When Mockingbirds Sing (9781401688233)

by Coffey, Billy

  He raised his arm. The papers were rolled up in his fist. Barney tried to tell Reggie to stop, please God stop, but he couldn’t. The ride had started and maybe it had started long ago, and there weren’t no turnin’ back. He squeezed Leah and tried to cinch her in.

  “I have here over a hundred signatures by upstanding members of the community, all demanding Leah put an end to both her paintings and this rainbow man nonsense.”

  “What?” Tom asked.

  Leah pulled away and went to her parents’ side. Mary gathered Allie into herself like a mama hen protecting its young from the wolves. Or, given that it was Allie, maybe she was just trying to head off the angry that was about to boil inside her daughter.

  Ellen took the sheets from Reggie’s hand and unrolled them. Her hands shook in the breeze. One of them went to a strand of blond hair that had blown into her eyes. There was a quick sniff as she tried to hold back the tears welling in her eyes. Mary bent over her for a look. Allie stood on her tiptoes for the same. Tom read the names as he laid a hand on Leah’s shoulder. Barney wasn’t sure if the doctor was trying to steady his daughter or himself.

  “Half the church is on here,” Mary said.

  “More than half,” Reggie answered. “Plenty more who belong to other congregations. And those are just from this morning. More’s on the way. Once word got out, people couldn’t line up fast enough for us.”

  “Us?” Tom asked. “Meaning you and this other guy—”

  “Name’s Spicer,” Brent said.

  “I don’t care what your name is, mister.”

  “Sheriff Barnett and Katie aren’t on here,” Mary said. She continued to scan the sheets. “Neither is the mayor or Trevor. Or Andy Sommerville. You’re missing some important names on this list, Reggie.”

  “Big Jim and Trevor have their own reasons,” Reggie said. “As for the Barnetts and Andy . . .” He shrugged as if to say three names didn’t really stack up to a hundred.

  “No,” Ellen whispered. The hand that was holding her hair back went to her mouth. She looked up. “You, Barney?”

  Barney dropped his head and prayed the shade would close over him again.

  “Barney was the third person to sign,” Reggie said. “Right after me and Brent.”

  Leah asked, “You suh-signed the paper, Mr. Buh-Barney?”

  Barney grappled with the gray curtain in his mind, tried to jerk it down and hold it there, but it only rose higher. Suddenly he could see and feel everything—the sharp green blades of grass beneath him, the way the sun angled down through the trees, the clanking motor of a distant tractor in the fields, the whiff of honeysuckle somewhere close. It was all a cruel reminder that he was still anchored to this world and as such would have to suffer right along with everyone else, that he was here and Mabel was dining with Jesus, and she could laugh and smile and talk again but he could not hear her.

  “You said we’d be okay now, Leah. You said my day’d come.” Barney’s voice hitched. He reached for the shop rag in his pocket. “You lied. I know you didn’t mean to an’ I know you don’t want me hurtin’, but I is, little Leah. It hurts.”

  Leah wept. Allie went to her side. Ellen bent her knees to hold her daughter, and Barney wished someone would hold him too.

  “We didn’t want this, Tom,” Reggie said. “I promise you that. But it was all that happened with Barney before, and then everything at the hospital with Mabel, and then the lotto numbers last night. People lost money they didn’t have.”

  Leah moved her face from her mother’s bosom. Her eyes were wet and red. A thin string of mucus connected the top of her mouth to the bottom of her nose.

  She said, “I never suh-said those were lottery n-numbers. I nuh-never said that.”

  “But you never said they weren’t, Leah,” Reggie told her. “If they’re not for the lottery, what are they for?”

  “I don’t nuh-know. He hasn’t t-told me yet.”

  “Who?” Brent said. His arms were now folded in front of his spindly body and his head was cocked to the side. On his face was a mix of contempt and impatience. “Who ain’t told you? That thing you think you see?”

  “He’s nuh-not a thing.”

  “Leah didn’t lead them to the store to buy those tickets,” Tom said.

  “But didn’t she?” Reggie asked him. “After what happened with Barney, what else would you expect?” He turned to Leah and said, “You can put an end to this once and for all, Leah. All you have to do is let us see him. Make him do something. If he’s really there, then let’s see a miracle.”

  Barney heard Allie whisper, “Do it,” into her friend’s ear, but Leah simply looked downward. The shake of her head was slow and almost imperceptible at first, then slowly grew.

  “I cuh-can’t,” she said.

  “That’s right,” Brent said, “you cain’t.”

  Reggie said, “Tom, don’t tell me you disagree. You’re a reasonable man. I know deep down you see this rainbow man of hers as nonsense. That’s right, isn’t it?”

  Tom and Leah looked at one another. Barney thought that maybe that’s what fathers and daughters did—sometimes they spoke with words, and when words wouldn’t work, sometimes they spoke with looks. Tom’s look said all that was needed. He would defend his daughter. He would stand up to this town, tell Reggie Goggins that Leah could paint all she wanted and no piece of paper could tell them she couldn’t, but in the end that was all Tom could do. He could support his daughter, but he could not believe her. Leah found her feet again. Her sobs were silent, shaking her body.

  “Leah keeps her imagination to herself,” Reggie said. “Her talents too. Town’s spoken.”

  Tom tore the pages from Ellen’s hand and threw them at Reggie. They smacked against the preacher’s shirt and flowered as they fell. The breeze cartwheeled them away. One page became snagged in the white fence by the edge of the yard. The rest disappeared.

  “You don’t come on my property and threaten me,” Tom said. His voice was gravelly, like there was a monster inside him about to be loosed. “You don’t come here and disrupt my family and make my daughter cry. You leave. All of you. You leave before it’s too late.”

  Barney pulled at the shade with all his might, but it would not block out the view of Tom looking at him.

  “No,” Brent said. He pushed past Reggie into Tom’s face. “You leave. This here’s your warnin’. You take your own and you get on, or else. This here ain’t the city. Mattingly folk got their own way of dealin’ with trouble like yours.”

  Reggie moved first. He grabbed Brent by the shoulders and pulled him away before Tom could cock his fist.

  “Come on, Brent. Barney, you too.” Brent moved to the driveway first. Reggie was close behind. He turned a last time and said, “I’m sorry. Truly.” He looked at Leah but did not speak. Her chin seemed to weigh a ton, so close it was to the ground.

  Barney followed last. Halfway to Reggie’s vehicle, he turned and said, “Got fam’ly night for Mabel at the church tonight. I know y’all prolly won’t wanna come, but I know she’d like you there. You can speak if you want, Miss Leah. If you can. I know you loved her in your own way. An’ I know she couldn’t show it much, but Mabel loved you too.”

  The Norcross family looked at him the way they would a stranger. If Barney was thankful for anything, it was that the gray shade closed down upon him once more.

  3

  Mary and Allie left soon after. Tom thought Allie would have put up much more of a fight than she did, but all it had taken was her mother’s gentle hand upon her shoulder. There were promises from both—Mary that she would get with Sheriff Barnett and make sure nothing came of Reggie’s paper, and Allie that she would call Leah soon. Ellen stood at Tom’s side. Her face was contorted in an expression that was equal parts rage and hurt. Her hand whacked absentmindedly against her leg. Tom held her wrist before she bruised herself. Leah’s expression was flat, almost serene. There was neither anger nor hurt in her eyes. This despite the fact t
hat Tom had all but told Reggie Goggins what he did by bringing those papers to their house was wrong but the reasons behind it had been kind of right.

  “We shuh-ud go to the m-mall, Puh-Pops,” she whispered.

  “What?”

  “We shuh-ud go to the m-mall. The one buh-back in the suh-city that we used to always go t-to. We should g-go there.”

  Why? was the question he wanted to ask. On the surface it seemed the most ridiculous thing Leah could have said. But Dr. Tom Norcross seldom concerned himself with the surface of things, where eddies and tides spoke falsehoods and misdirection. He preferred the deep beneath the words where only truth dwelt. And the truth of what Leah just said was that she didn’t want to go to the city, she simply wanted to go to a place where everyone was from Away.

  “Let’s go, Tom,” Ellen whispered. She still gripped his hand, though the tension had gone out of it. Reggie, Barney, and the Spicer man were gone, and the shouting had been replaced by birdsong and the peacefulness of a lazy summer day. “Let’s just go. It’ll be good.”

  “Why not,” he said. The alternative would be to sit around the house all day, Leah talking to herself in her room, he and Ellen in the den not talking at all, all of them peering out the nearest window to see if anyone else would be coming up the lane. Maybe leaving would be best. It could put some distance between what had just happened and what must happen next. Tom had decided there could be no more rainbow man. He would convince Leah of that. Not for Reggie Goggins or Brent Spicer or anyone else, but for the sake of his own family.

  Of course, the very silence that sitting around the house promised accompanied them on the ride. Leah was cocooned in her own world, and Ellen was still too upset to offer much more than an occasional shudder. If either of them noticed the angry stares and mouthed curses from the people along Main Street (not to mention the CONGRADULATIONS BARNEY AND LEAH!!! that had been removed from the rescue squad marquee, leaving only TOWN CARNIVAL JUNE 25 and nothing beneath), they didn’t speak of it. The only time Leah looked up was when they passed the park, where volunteers busied themselves with setting up the carnival’s booths and rides. Ellen held his hand upon the console. At least there was that.

  Tom allowed the hush to continue until they passed the town line. Then he asked, “You okay back there, Leah-boo?”

  “Sure, Puh-Pops.”

  He saw the reflection of his daughter’s smile through the mirror, wondered if it was genuine or not, then decided it was as real as it could be given the circumstances. Her left hand mimicked her mother’s in the small space between the backseats. A tiny thought worked its way into Tom’s mind—

  Is someone sitting beside her? Maybe stroking Leah’s fingers as I’m stroking Ellen’s? Telling her everything will be okay, helping her find her strength, doing everything I should have been doing all along?

  Ellen turned around in her seat and asked, “You sure you’re okay, sweetie?”

  “Sure, Muh-Mommy. Why?”

  “Because if you want to talk about how you’re feeling,” Tom said, “that would be okay.” He felt Ellen’s hand tighten around his own. Counselor mode, that hand said. Just be a daddy, Tom. He knew she was right, but he also knew he couldn’t help it. He was a counselor, and that was just as much a part of who he was as husband and father.

  The interstate loomed ahead, a tangled mess of metal ants scurrying in two directions. Tom took the on-ramp. The sign at the edge of the asphalt read STANLEY 17.

  Ellen said, “We’re sorry about what happened, Leah.”

  “It’s n-not your fault, Muh-Mommy.”

  “And I’m sorry too, Leah-boo,” Tom said. “I know you might feel like I’m not all the way on your side, but I am. I want you to believe that.”

  Leah’s fingers moved closer to the seat beside her.

  “It’s n-not my buh-lieving that’s the pruh-problem, Puh-Pops. It’s yours.”

  That statement hung in the air until they walked through the double doors of the Longview Mall in Stanley, Virginia. The Thursday afternoon crowd was large. To Tom, it was more people than lived in the whole of Mattingly, hills and hollows included. He briefly entertained the thought of sending Ellen and Leah off shopping while he stood by the entrance asking people to sign a petition saying Reggie Goggins should shut up and mind his own business.

  They ambled through shops and stores, Leah between them, holding their hands. Ellen found a dress at J. Crew. Tom treated Leah to a stuffed unicorn from the Build-A-Bear Workshop (because he loved her, yes, but also because a real unicorn could maybe come to take the place of an imagined rainbow man). For the first time in a very long while, they were a family. They laughed at corny jokes and talked about simple things and they loved. They loved most of all. There was no mention of paintings or fights or mean, nasty preachers. There were no mouthed curses or frightened looks from the people they passed. The world was right again.

  The dinner line in front of the food court’s Sbarro was long, but the pizza smell was enough to keep them from going elsewhere. Leah stood at Tom’s right and offered her parents two maroon trays. She’d have the pepperoni, she said.

  “Feeling better now?” Tom asked her.

  “Yuh-yes, but we nuh-need to get b-back soon for Muh-Miss Mabel’s service.”

  Ellen looked down and tilted her head. The line moved forward, creating a gap that was filled by an impatient customer. “You want to go to Mabel’s service?”

  “We huh-have to.”

  Tom wondered what would possess his daughter to say such a thing, but didn’t ask. The odds were good it would come out wrong, and he didn’t want to risk those words having the same effect as the look he’d given her in the front yard. Ellen was watching him, waiting. Tom nodded.

  “Well, okay then,” Ellen said. She leaned her head into Tom’s shoulder and smiled. It was the first time she’d done that since she’d looked out from the living room window and told Tom and Mary someone was coming up the lane.

  “How about you?” Tom asked her. “Better now?”

  “I suppose,” she said. She accepted the kiss on the cheek that Tom offered. Smells of pepperoni and pasta and shouts in Italian filled the air. She leaned her head on Tom’s shoulder. “We did good coming here, Tom. Guess we have the reverend to thank for that, huh?”

  “I wouldn’t go that far. If I did, then I guess I’d have to thank that idiot farmer who came with him.”

  “And Barney,” Ellen said. “Can you believe he was in on all that? After everything Leah did for him?”

  Tom started to remind his wife that Leah had done nothing for Barney but paint him a pretty picture, but then he felt the space beside him open up as the line moved forward again. He decided no, he wouldn’t remind Ellen of that. Doing so would offer nothing but an opening for another argument. They had done good by coming to the city. He wasn’t going to bring the country along with them.

  He reached down to rub Leah’s head, maybe squeeze her shoulder, tell her everything was going to be okay and he would help her find her strength, but his hand touched nothing but air. He turned his head away from Ellen and saw the empty spot where Leah had stood.

  “Leah?” he called, but not too loud. Too loud would mean something was wrong, and there was nothing wrong. Everything was okay now. The world was right.

  Ellen moved her chin from Tom’s shoulder. The look on her face was much the same as she’d offered in the front yard that morning. It was a look of shock and mounting fear.

  “Leah?”

  Louder now. Tom scanned the food court for his daughter’s long hair and blue dress. Families milled about him, mothers and fathers who knew better than to take their eyes off their children.

  “Leah?”

  “Has anyone seen our daughter?” Ellen asked. Her hands shook and her eyes bugged. She reached for the closest person, an elderly man with glasses so thick that Tom doubted the man could see beyond his own nose. “Have you seen our daughter?”

  Tom heard the faraway
sound of his plastic tray clanking to the floor. The crowd stared. Fathers—good fathers—pulled their own children close in reflex.

  Ellen took one end of the food court, Tom the other, but there were too many faces. When they met again in the middle of dirty tables and discarded food, the silence that had come to define their marriage had returned.

  Leah was gone.

  4

  He knew many things, but at the moment the one thing that stood out was that forty dollars didn’t travel nearly as far as it once had. Forty dollars used to feed you for two weeks. It could take care of your gas tank for pretty near a month. Forty dollars was darn near rent back in the day, though admittedly what that money had covered was little more than a hovel. And usually that money never made it to the bank at all. It often got poured down his daddy’s gullet from a paper bag. He couldn’t say anything about that, nor could his momma when she was around. “There’ll be hell to pay” is what his daddy would say. Daddy’d whup you good if you opened your fat trap.

  Yessir, forty dollars would once put the world at your feet. Now all it got you was a toilet assembly, some plumber’s tape, and just enough gas to get you to the Sears and back home. Welcome to the new American Dream.

  He carried his bag through the dense crowd that parted to his right and left as they felt his approach. Many looked away. Some, he knew, looked back after he’d passed. They looked and they whispered, and he wanted to tell them he’d whup them good if they didn’t close their fat traps.

  Ahead at the doors, maybe seventy yards past the four steps he now descended, the rough outline of a child stood looking for something or someone. He checked his watch. Twenty minutes to get home. That woman better have supper ready. There’d be hell to pay if she didn’t.

  The child—it was a girl, he was now close enough to see that—had stopped her rubbernecking. The fact that she was now looking at him was bad enough. What was worse was that she would soon be invading his space. She had a look of horror that made him almost smile through his thick black beard. It was a look his woman gave him and a look most everyone copied in his presence—one that reminded him he wasn’t a boy anymore and his days of being whupped were over.