Songs without Words (27 page)

Mary caught her arm and said, quietly but emphatically, “Harper, while you have her, teach her something.”

On the way home, Sarah talked nonstop about her trip out on the train and about her stay at Mary’s house, which started to sound like the most fabulous few days any girl had ever had.

“We went out to lunch yesterday with a friend of Mary’s. Her name is Catherine Gardiner. She’s wicked cool. Do you know her?”

“Well, yes, I do. In fact, I made a documentary about her. She’s a famous poet.”

Sarah looked astonished. “Really? I didn’t know she was famous. You have the most amazing friends! At lunch, I just sat there with my mouth open, listening to the two of them talking. They don’t talk like other people. They talk like they’re in a play or something. I’ve never heard a real-life conversation like it.”

I would have liked to have been at that lunch myself
, Harper thought. It had been Mary who had introduced her to Catherine Gardiner and who had suggested her as a subject for the documentary series. Harper had been grateful for that. She had been interested in the eccentric poet ever since first hearing about her association with Hilda Perry so many years ago. Harper was amused at the thought of Sarah at lunch with the two of them, these odd, intriguing figures of the modern art world.

“And then they quoted poetry at one another, right there in the middle of dessert!” Sarah continued. “I tried to remember it, but mostly I can’t. Something about Julia’s clothes.”

Harper smiled. “When as in silks my Julia goes,” she recited, “Then, then (methinks) how sweetly flows that liquefaction of her clothes.”

“Oh, my God, Aunt Harper! That’s it!”

Harper understood Sarah’s amazement. She herself could remember a few times hearing professors speaking in that strange literary tongue, a banter of wits which bore no resemblance to ordinary conversation. Their speech was a kind of game, like chess. Chelsea had absorbed some of that from Mary, and Harper admired and enjoyed it, though she herself was unable to play. She had the knowledge for it, but not the skill.

“I hope you got a picture,” Harper said, “because you just had lunch with two prominent artists, and there are a lot of people who would have paid money to have been in your place yesterday.”

“I’ve never even heard of her. I feel like such a freak. I’m sure they both think I’m a total spaz.”

“I think Mary believes you’re worth saving.”

Sarah then spoke about the places she had traveled through on her way from Massachusetts to California and the strange characters she encountered. That was just as intriguing to Harper, though in a different way, since the people she had met in train stations, while also colorful and interesting, were often people at the opposite end of the spectrum. They were equally alien to Sarah, whose life up until now had been sheltered, even cloistered in the bosom of her nuclear family. “You should write all of this down,” Harper suggested. “So you’ll remember. All the details of your adventure.”

“Oh, I have been! I have a journal. I’ve taken notes of ‘my epic journey’ across the U.S.A.”

Sarah quit talking for a moment as she contemplated that thought, which she was obviously savoring deeply.

During the silence, Harper’s thoughts turned to Chelsea and the information Mary had given her. She had moved out in April and had called Harper in June and asked to see her. Mary had assumed that they were back together.
What did that mean?
Harper wondered. Mary knew Chelsea better than anyone did. If
she
expected her to run to Harper, what other conclusion could there be but...

Harper stopped herself from completing that thought, forcing herself to listen more carefully to Sarah’s description of rumbling through Wyoming overnight, listening to elk bugling at sunset and how that had made her feel really far from home, impossibly far, as if she had crossed some divide that was passable in only one direction and there was no longer any chance of turning back.

Chapter 22

JUNE 26

Harper put the cereal bowls in the dishwasher and sat across from Sarah at the kitchen table as she finished her glass of orange juice. Dressed in shorts and a T-shirt, she looked different today. Without all of the cleavage and thigh of yesterday, she looked younger, more like the child Harper knew.

Sarah sifted through the stack of CDs at the edge of the table, then screwed up her face in distaste. “Dean Martin?”

“Not mine. I picked those up for a friend.”

“Good.”

“Have you ever even listened to Dean Martin?”

Sarah shrugged. “Guess not.”

She got up and put her juice glass in the dishwasher.

“What was the book Mary gave you?” Harper asked.

“It’s poetry. It’s Catherine Gardiner’s. She told me to read this one poem in particular, but I decided to read the whole book.

I’ll get it.” Sarah ran into the guest room, retrieving the book and returning, flipping it open to a marked page. “Should I read it to you?”

Harper nodded and listened as Sarah attempted to read a poem called “Tradition.” Harper had read that poem years ago and hadn’t thought of it since. Sarah read it too fast and without a lyrical quality.

“What do you think it means?” she asked when she’d finished.

Harper took the book from her. “Listen,” she said, and then she read the poem, pausing in the right places so the meaning came through.

Young girl sat
spinning, spinning,
knotting herself into a tapestry
of mothers upon mothers,
a pantheon of mothers
stretched along her coiled thread.
Each one sat
spinning, spinning,
admiring the crimson and the silver
where blood of moonlight mingles
in the fine lines of cloth,
consecrated by unquestionables
While daughters upon daughters sat
spinning, spinning,
weaving a dense web of ignorance
and vainglory
around and through themselves
to please their mothers
Who sat
spinning, spinning,
welcoming the end of their days
with regrets for
the patterns and the colors,
mutely dreaming of unravelings,
But only

wailing, wailing

over the spinning

of young girl who sits smiling

at the flawless absolutes

in the shroud she has made.

Harper looked up from the book to see Sarah gazing at her, her brow furrowed by a look of concentration. “Wow,” she said. “You read that so much better than I did.”

“Did it make more sense, hearing it like that?”

Sarah nodded and took the book back, then studied the page, silently reciting the poem again to herself with her new insight.

“Read it a couple more times, and then we can talk about what it means,” Harper told her.

Sarah continued reading. Harper drank her coffee, thinking about how much she could tell Sarah about this poem and about so many poems and stories and the people who wrote them, if there were more time. “Teach her something,” Mary had advised. There was only so much you could teach someone in a couple of days. Not enough to make much difference. To make a difference, you’d have to have more time.

“Sarah, Mary mentioned a poem you wrote called ‘Passing Through.’ Do you mind if I look at it?”

She went to get the poem for Harper, returning with a piece of paper that had been folded often into fourths and was covered in a scrawling longhand. Harper skimmed it quickly, agreeing with Mary’s assessment. It was dreadful, at least in its current state.

“Why don’t you read it out loud to me?” Harper suggested. “That makes such a big difference, especially in the author’s own voice.”

Sarah’s eyes widened with delight, and Harper understood that it was because she had used the word “author” to refer to her. Sarah took the poem and read it aloud, lending a singsong rhythm to it that had eluded Harper when she read it. The message was a simple one about passing through the dingy side of small towns without ever knowing anything about them or the people who lived there, people who must have interesting and tragic lives, each one a story worth telling. It wasn’t so much “dreadful” as amateurish, a poem that probably wasn’t worth a second thought...until Sarah recited it. Because, in her voice, it wasn’t a poem at all. It was a song. “A little stiff,” Harper said. “What if you try to sing it?”

Sarah looked astonished. “Well, I did. I mean, that’s where it came from. I heard it in my head first. I sang it, like a song. And then I wrote it down as a poem.”

“So sing it for me, like you did in your head.”

Sarah took a deep breath and then sang the song without looking at the paper. She sang in a pop style with a slightly melancholy tone, and the song had more complexity to its melody than the poem had revealed.

Harper was taken aback. “That’s a lovely song,” she said. “It’s melodic and thought-provoking. Do you read music?”

Sarah shook her head.

“Come here.” Harper led Sarah to the piano in the living room. She pulled the bench out, then asked Sarah to sing her song again. While Sarah sang, Harper began to play, picking up the tune. In a few minutes, she had embellished it and increased the tempo, and Sarah was laughing with excitement and a little embarrassment to hear her song transformed like this.

“Let’s record this,” Harper suggested, “and when I have time, I’ll write down the notes for you.”

Sarah seemed elated. It had obviously never occurred to her that she could actually write a song. Because she didn’t know how to read or write music, she had written an unremarkable poem instead. Now, of course, she wanted to be able to play the song herself. She was all fired up, in fact, to take lessons and launch herself into an entirely new realm of artistic achievement.

After they had recorded the music, Sarah sat at the computer, listening to the instrumental version of her song, singing along with it, pleased with herself.
Okay, Mary
, Harper thought,
I’ve taught her something. But there’s not going to be time, unfortunately, for much more than this
.

“I called your father last night,” Harper said.

Sarah looked up. “I figured you would.”

“Your parents were very relieved to hear that you were safe.”

Sarah shrugged.

“Don’t you care that you terrified them?”

“I was just pissed off.”

“About what?”

“They won’t let me do anything. They took away everything. I felt like I was suffocating. I couldn’t go out. I couldn’t use the computer. I couldn’t watch TV even. They took my phone. If I had stayed there, they would have chained me up in the basement next.” Sarah held up her iPod. “This is the only thing I have left, my tunes.”

Harper smiled. “So why’d you come here? You knew I would rat you out.”

“Oh, sure, but it was an adventure getting here. I had fun. Besides, you promised that I could come out for a visit and I was tired of waiting.”

“Sorry about that.”

“Well, here I am. Let’s party!”

“Your parents have asked me to send you back right away.”

“Can’t I stay just a little while?” Sarah’s expression, pleading and sincere, plucked at Harper’s heartstrings.

After pondering it a while, she called Neil again and proposed a new plan. “Let her stay here until my scheduled trip home,” she offered. “That’s July twenty-sixth. I’ll bring her home then.”