Songs without Words

by Robbi McCoy

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Does she have a name?”

  “Chelsea.” Harper slid the photo she’d been carrying out of her cell phone case and handed it to her mother.

  Alice looked at the photo carefully for a moment, then handed it back. “She’s darling,” she said cheerfully. “A darling girl! Thank you, Harper, for sharing this with me.” Alice reached for Harper, giving her a warm hug. She then turned toward the oven where she was baking lasagna and appeared to be finished with the subject.

  Harper was perplexed. Maybe her mother hadn’t understood.

  “Mom,” she asked, “is that it? You don’t have any questions? You aren’t going to ask what happened to Eliot or why I’m dating a girl?”

  Alice turned back to face her, looking puzzled. “I assume it’s because you like her. And what do you mean about Eliot? Has something happened to Eliot?”

  “I broke up with him, of course. This is a big deal, Mom. I’ve changed, you see? Dumped the old boyfriend. Dating a girl.” She gestured vaguely. “Something sort of different going on here.”

  Alice gazed at her silently, pressing her springy hair down with one hand, as if holding it on her head. Is she finally going to get it? Harper wondered, waiting.

  Alice removed her hand from her head.“Are you trying to tell me that you and Eliot were actually a couple all these years?”

  “Well, of course! What did you think? I’ve been seeing him since college, for God’s sake. I mean, no, we weren’t married so, in the eyes of the Church, I guess—”

  “No, that’s not what I meant.” Her mother pursed her lips tightly, then said, “I’m sorry, Harper. This is very strange. I didn’t realize he was really your boyfriend. I thought we were all just pretending that he was your boyfriend, that you weren’t comfortable being open with us.”

  “What!” Harper stared, unbelieving.

  “I thought you’ve been with women all along. I was hurt, actually, that you never felt you could talk to me about what was really important in your life. I hated it, in fact, going along with this whole Eliot thing. Do you realize that I’ve been to a dozen PFLAG meetings over the years talking about my gay daughter who simply refuses to come out to me?”

  Harper collapsed into a chair. “I don’t understand. Why did you think Eliot was a front?”

  “Well, it started in high school, of course, with Peggy. Everybody knew she was a lesbian. The two of you were inseparable, and then you ran off with her to California. You were extremely melodramatic about it. You said that if we wouldn’t let you go to California with Peggy, you’d kill yourself. What was I supposed to think?”

  All of this was true, Harper realized, except the part about everybody knowing that Peggy was a lesbian. She hadn’t known. The other kids hadn’t known. The boys she dated hadn’t known. It had apparently been obvious to some of the adults, though.

  “Did everybody think this?” Harper asked. “Danny and Neil?”

  “I don’t know what everybody thought. We didn’t talk about it. We never told them. We thought that if you weren’t comfortable coming out to your family, we had to respect that.”

  “You might have said something during all these years,” Harper said, still in shock.

  “I guess I thought we had an understanding,” Alice told her. “At PFLAG, they told me to be patient and let you come out when you were ready.”

  “Wow, I can’t believe this.”

  “Well, dear, the good news is that your parents adjusted years and years ago to your being gay, so there’s no adjustment period needed now.”

  It took a few days for Harper to get used to the idea that in her parents’ eyes, she had always been gay. But her mother was right, she didn’t have to worry about what negative impact it might have on her family relationships. Nothing changed. Even Neil, who hadn’t been a part of this decades-long conspiracy, who had always thought of Eliot as his future brother-in-law, didn’t seem particularly surprised or disturbed. In the only mention of it between them, Neil hugged her and said, “I’m glad you’re happy, Harper.” Their parents, having taken a pro-gay stance for such a long time in their effort to be supportive of Harper, had apparently prepared the entire family well for the coming-out day.

  After that day, Harper’s sexual orientation became a non-subject. She didn’t know what Neil and Kathy told their children, if anything. Only Sarah, who was about to turn fifteen, was old enough, anyway, to have any real understanding of such things. She was just coming into an age where she was starting to stand out to Harper, to look like an individual. She was moving out of the amorphous body of her nuclear family to assume her own identity.

  Harper only realized this a couple of days later while walking in the woods behind the house. A cushion of verdant grass lay over the ground, kept moist by the canopy of leafy branches above. These few acres had been one of her favorite places as a child.

  Harper strolled slowly, thoughts of childhood ripe in her consciousness. When she heard a childlike voice call her name, she looked to see Sarah sitting with her back against a tree trunk, a book on her knees. Her hair, a light shade of brown, hung straight from a center part down upon her nearly flat chest.

  “Hi,” Harper said.

  “Were you daydreaming, Aunt Harper?” Sarah asked.

  “Yes, I was. What are you reading?” Harper picked up the book to read the jacket. Les Miserables. She handed the book back. “How far have you gotten?”

  “About halfway. Have you read it?” Sarah stood, tucking the book under her arm.

  “Yes, it’s a classic. In fact, I saw a play based on it, in San Francisco.”

  Sarah sighed. “How wonderful to be able to go to the theater. How wonderful to be able to go to San Francisco.”

  Those are things I take for granted, thought Harper. She put her arm around the girl’s shoulder, and they began walking slowly together. “Have you ever seen a play?”

  “Just school plays. You must know a lot about books, Aunt Harper. You must know about every book that’s worth reading.”

  Harper laughed. “I wouldn’t claim to.”

  Sarah was tall for her age and lanky, much as Harper had been as a teenager.

  “Daddy says you’ve been to Europe,” Sarah said.

  “Yes. I’ve been to England, Ireland and France. Oh, and two weeks in Italy.”

  Sarah looked up at her with awe. “Could you tell me about Europe?” she asked. She had the same romantic views of Europe Harper remembered in herself.“Europe,” the word itself, inspired romance. They went down to the dock to talk. Her niece was intelligent and sensitive, Harper discovered, courageous and full of conviction. She was alternately timid and bold. And she was infatuated with learning. Harper was enthralled.

  “Could you make a list of books for me to read?” Give me the keys to the kingdom, Harper heard her say. She was touched that Sarah thought she had those keys to give.

  “I’d be happy to.” She looked closely at the girl. “What do you want to do with your life?” she asked.

  “Everything!” declared Sarah in exultation. “Just like you. I want to go away to college, travel all over the world, meet all kinds of people, live in exotic places like California or Zimbabwe.”

  Harper laughed. What an extraordinary image she has of me. I must seem brilliantly avant-garde, probably because she’s filling in all the gaps with her imagination.

  “And I would like to have a monkey named Cleo who rides on my shoulder wherever I go,” added Sarah, satisfied with herself.

  “That sounds sublime,” Harper remarked.

  Sarah’s eyes widened. “Sublime,” she repeated, caressing the word with her tongue.

  The two of them sat at the end of the dock, their legs dangling above the water.

  “Do you write?” Harper asked.

  “Oh, yes. I definitely want to be a writer. I write short stories and epic poems.”

  “Epic poems? Like Homer and Virgil?”

  “Exactly!” Sar
ah said, looking astonished.

  “So, is your hero male or female?”

  “Female, of course.”

  “Of course! Not the least bit conventional, though. I’d like to read something of yours, if you wouldn’t mind.”

  Sarah grinned. “I’d be happy to have your opinion,” she said rather formally.

  Harper looked out across the water, watching the sea gulls. “Have you heard of Boudica?” she asked. “The ancient warrior queen of old England?”

  “Warrior queen?” asked Sarah, obviously intrigued. “Like Xena?”

  “Well, yes, but a real person. Come to think of it, she appeared on Xena in a few episodes. You might enjoy reading about her since you write epics. She led an army against the Romans in the first century A.D. She became a legend. There’s a statue of her in London.”

  “Have you seen it?”

  “Yes. We can look it up on the Internet this evening if you want. Also, there are poems about her and novels and movies too, if you’re interested.”

  “I’m very interested,” Sarah assured her.

  “I thought you might be. You might also be interested in another ancient heroine of Ireland. Her name was Maeve. She was a queen who could run faster than a horse. She had a dozen husbands and innumerable lovers, most of them kings, and she carried birds and animals on her shoulders.”

  “Oh, my God!”

  “Yes, your monkey Cleo reminded me of her. She’s also the subject of an epic poem, The Cattle Raid of Cooley, which I can send you to read.”

  “You really do know everything, don’t you, Aunt Harper?”

  “No, Sarah, but I’ve been practically living in a library for a long time now. I couldn’t help but have picked up a few things.”

  “Well, neither of my parents even has the slightest idea what an epic poem is.”

  “No, your father was never much for the humanities. He’s a math and science guy, like your grandfather. And your mother, I hear, was the same way.”

  “I wrote a poem about Persephone the other day. Neither one of them even knew who she was. I was just like, what? Are you serious?”

  Harper smiled.

  “You know who she is, right?” Sarah asked. “Yes.” The challenge on Sarah’s face prompted Harper to tell the tale. “Persephone was the beloved daughter of Demeter, goddess of grain and crops and the cycles of the Earth. Hades abducted her and made her his queen. Demeter was so distraught that the Earth quit turning and life came to a standstill. In the end, Persephone was allowed to return to Earth for a season each year, reunited with her mother, prompting a period of flourishing abundance.”

  “Spring.”

  “Yes, spring. And when Persephone returned to the underworld each year, the earth was plunged into a period of cold barrenness.”

  “Winter.” Sarah smiled, delighted. “I knew you knew it.”

  Harper nodded.

  “I love that story,” Sarah said.

  “It’s a good one,” Harper agreed. “It reminds me of a book I had as a child, a book about the Greek myths. It had all these fabulous illustrations in it. Actually, I think that book is still here in the house. If we can find it, I’d like you to have it.”

  “Thank you!”

  Harper was enjoying the role of mentor. She didn’t think she’d ever been one before. The closest she came was helping students in the library. This felt different, probably because Sarah was younger and more eager.

  “Sarah,” she said, suddenly struck with an idea, “I don’t know what your parents would think of it, but there’s no reason you can’t come to visit me in California. You’re old enough to travel alone, as long as I meet you at the airport. We could have a lot of fun. We could go to San Francisco, anywhere you want, and Santa Cruz and Monterey. We could go to the theater.” Harper said this last word with an upper-class British accent while throwing her hand above her head with flair. “What about spring break? You get a week off then, right? I do too.”

  Sarah looked at her as if she were some kind of supreme being. The next thing Harper knew, she was running toward the house screaming for her mother. Harper stayed where she was, watching the sun set, smiling distractedly. She hoped Neil and Kathy would give their permission. It would be fun taking Sarah around to see the sights for a week or so. She was so hungry for knowledge and experience. Harper watched a lone rowboat glide silently across the water toward its dock. Her thoughts turned to Chelsea as she imagined Sarah’s spring visit. She was sure that Chelsea would enjoy it just as much as she expected to. Sarah was so open and enthusiastic. It would be a joy for the three of them to ride a roller coaster in Santa Cruz and a cable car in San Francisco. Maybe they could drive up to Mendocino too where Chelsea’s brother had a summer home. Sarah would think the drive up the coast highway was awesome. Didn’t everyone?

  A flood of possibilities came to mind as Harper imagined the three of them sightseeing. The list of places she thought of mingled with the list she already had in her mind for just Chelsea and herself. There hadn’t been time to do any of these things yet, and she wanted to do everything with Chelsea. Even ride a cable car! They had both done that, of course, but they had never done it together.

  She took her cell phone out of its case and called Chelsea’s number. She answered on the second ring. “Oh, Harper, I was just thinking about you.”

  Harper lay back on the wooden planks of the dock and pressed the phone closer to her ear.

  “Miss you,” she said, staring up into a pale blue sky.

  “Me too. Tell me about your day.”

  Chapter 18

  JUNE 23

  Andrew held Harper’s guitar uneasily. She reached around the chair he was sitting in, placing his fingers on the strings and showing him how to use the pick. Then she had him play a chord and change his fingers, then play another, until he understood how the different sounds were made.

  Wilona watched them from her rocking chair across the room. They were taking a break from working on the documentary, a task that was proceeding smoothly. Having made four already, Harper knew what to do, how to put together the story. With Wilona’s expertise, the film editing was going much more quickly than Harper ever could have done on her own.

  So, after playing a couple of songs on her guitar to entertain them, Harper had asked Andrew if he would like to try it. He had responded eagerly. His face lit up each time he touched the strings and made music. This is what Roxie does for a living, every day, thought Harper. It seemed like rewarding work, though she knew that Roxie’s students were not all nearly as cooperative as Andrew.

  “That’s wonderful,” Harper told him. “You’re a natural-born musician!”

  They continued the lesson until Andrew had learned the C, G and F chords. After an hour, Wilona suggested that it was time for him to get ready for bed. To Harper’s surprise, he agreed. “My fingers have had enough for today,” he said, returning the guitar carefully to Harper before leaving the room.

  “Thank you for that, Harper,” Wilona said.

  “Oh, you don’t need to thank me. It was fun. I’ve never tried to teach anyone to play before. Of course, he’s an eager student. Makes it easy. When I first took piano lessons as a child, I was a terror. My poor music teacher...” Harper laughed, remembering what a petulant student she had been. “You were right, he’s a joyful child.”

  “That’s enough to teach us all a lesson, isn’t it?”

  Harper nodded.

  “I think I’ll go to bed too,” Wilona said, pulling herself up from her chair. “I’ll see you in the morning, Harper, and we can finish up that film work.”

  Once the rest of the household was quiet, Harper went to her room and phoned Chelsea again. There was no answer. In fact, the phone went to voice mail after only one ring, indicating that it was turned off. Harper hung up, then, after a few minutes, called again. This time she left a message. “Chelsea,” she said, “this is Harper. I got your message. I’d like to talk to you too. Call me back on my ce
ll. I’m not home right now.”

  Harper placed her phone on the bedside table, then read a book for a half hour, occasionally glancing at the phone, as if doing so might encourage Chelsea to return her call. Finally, tired and discouraged, she turned off the lamp. She lay in the dark with a window open to a warm, still night gloriously filled with stars, one of the tremendous benefits of being away from the city. A faint odor of pine came in periodically on the breeze. Starry skies like this reminded Harper of nights lying in a sleeping bag beside a mountain lake, one of those inspirational experiences that makes you feel so alive and so in tune with nature.

  Whenever Harper contemplated a sky like this, deep in the night, she heard music—sonorous, profoundly resonating harmonies synchronized with the orbit and rotation of celestial bodies, united like the instruments of an orchestra under the direction of a grand maestro.

  Harper and Chelsea had never gone camping. They’d never gone fishing or snorkeling, never gone to a museum or even to a movie together. Everything had happened too fast. Their weeks together were frozen in time at the first flush of love, suspended at the core of transcendent zeal, before it had a chance to lose any of its luster. In that respect, it was perfect, an untainted grand passion.

  If Harper were an artist, she would have wrestled that summer into a painting or a novel or a song. An artist had that power, to transform the too-intense sting of life into an object of beauty. What sort of poem had Chelsea written, she wondered, to lessen the ache of that wound?

  For Chelsea had been hurt too. Harper had been wrong about a lot of things, but not about that, surely. Chelsea’s tears that day, the day she said goodbye, they were genuine. After all of her second-guessing of Chelsea’s intentions, she was back to believing again. Harper knew that her gut could always be trusted, and her gut told her that the bond between them had been real.