Sister of Silence

by Daleen Berry

  One year later and just few months before the youngest man ever to be elected president was assassinated, I was born in a hospital maternity ward without the benefit of air-conditioning, in what my mother has since said was the hottest August in the history of San Jose.

  “I should know,” she said laughing, “I lived through it. After you were born, the first thing I did was ask for a glass of water.”

  I never forgot what Mom told me about that day. A first-time father, Dad had been granted medical leave six weeks earlier from his job in Alaska, where he worked as an electronics engineer on the military’s Distant Early Warning line. “I guess she’s the youngest mother in here,” Dad told the nurse on duty.

  “Not by a long shot,” the nurse replied. “There’s a girl just fourteen down the hall having her second one.”

  Dad, who had always been a stickler for proper grammar and perfect spelling, had to complete the paperwork for my birth certificate. Nonetheless, Dale Berry’s assiduous spelling failed him the night he became a parent. Mom told me the story over and over again, how he tried to write down my gender, crossing it out and respelling it, “D-o-t-t-e-r,” before asking her how to spell the word.

  Three days after I was born, my parents took me home to Sunnyvale. I still remember the story they told me, how when I was just two, I ran around in circles on the lawn, my blond hair bobbed short. My arms reached up toward the airplanes that flew above our heads, which they said I thought I could catch and hold in my hands.

  My father, who had his private pilot’s license and had dreamed of being an airline pilot, “thought you were just adorable,” Mom said.

  Dad couldn’t live without the smell of jet fuel, and his feet were never planted on solid ground. The family joke later became that he must be part Gypsy, because he moved us from place to place every year or two. We would no sooner get settled in than Dad would be off, like a butterfly floating from one flower to the next in a big, open meadow. Thanks to a stint in Uncle Sam’s Navy, by the time he married Mom, the only continent Dad hadn’t seen was Australia.

  Not long after I was born, we migrated from California to Wyoming, where the snowfalls were so deep that we would open our front door on winter mornings to find it piled higher than I was tall. Dad would take me to work with him, sitting me inside the circle of his arms, within the protective gating of the little snow cat he used to reach his work site.

  In Wyoming, my father bought a grey Stetson cowboy hat that he took great pride in wearing, because, as my mother said, “That’s what all the men in Wyoming wore then.” His beloved hat later became a play toy for his two young daughters, in what was for me a testimony of the paternal feelings he showed when I was a little girl. But as the years passed, he was there less and less for all of us, as both his job and his booze took him away.

  Wyoming was where I first remember seeing my father play his guitar. He would come home at night, sit down on the vanilla-colored Naugahyde couch that was next to the square metal warming stove in our living room, grab his guitar, and begin playing chords and picking the strings. Before long, he would start singing some country song from his own childhood.

  One cold winter night, I sat, mesmerized, at his feet. He looked into my eyes and then, strumming his guitar, he sang the loveliest songs. After listening to his small repertoire, which included any number of tear-jerker tunes, I asked for more.

  “Play me another one, Daddy,” I begged.

  “What would you like to hear?” he asked.

  “Clementine,” I said.

  He grinned and twisted the white knobs at the end of the guitar, strumming a few times as he did so. “Oh my darlin’, oh my darlin’, oh my darlin’, Clementine…” he began.

  When he finished, I begged him to play “Red River Valley,” and “You Are My Sunshine.” By the time he sang all three songs, I had crawled up into a corner of the couch, and was growing sleepy.

  Dad placed the guitar into its case and then turned to me, trying to sidestep the beer bottles that had taken my place on the floor at his feet.

  “I think it’s somebody’s bedtime,” he said, leaning down and hugging me. As he began to tickle me all over, I laughed and wriggled out of his grasp to go over to my mother’s chair, where she smiled at our antics as she sat crocheting.

  Wyoming was a place of chuck wagons and horse riding trails, of men in cowboy hats and the wide-open spaces referred to by songwriters of long ago. It was the place where I saw my first Native American, resplendent in a full headdress.

  We had just come out of J.C. Penney’s, when I looked up and saw the largest man I had ever seen. Terrified, I grabbed my mother’s leg.

  “Mommy, will he scalp me?” I asked.

  “Shhh,” Mom’s face was red as she tried to quiet me.

  Either he didn’t hear me or he pretended not to, and my embarrassed parents hurried to our car. “No, he won’t hurt you,” she assured me.

  “Sometimes, it’s better not to say certain things, for fear of hurting another person’s feelings, or even making them angry,” Daddy said.

  After making sure my seatbelt was fastened, he closed the door and climbed into the driver’s seat. As we pulled away from the curb, I watched the solemn-looking man standing there, unmoving. From where I sat, I could hear my father’s quiet chuckle.

  My sister Carla was born in Kemmerer, Wyoming, not long after we moved there, and I was happy to have my own live baby doll. I would hop onto the couch and beg my mother to let me hold her. Then I would try to sing her some of my father’s songs. She was a beautiful baby, and Mom would style her strawberry blonde hair so it formed a pretty little curl on top of her head, or Dad would pose us together on the couch, taking pictures with his old Rolleiflex camera. Later, he would come out of our little bathroom holding long strips of dark plastic that he would show us. All I could see were tiny black spots on the plastic, and I thought it was funny when Dad pointed to the spots and said they were really Carla and me.

  The life I never should have lived began with an ill-fated American presidency, when I sat in the front seat of my mother’s little black MG as we made the 2,500-mile journey from Kemmerer, Wyoming to Albright, West Virginia, not long after President Richard Nixon took office. Dad transferred there after bidding on an open position within Western Union, where he then worked. I was five, Carla was two, and Dad’s drinking was growing worse. Mom’s loyalty remained undeterred and she seemed destined to fulfill the words of that ever-popular Tammy Wynette tune, “Stand by Your Man.”

  The long trek was the first of many things that would remind me of my Appalachian heritage, since it was made because of the strong family ties so common in that part of the country. The trip was also a sign of things to come, both in my mother’s life and mine—that need for a woman to have more independence and freedom than was common at the time, made necessary by the men who wouldn’t, or couldn’t, be there themselves.

  By then Dad was rarely home, content to spend his evenings at the local beer joints, while leaving us to fend for ourselves. My embarrassment began early, even as I struggled to do my part to keep up my parents’ picture of a happy family.

  By West Virginia standards at least, we were considered middle class. With our own assorted vehicles, and the company vehicle my father drove, our neighbors seemed to think so. But the truth was, the income Dad earned meant little to his family waiting at home, since his penchant for alcohol stole away most of his paycheck. It was money we seldom saw, unless you counted the empty beer bottles lined up on the kitchen counter.

  I still remember the fight caused by Dad’s drinking, one night when I should’ve been sleeping, but instead found myself held captive to my parents’ raised voices. I was in first grade, Carla was three. Mom had been taking night classes to get her long-delayed high school diploma. In the California of 1962, you see, pregnant girls didn’t attend classes with everyone else. When Mom got “in the family way” three months after her teen marriage, a tutor was sent to h
er home. She dropped out of school entirely after I was born to take care of me.

  One evening after she left for class, Daddy asked us if we wanted to go for a ride. “Yes!” we squealed. Going anywhere with him was a rare treat.

  Climbing into a big Oldsmobile the color of a freshly filled swimming pool, we wound down the long dirt driveway, following the road running beside the mighty Cheat River. Our car had driven that exact route so many times, it could have found its own way to the beer joint where Daddy took us. The old coal-dust-covered clapboard building sat next to the river, just a few doors down from the church where Carla and I once went to Sunday school. From time to time Daddy would take us here, or to other beer joints he frequented. Like the rest, it was loud and noisy and so hazy my eyes burned from the cigarette-smoke clouds that filled the place.

  Daddy bought Carla and me each a soda, and his buddies gathered around and took turns pinching our cheeks. Two close friends of Daddy’s stopped playing pool and came over to us. Luke and Levi were brothers in their late teens who, when outfitted with cigarettes and beer cans, looked much older.

  “How’s Little Dale today?” Levi asked with a wink, using the nickname he’d given me.

  Luke grinned at us, a cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth. “You gals have such pretty hair, and you’re so well-behaved.”

  Daddy only smiled while Luke patted our corn-silk-colored heads and gave us each a quarter. Then he prompted, “What do you say?”

  “Thank you,” we said in unison, with matching grins.

  I looked behind them to the shelves filled with bottles and watched a bartender, whose face had a worn and wrinkled look, hand Daddy a dark brown bottle that released a misty trail as its top was popped off. Daddy perched on a red vinyl-covered barstool next to a wiry old man whose eyes grew squinty when he released a puff of white smoke from his mouth. His face reminded me of a shriveled walnut shell.

  Daddy turned to me. “Hey Neelad, I have an idea. How about we play a game of pool?”

  I hung back shyly. “I don’t know how.” I watched Levi and Luke, who had returned to the pool table behind us.

  Daddy motioned to the pool cue that hung on the wall. “Well, I’ll teach you. Come on, you’ll really like it.”

  I climbed off the tall barstool and went over to stand next to Daddy. He held a small blue cube. “Here, you take it,” he said, pressing it into my hand. “There, now rub it right here.” He held the smaller end of the wooden stick toward me, and I rubbed the chalky stuff on the white tip. “That’s good,” he said, and then took the cube from me. I looked down and wrinkled my nose at my blue fingers.

  “That’ll come off,” he laughed. “Don’t worry about it.” He placed the cue in my hands and then went behind me, showing me how to hold onto it.

  “Hey, you’re using the wrong hand,” Levi yelled.

  Daddy laughed. “She’s a southpaw. A pretty good one, too.” He put his hand over my own, and showed me how to run the stick along the edge of the table. Taking my right hand, he helped me form a hole between my thumb and forefinger, showing me how the stick could slide through, and move back and forth.

  “Now, what you want to do is shoot one of these balls down into a pocket—that’s the little holes in the corners and sides of the pool table.” As he spoke, he picked up a stick and took aim. Just as I heard a sharp crack, the ball shot forward and into one of the holes. “Just like that,” he said. “Now you try it.”

  Aware of an audience, I could barely hold the long stick still enough to do anything with it. But after a few tries, and with Daddy holding the heavier end, I managed to shoot one of the balls. It didn’t go into a pocket, but it did scurry all over the table, even knocking against other balls.

  Daddy was smoking too, so as we played pool, Carla and I begged him to blow smoke rings for us. He laughed and said, “All right, just a few.” Forming an O-shape with his mouth, he produced the most magical, perfectly round wisps of smoke that escaped from his lips, floated a short distance away, and then vanished before our eyes, making us beg for more.

  Then he walked over to the bar and ordered another beer. By then, we’d been there so long we were bored. I hated to interrupt him when he was talking or playing pool, but I wanted to go home. I knew Mom would be worried if she came home and couldn’t find us.

  I tugged gently at his shirtsleeve. “Daddy, when are we going home?”

  He grinned. “As soon as I finish this one.”

  It was what he always said, and I never knew if that meant the drink he was working on, or the next one. I turned away and tried to find something to do to keep from being bored.

  Later that night I was upstairs with the new ballerina music box Daddy had won for me playing some game with the bartender, and that’s when I heard my parents downstairs. I’ll never forget Mom’s fiery voice as their words drifted up the stairs, like the smoke from one of Daddy’s cigarettes.

  “Dale, I can’t believe you took our daughters to a beer joint again!” She hissed the words, unsuccessfully trying to keep her voice a whisper. Mom only talked to Daddy like that when he came home staggering and couldn’t speak, the ever-present row of empty beer bottles his sole companions, or when he just sat at the kitchen table and stared straight ahead, ordering me or Mom to get him another beer from the fridge.

  “Oh come on, Honey,” he replied. “They like it. They had a good time.” His words were slurred.

  From upstairs, I opened and closed the music box lid, trying to watch the ballerina bend over and disappear each time, only to stand up and reappear when the lid opened again. I could hear their voices but only needed to imagine their faces. It was a scene I’d seen played out too many times before. My mother would have a stern, unsmiling expression, in direct contrast to the drunken, silly smile on my father’s face.

  “I don’t care if they did like it,” she said. “I do not want my daughters around those people. Those drunks!” I could picture her stormy blue eyes, and the way she would lean forward, shaking her finger at him.

  “Wuz wrong wif’ them?” Daddy asked. “They’re my frenz.”

  Mom was probably shaking her dark head. “I think you need to choose better friends, Dale. Remember that time one of your friends dropped Carla on her head? Besides, you drove home afterward, and you know I hate it when you drink and drive! What if something happened? What if you wrecked the car and the girls were hurt?”

  By then she was crying, and I heard Daddy’s chair scrape across the floor as he stood, legs probably wobbly as he went over and put his arms around her like he always did.

  “Hey Eileen, I’m sorry, Honey. I dint know it would make you so upset. I won’ do it again. I promise.”

  But he did. The same thing would happen again the next week. And within a year or two, it grew even worse.

  Throughout elementary school, Carla and I were together through good times and bad. Her tomboy tendencies made Carla a perfect “daddy’s girl,” which complimented my close relationship with Mom. In spite of the similar looks that declared us sisters—both fair-skinned, blue-eyed towheads—we were polar opposites. I liked to wear dresses, while Carla was happy in cut-offs and a tee shirt. I loved school, but Carla tried everything she could to escape it. I had a serious nature, while she was full of mischief. And on the way home from school, I took pains to walk around the puddles—while Carla jumped right in them, laughing as the muddy water stained her clothes.

  That first summer in Preston County, West Virginia, Dad often took us to the Western Union microwave station where he worked, and we’d play at a workbench in a room that had equipment as tall as the ceiling, a smell like that of baked electrical wires, and humming engines. Sometimes, Dad would take us outside and show us where to find nearby blackberry patches, so we could feast on the juicy black fruit. Other times, Mom would take Dad his lunch, and when he came out to greet us, he took turns tossing us up into the air, twirling us around like little airplanes. Then Mom would hand us plastic bu
ckets and take us into the deeper woods, where the best blackberries were hidden from human eyes.

  Our first few years in West Virginia were good, in spite of Dad’s drinking problem, and one of the best things about moving there was getting to know my cousins. Anne and Jeannie wore pretty costumes and took tap dancing and ballet lessons. The first time we went to visit my grandmother in Sissonville, just outside of Charleston and about a four-hour drive, the four of us dressed up in their costumes, pretending to be famous dancers.

  Their basement served as our dance floor, and we pulled out the costumes from where they were stored in a corner. I found a pink leotard with a white tutu, but when I tried to wear the little black ballet slippers, my toes wouldn’t stay pointed like my cousins’ toes did.

  “That’s because we take ballet lessons,” Jeannie said.

  “When I grow up, I want to be a ballerina,” I said.

  “You can if you take lessons, too,” Anne said.

  Because I couldn’t get my toes to work right, I donned a bright green sequined leotard with a matching hat and feathers sticking out, and some shiny black shoes with silver metal plates on the heels and toes. After trying to imitate my cousins’ movements, I soon learned how to dance a few steps. I loved the loud clicking sound of the silver metal against the solid concrete floor, but what I enjoyed most was watching Jeannie and Anne perform for Carla and me, their feet making clickety-click movements as they danced together.

  Afterward, as we left their house, I tugged on Mom’s arm. “Can I please, please, please, take dance lessons like Anne and Jeannie?”

  “We’ll see,” she said, leaving me clinging to the hope that someday I would get to dance.

  In 1971, Dad and Mom bought an ancient two-story brick home for us in Independence, several miles south of Albright. I was just eight and liked to believe my parents bought it just for me, because someone had left an old, upright piano sitting in the downstairs hallway. Its ivory keys had long since yellowed, its varnished wood was as dark as the shadows where it sat, but when I placed my fingers on the keyboard, it sounded perfect. Mom couldn’t read sheet music but could somehow play anyway, having learned some tunes many years before. She taught me to play and before long, I was tapping out songs on the old keys.