Sing Them Home

by Stephanie Kallos

  “I promise, Viney,” Larken says.

  “Me, too,” says Gaelan.

  “Bonnie?” Viney prompts.

  Bonnie looks up. For a fleeting moment, the expression on her face allows Larken to remember what their mother looked like. “Yes, Viney. I’ll try.”

  And then the resemblance is gone. Bonnie looks like herself again and Larken can’t recall a single thing about Hope’s face.

  “Well, this is it, then,” Viney says, looking toward the door. “Oh! I almost forgot.” Hurriedly, she hands each of them a small, flip-top style notebook; a short, nubby pencil is snugly encased within the spiraling wire that holds it together. Then she sighs and settles deeper into the sofa cushions, giving Larken’s hand an extra squeeze. Outside, there’s a crescendo of footsteps coming up the wooden front steps and across the porch.

  “Let’s be extra especially good to one another, dear ones,” she adds. “We’re in for an allergic week.”

  Before any of them have a chance to question this odd, fierce woman who is not legally their stepmother, but is that, and so much more, and more even than they know (What was that, Viney? Did you say “allergic”?), the doorbell rings, the mourners are admitted, and the three days of silence, the Tridiau, begins.

  Hope’s Diary, 1960:

  No one is dead until they’ve been sung to

  Exactly nine weeks, sixty-three (count ’em) 63 days until I’m Mrs. Llewellyn Jones! Sixty-three days and as many nights. Writing it that way makes it seem so far away. Possibly I should have opted for a more complex and peopled wedding, hundreds of guests and many bridesmaids and groomsmen, etc., poetry recitations, soprano solos, string quartets, monogrammed cocktail napkins, buffet tables and a big band at the Elks Club, and so on. Those kinds of weddings take planning. A bride having a wedding like that would be grateful to have 63 more days to get things done. But poor Papa is overextended already—who knew that even a small wedding could cost so much?—and besides, a big wedding isn’t my style, or L.’s. I only wish we didn’t have to wait so long.

  I feel like such a schoolgirl, but never mind—getting married is a universal topic and it’s what occupies me completely, or nearly.

  All right: Sex. (What sense does it make to be coy in one’s own diary?) That’s the real topic.

  We’ve talked about it. L. is experienced, of course—one expects that of men. Especially 26–year-old men who are handsome, brilliant, kind, and gifted with a voice so sonorous that surely even the meadow-larks are entranced by it. How did I get so lucky?

  Tonight at dinner, looser-lipped than usual from having had two gin and tonics, I pressed him for details.

  “Tell me how you lost your virginity,” I said.

  “Girls are supposed to remain ignorant of their future husbands’sexual histories.”

  “Yes, and look how well that’s turned out! More than half of all English literature for the past century has plot lines arising from that kind of ignorance.”

  “How can you be so blasé about it?”

  “I’m not blasé! I’m intrigued. I hope to reap the benefit of your years of experience. When was your first time?”

  “Hope.”

  “Come on, tell me. How old were you?”

  “Twelve.”

  “No!”

  “See, I knew you’d be shocked.”

  “I’m not shocked.” (Although I was. A little.)

  “How many women have you—?”

  “No. Absolutely not.”

  “Ah. I see. Too many to count.”

  “It’s different when you grow up in the country.”

  “You liar! That has nothing to do with it.”

  “Let’s really not talk about this.”

  “A sexually experienced prude. You would have made an exemplary Victorian.”

  “And you would have thrived in the Roaring Twenties.”

  “I have no worries about our sex life. I’d just like to get it under way.”

  “Hope, I want our wedding night to be special.”

  “For you, you mean!”

  “For both of us.”

  There was something so sweet and sincere in his expression, I stopped teasing. “I want it to be special, too, and that’s exactly why we should get in some practice beforehand.”

  “Hope.”

  “Think about it! Would you be able to operate on a patient if you hadn’t practiced on … oh, what’s his name?”

  “Who?”

  “Your cadaver.”

  “You’ve had too much to drink.”

  “Alistair! You practiced on Alistair. And what kind of a senior recital would I give if I hadn’t practiced? Practice makes perfect.”

  “I’m taking you home now.”

  “Things can go wrong, you know, on wedding nights. I could be … impenetrable, or something. And how special will our honeymoon night be then, Casanova?”

  “Right. Shh,” he said.

  “Make me,” I answered.

  Instead of the big, sloppy smooch I was hoping for, he popped an after-dinner mint into my mouth, gave me a peck on my cheek, and helped me into my coat—which seemed to have grown an alarming number of sleeves. We left L.’s car at the restaurant and walked back to the sorority house. The fresh air had a sobering effect on my balance but did nothing whatsoever to diminish my ardor. I’m such a cheap drunk.

  At the door, L. gave me another too-chaste kiss and made to leave. I pulled him back.

  “More please,” I said.

  He complied.

  “Another.”

  Such an excellent mouth.

  L. and I took a break from studying/practicing tonight and went to a movie: The Man Who Knew Too Much. James Stewart as a physician and Doris Day as his wife. Naturally, she was a former music hall celebrity and frequently called upon to burst into song.

  Afterward, L. and I went out to Tastee’s for malts. “Don’t you dare shoot ME full of sedatives if one of our children is kidnapped by international assassins,” I said.

  He laughed. “I won’t. I promise.”

  We took a long meandering walk back, holding hands. Beautiful early spring night.

  “Don’t you love the fact that she never lost her voice or neglected her lipstick during the crisis?” I asked. “I’d like to be like that. ‘Que sera, sera… Whatever will be, will be …’”

  “She hates that song apparently.”

  “Who? Doris? How do you know?”

  L. shrugged. “I heard it somewhere.”

  “Well, I like it. That’s the song I’m going to request from now on whenever we’re out dancing, the one the orchestra will play at our 50th wedding anniversary, is that all right with you, Doctor?”

  My answer came in the form of several chocolate malt—flavored kisses.

  L.’s grandmother (paternal) died suddenly this morning—a massive stroke, the way we’d all like to go, I suppose, without preamble or struggle, but on the flip side, without preparation—and after telling me about it (midway through breakfast, I should add, and only after I pestered him to tell me what was wrong), L. announced that he planned to attend the funeral by himself.

  I reminded him that this is exactly the kind of occasion where I should be at his side, not just at happy gatherings like our engagement party, but real life-and-death events. “In sickness and in health” is how the vows go after all. But he did everything he could to dissuade me from coming.

  “Why are you being so resistant?” I finally asked.

  “I’m not. I’m just being practical. You’ll be missing classes right before finals.”

  “I can arrange things with my professors. They’ll understand.”

  “I’ll be down there for over a week,” he said. “Emlyn Springs takes a long time burying the dead.” He often talks about his hometown like this—as if it was person.

  “A week? That’s nothing. You’ll want to be there at least a few days before and after the funeral.”

  “You don’t understand. The f
uneral takes a week. Well, not exactly the funeral, but … It’s just that there’s a whole … thing that happens that I have to be there for.”

  I could tell he was about to go down the conversational rabbit hole again, so I prompted: “Your grandmother must have been very prominent in the community.”

  “No. They do this for everybody.”

  When I asked him to explain, he was purposely vague, saying something about there being a lot of rites and rituals to observe.

  “You have to know that the more evasive you are, the more determined I’m going to be, so you might as well spill the beans.”

  “All right,” he sighed. “I’ll try.” He took a sip of his orange juice with the resigned melancholy of a man who will never taste orange juice again. “First there’s a three-day mourning period with lots of strictly enforced rules—that happens at my folks’—then there’s a parade, a church service, another parade …”

  “It sounds fascinating.”

  “It’s grotesque, Hope. Truly. I just don’t want to subject you to it. It’s part Irish wake, part Jerusalem wailing wall, and entirely morbid. The whole thing culminates in this big party at the home of the deceased where the dead guy is laid out next to the cold cuts and macaroni salad and Jell-O and six-packs of Schlitz and everybody eats and drinks and sings Welsh hymns for another three days and after that the townsfolk walk up to the cemetery, bury the poor fool, and then finally thank God it’s over.” (My dear fiancé: atheist and blasphemer.)

  “But not ‘some dead guy’ in this case,” I reminded him, gently. “Not some ‘poor fool.’ Your grandmother.”

  “Yes,” he said, chastened. “My grandmother.”

  “A whole town coming together like that to mourn one of its own? It’s remarkable.”

  “It’s bizarre. Trust me. It’s bizarre for me, and I grew up there. It’s even more bizarre for an outsider.”

  “An outsider? Who would that be, I wonder?”

  “You know what I mean, Hope. Don’t get bristly.” (It’s true. I bristled.)

  “All right, but I’ve been wanting to visit your hometown. Under happier circumstances, of course, but this will give me a chance to meet the rest of your family and the people you grew up with.”

  “How about your senior recital? Don’t you need to practice?”

  “What, there are no pianos in this town that sing to the dead?”

  L. would not be teased, and at this point he assumed that closed, furrowed expression he gets when he’s frustrated. L.’s patients surely interpret it differently; to anyone who doesn’t know him as I do, this expression must look reassuringly contemplative.

  “Llewellyn, your family is soon going to be my family. These people you come from are going to be my people.” More Doctor Face from L. I wanted to give him a big indecent kiss but instead dug in my heels. “Fine, then. Go by yourself. I have a driver’s license, I can borrow a car from one of the girls, I can buy a road map at Woolworth’s, and if Emlyn Springs is as small as you say, then I should be able to find your parents’ house by asking directions of the first person I see.”

  “I just want to protect you.”

  “Protect me from what?”

  “I can’t explain it, Hope,” he muttered. “I just think it’s a bad idea.”

  What I did next was below the belt, but in my defense I was frustrated. L. can just be so infuriatingly stoic sometimes.

  I summoned my most nauseatingly damsel-in-distress voice and said, “Maybe you’re ashamed of me. Maybe that’s the real reason you don’t want me to go.”

  That did it.

  “No!” he practically shouted, grabbing for my hand. “No! Of course not.”

  I felt heartily ashamed of myself. In fact I despise women who manipulate men in this way and have always made a point of not doing so. I can see the temptation though, especially when it gets such a dramatic result.

  I gave L. a punch on the arm—a chummy, unfeminine gesture if ever there was one—and said, “Stop being such a worrywart and finish your breakfast. I’ll call later after I talk to my professors and we’ll make a plan for tomorrow, okay?”

  No reply, so I gave him a peck on the cheek and left him staring glumly at his fried eggs and hash.

  The rest of the day was spent arranging and reasoning and cajoling and coaxing with all parties involved—no one required half as much convincing as L.—and in the end we’re clear to leave tomorrow morning.

  Must go now. Tired, but leaving fairly early in the A.M. and there’s still packing to do.

  * * *

  Dear Diary (for so I must begin, feeling as if I’ve landed in another century!),

  What a day—I hardly know where to start.

  With place, perhaps: I am ever-so-virginally ensconced in the guest bedroom of Llewellyn’s family home (the one in town, that is, as opposed to the farmhouse northeast of town, which L. has promised to show me sometime before we go back to Lincoln).

  L.’s mother Lillian keeps a very clean house. Already I fear that my abilities as a housekeeper will fall far short of what L. is used to. The curtains and bedspread have an odd smell—musty, but at the same time slightly chlorinated, as if they had a long and unhappy prior life as bed linens in a Catholic hospital. Expect my dreams to be visited by towering nuns wearing starched pillowcases instead of habits.

  Everyone has been very nice, but I have the feeling that there’s something improper about my being here, and that this kind of thing—unmarried young people sleeping under the same roof—is frowned upon. Maybe this is the real reason L. didn’t want me to come. After Lillian came by to say good night, I half expected to hear a key turning from the outside, locking me in, insuring against any nocturnal improprieties on L.’s part. (If only she knew that her son is the one in need of protection.)

  We arrived today later than expected, having gotten a late start. L. surprised me by saying he’d decided to spend the better part of the morning at the library, studying. I know he’s nervous about his medical boards, but still, it puzzled me. He seemed reluctant to get going, which is not like him, usually all hustle and bustle and brisk efficiency. And once we were finally on the road, I’ve never seen him drive so cautiously or obediently. We would have made it faster had we come by horse and buggy.

  On the way, I asked L. about what it was like growing up in such a small town. He hasn’t been very forthcoming about his childhood. Not that I think he’s hiding something. He just seems so unaffected, as if he sprang into the world fully formed and uninfluenced by anything that came before we met. He’s very here-and-now, my L., not prone to journeys down memory lane.

  L. admitted that it’s a bit odd growing up in a place where your family is an anomaly because they don’t ranch or grow corn. “Being a preacher’s kid is a stigma wherever you are, but in a farming community you can feel a little … left out, I guess, unimportant, superfluous.”

  “How so?”

  “Having a dad who feeds souls isn’t exactly like having a dad who feeds stomachs.”

  “I can’t imagine anything more important than giving spiritual guidance.”

  “Is that what he does?” Llewellyn asked, an edge to his voice. “I thought he just bossed people around.”

  “Ha! And that’s not what doctors do?” I challenged him. “Boss people around while keeping them in the dark?”

  “Hope.”

  “I peeked at your medical ethics essay exam: ‘In the case of serious illness, patients should be shielded from detailed information concerning their condition, and even under some circumstances from their prognosis.’ What’s that if not keeping people in the dark?”

  L. was not amused. “That’s different.”

  Recognizing a dead end in the conversation, I decided to try to excavate a bit more about L.’s small-town upbringing. “So you can’t teach me about raising hogs?” I teased.

  “Or cattle or sheep or poultry. Nope.”

  “You never kept chickens? Not even in the Fancy Egg Ca
pital of the World?”

  “Nope.”

  “Darn.”

  “If it’s any comfort, I know about detasseling and roguing corn. That’s how the kids around here earn extra money in the summer.”

  “Did you?”

  “You bet.”

  “Well, it’s good to know that our children will have gainful employment when they reach puberty.”

  “Corn, you’ll be interested to know, is planted in male and female rows.”

  “Let me guess,” I broke in. “With males in the majority.”

  L. laughed. “That’s right.”

  “Typical,” I concluded, and we fell into amiable silence after that.

  One of the things I love about our relationship is that it embraces silence as well as speech. Being wordless around L. is a very comfy thing.

  As we got farther away from Lincoln and deeper into the country, I felt what I can only describe as a kind of a happy, expectant quickening that I had a hard time understanding—especially considering we were headed to a funeral. L.’s parents seem to like me well enough, so it wasn’t about that. Nor was I feeling especially nervous about meeting other members of his family or the town; shy, I’m not.

  I think the feeling arose from the possibility of being connected to the landscape in a different way, through Llewellyn and his family. I’m fascinated by people who live out their lives where they were born—as opposed to my folks, who started out in small towns but left for the city—just as their Nordic and Scots and Welsh and English ancestors did. I’ve always wondered what it would be like to have a long history of connection to a single place and to people who have always known you and your parents and your grandparents and so on down the line.

  What a digression—back to today.

  When we got here, the town was already shut down in mourning. Businesses closed, front porch railings draped in black bunting. One would have thought the queen had died.

  “They really do this for everyone?” I asked.

  “Yep,” L. said. “Nothing brings this town to life like a death.” There was an almost disdainful edge to his voice.