An American Tune

by Barbara Shoup

  Then or now.

  The thought of that sent her into a panic and she lay still, counting her breaths until she calmed down. The minute hand made its way around the face of the clock on the dresser, again, again, again. The window darkened toward evening. Jane watched Cam sleeping until the meanness fell away from his face and she saw his eyelids rippling with dreams. Then she got up. She put her clothes on, then her boots. Cam always kept the duffel near him. Even this afternoon, he had thought to set it within reach, on the chair beside the bed.

  Slowly, slowly, she moved the zipper on it, all the while watching him. He didn’t stir. There were clothes balled up inside, a sheaf of papers filled with his crabbed handwriting. Jane felt around them, flinching when she touched the gun, moving beyond it to a little inside pocket at one end of the bag where she found the cash. She let a breath out, realizing only then that she had not been breathing.

  She stood up, stood perfectly still for a long moment before backing out of the room into the hallway. Shrugging on her jacket in the kitchen, she thought of the click the door of their house had made when Bridget opened it to leave that night and tried, for the life of her, to remember if this kitchen door she’d seen open and close a hundred times made any sound at all.

  Her legs felt, suddenly, like rubber. Her heart fluttered wildly, and she blinked her eyes because things went dark at the edges. Resolutely, she put her hand on the knob, turned it, pushed, and the door opened, soundlessly.

  The shock of real, almost spring-like air set her moving instantly toward the street. She had no idea where she was, but she couldn’t dwell on that, or she’d lose her courage. So she walked briskly towards the city lights she saw in the distance, trying to look like any other person hurrying home at the end of the day.

  PART TWO

  The Continuous Life

  JULY, 2002–JANUARY, 2003

  14

  “Our House”

  She would go through the day, moment by moment, the way she had taught herself to do. Live each moment fully. The sun pouring in through the open kitchen window, catching the prisms dangling among the plants to cast rainbows on the wall. The white bowl of blueberries on the oak table, yellow butter on a blue and white dish. Waffles steaming, the smell of coffee. Charlie and Claire upstairs, getting ready for breakfast. Astro sleeping at her feet.

  She would not think about the man who had called out “Jane” the day before. She’d been so rattled, turning toward him, that she hadn’t really seen his face. He had a beard, she remembered that. A ponytail. Scruffy, but clean. He was of average height and thin, almost emaciated. A smoker’s voice.

  She wouldn’t think about how she had felt walking away from him. Her legs heavy, her whole body suddenly overtaken by exhaustion – and the headache she’d pretended that morning starting up behind her eyes. The panicky little voice in the back of her mind saying again and again, “You told him your name. He knows what your name is.”

  Finally, blessedly, the sidewalk had turned toward the Union and carried her out of his sight. Moments later, she sat down on the low wall that ran along the back of Dunn Meadow to collect herself.

  It was shady there, the air fresh and green beneath the stand of sheltering trees. There was a platform in the meadow, where long-haired boys were setting up sound equipment. People were covering tables with bright tie-dye cloths in preparation for the summer festival that would begin that afternoon; there was a striped tent for concessions. Students milled on the grass, some lay entangled on blankets, books and notebooks abandoned. Others played Frisbee, threw sticks for their dogs. From where she sat, Nora could see the big white Sigma Chi house on the corner of Seventh and Indiana, its steps painted blue and gold. She looked away. Still, she couldn’t help remembering walking down those steps with Tom, on their way to class, to a dance somewhere, to the Pizzeria.

  “Nora –”

  “Oh!” Her hands flew up and she stepped backwards, into Charlie’s arms – and back into her kitchen.

  “Caught you,” he said. “Daydreaming.”

  She let him hold her, hoping he wouldn’t notice how hard her heart was beating or that she was making an effort to breathe evenly to curb her irritation at him for surprising her.

  It wasn’t his fault, Nora reminded herself: what he didn’t know. He thought her restlessness these past months was all about Claire going away. He’d been restless himself. Countless times she’d heard him remind their daughter of what one of her teachers said the first day of their senior year. “Be kind to your parents when they get weird. They can’t help it. They can’t believe you’ve grown up, and they’re looking ahead, already missing you.” Claire was probably sorry she’d told them, laughing, at dinner that night.

  Of course, that was part of it. Nora had already begun to avoid Claire’s room, the clothes in little piles where she’d stepped out of them, shoes kicked a few feet away, books and sheet music piled on every free surface. And, worse, plastic crates filled with sheets and towels, laundry supplies, bath soap, shampoo – things she’d been collecting since June to take to college.

  The sight of her in the kitchen doorway now, fresh from the shower, pierced Nora’s heart. Her blond hair was still wet, close to her head in perfect ringlets. An hour in the sun and she’d look like a girl in a pre-Raphaelite painting. She wore cargo shorts and an orange tee shirt that said “Sleeping Bear Dunes” on the front and “Ask Me about Canoe Rentals” on the back. A woven bracelet on her wrist, exactly like the one her boyfriend, Dylan, wore. She smelled like flowers.

  Nora set the first batch of pancakes on the table, and Claire smiled at her. “Poor Mom,” she said. “Is your headache gone? Do you feel better this morning?”

  Nora nodded. “Honey, I’m really sorry about yesterday. Not helping you register.”

  Claire rolled her eyes. “Please. I told you. It would only have been worse if you were there. I’d have been horrible to you and Dad. God. Dylan told me it would be awful, you just had to gut it out and do it the first time, but I had no idea! He said he and his parents didn’t speak for two days afterwards. There was this kid next to me with his aunt and, I swear, he was the only one not being a complete and total jerk. They ought to not let parents help when it’s actually time to decide on the schedule, you know?” She grinned at Charlie, swooped down to give him a kiss on his cheek before taking her place at the table. “Especially parents who are computer-losers. Or maybe they should mix it up so parents don’t get to help their own kids. Then everybody would be more likely to act decent.”

  “You got a good schedule, though,” Charlie said. “You’re happy with it, aren’t you?”

  “Yes!” Claire said, her eyes shining. “I can’t wait. I could hardly sleep last night, thinking about, well, just being there. It’s so beautiful. I knew that from visiting Dylan in the spring. But it was even better than I remembered it. Mom, didn’t you just –”

  Nora smiled, but her voice cracked when she said, “I did, sweetie. I loved it, too.”

  When Dylan appeared and the two of them went off to their job at River Rentals together, Nora and Charlie drank a second cup of coffee, as they always did. Usually, they used the time to organize their day, but this morning they sat quietly, lost in their own thoughts.

  The ghost of yesterday’s headache still lingering behind her eyes, Nora thought about the long drive home, Charlie and Claire in the front seat, talking quietly; Chopin nocturnes on the stereo, meant to soothe her. But they didn’t help. She had propped herself in the corner of the backseat, holding the silky eye pillow Claire had given her for her birthday against her eyes to will away the tumble of memory the last few days had brought, to keep from seeing the green Indiana farmland, the little towns rolling past on Highway 31 and, farther north, the cloud of smog drifting above the industrial cities along the lower scoop of Lake Michigan. Just being close to what once had been her home felt claustrophobic and oppressive, as if she had never left high school. She drifted in and out of consci
ousness, her head pounding. She slept finally, but it was not a restful sleep, and she woke suddenly, disoriented – Jane – until she blinked and saw Charlie at the wheel, heard Claire humming along with the Chopin.

  They stopped once, for dinner, near Kalamazoo, where she picked at a salad. Past Grand Rapids, they began to see clouds of purple thistle in the median and along the side of the road. There were silver maples, the pale green undersides of their leaves winking in the breeze, and pine trees planted in lines so straight they seemed like moving spokes as the car flew past. Her headache abated then, perhaps just from the familiar sight of them.

  Now she looked out at the meadow she had sown with wildflowers years ago. More purple thistle. And pink coneflowers, black-eyed Susans, daisies, foxglove, goldenrod, phlox – all of it shimmering like a vast Monet in the morning sun. She had made this beauty, she reminded herself. She had made this whole beautiful life for herself, and for Charlie and Claire. It was real.

  Charlie sighed. “I can’t believe it,” he said, pouring a last cup of coffee. “In a month, she’ll be gone. Eighteen years, and poof –”

  “She’s not leaving forever.”

  “She might be,” Charlie said. “Who knows if she’ll ever come back here. Oh, summers. Sure. At least next summer. But to live – ?”

  “Eeyore.” Nora smiled.

  “Bloomington just suddenly seems so far away. Driving those last few hours, I thought we’d never get home. I guess I hadn’t realized how far away she’d be from us till then. I know,” he added. “I was the one who took her side about going.”

  “Oberlin wouldn’t have been that much closer,” Nora said. “And you were right, anyway. It’s the right place for her.”

  “Do you really think that?” Charlie asked. “You were so quiet the whole time we were there – and on the way home, too. I know you had a headache. But I was afraid going to the orientation made you mad at me all over.”

  She put her hand on his, squeezed it. “Charlie, it’s okay. It’s just . . . strange. I don’t know. Sometimes I think it’s worse now, still having her with us, than it will be when she finally goes. We’ll get used to it, once it happens. People do.”

  “I’ll never get used to it,” Charlie said.

  It was true, Nora thought, watching him walk out the kitchen door toward the kennels. Charlie was a keeper. The barn was lined with shelves of things he couldn’t bear to throw away. The worn red leather collar of his first dog, his Davy Crockett coonskin cap, every bicycle he’d ever owned, a collection of Little League caps, scratched 45s and the little record player he’d played them on. The red and white ’55 Chevy he’d saved up to buy the day he got his driver’s license was parked under the hayloft.

  “The Museum of Charlie,” Claire called it. And teased him, saying he’d keep all the people he loved there, too, if he could get away with it.

  Nora was grateful for the self-absorption of adolescence that kept Claire from knowing how close to the mark she had been about her father’s desire to keep her with them forever. It made her feel protective of Charlie, and she followed him outdoors. But she stopped, stepped out of his sightline when she saw him bent over, palms-up to a half-dozen dogs that leapt around him, licking his hands. “Hey, buddy. Here, boy. Hey there, hey,” he murmured, his voice throaty with tears.

  If only Jo were here, she thought. Still herself. “Now, Honey,” she would say – that’s all. And he’d grin and say, “I know, Mom. I know.” Straighten himself and set forth into the day.

  Nora turned, slipped away before he caught sight of her and headed toward the forest, Astro at her heels. Charlie kept a path through the meadow clear with the riding mower, and she walked it now, Queen Anne’s lace bowed with dew brushing against her bare legs, toward the wooded trail that led down to Lake Michigan. Stepping onto it through the curtain of trees, her skin prickled at the sudden change in temperature, and she stood in the dappled light falling through the leaves, finally, blessedly invisible. A minute walking, and there was nothing but green as far as she could see, turning in every direction.

  She smelled the lake first, then glimpsed it through the trees: teal-blue this morning, choppy little peaks glinting in the sun. Emerging from the forest, she stood at the edge of the high dune as she always did before starting to walk and felt her mind begin to settle. The beach was empty of people, strewn with Petoskey stones smoothed and shaped by the water, a thousand different shades of gray. Gulls squawked, circling and diving. There was a lone sailboat on the horizon.

  Astro raced ahead of her, barking at the waves. Nora plunged down the steep dune, the drag of the deep sand slowing her until she reached the water’s edge where it was wet and flat. She bent over and scooped up a handful of stones that had come in with the tide, examining each one until she settled on the one she wanted to carry with her. She did this, too, every morning. She liked the feel of the cool, flat stone in her hand. She worried it as she walked, running her thumb and fingers along the surface, exploring the subtle uniqueness of its edges. It made her, well, happy to do this – then to throw it as far as she could to be caught by the outgoing tide, drift downward into the blue-green gloom and settle for another thousand years on the sandy floor of the lake. Trudging back up the steep dune to the forest path, her thighs burning, Nora felt that she could face the day.

  Monique stood outside the kennels, her hand like a visor over her eyes. She waved wildly when Nora emerged from the woods and started through the meadow, her arms opening to meet her. “Welcome home,” she said. “I know it was just two days, but it was weird without you guys here. I’m glad you’re back.”

  Walking back to the house, she told Nora every single thing she’d written in the long note she’d left on the kitchen table, which made Nora smile. Six ripe tomatoes, Astro dragging one of her nightgowns out of the pile of laundry in the utility room and arranging it just-so on his pillow to sleep on, a call from someone in town who might know a lady willing to take the stray mutt they’d been keeping in the kennels since Claire brought it home from the canoe rental several weeks ago. Dinner tonight at their place, she said. They’d taken the tomatoes home, and Diane was making spaghetti sauce even as they spoke.

  Monique never changed, Nora thought. She could drive you a little crazy with her relentless kindness, the gratitude she expressed to Charlie again and again – for hiring her to run the kennels when she came home to Michigan in a terrible state, sunk in despair. She was the blessing, Nora always told her – arriving as if on schedule just a few weeks after Claire was born to take over the job that was becoming too much for her. But Monique persisted in believing that it was just one more example of Charlie’s good character. And swore he was responsible for her happiness with Diane. Hadn’t he left Claire to play on the beach with her on that summer day when Diane walked by and Claire toddled after her as if she’d known her all her life?

  Mo had been Charlie’s girlfriend in high school, though they both laughed a little sheepishly when it came up now. Nora had never asked Charlie if they had had sex together. She thought, no. It was a different time, not required. Monique would not have wanted it, though she probably wouldn’t have known exactly why, and Nora could not imagine Charlie being brave enough to attempt it. From what she could tell, they mostly hung out and talked, as they still did – about Tolkien and science and animals. Band geeks, they played classical music together. At night, they might have lain out in the meadow looking up, naming the stars.

  She was like a sister-in-law to Nora now, a repository of stories that celebrated and explained Charlie. His fiercest defender – though, Charlie being Charlie, there was little to defend. She grieved over Jo’s decline as deeply as Charlie and Nora did and, now, when Nora asked how Jo had been the day before, Monique shook her head.

  “She seemed worse. But maybe it was just because she’s used to seeing you. I told her where you were, but I think it just confused her.”

  “Did she know you?” Nora asked.

 
Monique hesitated, then shook her head. “I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

  Nora sighed. “I know it’s not really connected to Claire leaving. The Alzheimer’s takes its own path – Dr. Perry told us that. But I still can’t help thinking that every day since Claire’s graduation she’s slipped away a little more. I’m projecting, probably,” she said.

  Monique shrugged. “She has, though. Whatever the reason.”

  Driving to the nursing home to see Jo later that morning, Nora thought, as she had many times over the years, that when she had finally agreed to stay in Michigan and marry Charlie it was in large part because she’d grown so fond of his mother that she couldn’t bear the thought of living without her. She loved Charlie. But it was Jo who grounded her, who’d made her feel alive for the first time since she’d lost Tom, hopeful – and forgiven, though why Nora felt this way she didn’t know, since she’d never told Jo about her past and Jo had never acted as if she suspected that there was anything for which Nora needed to be forgiven. It was the matter-of-factness of her love that drew Nora to her. The simple gratitude she felt toward Nora for saving Charlie, bringing him back to life after Vietnam, expressed only once, on their wedding day, but which shone in her eyes every moment they were together. Without Jo, there would have been no Claire, for it had been Jo’s deep longing for a grandchild that made Nora go against every instinct in conceiving her.

  “Grandma, it’s me,” Claire would say now when she came to visit. “It’s Claire.”

  Jo would smile and repeat her name, but look past her, bemused, as if searching for the little girl she had been. It was wrong, Nora knew, but sometimes she was so angry at Jo that she wanted to take her by the shoulders and say, “Come back. It’s not fair. You can’t just . . . change like this.” The real Jo never would have let Nora’s stubbornness about IU go as long as it had. She’d have taken her aside before any damage had been done and said, “Her heart’s set on that school, Nora. Let her go.” And she would have.