How Sweet the Sound

by Amy Sorrells

  “Welcome home!” Mama said first, then we all got up and gathered around her. Even Molly ran around her in circles, jumping and sniffing and kissing Comfort’s hands with her black, wet nose.

  “Jezi, di ou mèsi. Thank you, Jesus. Mmm-hmm.” Ernestine held her hands together as if in a prayer of thanksgiving.

  Comfort opened the front door and took notice of everything we’d done on her way to the kitchen. “Y’all have surely outdone yourselves.” She kept shaking her head, as if trying to loose herself from these good things she felt she didn’t deserve. But we figured if we kept treating her like she deserved good things, eventually she’d believe it for herself.

  Once in the kitchen, Solly offered to pray. “Dear Jesus, we praise You for this time together. We thank You for friendships that outlast and out-love hard times. We ask You to bless and protect this time together and that You’d give us courage to put our fears and pain at Your feet, to know the goodness of Your truth, and that You would guide us beside still waters and give us peace. In Your precious name we pray, amen.”

  Everyone cleaned their plates during dinner, and then Mama and I made the homemade ice cream. Night sounds came out as daylight sank under the horizon. Ernestine lit more candles, and the whole patio nearly floated like a fairyland of magic—lights and our hearts dancing on streets of freedom.

  Mama scooped rock salt as I dumped cups of ice into the sides of the ice-cream maker, and we took turns cranking the handle. I remember when I was younger thinking the salt would spoil the ice cream, until I learned in science class it doesn’t go into the ice cream—it makes the ice colder so the mixture freezes faster. My teacher called the salt a catalyst. Made me think about other catalysts around us—things you might not think are good but that end up making things better, like manure in a garden, bees on flowers, hard wind making the wood of a tree stiffer and straighter as it grows.

  “Let’s check it.” Mama stopped cranking, and we took the lid off the chamber that held the ice-cream mixture. We each dipped a spoon into the cold, frothy mixture, which was thick like cake batter.

  “Mmmmmm! Perfect.” Tasted like summer and love. I thought about Jed and wished he was here too. But Solly brought bowls of peach-pecan pie out before I could think about him too much. Mama scooped ice cream on top, which melted like butter onto the warm, pecan-covered fruit and crust.

  Comfort sat on a lounge chair with a quilt wrapped around her shoulders. Said she felt cold a lot since the day she went to the hospital. Solly brought her a bowl of ice cream and pie, then sat down beside her with his guitar. Solly played “Blackbird” by the Beatles first. His fingers strummed and moved along the strings like ripples on a lazy creek, his voice like water on a parched throat. His smile focused on Comfort and hers on him, like they were the only two on that patio.

  Ernestine reached alongside her chair and pulled her squeezebox onto her lap, grasped each end, and pulled back and forth in an easy in and out wheeze. “Let’s jwenn eksite!”

  I rubbed the frottoir in time to the tapping of Solly’s hand against his guitar.

  Every sound mixed to a beat as happy as a calf kicking its feet in the air after it’s released from a stall. We sang all sorts of songs: “Lord of the Dance,” “This Little Light of Mine,” “Pass It On,” “Have You Seen Jesus My Lord?” even some Jim Croce and Kate Wolf. Crickets sang and garden critters joined along with their own joyful cadence.

  Eventually, the words and music fell off into a silence sweet as simple syrup, and we sat back, heads upturned to the stars, and soaked it all in.

  “You okay, Comfort?” Mama asked.

  “Yes … I am.” Comfort didn’t look too sure of her words.

  “What is it?” Solly asked, taking her hand.

  “It’s just … Don’t stop coming around. I’ve got a long row to hoe still, and I’m afraid.”

  “Afraid of what, child?”

  Comfort’s face fell into a too-familiar sadness. “Afraid of falling. Afraid of failing. Afraid of silence and the darkness I gotta push through to get well.”

  “Second Corinthians 1:6 says, ‘If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation,’” Ernestine said. “We’re here to help you carry your distress, child. You’re not alone in your journey.”

  Solly set his guitar in his lap again, and began to strum.

  Now I’ve been happy lately

  Thinking about the good things to come.

  And I believe it could be

  Something good has begun

  Oh I’ve been smiling lately …

  At that line, Comfort grinned and began to sing along softly. Then Mama and I joined, and then all of us calling on the peace train.

  Now come and join the living

  It’s not so far from you

  And it’s getting nearer

  Soon it will all be true …

  Cause out on the edge of darkness

  There rides a peace train

  Oh peace train take this country

  Come take me home again

  “Cat Stevens is great,” said Solly. “But I’d like to play one last song. A song that can be a prayer for Comfort. A prayer for us all.” He thumped a more gentle rhythm on the back end of his guitar, and soon his fingers fluttered and floated across the strings.

  Amazing grace

  His voice, a whisper, drifted back into the notes of the strings he played for a few beautiful moments before moving on . . .

  How sweet the sound

  A sound like a far-off train whistle came closer, from back behind us in the orchards. The closer it came, the more the whistling sounded like a sad song. The more I realized it was a song.

  A growl rolled deep and long in Molly’s throat, and the fur on her back stiffened. Solly stopped a moment, and we all listened for the notes, blending perfect and taking over where Solly left off.

  A harmonica.

  And a boy.

  I realized even before the light shone on his shadowy features it was Jed.

  Amazing grace.

  How sweet the sound.

  For wretches and the wounded, for the good and for those doing the best they can with what they have.

  Jed sauntered over to behind where I sat. “Heard there was a homecoming today.”

  “Oui, Jed. Come join the celebration.” Ernestine patted her hand on the empty chair between her and me, and Jed obliged.

  “Welcome home, Miss Comfort,” he said, then held the harmonica back to his lips and kept playing the chords of the old hymn as Solly kept on strumming. None of us uttered a word as Jed slid the metal piece back and forth along his lips, bending the sounds, until we couldn’t contain ourselves any longer.

  Solly added some chords to the somber notes, and Jed picked up time in response. I handed Ernestine the frottoir, and she kicked things up a notch again, until we had “Amazing Grace” going like it’d never gone before. We sang more under the trees with the crickets and night sounds, and the clicking dance of ripening pecans. Didn’t matter that some of us sang flat, some of us sang sharp, some of us played out of time.

  We made music, the six of us, the likes of which the bay never heard before and might not hear again.

  We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise

  Than when we’d first begun

  Si li se Bondye menm ki voye ou, Li pral peya depans ou yo.

  “If it is God who sends you, He’ll pay your expenses.”

  CHAPTER 42

  Comfort

  There are some things the dark suitor can never have.

  I hear Abba as my bedroom is bathed with the ombré of a new day, and I try to believe that parts of me in the deepest places are unscarred. That no matter how great the injustice, how far death digs, it cannot reach the sacred places of my soul.

  I ponder these promises, culling
my heart for places of me long forgotten—places that hold some semblance of hallowed hope.

  Perhaps like pricks of green on the ends of spring pecans, vestal places do bide time within me until the sun warms them enough to bloom.

  I want to be who God says I can be.

  More than the dance that led me toward death, I want to be free.

  It is safe to come out now. No one can hurt you like that or steal from you again.

  I hear You. But how, Abba? How?

  I’ll hold your hand like you held Anni’s on the beach when she was a little girl. Remember? I’ll keep the waves from reaching you. I’ll keep the foam from your feet.

  I’m too ruined, Lord.

  No, your life is a genesis. Something brand new. A beginning.

  I can’t, Lord.

  You already have. You walked through the fire they said you’d never survive. I have rebuilt you, and I will restore you. Still.

  I peek through the transom and see Solly, pale with tiny drops of sweat popping out on his forehead. Before the music faded last night, he asked if he could pay me a visit today.

  I open the door, silencing the persistent knocks.

  He tips his hat. “Comfort.”

  “Solly.”

  “It’s good to see you.”

  “Good to see you, too.”

  “You—you look good, Comfort. Really good.”

  I focus on my bare toes and stand aside so he can come in.

  “You know, the Moonlight and Magnolias Music Festival’s coming up. Always was your favorite,” he presses, turning his ball cap around and around in his hands

  “Yes, yes it was—is.”

  “I’ll be playing this year. A couple of acts in front of Alabama.”

  “Solly, that’s a dream come true for you!”

  “Just got the call this morning. Somebody backed out and they needed a filler act. I’d thrown in an application and auditioned a long time ago, never thinking anything would come of it. Almost forgot about it, really. I’m only playing a handful of cover songs. Nothin’ fancy.”

  “You deserve that. You really do.”

  “Well, we could go together, stay on the outskirts, or I could find a spot for you to watch from backstage …” His voice trails off.

  I fix my eyes hard upon him, feeling the burn of want returning slow and sweet deep inside me. “Would you care to take a walk?” It’s the first thing I’ve initiated between us in nearly a year.

  “I’d like that.”

  He offers me his arm, and we head toward the orchards, where nuts press against their shells, waiting for time to ripen them enough to unfurl for harvest. Though we don’t exchange words, we exchange a knowing that comes from loving someone for years, a silence that speaks much more than utterances breathed simply to fill the space between strangers. Each step along the unswerving rows brings the shivering ambivalence of wide-open space and the heart-cradling surety that God provided me with the chance to walk between them with Solly at my side again. When I wanted to give up, no one else did. When I thought I was alone, I had more company than I ever knew.

  You can do this, Abba says.

  I can try, I answer Him.

  “Okay,” I say as Solly and I face each other back on my front porch.

  “Okay?”

  “Okay. I’ll go to the festival with you.”

  “Okay then. Pick you up at 7:30 Saturday night.” He starts to leave.

  “Solly?”

  “Yeah?”

  “No expectations. No guarantees.”

  He takes a moment to think on that before he replies. “Darlin’, I’m your friend. First, foremost, and always, I’m your friend.”

  I feel my cheeks pink and click the door closed as he walks down the front porch steps.

  Maybe You’re right, Abba.

  Maybe You’re right.

  Paròl gen zèl.

  “Words have wings.”

  CHAPTER 43

  Anniston

  Heat bore down on us that first weekend in September, leaving our skin constantly wet and sticky. Thankfully, time spent in the orchards with Jed again, along with the buzz of the Moonlight and Magnolias Music Festival, kept our spirits bobbing above the muggy days like a buoy.

  “Come to the festival with me, Anni,” Jed whispered in my ear the night of Comfort’s homecoming.

  And so I found myself strolling next to him along the decked-out streets of Bay Spring. My favorite time of the year in town, the Moonlight and Magnolias Festival brought some of the best bands, food, and artists in the state to our streets. This year would be better than ever with Solly playing. Banners announcing the festival stretched across intersections. Newly planted flowers in hanging baskets decked with ribbons applauded from their seats high on light posts lining the streets. Food and drink vendors unfolded their plain, square box trailers into pop-up parties of lights and sugar and puffs of smoky flavor that made it near impossible to walk by without ordering something: shaved-ice lemonade, smoked turkey legs, shrimp baskets, sausage, corn dogs, hamburgers, hot dogs, funnel cakes, fried oysters, chicken on a stick, barbeque pork and beef, popcorn, pickles, and fried okra, of course.

  “We gotta get some taffy.” Jed stopped in front of the creaking, pulling, stretching mechanical arms inside the taffy trailer. Lined up like a collection of his rocks or a stretch of seashells shaped by high tide, the waxed-paper–wrapped taffy practically jumped into his empty box. We stuffed it until the box barely closed. I watched the taffy puller as Jed paid, wondering how the candy kept from snapping like a rubber band against all that yanking. But it didn’t. It kept stretching thinner and smoother, thinner and smoother, thinner and smoother like the pull of pain on a broken heart.

  Jed put the box in his backpack, and we weaved in and out and down the row of food vendors, trying not to trip on all the extension cords burping life into them.

  “So why’d you come back?”

  He pushed his hands deep in his jeans pockets before he answered. “I didn’t leave.”

  “Maybe not Bay Spring, but you sure left me.” As glad as I was to be with him again, these questions pushed hard against my heart.

  “I got a lot to figure out. A lot I don’t want to drag you through.”

  I kicked a pop-top that went flying, clanging against the side of the corn-dog booth. “Why doesn’t anyone let me decide for myself what I want to be drug through?”

  Jed stopped, put his hands on my shoulders, and looked hard into my eyes. “I can’t explain it, ’kay? I just can’t right now. I’m sorry.”

  I thought about arguing back, pushing him to tell me about the scars on his chest. What he’d been doing all this time. What he intended to do now. Instead, I punched him in the shoulder and took off running. “You’re forgiven. If you can catch me!”

  I ran through the food carts and artist tents, my smallness making up for his quickness, the whole time both of us laughing and laughing and laughing.

  Until one food booth made me stop quick. “Here, Jed! Over here!”

  “Gotcha!” He grabbed my waist.

  “Ever tried one of these?”

  “Cajun pistols?” he read the flashing lights. “Can’t say I ever have.”

  “You been missing out, then.” I paid the vendor, who handed me two steaming, foil-wrapped packages the size of baseballs. “Here. Eat up. But you might need a lemon shake-up to chase it back. They’re hot!”

  We sat on a bench outside the Curly Q and peeled the foil back from the flaky, dough-covered delicacy.

  “What’s in it?”

  “Only everything good in the world. Cheese, crab, crawdaddies. And hot sauce, of course.”

  Jed swallowed a bite and licked cheese off his fingers. “You’re right. These are awesome!”

  We roamed through the cro
wds—him happy to be forgiven, and me happy to not be alone. Kids juggled cotton candy like bouffant wigs on sticks; fat men sucked down Italian sausages; mamas divvied out pieces of sparkling elephant ears that flopped over the sides of greasy plates. Soon the food vendors gave way to artist tents lining sidewalks down to the city park and pier. The smell of hot wood shavings and leather floated up from where artisans carved monogrammed wood toys and gifts. Folks pressed in tight around cases full of silver jewelry and jars of jams and jellies. Kids begged their parents for balloon animals, airbrushed T-shirts, and nickel trinkets.

  “Let’s find Ernestine’s tent.” I grabbed Jed’s hand and pulled him along. He pulled me back, causing me to turn around and face him. For the first time, I noticed his eyes were blue with flecks of gold and green, like the sun setting over the ocean. Right then, I knew Jed’s eye was crooked so he could keep one eye on heaven.

  Then he kissed me. His kiss felt like a thousand steps down a road lined with bright red roses. It tasted like a hundred pieces of soft vanilla taffy. And when I opened my eyes, I thought my knees were gonna wobble right out from under me. “Jed Manon!”

  He held my hand tighter. “Couldn’t help it. Been thinking about doing that for a long time now.”

  “You have?” My face was so hot it was like I’d been standing too long in front of a bonfire.

  “Yes, I have.” He smiled as big as I ever seen him smile. Then he let go of my hand. “C’mon, I’ll race you to the docks!”

  Racing a boy who limps might not seem fair, but when he ran, he left his limp behind. By the time we got down to the docks, I coughed from laughing and breathing so hard. “Jed, wait up!”

  The white sails of the boats cut pure, pointed holes in the blue summer sky. We walked among them, their shadows bowing and shielding us from the sun and salty spray of the choppy bay and motoring boats. We talked about living on one of those yachts, with nothing to do but travel from port to port and soak in the sun. We let the taffy melt on our tongues and pressed it between our teeth and against the insides of our cheeks until we’d eaten nearly half the box by the time we reached Ernestine’s tent full of pecan pies, boxes of Harlan pecans, and other pecan confections.