The Song Reader

by Lisa Tucker

  Mom never saw the point of going anywhere. Mary Beth seemed to agree. “Home,” my sister once told a customer, “is that place in your mind where you see your family just like they are. If you have to put new scenery around them all the time, it’s like you can’t see them unless you’re distracted. Like you need more color because you’ve already let them fade.”

  I told Mike I’d go for the weekend. This was as good a time as any, I figured, to do what he obviously had in mind. I was already so nervous about this session with the shrink, I wouldn’t have time to be nervous about sex.

  Juanita and Dad and Tommy waved us out of the driveway early Saturday morning, loaded up with gifts for my sister. Tommy had contributed a stack of his drawings going back as far as he could find, including quite a few my sister had already seen, and some that had even been former gifts. Juanita baked Mary Beth a loaf of cornbread and a dozen white chocolate chip cookies, her favorite. Dad gave her twenty dollars. He mumbled something about needing money in hospitals and I said you never know.

  It took about four hours to pull up in front of the hotel. It was skyscraper tall and fancier than anything I’d ever seen. The entrance hall was all gold and chandeliers. Our room had a king-size bed, covered with a velvet bedspread and made up with three top sheets and two blankets. On the dresser, there was a basket of special soaps, shampoos, creme rinse and even new toothbrushes in clear plastic bags. The TV was hidden in a heavy brown cabinet that looked hundreds of years old.

  We were on the eighteenth floor. From one window, you could see all these buildings and restaurants; from the other, the Mississippi River and the steamboats and the people swarming the walkway to the Arch. I was dying to get out there and be part of it all.

  Fifteen minutes later, Mike and I were in the Arch museum, watching the movie about how the Arch was constructed, preparing ourselves to go up. We bought Tshirts for everybody in the gift shop, and stared at the weird stuffed grizzly bear in the lobby and then got in line for the tram. The metal car rattled and creaked like it would never make it, but it actually didn’t seem long before the door opened at the top. Mike was holding my hand as we walked to the windows. We leaned forward and there it was: the entire city laid out before us. Mike said the streets were like an enormous spiderweb, stretching in every direction. I thought it must be the way the world looks to God.

  We stayed for a half hour. I could have stayed much longer, but Mike was anxious to get back to the hotel. He wanted to order room service for lunch before Ben came to take me to the hospital. I said okay, but we’d barely walked into the room when Ben was at the door.

  He’d been waiting in the lobby for us. It was still an hour earlier than we’d agreed. I introduced him to Mike, and they shook hands; then Ben crossed his arms.

  “I was hoping we could go over now,” he said. “Have some time before the appointment.” He looked out the river window.

  “Do you mind?”

  I said no and went into the bathroom to brush my hair and change into my carefully selected outfit. Navy skirt, blue oxford shirt—plain but serious. I put some blush on but my cheeks swallowed it.

  “What time will you be back?” Mike said. He stepped forward like he wanted to kiss me. Ben said probably not until after dinnertime. I gave Mike a quick peck on the cheek and grabbed the bag of presents.

  The hospital was on the west side of the city. Ben and I didn’t talk on the way. The leather seats of Rebecca’s BMW, the crowded streets and heavy traffic, Ben sitting next to me, it was all so unreal. I thought about my sister, who’d been here many times back when she and Ben were together. She never said anything about not feeling like herself, but I sure didn’t feel like me.

  The stone building was very large and shaped like an L, surrounded by trees and what would be gardens in the spring. It looked like the private hospital it was: an expensive place unless you got one of the two state-sponsored beds reserved for people without insurance, like Mary Beth did. Of course Ben’s father had to be the reason she’d been bumped to the top of that list. Ben didn’t tell me the details, but he did admit that his father had “helped.”

  It was almost seventy degrees, much warmer than usual for the beginning of March. A lot of the patients were outside, getting air—including my sister.

  She ran across the brown grass and grabbed me and hugged me and blanketed my neck with kisses. “Baby,” she said. Her voice was full of tears. “Baby doll girl.”

  I might have been crying a little bit myself. She hadn’t hugged me in a long time. I was surprised by how strong her arms felt. She could lift me up, if she wanted to. She’d gained a lot of weight, but it looked wonderful on her. Everything about her looked good. Her hair was healthy and thick and glistening yellow in the sun. Her skin was cream and strawberries, not a sign of the sores or old scabs. Even in the boring green hospital gown, you could see how curvaceous her figure had become. She stood her height, all five-feet-eleven-and-a-half inches of it. Like a princess, I thought, or even a goddess.

  No wonder Ben’s eyes were glued on her.

  She took my hand and pulled me to one of the benches. “Tell me everything,” she said, breathlessly.

  “There’s not much to say.” I glanced at Ben. He was holding the bag of presents in one hand, his other was shoved in his pocket. He was still looking at her, but he hadn’t moved.

  “Ben is fine.” She waved her hand like she was shooing away a fly, but when she smiled at him, her cheeks grew even pinker. “He’s always here.” She turned back to me. “But I haven’t seen you in ages, baby. I was afraid you’d be all grown up. Thank God, you look exactly the same.”

  I sat up straighter. I was pretty sure I had grown to at least five-four, but compared to her I was still short. Short, with boring brown hair, and enormous cow boobs.

  “I heard you have a boyfriend. You have to tell me all about him first.”

  I hesitated. “How did you know that?”

  “A little bird told me,” she said lightly.

  “No, really.” I was stalling, wondering how to tell her it was Holly’s son.

  But she already knew. Holly had told her. “I got a beautiful card from her a while back. She still says I saved her life.” Mary Beth leaned closer and giggled. “That’s one way to look at it I guess.”

  “It’s true,” I said quickly. “She’s doing so much better now that—”

  “Let’s not talk about Holly. I really don’t care. My lifesaving days are over.” She laughed again. “The only lifesaving I’m doing now is the candy.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “As serious as I ever am,” she said with a goofy grin. “It’s easier not to be serious. That’s the secret.” Then another laugh. “Don’t say I never gave you anything.”

  Ben stepped forward. “I think we should go inside. Get some tea before the session.” He looked at me. “You want a soda?”

  “Sure.”

  “Okay, Mr. Boss Man,” she said, standing up and frowning. But she grabbed his arm and kissed him on the ear. “Take me to your tea.”

  They walked in that way, with her holding his arm, leaning against him. I followed, too in a daze to even think about what all this meant.

  In the cafeteria, Mary Beth asked questions about Mike and I answered them as well as I could. Some of them were a little bizarre. “Does he eat much fast food?” “Does he know how to swim?” Ben was sitting on her side and clasping her hand tightly. Whenever there was a lull in the conversation, she peered at his face like a crib sheet for what to say next. Her fingers trembled a little around her cup; I figured it was the medicine they were giving her. She didn’t mention Dad or Juanita; she didn’t even ask about Tommy.

  By the time Ben stood up and said we needed to go now, I was so confused I wanted to run out the door and never look back. I hated everything about this place, from the stupid little plastic cups the soda came in—no cans, cans have metal lids—to the gurneys parked in the halls, straps hanging off the bars. And
the other patients, with their shuffling steps and weird stares. My sister stuck out like a diamond in a mud pie.

  The first surprise was that Dr. Kaplan wanted to talk to me without Mary Beth. As I watched Mary Beth and Ben walking away, I found myself remembering the day they met, when Rebecca tricked Ben into seeing my sister. I wanted to laugh when it flashed across my mind that all this was an elaborate trick, too, and I was the one with the problem.

  Dr. Kaplan herself was another surprise. I was expecting a man and someone younger. She was sixty if she was a day. She had short white hair and wire-rimmed glasses. The white doctor’s coat she was wearing had Martha Kaplan in blue script on the pocket.

  I took a seat in a big leather chair across from her desk. She introduced herself and gave me a firm, hearty handshake, but she skipped the how-are-you, how-was-thedrive small talk.

  “I’ve heard a lot about you,” she said, and smiled very slightly. Then she thanked me for coming and told me she was sorry but she needed her notes. She took out a leather-bound book and flipped around awhile. I was trying to decide what to look at, so I wouldn’t seem nervous. I settled on my panty-hosed knee.

  The biggest surprise was the topic Dr. Kaplan started with. All along I’d been assuming it would be either our family or Holly Kramer and what had happened last fall. It never crossed my mind that Dr. Kaplan would want to discuss my sister’s song reading in a more general sense—especially as I didn’t know anything about that compared to what Mary Beth herself knew.

  Dr. Kaplan said “song reading” tentatively, as if the words were a foreign language. “This song reading,” she kept saying, until I wanted to scream, as opposed to what? That song reading?

  She asked me to trace the history, and I did, from the first chart my sister wrote to the party at Juanita’s house. When she asked where I thought the idea came from, the drive home from Dad’s apartment flashed through my mind, but I told her I had no idea.

  “Why don’t you ask my sister?”

  “I have,” Dr. Kaplan said, with the slight smile again. “Now I’m asking you.” She paused for a moment. Her eyes were kinder than I wanted them to be. “Let me put it another way. When your sister began this song reading, did it seem out of the ordinary to you?”

  “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  “Were you worried about her?”

  “No, not at all.” I slid my hands under my thighs. The desire to mess with my chin was becoming irresistible. “I thought it was cool.”

  “Really?” Her voice seemed skeptical.

  “I still think it’s cool.”

  “Despite what happened?”

  “That wasn’t song reading’s fault.” I was on shaky ground. “I mean, Holly didn’t have any songs, that was the problem.”

  “But it was the same impulse, don’t you think?” She didn’t let me answer. “Mary Beth’s impulse to help others, no matter the cost to herself?”

  “It’s a gift,” I said. Then it hit me. “Kind of like what you do.” I leaned forward to emphasize my point. “I mean, what’s the difference, really? You help people, so does she.”

  “That’s quite flattering, but I don’t think gift describes what I do. Like all psychiatrists, I spent years in training. I’ve always had support from the hospital, colleagues to confirm or complicate my impressions.” She paused. “Let me put it another way,” she said again. “Did you think it odd when she adopted one of her client’s children?”

  “No.” Though it certainly seemed odd now. Everything seemed odd. I myself was odd, dressed in this stupid blue shirt and skirt, answering these very odd questions. “I mean, she always wanted kids, and nobody else wanted Tom—”

  “Always?” Dr. Kaplan smiled. “I believe she was twenty-three at the time.”

  “Mom had a kid at nineteen.”

  “And you? Do you plan to have children at nineteen? Or twenty-three?”

  “No,” I said slowly, and felt caught.

  “Why not?”

  “Because…I don’t want kids.” I wasn’t sure if it was true, but I glared, triumphant.

  “Ah.” She looked at the wall for a moment. “I wonder if you could tell me what your sister’s song reading represents to you. You said before that you think it’s a good thing. Why is it good? What does it stand for in your life?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, and sat back, waiting for the other way she would put it, or the subject change, or something, anything, to let me off the hook. But this time she stared at me, waiting, too. I let my mind wander to Mike. He was probably watching TV, or asleep facedown on the huge hotel bed.

  I wanted him to hold me.

  “I’m not the only person who thinks it’s good,” I finally said. “I could bring you a huge list of people who would say it’s good. Mary Beth helps people, that’s a good—”

  “Do you care about these people?”

  “Sort of.”

  “But not enough to risk your sister’s health for them?”

  “Of course not.”

  “So again, why is this song reading a good thing? From Leeann’s perspective?”

  “I don’t know,” I repeated, because I really didn’t. But I felt a gnawing in the pit of my stomach. I moved my thumb over the scar under my chin, as I thought about how unfair this was. What was this woman doing in our lives? What did she know about me or my sister or our town? About anything?

  “Do you know Ben’s father?” I said suddenly.

  “Ted Mathiessen? Why yes, I do. Why do you ask?”

  I crossed my arms. “Just curious.”

  She paused for so long I thought I’d upset her. But I was wrong. Her voice was very gentle, her eyes were very kind, as she asked if I considered her the enemy.

  “No.”

  “But you don’t trust psychiatrists. You think they drug away people’s real feelings.” Dr. Kaplan smiled. “Your sister told me that, too. It was the first thing she said when she decided to talk to me.”

  “Well, it’s true,” I said, and then before I could stop myself, I told her she’d already changed my sister.

  “How so?”

  “She’s not herself anymore.” I felt like crying, thinking about it. “She seems really weird. She laughs too much.”

  “Would it surprise you to hear that she’s not on any medication at this time?”

  “But her hand was shaking.”

  “Perhaps she was nervous about seeing you.”

  I shook my head.

  “She values your opinion much more than you realize. She’s told me several times that she’s very afraid of losing your love.”

  I was so stunned, I didn’t know what to say. I looked at the window on the left side of her desk. I could see the back lawn of the hospital, and people moving around, but no sign of Mary Beth and Ben.

  Dr. Kaplan must have taken my silence as a sign that I’d had enough of this topic, because she changed course. She wanted to review the family history, as she called it. She asked me all kinds of questions about Mom and Dad, what I remembered about them, what I thought of their relationship. I kept my answers short. It took me a while to realize the answers were adding up to something.

  It was just like that day with Ben a thousand years ago, when I’d talked my way to the conclusion that Mom wanted Dad to leave, except this time I had talked myself to the reason—Mom was having an affair with her boss, that guy Will Stanley. Of course.

  Dr. Kaplan was writing in her notebook, but her face was impassive, as if this was old news. She didn’t even look up when she asked if I remembered how Mary Beth had reacted to our mother’s affair.

  I heard my sister’s voice: Mom said Dad ruined her life.

  “Mary Beth took Mom’s side,” I said slowly.

  “And how do you feel about that?”

  “I don’t care.”

  “Ah.” Dr. Kaplan took a breath. “Your sister believes that you care very much.” She glanced in my eyes. “She’s convinced herself that now that you know w
hat she did for your mother, you won’t love her anymore.”

  “That’s silly,” I said, but I was wondering why Mary Beth assumed I knew whatever it was she supposedly “did” for Mom. Unless she thought Dad told me. In any case, I wasn’t about to tell Dr. Kaplan I still didn’t know. I wanted her to talk freely with me, so maybe I could figure it out.

  “Guilt can be a very powerful force,” Dr. Kaplan was saying.

  “I’ve noticed,” I said, leaning forward. “I mean, my dad feels really guilty, too.”

  “Do you think your mother felt guilty?”

  “She grew up an orphan. She had a hard life.” I caught myself sounding like my sister. “She was never happy that I can remember.”

  Dr. Kaplan nodded. “But she didn’t feel guilty, did she?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Do you think she had a right to involve your sister in her marital problems?”

  “I don’t know,” I repeated. Mommy was so desperate. She needed me so bad.

  “All right. Let me ask it another way. Do you think your mother had a right to use you in the way she did?”

  “She didn’t use me,” I sputtered.

  “You’ve said you know she was having an affair.” Dr. Kaplan was turning the pages of her notebook, but absentmindedly. Her eyes were on my face. “Why couldn’t she simply have asked your father to leave?”

  I forced myself not to look as massively confused as I was. “I’m not sure. Maybe she was afraid he wouldn’t do it.”

  This was very hard to imagine, but Dr. Kaplan nodded. “He’d been the primary caregiver since you were born. Mary Beth told me that the two of you were very close. Why should he leave?”

  “But he did have problems,” I said, thinking of that day at the Laundromat.

  “Yes, but Mary Beth told me he’d had these so-called problems for years. If your mother’s motive wasn’t the preservation of her affair, why did she wait so long to persuade him he was endangering you?”

  I had my chin scar wedged between my thumb and finger, but I wasn’t moving. I was barely breathing. I had a feeling I did know about this already. I’d been thinking about it for weeks. It was one of the stranger memories I’d had of me and Dad.