All for a Song (8 page)

Darlene’s voice cut through the fog, and she opened her eyes.

“Girl, you’ve gone white as a sheet. Are you feelin’ all right?”

“I’m fine.” But she wasn’t. A cold clamminess formed a second skin over every inch of her, yet she could feel a band of burning where Darlene once again held the tape around her hips.

“So?” her sister asked, expectantly.

“So . . . what, again?”

Darlene let forth an exasperated sigh. “So, do you want to create more of a bustle effect at the back? If so, we might consider using organdy or dotted swiss instead of the sateen.”

The words sounded like the gibberish of an unknown tongue.

“Whatever you think is best, I guess.”

“Bustle it is. Now, organdy or dotted swiss?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Well
of course
it matters. Because otherwise, the sash . . .”

Dorothy Lynn couldn’t breathe. Darlene’s babble wrapped around her like a tape, constricting her lungs, her throat. It squeezed, measuring her smaller and smaller. She wanted to rise up on her toes, look for a pocket of air, but Darlene flicked a red-tipped fingernail against her ankle, forcing her down to her flat, bare feet.

That’s when her knees buckled.

At the edges of the haze, she heard her sister talking, blaming the long bus ride, the heat, hunger, and the excitement of the day as Darlene caught her in her arms and brought her gently to rest on the cool linoleum floor. A clatter of sound, and two giant little boys loomed over her, one pointing a stubby gun and pow-powing her dead. If she’d had the power, she would have lifted her arms, caught the boy, and taken him in an embrace of gratitude.

Anything to be out of this misery.

Dorothy Lynn spent the rest of the afternoon on one of the two narrow beds in the boys’ room. The boys themselves made occasional visits, once to offer a glass of water, and other times to bring her a grubby fistful of soda crackers or a copy of
The Delineator
.

“Mama says maybe you’ll find something you’d like better in there.” By the way he squinched up his face and held the magazine with two fingers, it was clear he had nothing but disdain for the fashions within.

“Thank you.” Dorothy Lynn took the magazine and sent him away. Though it was an issue from just the previous month, the pages were soft and worn. Several had turned-down corners, and
when she opened to them, she saw notes written in her sister’s pristine, feminine hand.

Bare shoulders? In H. N. church?

Silk flowers sewn at the gathering?

Ask Ma about gloves.

Driving coat for honeymoon.

She tried to see the pages through Darlene’s eyes, to feel the same excitement evidenced by her sister’s scribblings, but nothing came of the effort. Ma had played her part in bringing her the groom, and here Darlene was circling, ready to swoop in with the gown. Both had seemed content to win Dorothy Lynn’s approval for their choices. To her surprise, a tear fell on the page, blurring the description of a winsome hat. She hadn’t even known she was crying.

There was a soft knock at the door and, at her answer, it opened to reveal the narrow shoulders, long neck, and impeccably groomed head of her brother-in-law, Roy. He’d shed his suit jacket and unbuttoned his vest, but he still looked the part of a successful businessman, even as he loosened his tie.

“Hear you gave my wife a scare earlier this afternoon.” His voice was deeper than one would assume upon looking at him. Darlene had mentioned that he was doing some radio announcements for his car dealership on Saturday mornings.

“I didn’t mean to,” Dorothy Lynn said, hastily wiping away a stray tear. Something about Roy always made her feel shy. He was slick and polished, and she’d never understood how he found his way into her family.

“It’s that crazy book,” he said with mock exasperation. “Dar cried every time she looked at it. What is it about you women and weddings?”

Dorothy Lynn shrugged. “It’s a mystery.”

“Tell you what, why don’t you stay up here and rest. I’m granting you official reprieve from supper downstairs.”

“Oh, I don’t want to hurt Darlene’s feelings.”

“She’s doing some of her special ‘company cooking,’ which means it’s a recipe from a magazine that has nothing to do with how real people eat.”

She giggled. “It can’t be that bad.”

“Cold beet soup.”

The inside of her mouth went sour. “Maybe it can.”

Roy started to shut the door before saying one more thing. “You’re a sweet kid, Dot. Darlene’s happy for you, really. It’s just the baby that has her so emotional.”

“I know.” She wasn’t even sure, exactly, what aspect of Darlene’s behavior he was trying to excuse. She only knew that the back of her throat felt salty with tears, and her smile was on the verge of collapse.

“I’ll tell her you’re sleeping?”

The idea seemed wildly indulgent, her sleeping while a pregnant woman bustled about to make a company supper, but whatever gathering fear had gripped her as she stood on the kitchen chair earlier in the afternoon seemed determined to keep her pinned to this cot. “Thanks.” She clutched the magazine as tightly as she held her tears. Once he’d shut the door, she released both.

Women and weddings. Of course.

This wedding was to be nothing like the last one. Darlene had worn their mother’s dress; Dorothy Lynn’s was only an idea—a sketch on newsprint, not meant for her at all. On Darlene’s big day, half of the Heron’s Nest church was bursting with the groom’s family, who’d made the trip from St. Louis, and they’d
mingled with the natives for a festive afternoon of music and dancing and tables full of food. Brent’s parents were both dead. He’d have no relations coming to witness the joining of their lives. Their reception would be nothing more than a Saturday version of a run-of-the-mill after-church fellowship, giving more an excuse not to attend. Darlene had walked the aisle with their father, who had then stepped to the front of the church to perform the ceremony. Donny had been standing as a witness next to a nervous, fidgeting Roy. Neither would be there for Dorothy Lynn. Rusty Keyes would officiate, but there was no one to give her away.

Not that she’d be taken anywhere.

The tears started anew.

“Oh, Lord . . .” She wiped her face with the back of her hand, swung herself out of bed, and began to pace the room. “Forgive this foolishness.”

It would be easier if she didn’t love him, but it took only the thought of Brent, his strength and his warmth, to stop her in her steps. She wrapped herself in her own arms, feeling his embrace, and felt her breath once again become even and smooth.

It was Ma who first suggested they ask Darlene—chic, fashionable Darlene—to make her wedding dress. It was Brent who recognized her longing to tuck her private life to herself and get away.

“Go see your sister,” he’d said one oppressive Sunday afternoon as they lay head-to-head in the forest clearing. It had become a regular custom to walk there, to get away from the prying eyes of the town and the prattling plans of her mother. “Spend some time with her, just in case she can’t make it to the wedding.”

“You’re not worried that
I
won’t make it to the wedding?”

“Should I be? Do you think you might forget?”

She’d rolled herself over, propped herself on her elbows, and looked straight down into his eyes.

“Of course not. It’s my birthday. A girl never forgets her birthday. Maybe I’ll have two cakes.”

A piercing pain snatched her from her reverie. She lifted her bare foot to reveal a small toy soldier wielding a tiny rifle in defense. Mindless of the ruckus it might be creating downstairs, she hopped back to the bed, where she sat down to rub the throbbing instep. As she did, she realized her tears were gone, having disappeared in the midst of her memory. Pity had disguised itself as fear.

Raising her eyes to the ceiling from which model fighter planes flew in constant battle, she thanked God for the distraction.

Wincing with pain, she gingerly put a bit of weight on the veteran foot and reached for her guitar, propped against the iron footboard. She cradled it in her lap and strummed it lightly, cringing at the sound. A bouncing five-hour bus ride followed by the handling of two boisterous boys had done nothing for its tuning. She rummaged in her bag for her tuning pipe and played an A, tightening the string until the guitar and the pipe were married in tune before going to the next.

Oh, Lord, be the captor of my tears.
She strummed, trying to match the chords to her prayer.
Oh, Lord, be the conqueror of my fears.

She reached down for the magazine, flipped through, found a page near the back devoted to infants’ christening gowns, and ripped it out. Then, with a grubby stub of pencil fished from underneath the bed, she scribbled in the white spaces surrounding the chubby, well-dressed infants.

Downstairs, the boys were complaining loudly about their
dinner, and it seemed no adult at the table had the power to soothe them. Her stomach rumbled behind the guitar, but the idea of joining them at the table seemed as repulsive as the menu.

Lord, be the conqueror of my fears.

She tilted her head and narrowed her eyes until the world became nothing but her words and her music. As she held still, a familiar song worked its way into both her fingers and her voice.

What have I to dread? What have I to fear?

Leaning on the everlasting arms . . .

Dorothy Lynn closed her eyes and gave in to the chorus, “Leaning . . .” only to hear a second voice in an echoing alto join hers. They’d sung together before—with Ma joining them—on rare Sunday evenings at Heron’s Nest First Christian Church. She kept singing, without missing a note, but turned her head to where her sister’s unmistakable form had entered the darkening room.

“Beautiful as ever,” Darlene said.

“Sounds better when you’re singing with me.” She played on.

“Oh, I don’t know about that.” Darlene walked in, carrying a plate covered with a linen napkin. She was wearing an apron over her dress. “Don’t worry—no beet soup.” She cleared away an army of tiny tin soldiers on the desk between the beds.

“I think I killed a deserter,” Dorothy Lynn said. “Or he killed me.”

“Sorry. With children you have to learn to look down when you walk—not that I can see my feet.” She spoke with lightness, but when she turned around, Dorothy Lynn noticed for the first time a hint of pure exhaustion on her sister’s face. She might have been quick to blame the light for the cast of her complexion,
but the way she brought her hands around to brace her back announced fatigue beyond measure. She plopped herself on the opposite bed and kicked the shoes off her swollen feet before taking a large gulp of what was left of the water the boys had brought up earlier. “You know, when you play, you sound just like Donny.”

Dorothy Lynn played a few more chords, bringing the song to a conclusion. “I can barely remember.”

“You were young, always out in the woods, scribblin’ in that notebook.”

Dorothy Lynn smiled at the laziness that had returned to her sister’s speech. “I’ll bet Pa would’ve let him play in church. And lead the singin’, too.”

“He never let you? Play, I mean. Of course you couldn’t lead.”

“Just for the children—spring and summer Sunday school, outside in the yard. Brent’s the same, but he says once we’re married and he can have proper say, he’ll let me sing on Sunday mornings. I wish Pa could’ve heard me.” She truly hadn’t intended the last statement to carry so much resentment.

“It’s a woman’s place, Dot. Where her father says, then her husband.”

“Our father told you to stay put in Heron’s Nest.”

“But then I fell in love with a traveling salesman from St. Louis.”

“Were you scared?”

Darlene moved over to sit beside her. Dorothy Lynn set the guitar on the floor and leaned into her sister’s comforting embrace.

“Is that what happened earlier?” Darlene asked. “You felt scared? There’s nothing to be frightened of, Dot. Mother says Brent is a wonderful man, and I know he’ll take good care of you.”

“That’s not it.” Everything Dorothy Lynn longed to say sat in a jumbled pile in the pit of her stomach.

“Is it . . .” Darlene hesitated. “Is it the wedding night? Because—”

“No!” Dorothy Lynn interrupted, sparing her sister the embarrassment. She and Brent had shared enough kisses and passionate embraces to leave her more eager than anxious to experience more.

Darlene pulled away. “Then what is it? You do love him, don’t you?”

“Yes.” It was the first time anybody had asked her that question. “It just seems, sometimes, like it’s happening too fast.”

“Seven weeks is plenty of time—”

“All of it. Pa gets sick, and one night Ma brings the new pastor to dinner, and it seems the next we’re engaged. And now . . . it’s all decided for me. Where I’m going to live and who I’m going to be, without ever having a minute to live a life of my own.”