can you help us settle up? There’s two bits riding on it.”

At the word
sister
, all four had instantly brightened. One, sporting a helmet of sleek black hair and lips close to purple in their redness, spoke for the quartet. “If we was actresses, we sure wouldn’t be lunching out here, would we?”

She had an accent that made
here
sound like
he-yah
, the same pattern Roland fell into when he wasn’t conscious of his speech.

He turned to Dorothy Lynn. “My point exactly.”

He then held out his hand, seeming determined to leave it there, open, until she dug into her purse and produced a dime. “It’s all I have.”

He thanked her, thanked the girls, and took her arm again.

“So I haven’t completely ruined your day.”

He granted gentle agreement. “Not completely.”