The Lutheran Ladies' Circle: Plucking One String

by Kris Knorr

  “When birds move, they leave everything behind. No baggage. Maybe it’s time to move on.” They sat in silence, listening to the rain. After a while he gave a loud chucka chucka.

  “Chukar?” Vera said.

  “Is somebody in there?” a voice yelled from outside. Gus gave another rallying song of the Chukar Partridge. This time the voice was nearer, “Augustus? Is that you?”

  “Walt?” Vera called.

  “Vera! We thought you were blown to Missouri. Is Aunt Ula with you? Are you all okay?”

  “She’s unconscious. I think my arm’s broken. Gus is all right,” Vera yelled. “Can you get us out?”

  “Roger and I are working on it. There’s damage across the city. Emergency vehicles can’t get through.”

  “Is my house still there?” She could hear the sounds of lumber being tossed aside.

  Walt waved at Roger to stop making noise then hesitated, scanning the lopsided garage that remained standing on her lot. “You’re gonna need a new porch. Listen, there’s a pile of debris on top of you. We’re gonna try to open up a hole.”

  Gus pushed and grunted again. “Sorry. Can’t move anything from here,” he said, but Walt had already left.

  “It’s dripping in my face,” Aunt Ula wheezed.

  “Praise God. You’re still with us.” Vera tried to sit up, but gave a yelp and dropped back down, panting, “Are you okay?”

  “I hurt all over like I’ve been pitchpoled. Why am I getting Chinese water torture?”

  “Rain is dripping through the debris. Can you move down a little where it’s more protected?”

  “I don’t even want to try.”

  A chill crept over Vera, either from an exhausted sense of doom or from her wet clothes sponging up the rainwater collecting in the tub. “Gus is with us,” she said lightly as though she were announcing a celebrity. “Give us a cardinal’s call, Gus, to cheer us up.”

  “Sorry,” he rasped. “All that pushing, I’m troubled getting a breath. Feels like a wire around my chest. Someone’s pulling it tight.”

  “Walt!” Vera shouted. “We need help.”

  Shhhhhhh…” Aunt Ula wheezed. “No more excitement. Let them work. We’ll get out faster. Are you resting against something, Gus? Try to breathe slowly. It’s probably a panic attack.” He gave a low uuungh as he shifted into a spot.

  Vera listened to the sounds of lumber being tossed in a pile. A sob escaped from her throat. “I said some terrible things to Jim about a hideous blue wishing well a member made for him. I’m sure it’s blown to Oz now. Looking back, it all seems so stupid.”

  “You hated it, but still hung onto it after Jim died?” Aunt Ula reached up to touch the gash on her brow, pushing Vera’s fingers away, so she could staunch her own wound. “I’d say a tornado is a good pry tool to loosen a tight grip.” Silence answered her. Muffled clean-up sounds marked the time, punctuated by occasional low groans from the other end of the tub. Aunt Ula hacked, clearing the stickiness in her throat. “I’m sorry, Gus. You’d have this paradise all to yourself if I hadn’t traipsed over here.”

  “Glad I’m not alone.”

  They waited for the birdsong, but it didn’t come. Instead they heard a sharp intake of air followed by Gus falling on top of them. Vera gave a whoop. Aunt Ula yelped a sailor’s curse, bringing Roger to check on them.

  After repeated questioning, Gus gasped he was okay, but in pain. “Make him as comfortable as you can,” Roger yelled. “I heard they’re turning off the gas and electricity for this section, then road graders can clear a track through the streets. It won’t be long. Hang in there.”

  “Why?” Gus whispered. He shifted to his side, spooning between the women. With each jostle, Vera groaned even though she appreciated the extra warmth he carried. “Vera, you’re waiting to live,” he whispered. “I’m waiting to die.”

  “Don’t say that.” Vera heard the words twist out of her mouth and wished she could take them back. A tiredness she’d never known carried her bones to the bottom of her flesh. It was unlikely rescue would arrive in time. Like the ugly wishing well, this might be the last time she’d see Gus or her aunt on this side of Earth. “Sorry. Say what you want.”

  “Atta girl.” Aunt Ula’s voice shook to the tempo of her shivering body. “Speak your mind.”

  Gus gave a trill of bird syllables.

  Vera’s face flushed in spite of the chill. “Mating call. Meadowlark.”

  Aunt Ula barked out a laugh. “Must be feeling better, Mr. Vogler.”

  “Eased a bit,” Gus whispered. He gave a series of low twitters and chirps. Aunt Ula made several guesses. He had to bump Vera to get her to respond.

  “Never heard it.” Her body shook. She felt relieved her left side was going numb.

  “Sparrow. Two for a penny. Not one falls without the will of the Father.”

  “Gus…” Vera roused herself. “You know scripture?”

  “Live it, not strut it.” He gave a half-chirp. “‘Don’t be afraid: you’re worth more than many sparrows.’”

  “The book of Matthew, isn’t it? I’d like to be a common sparrow.” She sighed. “No one notices them. I’d sit in the back pew, chew gum, and sing loud. Something I’ve never been allowed to do.” Vera coughed and leaned into Gus’s back. “I’d be free.”

  “You’ve been free. You just didn’t know it, niece.”

  “I don’t feel free.” Vera’s voice was tight with tears. “When Jim died everything changed. All chores fell on me, but I wasn’t needed, except by a plumbing system designed by Rube Goldberg. I was alone, not free. Let me tell you, that’s a black ache of sleepless nights. I couldn’t understand how the sun kept rising, my heart kept beating, and the roof continued to leak. It was unfair, but I kept going. Kay told me my God was too small.” A sob escaped. She let the rest of her tears loose, pressing her face into Gus’s back. He attempted to pat her, taking wild aim in the dark, groping across her leg and backside. She grabbed his hand, sniffed and cleared her throat. “That threw me into an angry fog. I pushed through it. I always do, staying busy. Keeping to business. Were you there, Aunt Ula, when she accused me of boiling frogs and adding cheese?”

  “Warm food sounds good right now.” Aunt Ula shivered.

  “It does, doesn’t it? I almost snorted when she said it, then I felt guilty. How could I laugh when Jim was dead and things were falling apart? I should be keeping everyone on track. Then you came to live with me. My semblance of control went out the window.” She let out a long breath and swiped her runny nose against Gus’s back. “The weeks he’s been gone have turned into almost a year. Life has gone on and it’s harder to keep plucking that same string. The person I used to be doesn’t fit anymore.”

  Gus was shivering. She leaned her body against his back, trying to give him warmth even though she couldn’t feel her arms or toes. “One day last week,” she said, “I woke up and noticed summer was almost over. You’d have made fun of me if I’d told you the sunflowers were as big as pie plates and bowing their heads. I saw twilight with a bruised-purple sky and remembered how much I loved sunsets. I felt like I was coming out of a heavy sleep. Now this. Long ago, Jim told me to retire from managing the universe, but I didn’t listen. I guess I’m ready now. I’m not sure what to do next, or if there even is a ‘next.’”

  “Worth more than sparrows,” Gus whispered. “And birds don’t carry luggage when they migrate.” A smile hinted in his voice.

  “I’d applaud if I could feel my fingers.” Aunt Ula’s voice sounded clotted.

  A blanket of silence covered them. Sounds reverberated through the debris as the men untangled boards, wires, and insulation. The soft tunk-tunk of rain dripped into their cavern. Aunt Ula’s teeth chattered. Vera felt her thoughts clear. She heard the music of the storm. Chords climbing to a harmonious crescendo. Not the repetitive one-note song she’d been living. She was waking up, heading into the next piece of life. She could surrender what she was and turn her face toward what sh
e would become. The fresh scent of rainfall filled her body, a promise of growth after a long, lean drought.

  Time became slack, uncoiling in wakeful clumps. Vera’s words were slow and thick. “A sparrow…floating on peace.”

  “No…Vera. No floating on my watch.” Aunt Ula quivered then coughed. “Stay awake. Bump her, Gus.”

  “Two sparrows for a penny,” he whispered. Gus gave a weak trill, the sibilant sound trailing off like a fading breeze. He shuddered against the old woman.

  “Don’t leave me alone.” The words felt sticky in Aunt Ula’s mouth…or it might be blood. “Lift up, Gus. You’re squashing the air outta me. And pinch Vera.” Faraway, a monotonous hum of generators and engines thrummed the night. It was like the purr of a winch pulling up the anchor. Preparation to set sail. Soon they’d leave port. She could hear the creak of the rigging. The canvas sail gave a thwop as its belly filled with wind. Her face was wet with spray. She wondered if she was floating, too.

  *

  Nearby, Walt and a group of young men hauled a china closet of broken dishes to the curb. Five engineering and physics students from Oklahoma State University had sneaked into the neighborhood, ignoring the emergency curfew dropped on the town. “They’re sending people away to keep gawkers and looters out,” a young man with a scraggly beard told Walt. “We’re here to help if you want us.” Roger hadn’t been able to get through to 911. A busy signal buzzed in his ear each time he’d called. He sent two of the boys to find EMTs, giving them his phone number in case they had a problem getting back.

  Walt and the remaining young men worked on the debris pile, arranging supports to stabilize the wall next to the bathtub. They were hefting a tree limb as thick as a man’s leg when the chug of a caterpillar, scraping debris to one side, pulsed down the street. Behind it, yellow lights of emergency trucks beamed through the darkness.

  The bearded young man and his friend ran ahead of the machinery, picking their way around obstacles. “I told them my grandparents were really hurt,” he said to Roger. “They came here first thing. Don’t rat me out.”

  Walt hurried to the wall, shouting into the dent they’d made in the pile of wreckage. “Help’s here. We’ll have you out real soon.”

  He shouted again, telling them he’d spotted the red-blue lights of the ambulance. By the third shout, he realized—no one was answering back.

  “Wisdom Brightens A Face, Changing Its Hard Appearance” Ecclesiastes 8:1

  THE SKY SHONE like a furnace light in the west, leaving the group at the bottom of the hill sitting in the shadows. The pastor was speaking, but Vera didn’t hear a word. She stared at the top of the ridge where the sun’s last rays bathed a tall green cedar in light. The fingers protruding from the cast on her left arm felt cold. There was a chill here, not because they were committing a body to the earth, but because the vale was bordered by a row of thick-limbed elms casting ever-darkening shadows across the mourners.

  Vera stood. Cradling the sling on her arm, she left the graveside funeral, taking a short asphalt path to the ridge of a hill. Several people caught each other’s eyes, nodding and whispering, “She’s been through so much.” The old-school folks made a point of not seeing her walk away. The rules were unstated, yet understood depending on the decade you were born. Older mourners had been trained that throwing up was the only reason to parade out of a service. Fainting or dying could be done in-seat as long as it didn’t distract from the speaker. Younger funeral-goers held a different frame of mind. They came and went, especially during prayers, as though pausing to personally talk to God was a commercial break in the service.

  Vera felt their gaze and shook off their stares. If her mother had been around, she would’ve thumped the top of Vera’s ear and hissed, “You get back to that funeral right now. What will people think? ” Her mother had had rules. There’d been rules about everything. They could think what they wanted. For the first time in 60 years she refused to censure herself for selfish thoughts.

  At the top of the hill she gazed across the skies. Towering white clouds sculpted by high-altitude winds resembled steeds romping across the horizon. Patchy shadows appeared and disappeared on the ground in front of her as the thunder-ponies rolled eastward. A white mausoleum gleamed in the slant of early evening sunlight. A small creek splashed along the fence line separating the manicured grounds from wild weeds and bushy scrub oak. She sat on a granite bench, her back to the ceremony, her eyes to the sky, enjoying the sun’s heat across her shoulders.

  She gave herself permission to cry. Nothing happened. It wasn’t grief that had led her away. It was the need to sit in the light, to be still, and to listen, a gift from being trapped in a bathtub in the blackness. A rebellious tickle flitted in her stomach. Lately, she’d begun disobeying a lifetime of shoulds, have tos, and what other people thought. She’d begun questioning those rules. Clothes couldn’t be too flamboyant—a pastor’s family isn’t a bunch of showy peacocks. Houses couldn’t be too fancy—they’ll think his salary is too high. No bad language, edgy movies, or suspect friends—always set an example. When Vera was young, she’d argued that many of Jesus’s buddies wouldn’t have made the “approved” list. That had earned her a month of laundry duties. “Simple and moderate in all things” had been drummed into her, or she’d be an embarrassment to her grandfather, her father, and her husband.

  They were all dead now. Jim had inconsiderately left her stranded. He’d abandoned her with who she was when she was with him—half of a pair. She didn’t recognize that person.

  When he’d died, people had looked at her with eyes of concern, telling her how strong she was, but what choice was there? Keep going the way she always had, or fold in on herself. No one had told her—until Gus had relayed the message—there was a third option.

  Perhaps others had said it before, but not until she’d been pinned down, still and listening, was she ready to hear. She could keep going, but in a new way, discover who she was, what she liked, how she fit now that everything had changed. It seemed like a daunting task, requiring energy she didn’t have.

  She’d tied her identity to a perishable role, and when all of it went away, she’d felt lost. A nobody standing in a world where everyone else was connected. Kay had been right; her God had been too small. Years of being a preacher’s kid had hammered her with too much humility to want to be a peacock, but as the pastor’s wife and the head hen for 30 years, she’d enjoyed a little bright plumage—a false sense of control. Now she had to learn to let go. Trust like the sparrows.

  The eternal question reared its head. How? Staying busy hadn’t worked out too well. She needed to find answers, to hold up the individual shards of her life, inspecting them like a jeweler assayed gems. No doubt some of her finer pieces would turn out to be sandstone. Resculpting was coming. She wished Jim were here to help on this journey, to look at who she was, what she’d done. But he wasn’t.

  Sunlight shimmered on the water. She inhaled the fragrant scent of the kingly cedar near the mausoleum. Wind chimes tinkled in its limbs. Behind her, the whine of an electric cart whirred up the path and pulled to a stop. Soft whispers and the thunk of the brake being set floated to her ears. Finally Kay’s voice quietly called, “Feel like company?” Without turning, Vera raised a hand, beckoning with her fingers.

  “I’ve never been to a service like that,” Kay said as she walked to the bench and sat down. “I didn’t know your neighbor was an internationally-known ornithologist. They did a warbler’s tribute to him.”

  “That’s why the funeral was outdoors and so late in the day.” A sad, tender smile crossed Vera’s face. “They wanted to hear the birds’ evening songs.”

  “They made a racket like a symphony of flutophones.” Aunt Ula used the back of her hand to tap Vera’s thigh, signaling her to scoot over and share the bench. “Why did Kay pick me up from the hospital instead of you? What were you doing? You couldn’t have been organizing this picaroon-fest; you wouldn’t have hiked off.”
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  A crosshatch of stitches trailed above the old woman’s eye and a bruise, yellowing at the edges, mottled her face from her hairline to below her ear. She’d been in the hospital getting “poked with every procedure since bloodletting. They even had me pee on a stick,” she’d claimed. After a two-day stay, which she’d wangled into three, she’d been released, mad as a Lutheran goose because Vera had stayed only one day with her broken wing.

  “I was selling the Olds,” Vera said. “It was still in what was left of the garage, sporting dents, but it started. I got rid of it.”

  “Why? Dents give it character. My Subaru looked like a hammered tin can by the time they made me stop driving.”

  “Because I want a blue Mini Cooper, and we’ve always bought cars as big as party pontoons so we could haul parishioners to meetings and kids to events.”

  No one replied. The wind chimes tinked in the tree as the layers of meaning in Vera’s words soaked in. Aunt Ula gently touched her bruised cheek checking for pain. “You should’ve gotten an electric car,” she said quietly.

  “Probably. But I’m not sure I’d have a spot to recharge it in the future.”

  “Why? Kay told me we didn’t have to stay in a hotel. We could kindly berth with her until we got on our feet. Aren’t you rebuilding?”

  “I don’t know. At first I was devastated. There were so many memories in that home. But with each passing day, I also remember how that house was trying to betray me to every repairman in the phone book. The tornado finished it off before I did. I don’t have anything left to furnish a home. I’ve been downsized. My purse and photo albums have been lost; I wish I had those, but I can get by without the rest. I’ve been thinking—maybe we’ll move into a retirement center.”

  Kay leaned forward, looking at Vera. “I promised Aunt Ula I’d help if there were an opportunity. You’re both welcome to stay for as long as you need, and the truth is I’m being selfish. My boys have moved in with their dad. The walls are echoing. Every room feels too big. I’d appreciate the company.”