Stars to Lead Me Home: Love and Marriage (A Novel)

by Peggy Webb

  She starts toward the door, but Lillian is already there, hiding something behind her back.

  “When the men left, I thought you might be getting to the good part.” She pulls out a spectacular framed print called “Flaming June.” I’d fallen in love with it on one of our antique shopping excursions. “It’s your housewarming gift, Maggie.”

  “Oh, Lillian. It’s perfect.” Already I’m picturing it on the huge wall behind the sofa.

  “She makes me think of you, Maggie,” Lillian says.

  “She’s a redhead.”

  “So are you, underneath. A true flaming redhead, full of fire and sass.”

  “Lillian’s right,” Jean says, and I look at myself in the mirror.

  “Do you think I should dye my hair red?”

  “Why not?” This from Jean, who no longer remembers the true color of her hair. She goes where whim takes her. Bill is fond of saying he never knows if he’s going to wake up in bed with a redhead, a brunet or a blonde.

  “I don’t know. What if it makes my skin sallow or something?”

  “Try a temporary rinse first,” Jean says. “Miss Clairol. I’ll help you put it in. Lord knows, I’ve had enough experience.”

  “It’ll be a new you, Maggie,” Lillian says.

  I’m not ready for a new me. I’m just getting used to the person I am now.

  We finish hanging my pictures. Lillian calls the result, “Spectacular!” and Jean calls it, “A miracle!”

  “Let’s unpack my kitchen stuff now.” I have always loved kitchens. I love everything from the sight of my mug collection to the scent of coffee and vanilla and cinnamon. “You and I can unpack while sits Lillian sits on a chair and bosses.”

  “I hate kitchens.” Jean claims she doesn’t even know the color of her kitchen walls, though I know from experience that she’s a wonderful cook when she sets her mind to it.

  “No, you don’t, Jean.” Lillian says.

  “What about all these boxes of books? Let’s do them first.” Jean is standing in front of three narrow bookshelves with twenty boxes of books at her feet. My apartment was too small for them, as well. For more than two years I’d paid storage fees in order to keep my books. By the time you figure monthly cost, I calculate each one is now worth at least a hundred dollars. I’m not about to lose them now.

  “The attic?” I ask.

  “Perfect.” Jean pulls down the rickety ladder that serves as a stairway to the attic.

  “Who goes up? You or me?”

  “You’re scared of mice, Maggie.” Jean starts up. “Besides, I don’t want to heft those heavy boxes up these stairs.” Halfway up, she poses and bursts into song, “Stairway to the Stars.” She has a very good alto voice.

  Lillian joins in with a shaky second soprano. I add the first soprano, and we warble away, then Jean disappears into the attic and Lillian sinks into a chair.

  “You okay?”

  She waves me off. “Go on, Maggie. Quit worrying about me. I’m fine.”

  I heft the first box up the stairs, but I can’t stop myself from worrying.

  “This thing must weigh a ton. Jean, where are you? Hurry up and catch hold before I drop it.”

  She reappears at the small attic opening, an old woven basket she’d found perched on her head and her hands full of colored cards. “Postcards from the edge,” she says, grinning. “Listen to this: Dear Alice, Steven is sick at his stomach and I have hives, but otherwise the honeymoon is great.”

  “You’re reading somebody else’s postcards?”

  “They’re yours now, Maggie. Bought and paid for. The house and everything in it, including these.” She selects another card. “Listen to this one, Dear Sis. . .”

  “If you don’t take this box, I’m going to fall and kill myself.”

  She drags the box into the attic then takes up reading where she left off. “We saw a bona fide midget on Biloxi Beach, and then we went into a store where everything they had made me blush. I wasn’t going to buy anything, but Steven insisted. He’s so manly.” Jean peers at me from under her banana basket hat. “You should meet this man, Maggie.”

  “He’s married, for goodness sakes.”

  “Maybe he has a brother.”

  “When is the card dated?”

  Jean checks. “June 15, 1935.”

  “Great. That would make him about eighty. Just my speed. . . Here.” I struggle upward with another box of books, and together we wrestle it into the attic.

  One of the first things I’m going to do when I get a carpenter is have him build more bookshelves. Now, I have plenty of wall space, and I love the ways books make a house feel, as if someone special lives there, someone with curiosity and a zest for life.

  o0o

  Carl and Bill return with enough pizza to feed a small army.

  By the time we eat and finish unpacking, it’s almost midnight. I bid them all goodnight, and then I’m alone. My house still echoes with song and laughter, and I stand in the middle of my living room.

  “What a wonderful way to start a new life.”

  I say this aloud to give it more significance. Ritual is important to me. Suddenly I realize there’s something else I need to do in order to make this a good beginning.

  I paw my way through the unpacked boxes, mostly personal things, until I find what I’m looking for. Hugging the papers to my chest I step through the back door. There’s no need to turn on a light switch. Stars as big as baseballs are flung across the sky, and a full moon floods the back deck with light.

  A rusting grill sits in the far corner, left behind by the former owner, and I drag it to the middle of the deck, then light a match and drop the papers in. The interrogatories are the first to go. Next the financial statements, then the ancient receipts and last of all, my diary.

  I rip the pages out one by one. Some of them are tear-streaked, the ink blurred and faded. Don’t look, don’t look, I tell myself. But I don’t have to look to know what they say: The words are burned into my mind; the pain seared into my soul.

  The diary is thick with years of accumulated hurt. The flames leap so high I have to rush inside to get a pitcher of water and put them out. Then I start all over again.

  I am determined to rid myself of every shred of evidence that connects me to a marriage that went so wrong. Smoke billows around me, so much that for a moment the moon and stars vanish.

  And then, suddenly, it’s over. The last bit of paper lies curled and blackened in the bottom of the grill, the smoke disperses and the moon and stars break through.

  “Goodbye, Dick.”

  The smell of fire and brimstone clings to me. I march into my house and get under the shower, clothes and all.

  I stand there for ten minutes, fifteen, and then I strip off my wet clothes and scrub myself until my skin is red.

  My bed is placed temporarily in the small bedroom, right beside a window. I climb in and listen to the silence, learn to float in it.

  o0o

  I celebrate the first morning in my new house by sitting on the porch swing eating strawberries and real cream, never mind the calories. Cardinals light in the pecan trees to keep me company, and a robin tugs at a worm in the front yard. I race back inside, delve into the cabinets till I find what I’m looking for, then hurry back out and cast a handful of crumbs to the birds.

  Across the street my neighbors appear in their Sunday best, then wave at me as they pass by in their aging Buick. I am buoyed by this brief exchange, and I think how it will be this summer, me sitting in my sunny kitchen having tea with my neighbor. We’ll talk about gardening and share our favorite recipes.

  Down the street another car pulls out of the driveway, the backseat filled with children, two boys and a little girl wearing a pink hair ribbon. The children wave, then crane their necks and watch me from the rear window until they are out of sight.

  Obviously my neighbors are on their way to church.

  When I was married I was in church every Sunday, playing t
he old hymns on an upright piano. Sometimes I’d add a jazz beat just to see if anybody was listening. One Sunday Beth vomited on my shoes as I was going out the door, and the preacher held up services till I got there, ten minutes late. Here’s Maggie, he said, we can start now.

  They called me a pillar of the community. After I left Dick I didn’t want to be a pillar of anything, let alone an entire community. All I wanted to do was hole up in my apartment and learn how to be something small and comfortable, maybe a room that would invite you to come in and prop up your feet and let the breeze from an open window cool your fevered face.

  I glance at my watch. It’s ten-thirty, still time to get to church if I hurry.

  The rightness of the thing strikes me, and I go inside to dress, leaving my swing behind. It will be there when I get home. So will the cardinals. And perhaps a bluebird or two.

  I decide to wear a blue dress and a hat with a peacock feather in the crown.

  I come upon the church suddenly. Music drifts through the open doorway and I roll down my windows so I can hear.

  “Whiter than snow, Lord, wash me just now,” the congregation sings, and I join in sitting right there in my car.

  I remember telling Jean and Lillian once, nothing is coincidence. And when the last strains of the hymn fade, I am filled with wonder.

  I finally get out of the car and make my way down the outside aisle during the second verse. Heads swivel to follow my progress. But I am not uncomfortable. The stares are friendly. I am a newcomer, and the congregation is curious.

  They are not what I expected, these people who fill Hope Methodist Church. For one thing, I don’t see any sunburned faces. There are men my age with stylish hair and stylish wives who give off the scent of expensive perfume and contentment. There are women with weathered faces and gnarled hands who cling to the arms of stout teenaged grandsons. Near the front there is a whole row of redheads, who sing with lusty abandon.

  The preacher is not what I expected, either. He’s young, dark haired and vigorous, somebody you’d expect to see on a football field rather than behind a pulpit.

  But the real surprise is the music. There is an organ and a real choir, not the usual volunteers who struggle to find the melody note, but a group of men and women singing tight four-part harmony, their voices blending so closely they sound like one. The director is a young woman with the face of an angel. She’s playing the organ with professional skill, and every now and then I see her nod toward the tenor section or lift her hand and give a signal to the sopranos.

  I search for a hymnal in the rack behind the pew, find it empty, and the young man standing next to me bends down to share his. He has beautiful hands, the hands of an artist or a musician or a poet, I decide, then quickly abandon the notion that he’s a musician. He’s singing in an off-key monotone but with great feeling, and I keep my voice low so I won’t drown him out.

  After church, he stops me out front with a hand on my arm.

  “You have a beautiful voice,” he says, and suddenly I’m riveted, not by his looks - though he has the kind that turns heads - but by his voice. It’s deep and intimate, trust-worthy and comforting.

  It’s the voice I’ve listened to every Saturday night, alone on my fire escape.

  “Mr. Fixit?”

  His laughter is equally mesmerizing. “Yes. Hello, I’m Matt, Matt Graham.”

  “Oh lord!”

  “I beg your pardon?” His eyes are still crinkled with laughter.

  I probably should be feeling clumsy and socially inadequate, but I’m not. I tell him about my cousins Jean, and her husband Bill recommending a carpenter named Matt Graham.

  “I had no idea he…well, you…were also my Mr. Fixit.” That smile again, and I feel my cheeks grow hot. “Why don’t we start again? Hi, I’m Maggie Hudson.”

  “I remember you, Maggie Hudson.”

  “You do?”

  “Some voices are hard to forget. You called in to ask me about the Clarkson place.”

  “I bought it!”

  “Great place.”

  “Yes, with a bit of fixing up.” I’m glad he didn’t point out the obvious flaws.

  “If you need any help in that department, I’m available.”

  “Thanks.”

  I glance at his hands, picture his long tapered fingers lovingly sanding wood to a smooth sheen.

  Suddenly I’m concerned about my hat. It’s an old one, bought ten years ago off the sale rack at J C Penney’s. This morning I wasted five minutes in front of the mirror debating with myself about taking the feather out.

  “I like your hat,” Matt says.

  When I check his face I see nothing showing but sincerity, and I know immediately that he’s the one I want to repair my house. If I can afford him.

  I want to ask his price, but that can wait. Church is not the place to discuss the price of anything except redemption.

  “Thank you. And thanks for sharing your hymnal, Matt.”

  “Any time.” I’m turning to leave when he adds, “You should sing in our choir.”

  I don’t tell him I plan to proceed with caution in the matter of joining, even something as innocuous as the choir. I simply say, Thank you once again, and then I’m swept into a flurry of welcome.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  I’ve been in my house for a little more than three weeks, and already it feels more like home than any place I’ve lived since I was a child.

  My iPhone pings and I pull up a text from Lillian along with three pictures of her with Carl and the girls standing in front of the Saturn Five rocket on Tranquility Base in Huntsville, Alabama.

  The girls are having a great time! Carl says I’m more relaxed here and I think it’s true. Christmas seems light years away! Pigeon Forge is next. I don’t know how long we’ll stay. How are you?

  I text back. I’m great! Take your time. Enjoy every minute.

  I check the photos again to be sure Lillian’s smile is not a brave show for her family. It looks real. I breathe a sigh of relief then turn back to my computer and continue typing.

  “Up until the very last moment Ellie thought some miracle would save her marriage. When she handed Rex the separation papers he opened his mouth, and she thought he was going to protest, thought he was going to say, I love you, Ellie, we can work this out. But he closed his mouth again, like a fish.”

  I am sitting in a path of sunlight, my fingers keeping time to the sound of the hammer. Matt Graham is on my front porch, tapping away at my railing. It’s a pleasant rhythm we have going, comfortable, as if he’s somebody I’ve known all my life instead of only three weeks.

  “She left him then, left him with her head high, walking through a den that had suddenly become as parched and airless as her marriage - Ellie Livingston, walking tall through Egypt.”

  “Amen!” Matt shouts, as if he’s somehow connected to this story. “Aaa-men.”

  He’s singing again, his own special brand of music, snatches of hymns mixed with bits and pieces of bebop songs.

  Occasionally he breaks into whistling, and it always surprises me that he whistles on key.

  I love the sound of whistling in my house. It’s not only cheerful but somehow cozy, like the smell of gingerbread. A house filled with that smell invites you to come in and sit down in your favorite rocking chair and dream of whirling around a dance floor in a pink party dress, of rain falling on a tin roof, and of the taste of strawberries ripened in the sun.

  Tomorrow I’m going to make gingerbread, then invite Matt in to share it. It’s the least I can do. He’s working at half the rate other carpenters charge.

  “Good grief, Maggie, that’s a steal,” Jean said when I told her about my good fortune. “Is he giving you special rates?”

  “Why would he give me special rates?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe because you go to the same church.”

  It’s true. Every Sunday I go to Hope and sing the old songs that remind me of my childhood, of the little count
ry church where I grew up and of Granny in her kitchen singing while she made soup with vegetables she grew in her own garden.

  Last week I planted Big Boy tomatoes in the flower bed behind the porch swing, and next year I’m going to have a bona fide garden of my own, complete with cucumber vines that twine around the garden gate. I’ll add morning glories for color and because the name makes me believe in the possibility of miracles.

  Matt taps on the window, and I look up and wave. I’ve positioned my desk so I can look out the window and see the pecan trees, and every time he walks by he leans down and waves.

  He’s telling me something but I can’t hear a thing. Good grief! I’m too young to lose my hearing.

  I cup my ear and yell, “What’s that?”

  He just stands there solemn-eyed, his mouth working, and when I go onto the porch, he bursts out laughing.

  “Got ‘cha!”

  “Matt Graham, I ought to shoot you.”

  “Not till you see this. Look, Maggie.” He holds a four-leafed clover in the palm of his hand. When I was a young I used to sit in the grass and search for four-leafed clovers. I picture Matt, all six feet of him, crawling around on hands and knees.

  “It’s a sign of good luck,” he says. “I picked it for you.”

  “Thanks,” I tell him, but that doesn’t nearly express how deeply I am moved. The words feel stingy, inadequate. “That was a very thoughtful thing to do, Matt, a small kindness that speaks volumes.”

  He goes quiet, and though he doesn’t seem uncomfortable, I wonder if I’ve gone overboard.

  “Where did you find it?”

  “In your yard. Under that wild plum tree by your garage. You’ve got a whole patch of them.”

  I race to the plum tree and find two more side by side then kick off my shoes and wade through the clover patch barefoot, not caring that Matt is watching from the porch. He’s smiling, and that makes the difference.

  I lift my face and my bare arms, too, as if I’m embracing the sun. When I get back to the porch with my clovers, Matt says, “I like it when a woman can let the child in her come out to play.”