Celia's Song (21 page)

“Yeah.” He toys with her hand and remembers what she said about the flu and about the crisis they are in now.

“Don't go taking this the wrong way. I really do want to know the answer to my next question: What has this new crisis got to do with me?”

“It isn't as simple as living on this or that side of the bridge. There are some things on this side that women don't talk about with men, but that doesn't mean the men don't know about them. Maybe we should talk together, but we don't. There are so many compromises both of us will have to make every day. Do you have any idea how trying that will be?”

“No. But we can't go back, and I can't see myself going forward without you.”

“Okay, Steve. I am going to tell you that my heart wants this. My body needs it. But my mind needs some clarity and I want to talk to my momma first before I say yes. I don't have a clue how to be with you.” She pushes his hand with the ring in it away. “It's the best I can do right now.”

He puts the ring on the table. “Keep it. It isn't an engagement
ring. It is my promise to engage myself to you. If you don't want it, give it away. If you do want it, call me.” Square-shouldered and purposeful, he strides out the door.

“Cokscheam, Steve,” she whispers at his back. The sadness sinks into her body, a clear stone swallowed by water and sinking for what seems an eternity. She closes her eyes and watches the sadness sink.

STACEY WAKES UP, REALIZING
she's still in the chair that she was sitting in when Steve left. The digital clock from her radio shines the time red:
2:00
a.m. The house feels emptier than it has ever felt. She has to go to sleep or go to Momma's. She opts for the latter.

She can almost smell the fried bread of the day before at Momma's house when she arrives. Judy stares at her bannock and fish, unable to touch it. Momma sits next to her, struggling to eat hers. Both looked dead-dog tired. Celia, too, pauses with every bite. Shelley is moaning softly in the background. Even Rena is having a hard time swallowing her food with Shelley's moaning going on. Stacey joins them.

“You throw out any dirty old herbs from Rena's lately?” Celia asks. The tension breaks. They all laugh, the melancholy falls away and creates a space for them to wander in a different mood.

“Celia. Where did you find so much spunk?” Stacey asks.

“I don't know. It seemed to spring up overnight.” She pushes
her plate away.

The child must have brought it up in her, Stacey decides. “I need something, Celia.” Stacey is searching for a way to bring up Steve, but can't seem to find one. The women wait for her to continue. When she doesn't, they move on. Celia talks about how strong and amazing the child is. She reminisces about the women in this family. Stacey marvels to herself at the clarity and accuracy of Celia's memory. Momma drags out her photo albums and they sit around the table looking at them, while Celia reminds them of what came before and what followed each picture.

“You are such a gift, Celia.”

This draws a great laugh from Celia. “Just what I always wanted to be: a present.”

AT FIRST LIGHT STACEY
wakes up, but does not rise. She lies there watching the sun brighten the landscape outside Momma's window and she thinks about Steve. She cannot define what it is, but not having him in her life would make it desolate and she knows it. It's six a.m., an ungodly hour to call someone. She should wait until tonight. What difference would it make if she said yes now or later? The family is in a crisis. They have been in several over the years. But Stacey has never had the pleasure of adding to the crisis; she has always been steady as a rock. As the sun bathes the grass on her mother's well-mown lawn in bright light, she decides to go ahead and add to it. There hadn't been much of a break between each crisis. If things went on the way they had in previous years, there would never be a good time to marry Steve. There would never be a good time to deal with his whiteness and there would not likely be a good time for him to deal with the absence of whiteness among her fellow villagers. “The hell with it.”
She dials his number
.

Steve recognizes her number and hesitates. It's too early to be
good news. She can't have talked to Momma. She's decided to say no before she's even spoken to anyone. “Hello.” It comes out tense.

“Were you sleeping?” She speaks softly so as not to wake up anyone in Momma's house.

“No.” In fact, he hadn't slept much that night at all.

“I'm not ready, but I don't suppose I ever will be. That's a pretty stone you're offering, Steve. My old fingers could use something pretty.”

“What?” He sits up. This is not the answer he's expecting.

“I said I'm not ready, but that's a pretty stone you're offering. My old fingers could use something pretty.”

“Is that a yes?”

“Yes. I want you to know I'm mad, though.”

“Mad? What about?” He laughs. She could go ahead and be as mad as she wanted to be, as long as she sat next to him.

“You're about the only easy I had in my sorry life and now you've gone and made yourself hard on me.”

“I'll be over after work, tonight. Will you be at home?” There is a brief pause, and he adds, “I'll be bringing my clothes and closing up this apartment. Just thought you might want to know.”

STACEY ASKS CELIA TO
have breakfast with her; they head home to Stacey's to cook. As her feet crunch the gravel and the sun rises, she thinks about how to tell Celia. Celia removes her coat, and before she sits down she tells Stacey that she knows about her secret lover.

“So does Jacob.”

Stacey finds this addition of Jacob funny, though she has no idea why. She had thought she would die if anyone knew, but now it's funny. They eat, wash the dishes, and talk about the shock it will be for Momma, who never knows what's going on until it's pretty much over. In the middle of washing the last dish, Stacey asks, “What on earth did I think would be so humiliating about telling you I had a lover?”

“Beats me. Maybe it's because no one ever says that in our family.” Celia looks at Stacey, surprised, although it's true. No one has said it before. Said out loud like this it sounds preposterous — why did they never talk about their loves? White girls talked about lovers and their women talked about husbands. Celia doesn't like the implications. Maybe they don't talk about men because their families are in such disarray. She stares at Stacey, studying her.

“Celia, I swear something has got into you. You just go ahead and say anything that comes to mind these days.”

“I do, don't I?” Celia says it as if she's surprised to learn this about herself, as if she's not been paying much attention to what she's been saying or doing. “What in the world is making my mouth run on so?”

“It doesn't matter,” Stacey says, taking off her apron. “I love you this way. I mean, I loved you before. Maybe I never said it. But I always felt it. You know that. But now, why, you're downright lovable and so … so … likeable. Gawd that sounds stupid.”

“Don't worry about it. Emotions have no brains, they move you to say pretty brainless things. That's why they're called emotions.”

Dishes put away, they leave for Momma's without thinking any more about it.

STACEY IS ON THE
couch reading an old magazine when she hears Steve's car pull into her gravel drive. She closes it and waits. After spending time with Celia she feels ready. “Every relationship takes work,” Celia had said. “Each one takes different work. What you need to decide is whether or not you want to put the kind of effort into this one that is required.” Celia makes things seem so simple
and so profoundly straightforward. And it feels true to Stacey. It settles her.

She remembers working with the rest of the women until four in the morning and it strikes her how close she feels to them. That closeness took a great deal of effort, but it was an effort she was familiar with and willing to put in. She wonders how each of them will receive the news about her and Steve. His family might forsake him the way Stella's husband's family had him. Her family might forsake her the way Martha had forsaken Stella. Stacey would get stuck in the marriage. Steve would not love her for that. Celia helped her to see that love was a birthright, and no one had the right to intervene in the deciding of with whom you enjoyed that birthright. You can't care for yourself without someone there to witness it with you, Celia had said. Stacey decides to tell Steve she will never forsake her family or the village and that he has to
take her, her family, and their sorry-ass village lock stock and barrel, just as they are.

She holds her hand out. He reaches for his wallet and hands her everything in it. She smiles and slaps it gently, putting his wallet back on the table.

“What am I going to do with all that whiteness, mister? I want your hand. When I want money, I will ask for it.”

He looks at his wallet, then at her. She takes his hand. “Don't you pout on me, Steve.” She smiles. He can't retreat from her smile. He pulls her into his arms.

“What are you going to do with all this whiteness?”

“Get used to it, I guess. I don't mind it most of the time.”

“Where's Jacob?” he asks.

“I don't know. He doesn't spend much time here anymore.” She lets go of his hand and looks out at the mountains. She's beginning to plan her day. She whispers, “Help me out here,” as she looks up at the peaks. “Help me get through today without busting the sweet mood this man is putting me in.”

“Was he your little mistake, Stace?”

“First, it is Stacey, not Stace. Second, a mistake is what you make when you add two and two and get five. No child is an error. Children are a critical part of the process known as procreation.” Her voice has a sharp edge.

“Breathe a little softer on me, Miss Stacey.”

“Don't ask questions like you half-know the answer, Mr. Steve. You may not want to know how I felt about Jacob's dad, or you may want to know if he's still in the picture, or whether or not I planned to have him. You can ask any of those questions without prefacing the remark with a value judgment, specifically referring to my son as a mistake. He was not an error.” She leans toward Steve like she is leaning into a windstorm. “Do you understand me?”

“I don't know if I can do that.”

“If you're telling me that this is too hard, or that at some point in the future this question may divide us, I am warning you, sir, that you get just one chance to say you're going to leave.”

“Why, Miss Scarlett, I believe you're threatening me.”

“Scarlett O'Hara was a white woman, and not half as wilful as you'll find me, mister.”

“I have no intention of leaving. I worry, though, that I am ever going to get it right.”

“You need something from me?”

“Yeah. Some patience.” Steve sits in her easy chair.

“Last night put me in a sweet mood. I want you to let me replay it this morning, while I plan my day out. We've got the rest of our lives to negotiate the maze this relationship is going to be.”

XVIII

JACOB DECIDES TO STUDY
the colours of the plant life around him. He recognizes hundreds of shades of green leaves. No two are alike. Under the green are hints of gold and brown, sliding into red. He picks up stones flecked with blue and shaded with grey. Some have shiny black flecks and bits of crystal and pink in them. So much colour to hold his attention that he forgets about eating until late afternoon.

He cannot face another round of berries. He slips over to the creek and drinks the water. The sun falls below the horizon and
he sees the moon. She is blue and bright, spilling light around him. He goes back to his stone to consider his world in the growing dark.

Alice steps up to him.

“What do you want with me?”

“Your company. Seems like I've been waiting for you for a long time.”

“Did you know my cousin Jimmy?”

“Of course, you silly boy. He is my grandson too.” She jabs Jacob's rib and grabs another cigarette off him.

“He killed himself.”

“He gave up before that. And before that, he made decisions about how everyone else felt but himself. Righteous little bastard.” Alice giggles.

“It isn't good to talk about the dead like that,” Jacob cautions.

“You mean it isn't good for the living to talk about the dead like that.”

This quiets Jacob. He would not have thought of this on his own. He wishes Alice wouldn't answer him with statements he himself could not have said. He does not want to believe he is actually seeing a dead person. She is making it difficult to believe he's imagining her.

“Okay. I give up. You're real. What do you want with me?”

“Your company,” Alice repeats. “What is wrong with you? You deaf? Or don't you listen?”

“I guess I don't believe you.”

Gramma Alice laughs, and then she tells him what she wants from him.

CELIA FALLS INTO THE
rhythm of the women trying to save the child. She is quieter than usual, but when Stacey saunters through the curtain to the child's room, wearing a big smile on her face, Celia rolls her eyes.

“Must have got some last night,” she says through her teeth.

“HI, BABY. IT'S ME
, Stacey.” She leans over the child.

“Yep. She must have got lucky last night,” Rena says, winking at Celia. Celia relaxes.

“I did,” Stacey responds. “I truly did.”

“You going to tell us this story or just tease us?” Momma asks.

Stacey decides to tell her story. The women move about the room, cleaning and attending to the child while listening to it.

“I have me this doctor. He used to come by when Jacob took
to wandering. Every time he came, he seemed to take the edge off this dusty, hard-edged living. He lifted the veil of disappointment that comes with children, you know, he made me want to pick up that dust and just sweep it out the door. He would come whenever I called. It was all so easy — easy loving. You know?”

The women responded with deep acknowledgement. Except Celia, who isn't sure if she should laugh or be horrified. She wonders what kind of people think about sex while tending a dying child. She looks about the room. The women have relaxed into Stacey's story. They seem to need to be relaxed to keep up the madness of tending Shelley, so Celia decides to help Stacey along.

“Kind of makes you yearn for something more?” Another round of “mm-mm” comes from the rest of the women. Celia opens a window. The air lightens and hope spills in.

Stacey leans toward the little girl's face. “You know what I am saying, baby?” Stacey's voice is so soft it draws a thin smile from the child. “Look, Shelley smiled right through the pain.”

“Then what happened?” Rena pulls at Stacey's skirt, the way Jacob used to.

“Jacob is just like you. He used to tug at my skirt like that trying to make me finish a story.”

“Don't you change the subject, girl.”

“Last night he said, ‘Miss Stacey, either you keep me or let me go.'”

This stills their breath with wonderful anticipation. The light goes on in Celia's mind and she prays Stacey told him to stay.

“He left for work this morning. I took the money he gave me
and bought me some new cloth, fixed me up some curtains, fixed him some head soup, and left him a note saying I would be late, eat the soup and hang the curtains.”

“I hope you wrote please at the end of that,” Momma says. The women cheer and tease Stacey. Celia remains quiet.

“Stacey has a man,” Rena says.

“I heard she has a doctor.” Celia's emphasis on “doctor” stops the women in their tracks.

“Did you say you had a doctor?” Judy asks.

“Yeah. I asked him if he would risk breaking his rules for me, for my sorry-ass village. He said only if I insisted. Do you want me to insist?” She turns to the child. “You want me to insist, baby?”

STEVE LEANS AGAINST MOMMA'S
porch railing, telling Stacey that she is going to make him crazy. He accuses her of manipulating him into agreeing to risk his career for her, all the time knowing what she was going to ask of him. It was manipulative. She gives him that. He paces back and forth. She stands still and watches him, then she
turns to head back into the house. He follows. He wants her to promise never to manipulate him like this again. She stops in the hallway and reminds him that he had had his chance to name the conditions of the relationship. He had said there were none. He can't go adding them now just because he doesn't like what she's done. Besides, she wouldn't make those kinds of promises.

“Why not?”

“Because you aren't one of us.” It comes out flat, sounding dangerously final.

“Don't bring up that ‘you're a white man' shit,” he hollers.

She shoves him out the door and onto the porch.

“First, that child does not need to hear a man bellowing. Second, my momma does not deserve to have you upset the spirit of her house. Last, I didn't say you were a white man. I said you aren't a Sto:lo.”

“What the hell is the difference?”

“If you were a Sto:lo I would just say ‘I have to go to Momma's' and you would answer ‘Okay' and come with me. Breaking some white man's rules would not ever be a question. Nor would it require
a moment of consideration, because they aren't our rules. But you are not Sto:lo, so you can't be counted on to just come along.”

“If I was a Sto:lo, I wouldn't be a doctor.” He is sorry for saying it even as it comes out of his mouth.

She slaps him.

“How the hell did I get to be this white?”

This makes her laugh. He does not get the joke. She confounds him.

“I believe what you're saying is that if I can't be like you, I have to let you manipulate me for the rest of my days. I don't know if I can do that.”

She holds up her hand and repeats what she said: “You don't get a second chance.” He sighs and says that he wasn't thinking of that. It is going to drive him insane to do what she is asking, and he is afraid of what she might do if he fails.

“Not a damn thing,” she answers. There is nothing to be done about it if he fails. She would try, he would try, but they would not always be successful and that is that.

“Do you need a minute by yourself?” she asks.

“No. I just want to know why you picked that cloth you picked for the curtains.”

She smiles. “Because the sun picks up the pink through the cloth and spills onto all that blond in your hair. I like the strawberry hues it brings out.”

“You are going to make me crazy, Miss Stacey.” He walks into the house to assess Shelley's situation.

WHAT'S THAT STACEY HAD
asked her gramma one night as they trundled home in the dark? She had pointed at the skyline, which was jumping all over the edge of the earth with a pale blue light.

“What's wrong with the sky, Gramma?”

“Nothing,” Gramma had answered.

“What's it doing?”

“Sometimes our northern relatives get tired of all that snow: shiny diamondback snow; slushy, wet, grey snow; blue-hued snow; icing sugar snow; big, white, flaked snow; house-making snow. They get so many kinds of snow. Even so, sometimes they get to wanting to look on some green; so they come down here and dance at the edge of our world.”

Celia finishes repeating this memory to Stacey. “Do you remember telling me that?” she asks. Stacey does.

“Well, it's doing it again. The sky is doing it right now.”

The women drop what they are doing; they leave Steve alone with Ned and go outside.

Steve is shaking, he can't get his hand to steady up.

Ned notices. “Sometimes the weasel is the best teacher,” he says.

Steve laughs. “Don't you go trying my patience with an Ella riddle now, Ned. This story better be good and plain, because I am still as dumb as when I was young, except now I am older and slower.” He settles down to watch the girl. “She needs a lot of vitamin E. I'll pick some up from the pharmacy. I can't believe
anyone could make it through all this, but it looks like she might. She should be dead. It's more than the burns, Ned; she's emaciated. Whoever did this was doing it for a long time. I'm surprised she lived long enough to give him the chance to do this much damage.”

HE BARELY REMEMBERS WHAT
he had been harping about when his aunt Ella told him that weasel story. He told her he had no sympathy for weasels. “You definitely don't,” she had said and laughed one of those old people's isn't-that-the-damnedest-thing-you-ever-heardhe-doesn't-like-weasels kind of laughs.

“Do I look like a man whose woman has pulled the wool over on him?” Steve asks Ned.

“You look like a man who's mad his woman has pulled the wool over on him.”

He isn't surprised that it shows. He is easy to read; it's one of the things Stacey says she likes about him. He laughs. He cannot remember finding himself funny before, and says so to Ned. Ned finds this funny. The two of them are laughing when the women return, talking about the lights in hushed tones. They tell Ned and Steve to go out and have a look.

“I DIDN'T PARTICULARLY WANT
any of my girls to bring a white man home, but if we have to have one you would be my first choice, Steve.”

“Not much weasel in you, Ned.”

“No. I'm kind of like you, Steve: a little on the dumb side, but I get around. This clutch of women is full of every possible medicine; if you know your light isn't always shining, you just learn to move along with the rhythm they set in motion and wait for the story to unfold — or they will drive you to distraction. They're always interesting, if they're not always sweet.”

“You know what's scary, Ned? On the other side of that bridge, I am one of the smartest men I know.”

Ned nods. What Ned thinks is even scarier is that they don't think their own women are very smart on the other side of the bridge, and so they cannot imagine the women in this village being smart either.

The lights dance. Ned imagines hearing the hum. Steve thinks he sees faint hints of blue and green in the columns that sway as though reaching for the top of the sky. The light bathes him in some kind of strange calm. He has never felt calm coming from outside of him and getting under his skin like this.

“Is she worth it?” Ned asks.

“Yeah,” Steve says without hesitation. This satisfies Ned. They continue watching the lights.

“I have to go back to Stella's,” Ned tells him as he butts out a cigarette. Steve helps him load up his truck with scrap lumber and tools, though he's damned if he can figure out why they want to help Stella at all — she belongs in jail.

THE LIGHTS DANCE THEIR
way around the belt of the night, glowing blue and green for a couple of hours. The women come out again when Shelley has gone to sleep. Awe silences them as the lights form human shapes. The lights reshape themselves: first into mountains of blue glacial light, then into humans again, ending as abstract shapes in motion.

There doesn't seem to be an adequate way to address the dead staring at you in their numbers. Silence is the only reaction they can call together and still maintain their awe. Each has stood calling out to the ancestors in a holy mass, eyes pointed skyward, bodies still, prayers completely silent. When the lights leave, their eyes turn to one another; this is their communion.

Celia begins the circle by embracing her mother, before moving on to each woman, her mother following, until every woman's heart beats with the other.

Momma begins to sing. “They came to remove that awful tired you-know-the-one that slows the blood, thins the mind, and tortures the memory.” After Momma finishes that old sweet song, Celia slips her arm into her mother's and asks if she knows many songs.