A Song for the Road

by Kathleen Basi

  The air in her room smelled vaguely antiseptic. On the other side of the wall, a bed creaked as its occupant shifted. Miriam swung her legs over the side of her twin mattress. She rubbed her feet against the no-frills industrial carpet. Her brain felt fuzzy with exhaustion, but staying in bed was pointless with this vise clamped around her heart. She might as well quit pretending she was going to go back to sleep and embark on the soul searching a place like this invited.

  Because if Blaise really had been gay—if he’d lived, if he’d come out—she would have been forced out of her hidey-hole in the neutral zone. She would have had to confront the difficult questions and find a way to reconcile what resisted reconciliation.

  She would have had to accept the fact that some people would have looked at her beautiful son as a man in possession of a one-way ticket to hell.

  What would people back home say?

  Miriam growled. “That is the wrong thing to be worrying about,” she said aloud.

  She stood, stretching her neck as she pulled out her clothes to get dressed. The best place to look for the answers she sought was in Blaise’s music.

  The hallways were dark and chilly, but with the help of the light on her phone, she found her way to the chapel, a round brick room with a narrow strip of stained glass windows ringing the top. An electric keyboard sat tucked against the organ console; a single sanctuary lamp burned over the tabernacle. She genuflected before it, her palms pressed to the cold tile as she tried and failed to formulate something better than “Help … please?”

  But God felt as distant now as he had been the entire past year. He was there, somewhere, and she knew only her own emotional constipation prevented her from finding Him. What she didn’t know was how to fix it.

  She flipped on the lamp perched on top of the keyboard. She laid out the notes she’d scribbled yesterday in the car and smoothed open Blaise’s notebook, then set to work transcribing.

  Her brain warmed to the intellectual challenge. She just wished she could write something that sounded more innovative than an eighties pop song. Subdominant, secondary dominant, augmented seventh, half-diminished. Jazz chord, lowered seventh—no matter what she did, it all sounded very … instinctive.

  She wasn’t writing a sonata, she was writing church music.

  Miriam threw the pencil on the music stand in disgust.

  She’d had such hope yesterday when the freight train of inspiration had run her down. She’d felt connected to Blaise. Not exactly felt his presence, maybe, but still … connected. What had she expected to happen in the compositional process? To find a secret code that said, “Yes, I’m gay,” or “No, I’m not”?

  “Can’t sleep?”

  Miriam shielded her eyes from the pool of light and saw Dicey walking toward her.

  “No. You?”

  Dicey cocked her head one way, then the other. “Just dreading the future. All the what-ifs.”

  Miriam slid the cover over the keys and rested her forearms on it. “It’s not so bad. Don’t lose hope based on my experience.”

  Dicey shook her head. “Not that kind of what-if. More like, what if I’m not there when Baby Girl needs me?” Her voice broke.

  Miriam reached out to lay a hand on her arm. “There’s no need to think that way, Dicey.”

  Dicey put her elbows on the keyboard console. “Tell me about your kids. About—Blaise.”

  “What about him?”

  “I don’t know. What was his favorite song?”

  Miriam reopened the keyboard. She started playing the Thomas the Train theme. “That was his first favorite.” She segued to Star Wars. “Then that … and then this.” A Marvel movie theme.

  He’d had church favorites too: not just “For the Beauty of the Earth,” but praise music and everything in between.

  Dicey settled into a wooden chair beside the keyboard to listen.

  It was easier to talk about them while her fingers were moving over the piano. The first few years at St. Greg’s were a bit fuzzy. She and Teo had traded parenting and work shifts so they didn’t have to pay for day care, which meant neither of them slept much.

  The twins grew up at church. They’d play with toys on a blanket beside the piano while she rehearsed with cantors. For two years in early childhood, Blaise was fascinated with all things electronic. Once, he’d unplugged a cord in the middle of Mass. What a noise that had made! More than once, he’d shoved the master volume on the soundboard all the way up, causing a feedback screech that embarrassed his parents and enraged the traditional churchgoers, who were already suspicious of music ministry that required guitars and electronic equipment.

  St. Gregory’s bell tower had always been left unlocked until one day, while Teo and Miriam were training altar servers, Talia had convinced Blaise to climb up to the belfry and have a contest, one on each rope pull, to see who could get the most chimes out of their bell in one minute.

  There’d been ice cream at the rectory with Father Simeon on Christmas Eve, and the day the kids had played tag in the gathering space and tripped the crankiest old-timer in the parish.

  By now, both women were laughing. “And I thought my brothers were trouble!” Dicey said.

  “St. Greg’s put up with a lot from us.” Laughter felt good. “We had to come down so hard on them, but at night we’d laugh so hard we’d cry.” She sobered. “I envy you, Dicey,” she said. “You have so many sweet moments coming your way.”

  Dicey’s smile vanished. She spun her blue bracelet around and around her wrist. Miriam tried to get a better look at it, but Dicey sensed her attention and covered it up. “Well,” she said, standing abruptly, “thanks for the distraction. I should probably try to sleep a while longer.” She walked out of the pool of warm light cast by the lamp.

  Miriam sighed. She couldn’t shake the feeling that Dicey was hiding something.

  But it wasn’t her business. She’d be better off trying to figure out what—if anything—Blaise had been hiding from her. She wondered if he’d confided in Talia.

  Miriam touched the keyboard again, though her heart wasn’t in it. Maybe she should go back to bed too. There were only so many days she could drive safely on no sleep.

  She closed the keyboard and turned off the light, heading down the darkened aisle toward the exit. She dipped her hand into the large font in front of the door and crossed herself, then stopped, breathing the faint smell of water.

  No matter what had been going on in her life, the sound of water trickling from stone basin to stone pool always filled her with a cool, clean sensation. And sometimes, inspiration.

  Gianna, she thought. Talia’s best friend. If Talia had known anything …

  Well, it was worth a shot.

  She checked her phone. Five forty-five AM. Which meant almost seven on the east coast. A quick navigation to her work e-mail confirmed what she thought she remembered: Gianna was scheduled to serve at Mass this morning—so she should be up.

  Miriam tapped out a text message. Got a minute?

  Pause. Sure thing.

  Miriam scratched her cheek, trying to decide how to word it. Did Blaise ever talk to anyone about what happened at camp?

  A pause; then a rush of verbiage appeared. No I never heard anything and neither did anyone else it’s the only thing we talked about Friday at school counselors religion teachers kids everybody it’s crazy

  Miriam hesitated. Talia never said anything to you?

  A long pause. Miriam squirmed. This conversation felt wrong on so many levels. Not the least of which was the humiliation of having to ask her kids’ friends to tell her about the people she should have known best of all.

  At last, a reply. A series of them, one right after another:

  No but she was different about blaise

  Wouldn’t talk about him the way she talked about other people

  Gossip u know

  Like she was more protective of him

  Just in general

  Don’t know if that hel
ps

  Mom is calling time for church

  Miriam swallowed. Thanks, Gianna.

  She laid her phone on her leg.

  If Talia had had an inkling that her brother was gay, surely she’d have talked it over with her best friend. Then again, the twin bond was unlike anything Miriam had ever experienced. As much as her children fought with each other, they stood united against everyone else. Blaise hated conflict; he thought deeply and quietly and kept most of it to himself. But the one time he’d gotten into a fight at school, it had been because someone said something about Talia. He’d never admitted exactly what—not to Miriam, at least. Just spent the weeklong suspension keeping up with schoolwork and practicing piano while Talia spent every evening doing her homework in his room.

  Yes, she could believe that Talia had been more protective of Blaise, and Blaise’s deepest secrets.

  Her phone, left unused, faded to black. Which left her right back where she’d started: in the dark.

  20

  Sunday, May 1

  Cahokia Mounds

  Near St. Louis, Missouri

  MIRIAM SAT CROSS-LEGGED ON the flat top of the largest hand-built earthwork in North America. The bottom of Monks Mound was as big around as the Great Pyramid in Giza. They’d climbed a hundred and fifty-four steps above the Mississippi River bottoms, between steep embankments left unmown, with scruffy grasses waving in the spring breeze on either side.

  It was so quiet. Quieter than the chapel at the monastery this morning before the monks came in for Mass. Yet at one time, fifteen thousand people had lived around the foot of this mound. It was hard to imagine. Did they get snow here? Did little Mississippian boys and girls use this steep hill for sledding? Did they roll down the hills in the summer? Or was this a sacred place, off-limits to all?

  No way to know now. Those people were all gone. Vanished. Like her family, taking their secrets with them to their graves.

  Miriam stared off to the southwest, where the St. Louis skyline, headlined by the distinctive silver arch, shimmered, mirage-like, in the midday sun.

  How many times I saw my western city—

  Her phone dinged, overriding the post in process. Miriam’s bloodstream electrified to see Gus’s number. I just saw the video (three bug-eyed emojis). Are you okay? Are you still in jail?

  Miriam rolled her eyes and weighed her reply—how much did she really want to get into this with Gus, of all people?—but was interrupted by another ding.

  I guess if you’re in jail you won’t see this. The text ended with another bug-eye.

  She opted for short and polite. Not in jail. Everything’s fine, thanks for asking.

  She returned to the trip app, but she’d only written one word before she was interrupted by another ding.

  I saw you were working on music in that video. How’s the sonata coming?

  Of course, that was what he really cared about.

  She blew out a breath, kneading her forehead. She hadn’t made one whit of progress out on the waterfront. She’d never even finished analyzing the chord structure of the existing music, let alone done any real writing.

  Somehow, she didn’t think Gus wanted to hear that.

  But she couldn’t lie either. She made a face and typed, Slowly.

  Happy to help. Just let me know.

  Wow. Pushy much? She shook her head. Will do. “Not,” she murmured as she hit “Send.”

  She sat tense on the top of the mound for two minutes before she knew he wasn’t going to text again. It was like having someone looking over her shoulder.

  She returned to Talia’s app to finish her post. How many times, I saw my western city dream by her river … Sara Teasdale. #GreatAmAdven.

  She clicked “Post” and turned toward the sound of labored breathing. Dicey lumbered toward her, oversized T-shirt gaping over her belly as she tried to catch her breath.

  “A hundred fifty-four steps times three,” Dicey gasped.

  “Four hundred sixty-two. That’s enough. Why don’t you stop going up and down those steps and join me?”

  Dicey shook her head. “This is the best exercise I’ve had in weeks. I’d like to get up and down them a couple more times.” She coughed hard.

  “Sounds to me like you’re overdoing it.”

  “Nope. I’m fine.” Dicey gestured at the phone in Miriam’s hand. “Are you still trying to deal with those comments?”

  “I was just getting ready to.”

  “Don’t.”

  “I thought you wanted me to look at them.”

  “I changed my mind. There’s starting to be more trash. When we get back on the road, you let me wade through the trolls and read you the ones you actually need to see. How does that sound?”

  Miriam was touched. “You’d do that for me?”

  “Sure. I gotta pay you back for giving me a ride, right?” Dicey grinned. “By the way, I’ve been thinking about your next video.”

  “Just stop right there, Dicey. I’m not doing any more videos. Still photos will be just fine, and they won’t go viral.”

  Dicey looked crushed. Of course she wanted Miriam to do more videos. She was an aspiring filmmaker. “But Miriam—”

  “I don’t want what happened in Cincinnati happening again.”

  “We can take precautions. I’ll be more careful. We don’t have to go live—”

  “You’re missing the point. I came out here to honor my family. Not to plaster myself all over social media.”

  Dicey’s face tightened. “They’re not mutually exclusive, you know.”

  There it was: the edge that never quite left Talia’s voice in the last year of her life. Miriam had wondered if Dicey might possibly be different somehow. If she could go all the way across the country with a girl who might have been her daughter’s character clone, and not fall to bickering. Now she knew.

  And she also knew she wasn’t replacing her memory of her daughter with some Stepford version of her instead.

  The quiet morning was ruined. She stood up. “There’s no need for sarcasm,” she said, brushing off her legs. “I promised myself a soul-searching road trip across the country so I could mourn my family, and instead I’m traveling with a stranger, getting arrested, and going viral. Thank you, no. No more videos.”

  Miriam stalked along the gravel path to the stairs that would take her back to the Mississippi river bottoms. She was halfway down the first flight by the time Dicey caught up to her and grabbed her elbow.

  “Miriam!” Dicey was out of breath, but the exertion of speaking only added force to her words. “Stop. Listen.” She punched something on her phone, took two deep breaths, and read:

  “‘My neighbor just shared your account with me. I lost my daughter to suicide two years ago, and I still have trouble getting up in the morning. Your music moves me. It expresses the joy and the pain of love.’” Dicey glanced up to see if Miriam was listening, then continued. “‘You probably didn’t expect all this attention, and perhaps you didn’t even want it. Still, I hope you’ll speak out as well as play. Speak for all of us who’ve lost someone and don’t have the courage to speak for ourselves.’” She looked up. “Don’t you see, Miriam? You’re making a difference.”

  The words moved Miriam more than she wanted to admit, but she shook her head. “It’s lovely, Dicey, but it doesn’t change anything.”

  “It changes everything.” Dicey stood on the step above her, earnest as a high priestess. “Not everything can be controlled. You, of all people, should understand that you do not squander life! You embrace it! Even when it doesn’t look the way you think it’s supposed to look.”

  “Social media is not life!” Miriam wove her fingers into her hair, praying for patience. “Look. I’ve been where you are. Trust me, I know not everything can be controlled. But I have the right to guard what little I have left.”

  “You’ve never been where I am,” Dicey said. Her brown face looked pale. “You never had to contemplate doing this”—she rested he
r hands on her stomach—“alone!”

  “You wanna bet?”

  Dicey’s mouth hung open, her next sentence stopped, half formed.

  Miriam turned away and started down the stairs. She could feel the whole gloppy mess bubbling up. Maybe if she went fast enough, she could outrun it. The wind whipped her face, but it wasn’t loud enough to bury the sound of Dicey calling her name, wheezing as she followed.

  Then Dicey shrieked. Miriam wheeled, cursing her own selfishness. The younger woman hadn’t fallen, but she was folded over the red railing that bisected the stairs, clinging to it as she tried to catch her breath.

  Miriam ran back up and caught hold of her. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m so sorry, honey.” She fumbled in Dicey’s bag for a bottle of water and handed it to her.

  Dicey coughed hard, as if trying to expel her very lungs. She spit the results in the shaggy grass adjacent to the stairs. Miriam winced and looked away.

  Dicey gripped her arm. “What did you mean, ‘you wanna bet’?”

  Miriam swallowed. She felt very aware of the ground on which she stood: a veritable mountain, built one basketful of dirt at a time. Like the mountain of lies she’d built her adult life on.

  “I wasn’t married when I got pregnant either,” she said. “I was terrified. I know exactly how it feels to think you’re going to be doing it on your own.”

  A wind gust peppered them with dust. Dicey turned her face away until it passed. “Miriam, that makes no sense. Everything you ever said about Teo, he’s not the kind of guy who’d—”

  “Teo wasn’t the twins’ biological father.”

  The words disappeared into the great open space, swirling upward on the wind, as if taken by the ghosts of all the Native Americans who’d lived and worked and died in the shadow of this giant terraced mound.

  Dicey gaped at her. “Then who …” She stopped, then said hesitantly, “Gus?”

  Miriam nodded.

  She could see Dicey spinning out the implications of this revelation. “Wow. No wonder you’ve been so freaked out about him.”

  Miriam had lived with the weight of this secret for so long, she felt off-balance without it. She gripped the railing, focusing on the edges of peeling paint to ground herself.