Songbird

by Lisa Samson

  Even with my less-than-ideal childhood, I always knew God had better things to do than appease Charmaine Hopewell’s curiosity. Not that He couldn’t do that and get the other things done, too, Him being omnipotent and all.

  See? This is why I don’t get into deep theological discussions. It hurts my head. I’d rather be thought of as shallow. I really would.

  Now Harlan’s another story. You should hear him argue with the Calvinists!

  I look down at my grandmother’s name there in the phone book. “Minerva Whitehead.” Well let’s hope to goodness she was rich at one time because that’s a name only money can redeem.

  Minerva Whitehead.

  Min.

  She goes by Min. I know that much because every so often Mama would sigh and say, “I know exactly what your grandma Min would say about that!”

  I begin to think up possible scenarios for my grandma living there in that little guest house.

  1. She used to live in the big house, but her husband, my grandfather, whom my mother never talked about, gambled away all the money, or lost it on Wall Street (same thing according to Harlan). She sold the big house to pay off the debts.

  2. She used to live in the big house, but then my grandfather got terminally sick and he had let the insurance lapse and they spent all their money on his insurance.When all was said and done, all my grandmother had left was the guest house.

  3. Or, heaven help me, Grandma was just the housekeeper and Mama, the illegitimate offspring of the rich man, grew up in the shadow of the wealthy family in the big house.

  I hope it isn’t number three! Of all of those, dear Lord, don’t let it be that. It’s as bad as one of Ruby’s clichés and I saw something like that in a movie with Humphrey Bogart and Audrey Hepburn, without, of course, the fornicating.

  As another Virginia autumn rain begins to tap our metal roof, I realize none of those ladies at the revival tonight was my grandmother. Nobody that birthed a woman like my mama would dance down the aisles like these gals.

  I had hoped she’d be there. I had hoped I would look out into the congregation and see my own face there, only it would be an older face with soft skin like waterlogged tree bark. The hair would be white and pulled into a soft, frizzy bun. But in the elderly department all I saw were twin sisters with salt-and-pepper poodle perms, a bleached blond beehive, and a greasy black Little Rascal girl hairdo.

  None of them could have possibly been my grandma.

  Oh, but Harlan was on fire tonight! Talking about problems that beset us. Talking about how Jesus is the answer. Not I wine or strong drink, or affairs or drugs. Even unnecessary I prescription drugs. I guess he figured he wasn’t speaking to a bunch of heroin addicts.

  Good thing my Sominex is over-the-counter!

  The clock clicks again. 1:10.

  Obviously the pills aren’t working.

  My lands.

  I recall those sleeps of my childhood and just yearn.

  If only I could feel like myself these days.

  The silver writing embossed on the cover of my pink Bible shines blue in the light of the alarm clock, so I climb up into the loft over the cab, turn on the little desk light and begin reading, knowing I’ll be asleep in no time.

  Isn’t that so sad? Satan, once again, has to get the last word, even if it’s by giving you the sleep you really need. Anything to keep you from reading what God has to say. But don’t you see, in the end God wins, because He’s the one that loves us the most.

  12

  I finally got to sleep around dawn last night. I really thought the Bible would put me to sleep as usual, but the old Woman at the Well got in my way and set me to thinking about things. First of all, I figured maybe I better put myself in her place instead of Mama all the time. That’s a surefire way not to take the message of the story to heart. And how many times do I do that? Read the Bible and think about all the people a particular passage applies to.

  Absalom: Mama

  Esther: Mrs. Evans

  David and Bathsheba: Mama

  Delilah: Mama

  Dorcas: Mrs. Evans

  Jezebel: Mama

  Poor Mama!

  So for the first time I think of myself there at the well. I actually put myself into that woman’s shoes and imagine closely what it must have been like. For some reason, it’s always summer in the Bible to me. So the air surrounding the stone well is thick and everybody’s got hot feet and dusty hems. I tell myself as I take my water jar down from some old rough-hewn shelf near my door, that I’ll walk slowly so as not to drain my strength for the walk home with the heavy jar.

  But as usual, I can’t wait to sit and gab with some of the other town strumpets, so I hurry and for one of the only times in my life no one is at the well.

  Imagine that. A big well, one that Jacob built, in the middle of Samaria, and no one’s there. No chitchat today.

  Wonder if the Woman at the Well had red hair?

  Anyway, it’s not hard to imagine it at all, me sitting on the lip of that faraway well, resting my feet. Woman like me live far away from wells I’ll bet because people are scared we’ll contaminate the water. I stare down into the water and see my silhouette against the reflection of a colorless, summer sky.

  And why is it that the weather or season is hardly mentioned in the Bible? How am I supposed to know what month Adar is?

  I gaze at the featureless outline and I think to myself, “What happened to you, Charmaine?” Of course, I doubt the Woman at the Well’s name was Charmaine, but the scriptures don’t say. One day you’re a young girl with hopes and dreams, and then, you’re sitting on the edge of a well, all alone, having had more men than you’d ever imagined.

  Joshua.

  Jeconiah.

  Ezra.

  Ananias.

  Ehud.

  All failed marriages.

  How did you make a mess of five marriages? Why is it everything you touch turns to a mess? I want to throw a handful of dust into the water to take away my dim reflection, but I don’t want to taint my own water. So I get to my feet and decide to draw out my water and get on home to Thaddeus. He’s not the marrying type.

  The ping of the rain on the RV’s roof intensifies, drawing me out of my imaginings. That poor woman. Of course Jesus came when she needed Him, when she needed a good man. But what if I sat at that well and it was really me, Charmaine Hopewell, not me pretending to be the Woman at the Well? I’d sit there looking at my silhouette and I’d cry out. I’d see not a woman who’d squandered her life on men, I’d just see somebody who once had nothing much to squander but had suddenly been given riches galore. I could hurt a lot of people now if I decided to squander my life. Harlan, Hope, Ruby, and Grace, even Melvin and Henry Windsor.

  Then Jesus would walk up to me and offer me His living water, right there at the well, and I’d drop to my knees and worship my Lord and Savior. Yes, I’d worship Him face-to-face, as I hope to do someday. Oh, Lord Jesus, just to see Your face is all I want.

  Dawn just begins to blush the sky and I drift off, safe in the knowledge that I’ve been harbored in God’s hand all these years. People may want this to be a tale of a girl who loses it all due to poor decisions, who drags her heart and soul through the mire of worldly living, who makes terrible decisions. But God doesn’t always work like that. Sometimes His grace keeps people from making huge mistakes. Maybe it’s because they’ve already received their fair share of pain from external sources.

  I call willful sin elective pain.

  Why should I elect to cause myself pain when there’s so much of it that rains down without my goading? However, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t always waiting for a twig to snap beneath my feet.

  Then again, I guess I don’t really deserve God’s favor from my own merit. He gave the land of Canaan to Israel despite the fact they were, as He put it, “a stiff-necked people.”

  I guess that’s good news for me.

  Harlan awakens me at 9:30, Hope sitting on his lap th
ere on the bed.

  “Shug? You okay? You were sleeping like the dead.”

  “Just couldn’t seem to get myself going. I tried and tried to get out of bed earlier, but just couldn’t. My goodness, I think this traveling is beginning to get to me. What I wouldn’t give for a night in a regular bed!”

  Harlen smiles. “The church ladies are giving you a luncheon at eleven-thirty. Remember?”

  I raise a hand beneath the bedspread. “I forgot. Can you pour me a Diet Coke? Maybe the caffeine will help me get going.”

  “Anything you want, sweet thing.”

  They sit me and Ruby and Grace at the head table with Mrs. Chorey and the deacon’s wives. “No, no, no, ma’am, you don’t have to bother yourselves with the buffet line,” a younger woman in a denim jumper and a rust-colored turtleneck with two oak leaves embroidered on the collar assures me. So they load up plates of fried chicken, Smithfield ham, ambrosia salad, seven-layer salad, broccoli cheese casserole, and potatoes au gratin.

  Iced tea, too. Loads of sugar. Southern tea, which, in my opinion beats all others.

  And no plastic forks for these gals. We eat with stainless on plain, serviceable china plates. I notice a nice kitchen in the back of the basement and I think to myself for the first time ever, “If Harlan and I ever have our own church, I want a nice kitchen with real cutlery and plates.”

  Peanut-butter pie for dessert.

  They don’t make peanut-butter pie better anywhere than Suffolk, which is the peanut capital of the world, after all.

  That reminds me. I might seek out the recipe and try it out on Harlan. Last night after the meeting I made some chocolate junket and put it in the fridge. I’m going to give some to Hope this afternoon as a little treat. Mrs. Evans used to make junket for me as a treat.

  Mrs. Chorey leans over to me after I put a bit of ham in my mouth. “Look at them. They’re a nice bunch, these ladies.”

  I swallow. “Yes?”

  “Oh, yes. Now, lest you think I’m a regular Pollyanna, I’ve been in churches where nothing I did was right no matter how hard I tried, but these people, they’re special.”

  I’m glad to hear that. “What do you think the difference is?”

  She shrugs. “Spiritual maturity. Several large, close families in the midst. Who’s to say?”

  “Every so often we come to a church like this. Usually they’re small and humble.”

  “I know. Can’t say many of the high falutin’ types come here to Grace and Truth.”

  The time has come. “There’s a woman in this town my mama knew. I was wondering if you knew of her.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “Minerva Whitehead. Lives over on Freemason Street.”

  She taps her chin. “Name sounds familiar, but I can’t place it. Definitely doesn’t go to church here. But if she lives on Freemason Street that might explain it!”

  “Oh, she lives in one of the guest houses, I think.”

  “Then I’m surprised she hasn’t found us!”

  We laugh.

  “She doesn’t know me, but she knew my mama very well.”

  “Is your Mama all right?”

  “Oh, she died when I was eleven.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “So you see, meeting this woman — “

  “I understand. Let me ask Tanzel over there after lunch. See the pretty lady with the gray curls in the burgundy sweater? She’s the church secretary and knows everybody in town.”

  “I’d be grateful.” I lay a hand on her arm. “Please don’t tell my husband, though, Mrs. Chorey. My grief over my mama worries him, and I hate to worry him.”

  “Oh, my dear. I understand about how a preacher’s wife protects her husband from all sorts of things.”

  “If we don’t, no one else will.”

  “You’re a real peach Mrs. Hopewell.”

  When she called me that, I wanted to cry.

  We sit in the church office drinking tea. All sorts of framed funny sayings are hanging on Tanzel’s walls. Things like, I HAVE ONE NERVE LEFT AND YOU’RE STANDING ON IT.

  She smiles. “The ones about menopause are taped in my drawer!”

  I feel a kinship with her right away and know I’ll come back to this place every time I’m in this area.

  “So you want to know about Mrs. Whitehead?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Minerva Whitehead. You know her?”

  “Oh, yes, I sure do know Min Whitehead. Went to Sunday school with her for a while years ago. She was my son’s sixth-grade teacher.”

  “She was a teacher?”

  “Still is. But now she teaches fifth grade because she said she didn’t want to move up to the middle school. She’s the elementary type.”

  “Really?”

  “Oh, my yes. You should see Min with children. She’s always been everyone’s favorite teacher.”

  Not at all what I expected. “Has she always lived in that house?”

  “She and her husband bought it back after the war. They’re not from here.” Tanzel leans forward. “She’s from … Florida.”

  “Oh,” I whisper. “Is she the type that would mind if I dropped in?”

  “Not at all.”

  “What about her husband? My mama never mentioned him much.”

  “He died of cancer about four years after their daughter was born. Her name was Isla. She was always a strange one.” She leaned forward. “Left years ago and hasn’t been back since.”

  My heart fell. Maybe Grandma Min knew as little as I did about the whereabouts of Mama. But now I knew, at least, I wouldn’t be running into Mama. I wouldn’t just be showing up at her abode with a big-haired, big-toothed “Surprise!”

  “How strange was this Isla?”

  “Some folks just seem like they’re not with you, even when you’re two feet from them.”

  That sure described Mama.

  “Had a lot of boyfriends, too. Very promiscuous. Not that her mother knew the extent of it. But, well, my daughter always filled me in on the high-school gossip. I think she broke Minerva’s heart. She’d disappear for days at a time.”

  “I can’t imagine having to deal with that.”

  Tanzel reached into her drawer and pulled out a ledger, then slid a pen out of the holder at the corner of the desk. “I think it hardens you after a while. I mean, you love them, but you have to decide whether or not you’re going to let that love kill you or make you strong, if you’re going to go on living, or not.”

  13

  I really thought Grace had gone on the wagon, but she fooled me. She’d only added to her repertoire. I don’t blame Ruby for not telling me. She keeps my secrets, too.

  Ruby has been trying to get me on antidepressants for the past few years and so far I’ve resisted. Harlan’s content to believe I’m “just not a morning person.” Besides, with his message of “What’s Really Eating You” and his brother E.J.’s experience with the psychiatric realm, I’m trusting God to deliver me someday.

  It’s a light depression, I’m sure. I mean, I do eventually get out of bed, and I read that depressed people get very snappish, and I’m not a snappish person at all. At least not much, and only at Grace. So I must not have a bad case.

  I think Grace must deal with something like depression, too. When I first started making costumes for Grace she was a size eight. Now she’s a four. Which I am, too, but I’m short. Grace is 5’8”.

  I still love Grace like my cousin as I did years ago, I just now love her as the cousin who’s a screwup. If that sounds harsh, well maybe it is. But obviously somebody should have been harsher with Grace years ago.

  The real icing on the cake to this situation is that Grace’s parents wait for my calls to tell them that their daughter is all right. Isn’t that rich? I have to call someone else’s parents, me, the girl who has none, to let them know their daughter is still alive. Of course I lie, lie, lie, and tell them she’s fine.

  I’ve ranted at Harlan. “Why? Why do I do this?”


  “You don’t do it for Grace, honey, you do it for her parents.”

  “Still.”

  “I know, sweetheart, I know.”

  “Will she ever wake up to herself?”

  “I don’t know. But that’s not our concern.”

  “It will be if she disgraces the ministry, Harlan!”

  “How in the world can Grace do that?”

  I don’t know the answer to that. But I’m sure it isn’t out of the realm of possibility.

  “Well, I shouldn’t lie, though. At least we can agree on that.”

  “You’re right. But I’m not going to pretend I can’t understand why you do.”

  We’ve had this conversation so many times it makes me sick. And still something inside me tells me not to let Grace go, to hang in there for her parents, if nothing else. If I was honest, I’d realize it was more, I’d realize I was assigned to Grace as surely as I’d been assigned to sing.

  What a pain!

  Oh, Lord!

  I lay Hope in the bed for a nap, grab a can of Diet Coke, and walk over to the girls’ trailer. I knock. “Grace? You there?”

  “Come on in, Charmaine.”

  I do. She sits at the dinette with a glass of clear liquid. “Hey Charmaine, I’m just having a glass of water. Want some?”

  I know it isn’t water but I play along.

  “No thanks. I brought my soda. Where’s Leo?”

  She points to the bed at the back of the trailer. He lies in a lump on the bed, shoes still on his feet, face in need of a good wipe. Four years ago Grace, who swore she’d never sing gospel songs and fled Ruby and me, showed up at one of our crusades with a newborn. Little Leo. “Grace.”

  “Don’t say it, Charmaine.”

  “Don’t say what?”

  “Oh, come off it. You know.”

  “Look, you can drag yourself down this path you’ve cho-sen. But what about your boy? Doesn’t he deserve better?”

  “Yes, he does. Better than this two bit crusade ! Better than traveling around in a trailer and singing in tasteless, homemade costumes. I’ve ruined my life and I’m taking a baby along for the ride. Yes, he deserves better. Feel good, now?”