Night Bird Calling

by Cathy Gohlke

  I couldn’t swallow the painful lump in my throat. “I’m not ready. I’m not ready for her to go.”

  Dr. Vishnevsky replaced his glasses, looked sadly, compassionately in my eyes, and half smiled. He took my chilled but sweaty hand and pressed it in his own. “We never are.” He hefted his bag. “Lilliana Grace. A beautiful name. Call me if you need me, when there is change.” He scrutinized my face. “She loves you. Do not underestimate the good of your coming here. You’ve given her all her heart desired in her last days.”

  His words were balm and knife.

  “Go in now. She wants to see you. But then you must sleep, Lilliana Grace. You will need it in the days ahead.”

  Sleep. I couldn’t imagine losing a moment of Aunt Hyacinth’s precious life to sleep.

  “Thank you, Doctor.” I prepared to show him out, but he held up his hand.

  “I know the way.” He hesitated, his hand on the newel knob of the staircase, his back to me.

  I waited.

  He spoke quietly. “Do you know what shanda means?

  I shook my head.

  “It is the Yiddish word for ‘shame.’ Your aunt feels it keenly.”

  My breath caught. What shame could Aunt Hyacinth feel? Is it shame of me?

  “It is shame to live life and to have no one remember it. In the Jewish culture we have an expression, dor l’dor—from generation to generation. We want to tell our stories, to be remembered by our children’s children, to be known and to tell how Adonai has led us and leads us still. Your aunt bore no children. The child she raised is gone. She needs to give you her stories, your family’s stories. While there is time, if there is still time, listen. It is the gift that matters most to her.” He didn’t wait for me to answer but made his way down the stairs and out the front door. The bell jingled, then fell silent.

  I stood in the upstairs hallway, dust mites dancing before the far window. Something passed through the garden below and into the woods—a shape similar to the form I’d seen—and sensed—on the way to find Gerald that morning not so long ago. I shivered. A premonition? An omen? If only I could stop time—freeze time in this place. But the sands of time did not slow. I turned the knob and went in to my aunt.

  •••

  Aunt Hyacinth lay on the center of her bed beneath an ivory coverlet. Embroidered pink roses connected by loden-green ribbon vines bordered the edges. Bouquets of roses and violets, lilacs and daisies filled each square, each one tied with garlands of pink ribbon. I’d never seen the coverlet before—nothing like it.

  Aunt Hyacinth’s eyes opened as I pulled a chair to her bed and sat down, running my fingers over the raised threads. Her frail hands smoothed the coverlet, fingering the stitching.

  “This is beautiful, Aunt Hyacinth. Where did it come from?”

  “I made it for my wedding day. Every stitch, filled with love.”

  “Your wedding day?”

  A cloud, a sadness passed through her eyes, and she took a breath that barely lifted the coverlet from the bed. She opened her hand. I placed mine in it. “There are so many things I should have told you. And now . . .”

  “What is it you want to tell me?”

  She nodded, then closed her eyes. I waited, glad Dr. Vishnevsky had spoken to me. If he hadn’t, I might have tried to quiet her, urged her to save her strength.

  “First, about my Henry.”

  “The ring I brought back to you. You said it was Henry’s ring.”

  Aunt Hyacinth smiled. Her thumb twisted the ring on her finger, setting it so she could feel the ruby. “You’ll see to it that I wear it—always?”

  “Yes.” I tried hard to keep my voice steady. “Of course. I promise.”

  “Papa took us to the seaside each summer, Camellia and me, even after we were old enough to begin the tours . . . New York, Canada, Europe. New York is where I met Biddy. You’ll write her for me?”

  I squeezed her hand, not trusting my voice.

  “Good. Mama died when Camellia was born. That took half of Papa’s life. When Camellia married, he no longer had the heart to ‘traipse the world,’ as he said.” Aunt Hyacinth paused, her breathing seeming too much a chore to continue.

  “Maybe you should tell me later, Aunt Hy—”

  Her hand squeezed mine. Obediently, worriedly, I waited. She spoke between labored breaths.

  “It was the first summer after Camellia married. Papa was so distracted—with his regrets and worries, I suppose. He said he had family business to see to and that he was no longer up to keeping track of me, no longer insisted on a chaperone to accompany me. I was allowed to roam on my own, and roam I did. I met a young man, a handsome young waterman who worked for the Chicamacomico Life-Saving Station in Rodanthe—along the Outer Banks.” She smiled in memory. “His chest was broad and his arms like steel from the rowing he did each day. His eyes were the color of the sea, just before a storm.”

  Aunt Hyacinth didn’t speak for several minutes, and I thought she’d fallen asleep from the exertion. I hoped it was in the peace of happy memory. But then she opened her eyes, still looking toward some far-off place—perhaps Rodanthe, long ago.

  “We fell in love, deeply in love. He gave me this ring and asked Papa for my hand—all very proper.”

  “What happened?”

  “Papa refused—furious. He was still grieving Mama all those years later and then that Camellia had recently married and left us. I was all that he had left . . . and he thought Henry—a waterman from Dare County—beneath the Belvidere family name.” Aunt Hyacinth sighed wearily. “I could hardly wait to marry Henry or to get away from Papa. We were going to run away—elope.”

  “Like Mama.”

  Aunt Hyacinth smiled. “Yes, in a way it would have been like your precious mama. But there was more to her running away than marriage. I suppose she never told you our family secret, our shame. I should have told you, but I’ve put it off, still so ashamed—and yet it didn’t start out that way. Not all the Belvideres were like Papa. I’ll tell you now, my darling girl, and pray you’ll forgive our family. I understood Rosemary’s going better than she knew, though I grieved every day for her—the daughter I never bore.”

  I couldn’t tell if Aunt Hyacinth was imagining or remembering in her rambling. I couldn’t imagine what “family secret” she might have held or how that could have influenced Mama. Mama never said. But it was Aunt Hyacinth’s love story that seemed to matter most. “You didn’t go with Henry?”

  “Papa had gone to his business meeting—whatever that was, he never said, then suffered a stroke that night—right there at the seashore hotel. It wasn’t severe, but I couldn’t leave him. I came back to No Creek to care for him that autumn, promising Henry we’d marry at Christmas. Despite Papa’s protestations, I had my wedding dress made. You’ll find it in the trunk at the foot of my bed, wrapped in tissue paper. This—” she caressed the coverlet—“was the wedding quilt I made for us. I worked on it every day I nursed Papa. I asked Gladys to lay it over me now. Henry and I were going to be married right here in Shady Grove Baptist. Papa was well enough to manage on his own by then, along with our hired help that came in, and nothing he could say would have stopped me.”

  “Then what—?”

  “There was a storm at sea—a terrible storm and a shipwreck. Henry was on duty that night. The rescue boat pushed out to sea and the men saved eight of the twenty passengers. Three of the rescuers were never found. My Henry . . .”

  “Aunt Hyacinth, I’m so terribly sorry.”

  “I’ll see him again. It won’t be long now.” Aunt Hyacinth breathed, a long but ragged breath, still holding my hand.

  I stroked the tears from her weathered cheeks, so wishing I could wipe away her sadness and loss, wishing I could have given her a different life, a different ending.

  “Eventually, one night, Papa suffered another stroke—a bad one. I stayed and cared for him till he died . . . nearly ten years. I don’t know what I would have done if I hadn’t ha
d your mother to raise during his last years. She gave me such joy—made my life whole again.”

  “There was no one else—after Henry?”

  “No one else for me.” She turned her head. “There were other suitors, of course. Papa had seen to that. His money and his . . . his unique position in the community . . . drew suitors like flies to honey, especially when it was apparent that he was going to die and leave a fortune. But none of them were the sort of men I wanted to marry. I refused, which angered Papa no end, though he couldn’t speak by that time. I preferred loneliness to—to what they were.” She turned toward me as though she could look me in the eye. “You understand wolves in sheep’s clothing, don’t you, Lilliana?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “I wish you didn’t—that you hadn’t any need. Be careful, my darling girl. Be very careful. You were a child when you married that man. You’re a woman now. Be careful, but don’t be afraid to live your life. Take Paul’s words to heart: forget those things which are behind, those things you cannot change, and press on. Don’t let that man or any other beat your spirit down. God doesn’t expect that of you. He doesn’t want it. Your spirit belongs to Him, not Gerald, and Jesus loves you. He loves you so. He has plans for you, Lilliana, a future.”

  Tears streamed down my cheeks. I fought not to sob aloud. I knew Aunt Hyacinth believed what she said. But how could Jesus love me when my own father didn’t? When my own husband wanted to be rid of me? I’d walked all the years of my childhood and marriage in fear. Hadn’t my father told me over and over—“Perfect love casts out fear. You’re not walking as God’s child if you don’t love your husband, if you exasperate him to the point of losing his temper. How can any man tolerate a woman who quits performing her wifely duties, afraid or not?”

  I drew a shaking breath and summoned my voice to answer before I realized that Aunt Hyacinth was gone. Gone suddenly, her eyes still wide-open, her smile relaxed and peaceful, as if she saw something I could not.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  MIZ HYACINTH’S FUNERAL made the most forlorn procession Celia could remember. Not that she’d lived long enough to see many funerals, but she counted no dry eyes, including Reverend Willard’s—especially Reverend Willard’s. Even Ida Mae’s handkerchief hung limp and damp and rouge-stained.

  Miss Lill walked from the church to the cemetery yard pale as a ghost. Celia had begged her to take just a little of the tea and toast her mama had sent upstairs that morning, but nothing she said moved Miss Lill. She just seemed numb in her grief.

  Olney Tate, hat in hand and head respectfully bowed, stood a few rows of tombstones back, alongside his family. Granny Chree’s dark-blue dress billowed in the breeze, just behind Mercy Tate, Olney’s wife. Celia couldn’t see their faces but knew their hearts were as bowed down in grief as her own.

  It made her sick, and it wasn’t fair, them not being welcome in the church for Miz Hyacinth’s funeral. Celia knew Reverend Willard would have opened his arms to each and every one, but she could name to a man—and a woman—those who would not, those who’d make their displeasure known in ways too dangerous to mention.

  Janice Richards and her mother were at the cemetery, and Coltrane, pulling on his too-tight collar. For once, Janice didn’t taunt Celia or Chester, and Celia didn’t pay the girl any more mind than to wish the earth would open up and swallow her whole. Surely it was Janice who’d spread the gossip that had gotten Rhoan Wishon worked up about Ruby Lynne and Marshall reading in the kitchen. Only nobody cared that they were only reading, even if they believed it true.

  It was Rhoan’s banging on the door and his ugly threats that had sent Miz Hyacinth over the brink; of that Celia was certain. And yet there he stood—Rhoan and Troy and Ruby Lynne Wishon. Rhoan had the decency to look distressed, but Celia hated him for what he’d done and wanted to kick him in the shins and make him leave. “It’s disgraceful and disrespectful, him bein’ here after all he said and did,” Celia hissed.

  But her mother shook her head and whispered, “Those Wishon boys are grievin’ like the rest of us, Celia. Miz Hyacinth taught everybody in No Creek for two generations, some families for three. They loved her, too.”

  “He sure had a funny way of showin’ it!” Celia fumed.

  “Miz Hyacinth’s long been in the process of dying. Rhoan might have pushed her to the edge a little sooner, but he wasn’t the cause and you mustn’t blame him for it, or Janice. The good Lord knows what He’s doing. It was just Miz Hyacinth’s time.” Her mother squeezed her hand.

  That might be true, but Celia preferred to hold a grudge.

  “If anything, maybe this will sober him up and he’ll forget about Marshall.”

  Celia didn’t believe it. He sure hadn’t forgotten about Ruby Lynne. Maybe nobody else noticed, but Ruby Lynne was wearing long sleeves in the summer heat. Celia could bet dollars to doughnuts there was a reason for that—and for her split lower lip.

  She turned away, unable to watch the graveside service. She heard Reverend Willard’s prayers and the rope pulleys of the coffin being lowered. She sensed the gentle thumping of flowers, then louder dirt clods as they hit the coffin. People began to walk away. Chester tucked close beneath their mama’s arm. Celia tucked close beneath the other, glad for the sun’s warmth on her side.

  When Celia looked up, she saw Miss Lill stood alone. Celia’s heart gripped for her. How sad to stand all alone, especially now.

  Now that Miz Hyacinth’s gone, will Miss Lill go, too? Will she go back to Philadelphia and that sorry excuse for a man she married? If she does, will we have to move back to the cabin? How long till Troy Wishon comes round botherin’ Mama again? Who’ll stand for us now?

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  WHAT DOES A PERSON DO AT A GRAVESIDE? Or after a funeral? At home, back in Philadelphia, I’d cooked and baked for Mama’s funeral luncheon. I’d served and welcomed and thanked people for coming—church members and strangers, businesspeople connected to my father. I’d washed every pot and pan until the church had emptied, putting off tears as long as I could. Then I’d fallen asleep in the pew. And then I’d heard my husband’s plans, my father’s disowning, and had run away.

  I wanted to run away again when they began tossing handfuls of dirt on Aunt Hyacinth’s coffin. I hated the thud, thud, thud. I wanted to scream, “Open it up! She can’t be gone!” But I didn’t, and of course she was. So I waited until they’d all said what they thought they should, what they needed to, what gave them peace, and left. I stood by the graveside for a time, remembering, trying to summon her presence, but it was no longer there. Finally I turned and, like everybody else, left Aunt Hyacinth’s shell alone in the ground.

  Reverend Willard waited for me a few steps away.

  “I’m so sorry for this loss, Lilliana. Miz Hyacinth was—” He couldn’t seem to go on.

  “She was your friend, Reverend Willard. And you were hers. Thank you for that.”

  “I’ll miss her,” he said, sounding small, like a lost child. He coughed to regain his voice and tried to straighten.

  I shook my head. It was no use pretending to be strong when you didn’t feel it. I, of all people, knew that. I pressed his hand and walked away, just wanting to be alone.

  Gladys and the children had waited by the church. We walked together back to Garden’s Gate in silence. I was thankful that they didn’t speak, thankful that I did not feel the need.

  Opening the front door was like opening a vault. The house that had been so sunny with its front parlor, now a children’s reading room, did not seem cheerful—only hollow. I tightened my lips, unable to think on any of that now, and headed up the stairs to my room.

  “I’ll fix some lunch, Lilliana, and have Celia bring it up . . . unless you want to join us down here.”

  I knew Gladys meant well, but the thought of food turned my stomach. “Please don’t bother with me, Gladys. You go ahead.”

  “You need to eat something. You know—”

  But I continu
ed upstairs and closed my bedroom door. I didn’t want anything, didn’t know anything, didn’t need anything, couldn’t talk. Aunt Hyacinth was gone. Who was I in No Creek without her? Without Aunt Hyacinth to help me shape my new world, I couldn’t imagine.

  All I knew was that there was a ragged hole in my heart. A hole that could not be filled with Gladys’s food or Celia’s questions or Chester’s smiles. It couldn’t even be filled with teaching Marshall to read—as if that were still possible—or with fighting the likes of Rhoan Wishon on Ruby Lynne’s behalf.

  Empty. I felt empty, depleted of all that I was or had tried to become while remaining busy and purposeful in the restoration of Garden’s Gate and the building of the library. It had all been to please Aunt Hyacinth and help those she loved—and perhaps as a memorial for my mother, who’d left here so young, and a project for people in need whom I was coming to care for. Now Mama and Aunt Hyacinth were both gone and the community was at odds with me. It all seemed futile.

  The noon light came and went. Downstairs I heard a continual jingle of the front door library bell. The fragrance of a feast of casseroles and cakes wafted up the stairs and beneath my door. I figured custom had trumped anger. Still, I wanted to stuff something below the crack to keep the nauseating smells out.

  The afternoon light faded. Dusk came on and the tree outside my window changed to silhouette. A knock came at my door.

  “Miss Lill? Mama sent me up with a tray of food. Open the door, please?”

  I didn’t rise from my bed, kept my face buried in my pillow and turned toward the window. “I’m not hungry, Celia. Please tell your mama not to bother with me. You all go on and eat.”

  “I’m sorry, Miss Lill, but my mama won’t stand for that. She says not to bring this tray downstairs till it’s empty. Please, let me in.”

  The sigh within felt like it might swallow me. But I knew Gladys, and she’d not let Celia off the hook until she’d done her bidding. So I got to my feet, switched on the bedside lamp, and opened the door. Before I could take the tray, Celia pushed in, chattering a mile a minute.