Songbird

by Lisa Samson

  Despite our age difference, Stacy became my best friend and as much of a sister as an only child deserted by her philandering mother could hope to have. Stacy, sophomore cheerleader over at E.C. Glass High School, spent hours with me listening to popular rock ‘n’ roll groups with geographical names: Kansas, Boston, Chicago. Stacy and I sang duets at church, too. We’d practice at home, Mrs. Evans at the Kimball stabbing out the alto part again and again with Stacy.

  “Why don’t you just let Peach sing the harmony?” Stacy complained every practice. “She gets it right away.”

  “Because she needs to sing the higher notes, honey. When you go above a high C you sound like an air hose.” And then she’d turn around on the revolving piano stool, pull Stacy in close and say, “A good alto range is nothing to sneeze at.”

  “But I don’t hear the part, Mama!”

  “That’s what practice is for.”

  And so on and so forth.

  Stacy just sighed, shook her head, and rolled her eyes.

  And that describes the way life turned out at the Evanses. And you know what? Mrs. Evans never even blinked when, every single day after school (I actually got to skip the seventh grade), I ran down the hill and I hollered, “You hear anything today?” Never once. She’d just shake her head and say, “Sorry, Peach. Maybe tomorrow will be different.”

  Mrs. Evans always had something to report after her shifts at the hospital. And we’d come to know the patients that stayed on a little longer than most. I do believe this is when I learned to care for the nameless and the faceless.

  When my first menstrual period trickled onto the scene, I felt Mama’s absence with a dentist-chair pain. It hit me at that moment there in the bathroom as I stared down at the bloody spot on my underwear that the important firsts had just begun. I held out hope for Mama’s return for my various graduations, my wedding day, the birth of my someday children, but I had forgotten about that first passage into womanhood.

  The fact that I was the last girl in my class to get “it” didn’t help matters any. I carried the same maxipad, taken from communal stash of women’s hygiene products in the linen closet, around in my purse for a year, pretending I was just like the rest of them.

  I knew I wasn’t like the rest of them.

  Not even close.

  I considered not telling Mrs. Evans about it. No need, though. Mrs. Evans is like one of those wise old Chinese women. She just knew.

  “Myrtle, honey?”

  I remained in the bathroom. Had already flushed and all. And now I sat on the floor with my back up against the tub, feeling that thick mattress of a thing between my legs. Nobody prepares you for that feeling. That foreignness. That walk through a previously unknown portal where paper products end up in hitherto lonely territory.

  It felt lonely. See, nobody can menstruate for you. You’re just plum on your own with that one.

  “Yes, Miz Evans?”

  “You all right in there, Peach? You been in there a while.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “What’re you doing?”

  “Just sitting here on the floor.”

  “On all that cold tile?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  I could hear her feet shuffling on the hardwood floor. “Can I come in?”

  “Okay.” And I got to my knees and reached up to disengage the lock.

  She stood there in her sweater. That fall day, my second month of ninth grade, a light breeze whispered in through the bathroom window. It rustled through my hair and across my eyes.

  Mrs. Evans’s gaze slid to the little wicker trash can where the cardboard box to the maxipad belt stood on end. “Oh, Peach.”

  And she sat right down next to me and put her arm around my shoulders. “You okay?”

  “I guess so. My stomach hurts a little. Actually it’s around the back some.”

  “Those are cramps.”

  “Why do you get them?”

  And she explained the entire thing. The sloughing, the bleeding, the ramifications of this monthly womanly activity.

  My eyes inflated. I already knew about sex and all that. I mean, a kid doesn’t reach the ninth grade without learning a thing or two from a dirty joke they failed to understand. But the reality of all that sickened me, because I remembered Mama.

  Mama was a woman. Mama had periods. Mama had a baby. Therefore Mama had sex with … who? There it was again. That father business.

  It always amazes me how the mind travels like a jet plane. One second you’re thinking about periods and the next you’re wondering who your father is.

  “Well, Peach. You know where the stuff is. You need any help?”

  “Oh, no ma’am!”

  And I got one of her hugs. “You’ll be okay.”

  “I suspect I will.”

  She smiled. “Every female that’s made it past the age of thirteen or fourteen survived it.”

  I sure knew about surviving.

  “I’ve got a surprise for you.” She grabbed hold of the lip of the square porcelain sink and levered herself to her feet. Her excitement pulled me to mine and she took my hand and dragged me to the kitchen table. “Now just sit down right there, Myrtle, and listen to me.”

  She clasped her hands in front of her ribs. “Guess what?”

  “What?”

  “You’ll never believe this.”

  “What?”

  I sat on the edge of my chair.

  “Mr. Evans and I have decided to get you voice lessons!”

  “Really?”

  I hardly knew how to react. Lessons. Real lessons. Like piano lessons. Or art lessons. Or ballet lessons. Only voice lessons. Lessons like Vicki Miller’s flute lessons.

  “You excited?”

  I nodded.

  But at the same time. Lessons. Permanence. But hey, Mama’d sure be excited once she came home to find me singing even better than before!

  Isn’t that right?

  I thought about The Brady Bunch right then. Stacy and I watched The Brady Bunch after school every day. And, oh, how I loved those episodes where the kids performed! All dressed up in white outfits with fringes and rhinestones! Or a rainbow theme, each boy and girl in a different color.

  Sha, na, na, nah, na, na, na, nah!

  Sha, na, na, na, nah.

  Maybe I’d sing even better than Marsha Brady! Maybe I’d join up with some snazzy group like that, where we’d twirl around to choreography, hold microphones, dig the air with bent elbows, and end on an upward note with hands to match.

  10

  One day I found out that there are actual people out there that never even had a birthday cake! Not once did someone say to them, “I’m so glad you were born that day eight, or however many years ago, that I’m going to make you a cake!”

  I once read a book about a preacher who threw a party for a prostitute at an all-night donut shop. Cake. Decorations. Other prostitutes. The bakery guy. And this preacher.

  She said, “I’ve never had a birthday cake before. Can I just take it home?”

  So that’s one of those “count my blessings thoughts.” Thank You, God, the Evanses didn’t give me just one birthday cake a year, but two.

  In the winter of 1973, two years after Mama left, I asked Jesus into my heart. Now, I’m still not sure where that phrase “ask Jesus into your heart” ever came from cause it’s not in the Bible.

  Jesus says, “Lo, I stand at the door and knock.”

  But He didn’t say “the door to your heart.”

  He also said, “He that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.”

  Although, I doubt He said “believeth” as He was Jewish and not a fancy-pants English fellow.

  It was a December Sunday, my conversion. It wouldn’t have made headlines in Sword of the Lord or even Christianity Today, for that matter. It was a quiet occurrence between me and God with Mrs. Evans in attendance.

  The pastor at First Baptist preached about the Woman at the Well, which by
now is known by all who have attended one of our revival meetings as my favorite story. How many times I wished Jesus awarded Mama the same chance He gave that lady. But I realized that day, at thirteen years old, that the Lord whispered my name.

  Myrtle Charmaine! You need to get on over here now with Me. Drink of My living water. ‘Cause it goes with you wherever you are. Lo, I am with you always even unto the end of the age.

  I pictured Him waving His arm just like Mrs. Evans did.

  After the service, we ate chicken an’ Jiffy dumplings there in the kitchen at the Evanses’ house, and I drank three glasses of water. I cleared the table while Stacy washed the dishes and Frances dried. James was away at college that year getting his master’s degree in anthropology.

  “Mrs. Evans?”

  “Yes, Peach?” She looked up from the kitchen table where she sat with the Sunday crossword from the News and Daily Advance.

  “I was thinking about that living water Pastor Fred was talking about in his sermon.”

  Stacy and Frances froze.

  “Was a fine sermon, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Have you drunk that water?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “What about Stacy and Frances?”

  “Why don’t you ask them?”

  They restarted their chore with a vengeance.

  “Well?” I set a bouquet of silverware into the soapy depths at the kitchen sink.

  “I asked Jesus into my heart when I was five,” Stacy said.

  Frances adjusted the stream of water. “I was eleven.”

  “What about James?”

  Mrs. Evans nodded. “A few years ago. He was longer in coming to the Lord. Had to sow some wild oats first.” She turned to her mother. “Right, Mama?”

  The old lady nodded and scratched her limber cheek. “Some do, Peach. And that’s a fact. But some don’t. Some just believe and that’s that.”

  I thought for a moment, wondering if Mama ever heard about living water, because she sure as anything knew about wild oats, if wild oats were what I thought!

  “Well, I might as well get it over with,” I sighed.

  The entire kitchen erupted in laughter and all those arms, so good at waving, went around me. Mrs. Evans led me through a prayer and I told the Lord how much I loved Him, how I believe He died and rose again and took all my sins to the cross. The hatred I felt for Vicki Miller came clearly to mind just then. And I asked His forgiveness, expressing my thankfulness in advance for His guidance in my life.

  Mrs. Evans thought of that.

  And then I said “Amen.”

  “Well, hallelujah!” Grandma said.

  “Amen to that!” Mrs. Evans agreed.

  And Stacy looked at Frances and then her mother. “The Lord brought her to us for this moment, Mama.”

  “Yes, He did, Stacy. He certainly did.”

  In February of 1974, two months after my fourteenth birthday, I came home from voice lessons on a Monday evening. Right there on the kitchen table sat a large cake with white icing, and on the icing, in feeble Grandmotherly handwriting, lay the words “Happy First Birthday Myrtle!!!!”

  Just like that. Four exclamation points.

  At first I felt confused.

  Then Grandma shuffled in with her walker. “You like the cake I made you?”

  “It’s beautiful. But—”

  “It’s not your birthday and you’re a lot more than one year old.” Then she laughed and leaned forward. “Oh, Peach. Don’t be alarmed. Today’s your spiritual birthday. See there?” And she pointed to the calendar on the wall. Right there two cross beams intersected and the words “Myrtle, one year,” shouted their way off the page to land right inside my heart. She pulled out the chair next to her. “That’s the day you gave your heart to Jesus.”

  “And you made me a cake for that?”

  “It’s what we do here.”

  I sat down.

  “You want a piece?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Well, all right, then.”

  There was no song, no party. Grandma didn’t even call the others to the table. We just sat together. Her and me. And we each ate two pieces of red velvet cake.

  We ate off Grandma’s old willowware pattern plates. And I gazed on the two doves flying above the wedding pagoda wondering what love feels like. To escape death and dismay and fly away to a place called love.

  “I love these plates, Grandma.”

  “I’ve always loved willowware.”

  Grandma didn’t have much, but what she had she loved.

  I asked Stacy about the birthday cake that night as we lay in blankets and moonbeams.

  “Oh, that’s Grandma’s thing,” she said.

  “It’s nice.”

  “It sure is. What kind of cake did she make?”

  “Red velvet with cream cheese icing.”

  “Is there any left?”

  I nodded.

  “Wanna sneak into the kitchen and have a midnight snack?”

  “Okay.”

  In the dark, swallowing giant gulps of milk from cavernous brown mugs, we ate together. Like sisters do, I guess.

  “You know, Mama never let me drink big glasses of milk,” I told Stacy.

  “There’s nothing like a big old swallow, is there, Peach?”

  “Nope.”

  Stacy straightened some hairpins in her soup-can rollers attached to the back of her head and she screwed up her pansy eyes, looking just like her mother. “Do you know how glad we are you came to live with us?”

  I nodded.

  “Why won’t you become an Evans, Myrtle? Mother and Daddy want to adopt you so badly. I heard them talking about it on the phone last night.”

  The reason I don’t mention Mr. Evans all that much is because he was a traveling salesman for a children’s clothing line. I saw a play years later about a traveling salesman for a clothing line, but Mr. Evans acted nothing like that guy. A real cracker, he sold clothes like preachers sold hope. Every Saturday night he took us over to Billy Joe’s for burgers and ice cream. And every Monday morning he kissed my cheek before he slid into his Buick and drove south, or north, or west, or wherever he headed that week. Any kid would have been thrilled to have this kind man for a father. And Frances, James, and Stacy loved Mr. Evans.

  “I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” I said.

  “Well, it’s okay. You act like an Evans now, even if you don’t have the last name. And you’ll always be my little sister. I prayed for a little sister for years and you were God’s answer.”

  “But you all know I love you. Don’t you?” Didn’t they? The thought alarmed me.

  “Of course we do, Peach.”

  I climbed back up to the top bunk a few minutes later and I folded my arms behind my head and lay back, angry at myself.

  Just why are you being so loyal to that woman, Myrtle? You’re just a big old fool. She’s been gone for a long time now, Myrtle Charmaine Whitehead. Mama’s gone. And she ain’t never coming back.

  11

  That same spring, I arrived early at the school auditorium, well before the start of the performance. In the front-row, I laid out six programs. My hands shook, the papers vibrating like an autumn leaf as I gently laid them on the tops of the padded movie-theater-type seats.

  The spring play, and I received a part.

  West Side Story !

  No, I wasn’t Maria. Not Myrtle Charmaine Whitehead! But Vicki Miller wasn’t either, because Vicki Miller still haunted junior high school.

  Ha-haaah.

  Sometimes good things do happen to good people.

  Nevertheless, I sang my heart out as one of the Shark girls. Stomping and clapping and happy to be “free in Amadeeca.” I twirled my skirt, kicked up my foot and jerked my head back and forth.

  New York City, here I come!

  I realized I might even run into Mama up that way.

  Every time I twirled toward the front of the stage there they were. My family.


  Grandma smiled with the sweet, placid face of a china doll. Mrs. Evans sat comfy and satisfied. Mr. Evans just smiled and the Evans kids looked ready to erupt in an-end-of-the-game, one-point-ahead cheer.

  North. South. East. West. Myrtle Charmaine, she’s the best! Goooo Peach!

  We celebrated that night at Billy Joe’s. Mr. Evans even let us order hot fudge sundaes. “What a great evening!” he said, tipping his water glass to me.

  “It was your night to shine, Myrtle!” Mrs. Evans reached over and gave me hug.

  “I wasn’t the star, Mrs. Evans.”

  “You were to me.”

  I held the embrace longer than usual and I wanted so badly to tell her I loved her. To let her know that, just in case.

  But I didn’t.

  I look back now, all these years later and hold that moment with more regret than any other in my life. Lost opportunities affect us all and we promise we’ll make up for it someday, redeem the time, make it right.

  But sometimes you can’t.

  And that pain never leaves. All you can really do is push it from your mind and propose to make as few mistakes like that as you can in the future.

  I hugged her tightly and didn’t let go until she made the first move.

  12

  Don’t get too comfortable with your life.

  If there’s one thing I’ve learned after all I’ve seen, done, and heard, it’s that. God uses bad circumstances for His good. Just ask Joseph. Just ask Noah. Just ask:

  Mary.

  Joshua.

  David.

  Abraham.

  Jacob.

  Rahab the harlot.

  All those Bible people.

  But God gives “more grace when the burdens grow greater.”

  Just like the song says.

  Near the end of ninth grade, during April of 1974 when the trees had lost their froth of color but their leaves still shone tender, the principal of the school called me out of class.

  Sometimes you just know that something’s wrong. But something could have been right, too. Maybe Mama came back and maybe Mr. Jackson felt sad for Mrs. Evans because that meant I’d be leaving her house.

  He ushered me into the inner sanctum of the school offices and set me in one of the two chairs in front of his desk. He eased his skinny self down into the other one then set an earth shoe atop one wine-colored polyester clad knee, truly tipping me off that I wasn’t in trouble. The authority of the desk didn’t separate us. He was going to talk human to human.