Don't Call Me Mother (22 page)

“I don’t want this for you, but it’s best that you live with her. I’ve thought of bringing you to live with me in Chicago, but you have your life here. She’s doing a good job with you, too—you are boo’ful, and thweet.” Daddy uses his old words for me, making me cuddle closer. His dark eyes fix on me, looking me up and down. “You’re getting to be quite a young lady. I’ve missed you. Come here, I want to show you something.”

“What, Daddy?” I giggle as he tickles me under the arms.

“Just come here and sit on Daddy’s lap.”

I climb on his lap facing the television set. Tonto and Silver are hiding while the Lone Ranger shoots at a bunch of cowboys beside a big boulder. Daddy puts his arms around me and turns me to face him, pecking kisses all over my face. His prickly beard makes me giggle and I start to pull away, but he presses me toward him. “Come on, let me kiss you.”

His sweet words keep me in place, though I don’t really want to kiss him any more. He gives me a slow kiss. I squirm to get away, but he keeps it up. I don’t know what to do. I want him to like me. He leans back. “You have to learn how it is with boys. They like a girl who’s not easy but who kisses back.”

Boys? I am not going to kiss boys for a long, long time. Gram’s voice plays in my head about what a bad person he is. I know she’d be furious if she knew he was kissing me. I finally get him to let me down. Already I’m hiding all this in a secret place inside me. My voice is steady, my tone casual. “Daddy, let’s go. Gram will be waiting for us.” Daddy and I are normal again, and the kissing never happened.

At Gram’s house, they eye each other warily. She’s wearing one of her favorite dresses, and her hair is coifed nicely. I wonder why she dresses up so much for Daddy if she doesn’t like him. He plans to teach me how to roller-skate on the skates he sent me for Christmas. I put on my jeans—something I rarely wear because Gram thinks they’re low class—my chunky oxfords, and a scarf to keep the wind off my ears. I ask Daddy what he’s going to wear. He laughs and pinches the lapel of his dark brown suit. “This is all I have. I promise I won’t get dirty.” He sits tensely across the room from Gram, visibly struggling to keep his anger at her in check.

Outside I am a little girl again, steadying myself on Daddy’s arm and giggling. I try to keep my balance, sticking my feet out like a duck as we trudge up the hill. Neighborhood fathers are in their front yards wearing T-shirts or plaid shirts and jeans as they peer into the open hoods of their cars or push lawn mowers. My father has never been seen playing with me on the street, so I feel proud as I cling to his arm. The hill looks steep, and my stomach flips over as we look down it. Daddy senses my anxiety and murmurs, “You can do it. I’ll be right here with you. Just let go.”

The world is green lawns and pastel houses, bright-colored cars, the sound of mowers, the voices of neighbors. I am rolling along, Daddy’s hard leather shoes tapping out a staccato beat beside me. Tap, tap tap, the grind of the skates, Daddy’s voice—I hear all this and the whoosh of wind against my body. At the bottom of the hill I skate onto our lawn, laughing so hard that I fall down. Daddy chuckles in his throat, and Gram comes to the door, surprising me with a smile on her face. Twice more Daddy and I trudge up the hill and rush down again. At the end of the third run, Gram comes out with the camera. She points to the front steps and says, “Sit there together. I’ll get your picture.”

Daddy murmurs to me as we sit facing Gram and the Brownie camera, “Smile; you look thweet.” I hold on to the idea that Daddy and I are playing just the way other fathers and daughters do.

The ride back to Perry is deathly silent. The car passes the field where Gram and I stopped two days ago. The cows are far away in the pasture, and I miss their comical, friendly faces. Daddy’s large form is in the back seat with me, a bundle of irritated energy, barely contained. I can see Gram’s face reflected in the rearview mirror—a mask of snide superiority. A mist of misery settles over me and I feel a terrible emptiness.

The bricks of the station are dark against a pearl-blue dusk. Daddy comes out of the lobby to tell us that the train is an hour late. My heart leaps. I wish he could stay much longer than an hour. I glance at Gram as I inch toward Daddy. I don’t like the kissing lessons, but maybe it’s really okay, maybe other girls learn this way too. I already miss him. I grab his arm like a little girl, as if to remind him that I’m still only twelve, skipping beside him as we head toward the Kumback Inn a block away. The neon sign blinks and music blares from the jukebox. Plaid-shirted farmers are being served piles of food by the down-home waitresses.

We order chicken fried steak, fried chicken, and mashed potatoes from the blonde waitress. Daddy engulfs his fried chicken; Gram slices her steak with dainty care. All around us is the din of crashing plates, cooks yelling orders. Gram, with her red lipstick and haughty attitude, and Daddy, in his slick Chicago suit, stand out in this crowd, looking like city folks. I wonder what happened in Chicago long ago that led to this hatred they feel for each other. I wish I knew the history, so I could make sense of things.

Eating with Daddy, such an ordinary act, always makes him seem more like my actual father. I notice Gram’s face, which suggests that I’ll get in trouble later for being disloyal by sitting next to him. I’d rather sit next to this energetic, cheerful man than cranky Gram.

As we leave the café, streetlights give an amber glow to the square. Otherwise there is the deepening black of night. Daddy’s long legs gobble a block in a few strides. I fold my arm in his the way ladies in the movies do, skipping to keep up. Gram lingers behind, but I don’t care. I treasure my last few moments with Daddy.

The dark night sky is silent as we await the whistle of the train from Texas. Daddy paces back and forth. Gram sits and smokes, with an attitude of weary disgust. The whistle calls out, and people rush over to the track. The bright light grows huge and the ground vibrates as the train sweeps in with a heart-throbbing bass drum beat. Daddy gathers me to him, his rough cheek smearing my face. That wavy liquid feeling I always get when one of my parents leaves comes over me. Gram and Daddy say a tight-lipped good-bye. Then he grabs his suitcase, finds his seat on the train, and turns to wave at me. He’s framed in the golden square of the window, my father. Little do I know that it will be a very long time until I see him again.

I’m grateful for the silence in the car as Gram drives us back home. We make our way around shadowy curves, the headlights illuminating the yellow dashes on the road, bushes and trees looming on the shoulder like ghosts. The sky has an eerie glow from the oil derricks burning off gasses in the distance. I watch the orange flames rage like the fires of hell, licking up into the jet-black sky.

Thirteen

Gram scurries around vacuuming like a demon, cliffs and crevasses distorting her face while she shouts and yells. What is wrong with her? Why is she yelling and screaming? I can’t imagine what I did to make her act this way. She screams about how she has given up her life for me, that I’m ungrateful and selfish. Doesn’t she know this is my birthday and that I want to be happy today?

I try hard to stay cheerful, thinking about pleasant things, like Keith and some of the other cute boys. I think about the symphony practice room, where the music lifts me away from the darkness, Mr. Brauninger grinning at me from first chair as Keith, Jodie, Floyd, Lloyd, and I play Beethoven’s Seventh. I reflect on the books I’m reading—Sue Barton, the nurse, Jim Bridger and Kit Carson, mountain scouts. I dream of my mother and father. One day they’ll get back together, and I’ll join them in Chicago where we’ll start a new life together.

Gram screams that no one appreciates her; she could kill herself and no one would care. I hate her screaming, but I get scared when she talks about dying. Where would I go? My parents don’t really want me to live with them—it’s just an old fantasy of mine that things could be nice and sweet with them.

The postman comes. There is no birthday card from my mother, but I see one with unfamiliar handwriting. Gram opens it, as always. It’s a birthday card from Keith, with yellow flowers and a pleasant verse. Right now it’s the best thing that could happen, a reminder that someone cares. I’m smiling and happy, skipping around the room. But out of the corner of my eye, I catch a glimpse of Gram’s grim face.

“Oh, that’s a fine how do you do,” she snarls. “What the hell do you think that means, anyway? You know that men are up to no good.”

“It’s just a birthday card, and he’s our friend.” How can she say bad things about him—he’s sixteen years old and is always nice.

“Sure, you start there, and then where does it go. You are destined to be on the stage. You’ll be too busy with concerts and traveling to get involved with men. Do you think I give you all these lessons just so you can get googly–eyed about some boy? I better not ever catch you with anyone until you’re eighteen, and after that you’ll be too busy for such nonsense.”

She goes on yelling about her sacrifices, how I’d be dead if it weren’t for her. I can’t bear the noise and go to the bathroom, where I get a few minutes of peace. I feel shaky, but I can’t bear the idea of crying today. I cradle the card, holding Keith’s signature to my heart. It’s all I have to hold on to.

Gram’s rage goes on and on. To shut her up, I sit at the piano. Gram has to be quiet when I play. The sweetness of a Chopin nocturne takes me into another world. I see a veranda surrounded by lilies, a full moon rising, a soft breeze riffling through the trees. Chopin gathers me into his embrace, lifting me into a lovelier time and place, and I’m free.

Swan Song

Bright lights flood the stage, gleaming on the graceful curves of the grand piano. Its S-shaped top is open, exposing the wires of its secret inner life. The house lights dim and the ritual begins. Mr. Brauninger, handsome in his black tuxedo, cradles his amber violin as he steps into the light. Petite Eva, her dark hair shining, bounces with energy as she joins him on stage. Mr. B. begins to play. Music streams from his violin, melodies moving gracefully through the air the way a butterfly floats on a spring breeze.

I am most fully alive in the rarefied world of music, where I am surrounded by wonderful sounds and colors. Music paints the world with pale maroon, soft lime green, and a mellow aqua blue, like photos of the sea. Music transports me into a world free of pain and darkness, a world of soothing safety, where hope returns to me.

Mr. Brauninger has told us that he and Eva are getting married and moving soon to their new home. I understand that they must leave and go on with their lives. I’m thrilled with the romantic notion of it, but it also breaks my heart.

I can hardly remember life before him. He awakened me to a world I never could have imagined, offering me the symphony and its magical sounds, along with more tenderness and encouragement than anyone else I’ve known. He has believed in me without reservation. The sweetest and safest man I’ve ever known is leaving.

At the recital, he and Eva play together, she on the piano, he with his golden violin under his chin, in perfect synchrony, responding beautifully to each other’s gestures, the signals that musicians use—a nod, a glance, the movement of a finger, bow tip, or shoulder. I know this same language, it will always be with me. I am the string, the bow, the piano key. I am the vibration through which Mozart and Beethoven continue to express their inner worlds.

At the end of the performance, Mr. Brauninger bows deeply. I take a picture in my mind of my musical parents—the gleam of light on the instruments, how Eva and Jim shine together, holding hands.