The Mourning Parade

by Dawn Reno Langley

  Sophie responded with a low, long rumble, barely audible.

  Natalie hummed again, and again Sophie responded, as though the sound were comforting. She kept her trunk on Natalie’s arm. Heartened, Natalie started singing softly, simple, nonsensical words that felt like a lullaby.

  Sophie’s ears moved, a tiny bit of a shimmy, like radar fine-tuning to pick up a faint signal.

  Natalie took a slow step back, uncertain whether the sound had irritated Sophie, but the elephant kept gently moving her trunk. Now it hovered about six inches from Natalie’s face.

  Instinctually, Natalie wanted to hold her breath, but she knew better not to show or feel any fear at all. Yet Sophie was unpredictable and Natalie counted her steps to the door, just in case.

  The nonsensical lullaby grew a little louder, a hoarse whisper, and Sophie again acted as though it comforted her. She regarded Natalie with one watery eye, then turned her head and reached back to touch the steel bars with her trunk as if asking for them to be removed.

  Show me I can trust you, ol’ girl.

  The words to one of her favorite Eagles’ songs came to mind, and she sang it softly to Sophie.

  I love to watch a woman dance

  She bows her head and lifts her hands

  Her hips begin to circle slowly

  Her eyes half closed; her face is holy

  She holds the whole world in a trance

  Sophie swayed a bit more from side to side but didn’t take her eyes off Natalie. Natalie sang a little louder, more confidently, yet still low and soft. The waltz rhythm of the song felt like a heartbeat. She twirled a little, her white cotton nightgown lifting a bit. Rising on her toes, she spread her arms out and closed her eyes, imagining the sound of accompanying instruments.

  She remembered first hearing the song when she bought the Eagles’ album after a particularly melancholy period when she thought she needed a man in her life. Its poignant melody moved her to tears, reminding her that there were men in the world who truly loved women. She listened to it over and over again, celebrating her grandparents who had loved the Eagles, and taught her to dance to the very early albums when she was only eight or nine years old. The music brought back memories of growing up in North Raleigh, spending summers at her grandparents’ place under the pungent fir trees on Falls Lake where her cousins would challenge each other every year in a swim race across the mile-wide portion of the lake. She never won, but the annual barbeque was chockfull of love and gales of laughter and warm hugs from people you only saw on special occasions. Her Aunt Lee, a short and rather ungracious woman prone to gossip, sharp comments, and J. Crew shirts with khaki shorts, loved Natalie more than her mother and grandmother combined. And she acted. Natalie could hear Aunt Lee’s dramatic thespian voice as clearly as if she sat right beside her. “Natalie Renee DeAngelo, you remember this now, sweetie. You’re the most exotic flower in the bunch. I look at your friends and they’re all daisies. You’re a freaking perfect damask rose! A gorgeously deep and musky red-black rose. Don’t ever forget that. Ever!”

  She likes the slow songs of love lost

  They take her a million miles away

  ‘Cause to dream, sometimes, is the only way

  To go to places you can’t get to any other way

  Our eyes connect; she takes my hand

  I love to watch a woman dance

  For years, Natalie had been too embarrassed to ask what “damask” meant, but when she turned fourteen, she finally realized she’d look it up herself rather than ask.

  Natalie paused her dancing for a second. She had never felt comfortable enough to be herself with Parker. He wouldn’t have understood the deep and rich well of emotion that must be plumbed in order to live fully, to completely sink one’s self in the detail of one brief and romantic moment, such as the Eagles did in this song. She doubted Parker ever simply watched her at any time in their marriage. He might not have ever realized her eyes were the color of polished copper—at least that’s what Pop had always told her. “In the middle of your eye is the heart of the fire.” That comment made her feel beautiful, but that was Pop. He loved her unconditionally.

  That song.

  So we danced together, close and slow

  So slow we’re almost standing still

  That song. The lyrics made her feel worthwhile. When she first heard it, she felt it fill in the holes of self-doubt that had pitted her psychological armor. Parker’s exit from her life and from her children’s world rocked her trust in her own judgment. He disappeared and never looked back. No phone calls, no visits, no birthday cards or Christmas presents. Gone. That had been the ultimate child abuse. And for her, he cemented a wall in her heart. Between the part Parker had closed and the whole halves of her heart that were her boys, she figured she had minus nothing.

  After that, everything in her life felt as uneven as a rock trail. No foot forward to solid ground. A difficult struggle. Having an anthem, a song that proved a man out there somewhere appreciated women enough to write such gorgeous lyrics, helped her go through a stage in her life where she could build the bridge to move forward, not worrying about or needing anyone else in order to be whole. She felt strong then. She’d always wanted to have that feeling, yet in order to feel a groundswell of strength and self-confidence, she also needed to go through the negative, the defeats, the disappointments.

  And then the shootings . . .

  She stopped twirling. Her cotton nightgown floated down and settled at her knees like a heavy cloud. In a blink, she realized where she was. Thailand. In a barn. At an elephant sanctuary. Sleeping with an elephant. Suddenly aware of exactly how close she was to Sophie right now, she felt the heat of the elephant’s skin.

  She avoided Sophie’s eye, and the whole time she did, she continued to sing. Then the music paused, and though it was the briefest of moments, Natalie and Sophie connected, eye to eye, creature to fellow creature, and the moment became so magical that Natalie caught her breath and reached out a hand. Sophie didn’t move, as much in a trance as Natalie, but the second Natalie’s hand touched the elephant’s trunk, both of them started as if they’d experienced an electric shock. Natalie checked herself. She hadn’t felt this calm since sharing the same space with Sophie. The elephant rumbled a little as if in reply to Natalie’s thought.

  “Do you want me to keep singing?” Natalie’s spoken voice cut through the silence, a much more intrusive sound than her singing. As soon as the words echoed and died, she started singing again.

  Sophie swayed slightly and rumbled low and long, as if letting loose with a sigh.

  __________

  When the sweet sound stops, the echo of the woman’s singing continues for long moments, growing softer and softer as the echo loses intensity. It becomes part of the air, and Sophie lets her body sway. She flaps one ear after the song ends, searching for the woman’s sound again. Her eyes close halfway, and she lets herself relax. She longs for the sound to resume. The woman’s sound reminds her of the murmuring sands on the great dry river bed the herd crossed each season. It was the season of no water. The land was cracked, one crack so large an infant fell through to his death.

  The herd, led by Sophie’s grandmother, headed along the river to the deepest point where she knew they could find fresh water. A few days’ trek. The old mothers surrounded the herd, keeping the young ones between them, protected from both the winds and predators. They knew the way, they’d made the trek before, they knew how to adapt to the weather, and they were stronger than any predators. But the babies had neither knowledge nor strength.

  Sophie, young then, remembers the sound the river bed made. A song like the woman sings. A call of the wind, the moan of an animal, the sound of a voice in a storm. The desert’s song. But in that sound, she also hears her mother’s shuffle, a percussive that maintains a beat—two hard steps, one lighter, then a double step. Th
e irritated grumbling of the oldest female in the herd, her back leg dragging behind her, the ankle mangled by the young female lion that lived up-river. The others had seen the cat, too, and circled around Sophie and the other young elephants, but the old female wasn’t fast enough to escape the lion’s claws. They fought the cat off together, but now the old female lagged behind, a place she wasn’t used to occupying.

  Sophie’s cousin, three wet-seasons younger than Sophie herself, trotted next to her, her infantile shrieks demanding the nannies’ constant attention, often inserting herself between their legs, tripping them. The little one still had no control over her trunk and whipped it against Sophie’s leg. Too tired to play, Sophie lowered her head and bumped the calf.

  That sound, that whine of the wind following the riverbank, that’s part woman, part wind, all natural phenomenon. It curled around Sophie’s ears, turned her head. She could smell the dust, feel its stinging in her trunk and on the edges of her eyes. Even now, she can taste the dryness that closed up the back of her throat. Even now, she can hear the sound that made her ears ache.

  That was the day the herd ended.

  Twenty-Two

  What shall the world do with its children?

  There are lives the executives

  Know nothing of . . .

  The other world is like a thorn

  In the ear of a tiny beast.

  -Robert Bly

  The mist cuddled the mountaintops in the distance like gossamer shawls. All sounds fell away, muted as if the mist actually had some weight. A high had moved in overnight, dissipating the heat of the previous day. Every living being responded to the change in temperature. Flocks of birds chirped and crowed and fluttered as if happily renewed. The sanctuary’s dogs tumbled over each other, invigorated and acting like puppies, even old Huey, the hound who’d grown fat from lying in the sun, his black face gray with age. Even the elephants came in from the meadow for their early morning meal with more gusto than usual.

  Mali and Natalie sat at their favorite table near the elephants’ feeding station, sipping their morning tea and talking quietly, as had become their habit.

  “Andrew began packing last night for Kenya,” Mali said. She stared straight forward, studying the rising mists in the meadow beyond. Her voice was quiet, almost as if in respect for the morning stillness around them. “I feel kind of guilty because I’m not happy about him leaving right now. Selfish, I guess. I worry about Sivad. She crawls up on Andrew’s leg whenever she can, screams for her Papa when he leaves eyesight. She prefers to ride on his hip rather than to walk with me. Her mother.”

  She sipped her hot tea. Natalie didn’t feel the need to reply. She watched the far corner of the meadow where the mist shifted like silvery-green clouds and waited for Mali to continue.

  “Each time he leaves, it’s harder on her. The last time he left she was barely two. She’s three now. She can count the days. She asks questions about where Papa is going. How can I explain to her, Natalie? What can you say to a child who really doesn’t understand logic? She thinks in emotions.” Mali took her teabag out of the cup, placed it carefully on the teaspoon on the table, and sighed.

  “All children are like that.” Natalie’s voice was sandy, gritty. “When I first started the clinic, Stephen was in second grade, so we went to school every day on the bus, but I had to take Danny to pre-school, and he cried every single day. Broke my heart.” She’d just bought the clinic and had been so pleased with the new building and her name on the sign. She’d sent out more than a thousand invitations for the open house, yet only two special visitors really mattered: her sons.

  “She’s so attached to him,” Mali continued. “I think this time will be the worst. She’s probably going to cry for days, like your Danny.” She wrapped her small hands around the cup and took a sip. She sat sideways on the bench seat, both legs tucked under her long, black skirt, and her eyes focused on the clouds near the mountaintops, as Natalie’s had been a moment ago. “The psychologist in me knows she’ll be fine as long as she has a solid base of love and self-respect and knows her father’s coming back,” Mali continues. “But the mother in me worries. I guess it’s true that it’s what we do.”

  “I understand, believe me. It’s not going to be easy on you either.”

  A long pause. Mali breathed noisily, a long inhale, then an even longer exhale. “You sound like you’ve got some experience with this kind of problem.”

  “A little bit. Maybe.” Natalie turned away so Mali couldn’t see her face. The conversation was hitting too close to home. Her throat tightened.

  “I’ve never asked you. What happened to your husband?”

  The question took Natalie aback, but she knew Mali wasn’t probing. They were simply having a woman-to-woman conversation. It was safe. “He left,” she said with a shrug. “Disappeared one day, and we never heard from him again. My friends said he left with another woman, but I don’t know for sure. Don’t even know if he’s still alive.”

  “Was he with you when your children passed away?”

  It’s a simple question, a reasonable one, but it stopped Natalie for another long moment. “No, he’d already left.”

  “And after?” Mali’s questions were phrased as if she’d been wondering how to ask, how to get Natalie to talk.

  “If you’re asking whether he came home after the boys died . . .” The word still stuck in her throat a bit. “No, he didn’t.” Natalie clamped her teeth tight.

  Talk about your feelings, Dr. Littlefield had told her. Don’t hold back. Your anger is poisonous. Let it out.

  “He must be dead, then,” Mali said matter-of-factly. “No parent would stay away from their children’s funerals.”

  Natalie loved Mali in that moment. “No normal person would,” she said, nodding emphatically. “I wouldn’t have thought a parent could desert the kids he’d helped raise, but he did. For that, and so much fucking more, I’ll never forgive him. But he’s got his own issues, so I’ve tried to understand.”

  “Issues?”

  It was Natalie’s turn to sip her tea. As she gathered her thoughts, she realized Mali might understand far more than many others, even those who knew Parker personally. “Yes. Big issues. He’s a narcissist.”

  “Ah, that explains it. What’s the saying? He wined and dined you from the beginning, right?”

  Natalie nodded again.

  “And when you fell for him completely, he didn’t want you anymore?”

  She remembered the moments when Parker coldly turned away from her, the moments when she needed him most. But he’d change his tune completely if she was the one to shut down. When she was angry or turned him away, he turned the charm back on full force, and she fell in love all over again.

  “Jekyll and Hyde. I wonder sometimes how we could have had two kids together. By rights, we should’ve split up the first time he cheated on me. We all would’ve been better off.”

  “But he would have had to concede defeat,” Mali said, clinking her wedding band against the cup for emphasis. “Narcissists always want to be the winner, the good guy, even though they’re anything but.”

  “My kids didn’t deserve the way he treated them. And even though his . . . his disappearance from their lives hurt them both, I must say I wasn’t sad to see him go.” The truth was that Natalie spent years dreaming about what would be the magic elixir to make her family whole again, but she never shared that irrational longing with anyone. She may have harbored the emotion, but she couldn’t admit that obvious character flaw out loud. How could anyone love a person so devoid of love themselves?

  “Can’t say that I blame you. My kids’ dad wasn’t much, but at least he was there. Then he died—heart attack. He’d smoked since he was ten. Siriporn was barely a teenager, but he stepped in and became the man of the house. I guess I’m the only one who still sees him as my baby.” Mali clucked
her tongue and laughed softly from the back of her throat as if she knew how everyone else saw her and accepted it, but that wouldn’t change how she felt.

  “Mine will always be my babies,” Natalie said. “Isn’t that the case for most mothers? Our babies are always our babies.”

  Mali reached for Natalie’s hand and held it without saying a word. They sat there quietly. In the distance, an elephant trumpeted and a dog barked, as if in answer.

  “I don’t know what I’d do if I lost a child.” Mali turned to face Natalie full on, her eyes filled with tears as if she knew exactly what had gone through Natalie’s mind. “I think that’s what gets to me most about working here. So many of these elephants had babies torn from them, and they mourn those babies like we do. I love Andrew, and I know his compassion runs so deeply that he’d lie down and die rather than give up his work, but there’s something about being a mother that he’ll never understand. The bulls have great memories, but their social connections are different. The matriarchs, they hold the herd together.”

  Natalie choked back a sob and squeezed Mali’s hand.

  “We don’t have to talk about it anymore, Natalie, but know that if you want to, I’m here. Okay?” Mali rose from the table and brushed herself off with a businesslike efficiency, as she might have when she had an office and clients who came to her for the same kind of advice she’d just given Natalie. “Now I think there will be a whole gaggle of hungry mahouts descending upon us momentarily, so I’d better start cooking some breakfast. You alright, my dear?”

  Natalie forced a smile and nodded. Sometimes she felt as though she’d known Mali for years.

  Mali’s crepe-soled shoes barely made a whisper as she walked away.

  Halfway down the road, she heard a tree rustle behind her and turned to see Siriporn atop Ali. The silence of an elephant still surprised her.