Then Sings My Soul (18 page)

CHAPTER 32

Jakob's infection cleared, and soon he was back to a relatively stable routine again, even cooking eggs for breakfast now and then. On this particular morning, Mattie had brought a coffee cake for breakfast and they sat in the living room watching the morning news together while Nel ran some errands. A sharp pain had been nagging Jakob in the back of his head, and it kept him from sipping on the cup of Nel's mud-strength coffee that Mattie had poured and set on the end table beside him. He waited for the pain to pass, but soon blackness covered the entire field of vision of his right eye. He tried to dismiss the pain by focusing his still-working left eye on the tree limbs swaying outside the living-room picture window. Squirrels chattered, no doubt fighting over the corncobs and seeds that Nel had kept replenishing in the feeders. Sunlight pressed through the edges of the shutters, and Jakob's toes and legs felt cold and stiff, even though it was late spring. Catherine had always kept blankets on the arms of every chair and couch, but even with a couple of those thrown over his lap and a pair of wool socks on his feet, he didn't feel warm.

“Aren't you going to drink your coffee?” Mattie said offhandedly as she flipped through a catalog.

“I'm letting it cool a bit,” he said, hoisting himself up out of his recliner and heading toward the bathroom. “Excuse me a moment.”

Jakob hadn't told anyone about the changes in his vision. It wasn't like he'd never had the strange eye spells before—he'd had them lots of times. Even before he broke his hip. But it was only one eye at a time, and they always passed as this one finally did too. Still, a chill he hadn't felt before crept deep within his limbs as he fumbled for his walker and trekked to the bathroom even slower than his usual slow.

“At least I kept my pants dry,” he mumbled to himself after dropping his drawers to the floor. He grabbed onto the newly installed steel bar on the wall as he lowered himself onto the commode. David's additions and renovations pleased him, and he was truly grateful Nel had been there to orchestrate all the updates to the home. He and Catherine had always gotten by on what they had and didn't believe in fixing anything unless it was broke, but Jakob fully admitted the work needed to be done if he was to live out the rest of his days at home. He hadn't realized how neglected the place had become until he saw it fixed like new again.

When he was finished, Jakob let the water run in the sink until it steamed, then splashed his face with it, most of it ending up on his shirt and the counter and floor. He was still weak from the infection, and every bend of every limb felt clumsy. He debated whether or not he should try to shave, since he hadn't for several days, and decided he would. Dark age spots on his saggy cheeks and hands reflected back at him as he lathered up his shaving brush.

Fresh-shaven, he headed back to the couch, but before he could sit down, Mattie stopped him.

“This is the day the Lord has made. Might as well rejoice and be glad in it, eh?”

“Humpf.”

“I'll get your pills out. Then let's go for a short walk, shall we? Grab the paper, maybe walk down the street a bit. It's still nice and cool outside. Besides, who can nap with all the racket of the trim and roof work going on?” David had hired a couple of helpers, and the roof renovation was well underway.

Though Jakob's vision was back to normal, the back of his head still throbbed. He considered asking to skip the walk, but maybe the fresh air was exactly what his weak arms and wobbly knees needed. If nothing else, surely being outside would raise his spirits. “Fine. Let's go.”

“Don't be grumpy with me,” Mattie said playfully.

“Sorry. I have a bit of a headache.”

“The fresh air should help that too.”

Mattie was right. The sun massaged his joints and warmed his cold hands. As they neared the mailbox, a young boy on a bicycle swerved Jakob's way down the sidewalk. Usually Jakob ignored kids, figuring they wouldn't want to have anything to do with an old geezer, or fearing he'd frighten them as he had unintentionally on more than one occasion. But he noticed this one, mostly because he headed straight for him. The boy's father jogged alongside him in the grass, arm outstretched, ready to grab the seat if the boy leaned too far one way or another, separating from him only to avoid a large oak tree in the grass between the sidewalk and the street. This momentary separation, unfortunately, allowed just enough time for the boy, dressed in a bright-yellow T-shirt with a dump truck on the front and plaid shorts, to topple sideways to the ground. With a head full of dark curls, the boy sat in a crumpled ball for a stunned moment. But as soon as the blood oozed from his right knee and the palms of his hands, he let out an ear-piercing wail.

“Da-aaaaad! Why'd you let go-oooo?”

“Oh my!” Mattie gasped.

“Here, son, let me help you.” Jakob kept one hand on his walker and stretched his other hand toward the boy, ignoring his creaking knees.

“Jakob, careful now—” Mattie cautioned.

“I'm fine.”

The boy didn't seem bothered by Jakob's spotty, veined hand, and grabbed on tight as his father came up behind him and scooped him into his arms. Soon the boy's wails turned to sobby sniffles.

“Thank you.” The young father nodded.

Jakob found the man's Chicago Cubs shirt endearing, but his khaki shorts, fringed all along the bottom, could've used a good hemming. Jakob supposed that was the style, but he didn't have to like it.

“How old is the boy?”

“Four. About to turn five. Learning to ride his new birthday bike. Figured we'd give it to him a bit early, nice weather and all.”

“Four, eh?”

The boy was small, baby fat still visible on his thighs and around the knuckles on his small hands. He studied Jakob, his walker, and his jowly face as his dad gave him the obligatory parental talk about getting back up when you fall down.

After his father set him down, the boy swung his leg over the bike and looked over his shoulder as his dad grabbed hold of the back of the bike seat. “Don't let go, Daddy.”

“I won't, buddy.”

“Promise?”

“I promise.”

Only then did the boy put one foot on the pedal and then push off with the other foot, a trickle of blood running down his pudgy, unsure leg. The two of them headed away, the young dad hollering wahoos and yahoos and attaboys.

“What a cutie. Too bad about his knee,” Mattie said as she pulled the mail out of the mailbox.

The boy pedaled pretty well, smiling even as he headed back their way again. His father still had hold of the seat, as promised.

“I think you can let go now, Daddy,” the boy hollered.

“You sure, buddy?”

“I'm sure!”

The father gave a little extra push, and the boy was off on his own. He grinned ear to ear, though his knee still shone siren red.

“That's a way!” Jakob clapped his hands to applaud, and Mattie joined him.

Four years old—the same age he'd been during the raid in Chudniv—with a father who kept holding on.

Jakob and Mattie walked back up the driveway to where David stood taking stock of the roofing supplies and plans for the day.

“Let's go sit on the back deck awhile,” Mattie suggested to Jakob then turned to David. “Care to join us for a bit?”

“Thanks, but you two go on. I've got my hands full here and want to get as much in as I can before the rain they keep talking about settles in. S'posed to pour for a week.”

They walked around the side of the house, past the rounded and newly mulched beds outlining the home's foundation, past the oak tree sheltering Nel's bedroom window, past the rounded beds of knockout roses and hydrangeas, the beginning mounds of hyssop and coneflowers, lupine and foxglove. In front of the viburnum and chokeberry bushes stood a pedestal topped with the crazy blue gazing ball Catherine had insisted they purchase at a patio show a couple years back. Only now it wasn't crazy as much as it was endearing, as most things become that belong to someone who's passed on.

“Only a few more yards, and we're there,” Mattie said, encouraging him.

“I see it, I see it.” Jakob feigned more annoyance than he felt. Mattie had been hypervigilant with him ever since he came home, and he knew the help she'd given him and Nel was a big reason why he hadn't kicked the bucket yet. He pushed himself up the incline of the ramp leading to the deck and settled himself onto the bench he and Mattie'd sat on most often since he'd come home.

“Look there.” Mattie pointed out at the lake. “I think they caught something.”

Jakob's distance vision was about the only part of him that hadn't failed him completely. The eighteen-foot aluminum Tracker bobbed softly in the slow-rolling tide near shore. Two men gathered at the front of the boat, one of them reeling hard against an acutely bent rod. At last he yanked the fish onto the boat deck, and even from where Jakob sat he could see the reflection of the fish's golden scales.

“Got themselves a nice yellow perch.”

“Yes they did.” Mattie smiled, holding on her head the hat that the breeze seemed determined to blow away.

Papa Stewart came to Jakob's mind, and the days he devoted to Jakob while they stayed at the lake house when Peter was sick in the sanatorium. Papa Stewart worked in Chicago during the week, then came to join Jakob and Mama Stewart, who lived there full-time, except when school was in session. Papa Stewart had taught Jakob how to make his own rod, and they sat on the shore whittling and shining the slender wood, wrapping the metal eyes in place with colored thread, even notching out a ruler to measure whatever they caught. As the last step, Jakob had painted his name on the base:
JAKOB STEWART
.

“Have you spoken to Nel yet about your past?”

The discomfort of another one of Mattie's well-intentioned lectures approaching tightened like a knot in Jakob's chest. “I have.”

“Good.”

The fishermen on the lake continued to catch and release several more fish.

“So?”

“So what?”

“What'd she say?”

“She was glad, I suppose.” He turned toward her with a grin so abrupt and wide and exaggerated Mattie startled. “Satisfied?”

Mattie threw her head back and laughed heartily, and soon Jakob joined in, holding his belly and praying his parts wouldn't leak.

And in that moment, his hardened marrow shifted like the sun lighting on the yellow perch's side, a creature held firm in the fisherman's hand and let go just when it thought it might never breathe again. More memories—good ones—surfaced like a buoy held under currents and finally let go. Memories of his sisters and frogs and honeysuckle. Of leaning against the curve of Mama's soft breast as she rocked him and sang prayers of thanksgiving in the mornings and evenings; of Papa finishing his stones and letting Jakob help polish them with his own piece of cheesecloth; of crystal white snow on white birch branches in patches of forest around Chudniv; of Galya's strong withers; of the taste of milk fresh from the milk cow's udder; of Sasha the priest, Russie and Chaim, Luda, Zsófia and Makár; of Papa Stewart warming a quilt by the stove and wrapping him in it and carrying him up to bed; of Mama Stewart praying outside his bedroom door; of the first time Catherine and he made love; of lunch hours spent laughing with the guys at Brake-All; of fishing; of sunflowers.

Later that evening, David brought in a catch of his own perch he'd caught with some friends that day. Jakob's hands, still steady enough to scale a fish, rubbed the edge of an old spoon backward over the iridescent flesh, the tiny, razor-like pieces flipping all across the counter. He remembered a nun from Saint Stanislaus, wrinkled face framed by the white hood of her habit, as she recited the story of Saul on the road to Damascus, how he became blind when he met his Savior, and how the scales finally fell from his sightless eyes.

CHAPTER 33

“Hey, Dad. David.” Nel hopped off her mom's bike that she'd cleaned up and walked it toward where Jakob sat in a lawn chair under a tree in the front yard. He hadn't seen her yet, and she slowed her pace, taking in every bend, curve and wrinkle of his aged form. He lifted a cup of coffee to his mouth and dribbled half of it down his chin without seeming to notice. Nearly ninety-five and yet when she lost him, she knew it would still be too soon.

“Find anything good?” David hollered from his spot on the ladder.

She pulled off her glasses and cleaned them in an attempt to be discreet about wiping the tears off her face, then she cleared her throat and waved up at David. “Got enough rhubarb to make a couple of pies, a bunch of mixed greens, brown eggs, and a new hosta I don't think's represented yet in our garden.” She pulled the hosta out of the bike basket and set it in front of Jakob.

David pried another piece of rotten trim from the second-story eaves. He let it fall, and it splintered into dozens of soggy, mildewed pieces on the ground. He climbed down the ladder.

Nel helped him gather an armload of debris and toss it into the large, steel waste container they'd rented.

David brushed his gloved hands together, shaking away the rotten flakes of wood. “Whadda you say we go fishing later on?”

“Is that all you do all spring and summer?” Sweat trickled down her neck and the small of her back as she shielded her eyes from the morning sun already blazing. David's Michigan State T-shirt clung to his sweaty chest and accented his broad shoulders, and she found it more and more difficult to look him in the eyes when his mouth was always slightly upturned, as if he were waiting to kiss her. She used her arm to wipe the sweat off her own forehead.

“It's a bad habit, that's for sure. Don't you like to fish?”

“I like it plenty. Could probably out fish you, in fact.”

“Is that a challenge?”

“Do you want it to be?”

“This afternoon. Black River. I'll pick you up around four thirty. You can use my rods.”

“I have my own, thank you.” She was proud of the fact she not only knew how to fish, but she could hold her own against most any man, most any day. No matter that she hadn't been in awhile. She'd been fishing since she was old enough to hold a rod.

“Four thirty, then.”

“Sounds good.”

Nel pulled her fishing rod off the rafters where her dad stored all the rods in the garage. She ran her finger over her name and fishing measurements notched in the wood, still shiny and smooth after all these years. She'd chosen pink thread, which Jakob had helped her wind perfect and tight around the metal line guides to keep them in place.

“You ready?” David said, leaning against the front of his truck.

“I'm ready. The question is, are you?”

The drive to the Black River Bridge wasn't far, just across Interstate 196 along the Kal-Haven Trail. They passed an occasional chippy, clapboard house that gaped at them, cracked and dingy windows sighing at the unusual sight of a car passing by. Many of the rolling hills and fields were striped with rows of blueberry bushes, many fully blossoming, and Nel breathed in their sweet scent through the open windows of David's truck.

Once they arrived at Kal-Haven, they found a side trail leading to the river, and David spread a blanket out along the shore, where they laid out their gear and a basket of snacks. Nel's thoughts wandered as she attached a new hook and sinker to her fishing line and baited the hook with the worms they'd stopped to buy, then cast it far into the middle of the river. As her line grew tight floating along with the current, she grew silent.

“Penny for your thoughts?”

“Wow, who even says that anymore?” Nel chuckled.

David shrugged.

“I'm not thinking of anything, really. Sometimes it's nice to think of nothing.” She watched her bobber sway with the current and felt for a nibble on the hook, then pulled back hard on her rod as something yanked her bobber beneath the surface. The tip of the rod bent as she began to reel, until the end of the line came near the shore, and she saw that the line was empty. “Stole the bait.”

“Stripped it clean too.” David headed for a patch of grass where they had set up their tackle. “Mealworm or night crawler?”

“Night crawler. Thanks.”

Nel folded the long worm onto the hook and cast it back out into the river. “You wouldn't want me, you know.”

“What do you mean?”

Nel focused on her bobber again, determined not to look at David. “I know we're beyond the point of being ‘just friends.' That you want more from me. That's why you trusted me with your story, and I'm so, so grateful that you did. But trust me, you don't want me.”

“You're being pretty presumptuous.” David shook his head. “I can't have more of someone who won't give me a chance.” He threw his line into the river as well, closer to shore, near a clump of fallen trees. “You know what I think?”

Nel spun the reel, not answering him.

“I think you're afraid.”

She stopped spinning her reel and glared at him.

“You are, aren't you? Beautiful, brilliant, talented girl like you … never married …”

“You think you know so much, do you?”

“I know those same tendencies in other people, same as mine were for a while, especially after the accident. I didn't want to let anyone close to me. I didn't deserve to have anyone close to me. And they certainly didn't deserve me.”

“Well, you're wrong. About me, anyway.”

“Whatever you say. You don't have to tell me anything.” David's rod bent severely, and he reeled back hard against the fish pulling at the end of his line. He landed the fish, dark green with a speckling of pale-yellow spots, and orange front fins. He held the fish in his hand, smoothing back the fins, and worked the hook out of the side of its mouth before throwing it back. “A fine example of a brook trout.”

He threw the fish back, then wiped his hands off with a rag from their pile of tackle. He walked to where she stood, put his arm around her tentatively, then strong and unyielding as he kissed her on the temple. “You've been through quite a bit since fall.”

“It's not just that,” she said in barely a whisper, her voice quaking. “I can't have kids.”

Instead of slackening his arm as she'd expected, he pulled her closer.

“It ends with me, Mom and Dad's legacy. I can't have kids.” She pulled away from him and walked to the edge of the river, tears falling freely. “All these years, I've been filling my life with my art, creating things that will outlast me, somehow, since no one ever will. Maybe I am afraid … afraid of what's left for me in the future. Maybe that's why Dad's story, his past, matters to me so much.”

She told him everything, then, about Tom and the miscarriage and the subsequent hysterectomy. About her breakup with Sam and all the breakups before that. How she'd become so involved with her art, she'd lost track of what was most important, which was family. Family and home.

“Here's your glasses.” David centered them on her nose for her after she'd taken them off to wipe her tears, then put his other arm around her and kept holding her, strong and consuming as the full moon cast long shadows all around them. Like gypsum, the alabaster that held Mary's perfume, the moon gleamed, pouring out light as the cicadas sang and the river ran and the pain in Nel's soul receded.