Melody (14 page)

“Yes.”

“I want you to be comfortable here,” she said. “Use anything you want and need. It would be a great joy to me to see you wearing one of those pretty dresses. Try one on,” she said anxiously. “They look just your size.”

I shook my head gently.

“I don't know if I should, Aunt Sara.” Despite its recently lived-in appearance, the room felt more like a shrine to a dead girl.

“Of course you should,” she said, her eyes full of panic because I had suggested otherwise. “That's why I wanted you to stay here. There's so much going to waste and now it won't. If Laura were standing right here beside us, she would say, ‘Cousin Melody, use anything you want. Go on.' I can almost hear her saying that.” She tilted her head as if to catch someone's voice in the breeze. “Can't you?” She wore a strange, soft smile.

I walked into the room and looked more closely at everything. On the desk was a pile of letters wrapped in a rubber band. The brushes and combs on the vanity table still had strands of dark brown hair twirled through them. On the top of the dresser was a framed picture of my cousin Laura standing at the front of the house holding a bouquet of yellow roses.

“That was her sweet sixteen picture,” Aunt Sara explained. “Taken almost a year ago now. Laura and Cary's birthday is next month, you know.”

Cary would be seventeen. “Is Cary a senior?”

“Yes. Laura would have been the class valedictorian
and have made the speech on graduation day. Everyone says so.”

I looked more closely at the girl in the photograph. Aunt Sara was right. Laura had been very pretty. She had Cary's eyes and they had similar noses and mouths, with the exact same shade of dark brown hair. Laura's features were smaller, feminine, dainty. She looked about my height and weight, but not as full as I in the bosom. Staring at the photograph, I understood why Uncle Jacob told Aunt Sara the angels were jealous, however. Laura had a glow in her face, a soft, spiritual quality that made her look as if any moment she might sprout angel wings and fly away.

“She was very pretty,” I said.

“Yes.”

“And who is this?” I picked up a wallet-size photograph of a brown-haired boy that was wedged in the frame of Laura's sweet sixteen photograph. He was handsome.

“That was Robert Royce,” Aunt Sara said. She sighed yet again. “He was taken along with Laura that terrible day.”

“Oh. How horrible!”

“How horrible,” Aunt Sara parroted. She gazed around the room. “I haven't touched anything in here except to dust and clean. It's just as it was the day she died. Please try to keep everything where it is, Melody dear. Put everything back exactly where you found it. But as I said, use whatever you want.

“I suppose you could use a little rest after traveling so long and so far. Dinner is in an hour. Jacob likes us all to look nice come the evening meal. I left this drawer for you to put your own things in,” she said showing me the third drawer in the dresser, “and you can find enough space in the closet for what you have brought, I'm sure.”

“Mommy said she was going to have my other things sent,” I said.

“Until she does, use these things,” Aunt Sara said
gesturing at everything. “Tomorrow morning,” she continued, “I will take you to the school to get you enrolled. It's not far. You can walk home with Cary and May every day, just as Laura did.”

Aunt Sara turned, paused in the doorway, and then marched back to the closet.

“I might suggest something for you to wear to dinner.” She sifted through Laura's garments. “Now this, yes, this would be perfect.” She held out a blue dress with a white collar and white cuffs on the three-quarter sleeves.

“It looks as if it might be tight here,” I said holding my hands on my ribs.

“Oh no, it won't be. This material gives a bit, but even if it is, I'll let it out for you. I'm a talented seamstress,” she added with a laugh. “I used to adjust all of Laura's clothes. I made her this dress.” She pulled a pink taffeta off its hanger to show me. “She wore this to a school dance.”

“It's nice.”

“Perhaps you'll wear it to a school dance, too.” She gazed at it a moment before returning it to the closet. She hung it between the exact same two dresses, right where it had hung before she retrieved it to show me.

She lay the blue dress on the bed and stepped back.

“What size is your foot?”

I told her. She looked disappointed.

“Laura had smaller feet. It's a shame for you not to be able to use any of her shoes.”

“Maybe May will get to wear them,” I suggested.

“Yes,” she whispered, looking heartbroken. “Anyway,” she said, “I'm sure the dress will fit. Welcome to our home, dear.”

Before leaving, she again paused in the doorway.

“It's so wonderful knowing all these things will be used and loved again. It's almost as if. . . as if Laura sent you to us.” She smiled at me and left.

A chill passed through my breast. I felt like an intruder in this bedroom. It was still Laura's room. My small
suitcases were stacked beside each other against the wall and my fiddle in its case was resting on top of them. There was so little of me here, so much of Laura.

I unpacked, putting my own stuffed cat next to the one already on the bed. They looked as if they'd come from the same litter. I put my teddy bear above them on the pillow, too. Then I hung up what clothes I had brought and used the drawer Aunt Sara had cleared for me.

When I was finished, I went to the window and stared out at the ocean and the beach. Cary and Uncle Jacob walked back from the dock. Cary still had his shirt off and had tossed it over his shoulder. His shoulder gleamed in the sunlight as he plodded along with his head down. Uncle Jacob appeared to be lecturing him about something.

Suddenly, as if he knew my eyes were upon him, Cary gazed up at the window and for a strange moment, it was as if Laura herself were gazing up at me through his emerald eyes.

I jumped when I heard someone behind me. May stood in the doorway.

“Hi,” I said and waved. She came into the room with a book. She plopped on the bed and opened the book, pointing to a page. I sat and gazed at her math text. “You want help?” I asked. I pointed to the page and to myself and then to her. She nodded, signing what I assumed meant, “Yes, please help me.”

“This is just figuring percentages,” I muttered. “It's easy.”

She stared at me. I kept forgetting she couldn't hear a single word. What would it be like, I wondered, to live in the world and never hear a bird sing or music, never know the comforting sound of a loved one's voice. It seemed unfair, especially for a little girl as nice as May.

“Okay,” I said nodding. I gestured at the desk and she followed. I sat with her standing beside me and began to do the problems, struggling to explain what I was doing. Despite my difficulty to communicate, she appeared to
understand my guidance, carefully reading my lips. When she did a problem, she quickly followed my lead. She was clearly a bright girl.

We did another problem and again she picked up my suggestions quickly.

“What's going on?” I heard and turned to see Cary in the doorway.

“I was just helping May with her math homework.”

“I help her with her math,” he said. “She can't hear you. It makes it too difficult for her,” he said.

“She's doing just fine with me.”

He signed something to May and she looked upset. He signed again and she shook her head.

“If she doesn't do well, it will be your fault,” Cary snapped and walked away.

“He's not very friendly,” I muttered.

May didn't see my lips move, but she was apparently not bothered by Cary's attitude. She smiled at me and went to my suitcases, inquisitively tapping on the fiddle case. She looked at me curiously.

“It's a fiddle,” I said. I opened the case and took out the bow. Her eyes widened with surprise. How horrible, it occurred to me: she won't be able to hear me play.

But she urged me to do so anyway. I smiled and shook my head, but she seemed to plead with those big eyes.

“But how can you . . .?” I was confused.

She nodded at my fiddle.

I shrugged, picked up the bow, and played.

May stepped closer. I ran the bow over the strings and played a jaunty mountain ditty. Slowly, she raised her hand and put her fingers on the fiddle. She closed her eyes.

She's feeling the vibrations, I realized, and sure enough, her head moved slightly up and down with the undulations in the rhythms. I laughed happily and continued.

Suddenly, Cary was at my door again, buttoning a clean white shirt. “What are you doing with her now?” he demanded.

I stopped, lowering the fiddle. May opened her eyes with disappointment and then turned to see what I was looking at.

“She wanted to know what this was and then she wanted me to play it for her.”

“That's a pretty sick joke,” he said.

“She was listening through her fingers,” I began to explain, but he shook his head and walked away again.

I fumed.

“Your brother,” I told May, “is a . . . a monster.” I exaggerated my eyes and twisted my mouth when I pointed to the doorway. She looked at me, shocked for a moment, then when she realized what I meant she laughed.

May's sweet laughter calmed my temper.

“I better get ready for dinner,” I told her and pointed to Laura's dress. I pantomimed bringing food to my mouth. She nodded and scooped up her math book and papers to go off and get dressed herself.

I put my fiddle away, thinking about Daddy, recalling him, Papa George, and Mama Arlene sitting on their patio and listening to me practice. How I missed them all!

Aunt Sara had made it sound as if dressing for dinner was very important in this house. I went to the bathroom and washed up, then returned to my room's vanity mirror to fix my hair. I wanted to clear away all of Laura's things and make room for my own, but I remembered Aunt Sara asking me not to move anything. I found small places for my own stuff and crowded everything in together.

Laura's blue dress was snug, especially around my bosom. I had to leave the top two buttons undone, but it was somehow important to Aunt Sara that I wear it.

Maybe it was because I was wearing this clinging dress, but when I gazed at myself in the mirror, I had a new sense of myself, a feeling that I had reached a level of femininity. Despite the way Mommy always talked
about herself, I felt guilty being proud of my looks, my figure. In church the preacher called it a sin of pride.

But as I ran my hands over my bosom and down the sides of my body to my hips, turning and inspecting myself, I thought that I just might look pretty. Perhaps I, too, would turn men's heads the way Mommy did. Was it sinful to think like this?

A loud rapping on the door shattered my moment of introspection, making me feel as if I had been caught doing something naughty.

“It's time to come down,” Cary growled. “My father doesn't like us to be late.”

“I'm coming.” I fixed a loose strand of hair. I opened the door. Cary and May stood outside in the hallway, waiting.

I saw his look of surprise. The mask of sternness and fury shattered. He looked handsome with his hair brushed back. He wore a tie and a nice pair of slacks.

“That's one of Laura's dresses,” he whispered.

Panicky butterflies were on the wing again, battering my brain with doubts, buffeting my heart with indecision. Perhaps I shouldn't have put on her dress. Maybe I was violating another unwritten code in this confusing house.

“Your mother picked it out for me to wear to dinner,” I replied.

The answer satisfied him and his face softened. May took my hand. Cary glanced at her and then pivoted and strutted to the stairway, leading us down. May signed to me and I imagined she said, “You look very nice.”

Uncle Jacob was seated at the table. His hair was wet and brushed back, parted in the middle. He was cleanly shaven and wearing a white shirt, a tie, and slacks. Cary glanced at me before sitting. May followed. I hesitated.

“I'll see if Aunt Sara needs help,” I said. Uncle Jacob nodded and I went into the kitchen. “Can I help you bring the food to the table, Aunt Sara?”

She turned from the stove.

“Of course, dear. That's what Laura always did.” She
nodded at the bowls of vegetables and the potatoes, the bread and the cranberry sauce.

I started to bring out the food. Uncle Jacob had his Bible open and was silently reading. Cary and May sat ramrod straight, waiting, but Cary's eyes lifted to follow my movements around the table. The last thing I brought in was a pitcher of ice water. I poured some in everyone's glass and then sat as Aunt Sara brought out the roast chicken. She smiled at me and took her seat.

“Let us give thanks,” Uncle Jacob said. Everyone lowered his head. “Lord, we thank you for the food we are about to enjoy.”

I thought that was it when everyone looked up, but Uncle Jacob handed Cary the Bible.

“It's your turn, son.”

Cary shot a look at me and then gazed at the pages Uncle Jacob had opened for him.

“What man of you having a hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness and go after that which is lost, until he find it?” Cary read in a voice so hard and deep, I had to look twice to be sure he was reading.

He continued. “And when he hath found it, he layeth it on his shoulders, rejoicing.

“And when he cometh home, he calleth together his friends and neighbors, saying unto them, Rejoice with me; for I have found my sheep which was lost.”

“Good.” Uncle Jacob took the Bible. He nodded to Aunt Sara and she rose to serve the vegetables, beginning with Uncle Jacob.

As he cut the roast chicken, he finally looked at me. “I see that you're settled in,” he began. “Your aunt will give you a list of your daily chores. Everyone pulls his weight here. This ain't a Cape Cod rooming house.” He paused to see if I was listening closely.