The Language of Sycamores (7 page)

“She doesn’t want to bother you, Kate,” I heard myself say. What was I doing getting in the middle of Kate’s family business? “She’s afraid to
be
a bother to you. She sees that you’re busy and you’re stressed, and she’s afraid to pile on more.”

“I know that,” Kate bit out under her breath. “But I can’t change the way she thinks. I’ve talked, and I’ve tried. I’ve loved her all I can, but you know what? I can’t work miracles.”

My mind went silent, then I whispered, “There’s your miracle.” I pointed toward the little house, toward the sound of the piano drifting through the still air. Dell was playing again. “Right there. There’s your miracle. There’s her chance to be extraordinary, her special gift. The one thing about her that isn’t like anybody else. She hears music in her head.” Kate’s eyes met mine with an expression of sudden understanding, and I whispered, “If that isn’t a miraculous gift, what is?”

Kate seemed surprised to hear me, of all people, asking that question. “I don’t know,” she admitted quietly. “I just don’t want her to end
up worse off than she already is. She has such a hard time in school and with the other kids. It’s all she can do to keep up now, and she’s getting to the age where she’s starting to change physically. I just don’t think she can handle any more pressure, any more activities.”

“Kate, I wouldn’t have made it through school if it
hadn’t
been for music.” I couldn’t believe I was admitting this to her after all these years.
News flash: Karen isn’t brilliant.
I’d never even admitted that to James. Perhaps because he, like Kate, was brilliant and gifted. “You don’t know what it’s like to struggle, to not have everything come easily, to have to hang around the classroom after school so you can get the teacher to explain calculus equations one more time.” Kate’s eyes widened, and she blinked like she was seeing me for the first time. I didn’t care. “All that time, the one thing I knew I was really good at was my music. I knew that made me special, even though I wasn’t the brilliant, gifted, and talented student that you were. My music was enough to keep me going, and it could be that way for Dell. It could be better than that for Dell. I was good at music, but she’s extraordinary. She’s remarkable. She started to see that today, and it lit her up. There has to be a way to keep that flame burning.”

Kate didn’t answer—just nodded, then finally choked out, “O.K.”

Jenilee and Caleb were coming up the path behind us, walking arm in arm and gazing at each other in a moonstruck way that made me miss the days of young infatuation. He leaned down to kiss her, and they stopped near the rose trellis, forgetting there was anyone else in the world. I smiled, seeing myself and James the weekend we first met. He was deadheading on a flight to Boston so that he could spend a couple of days at the summer music festival in Tanglewood. I was flying home after working on one of the first big network jobs for Lansing. I had some of the programming code in my head already, and when the plane landed, I planned to go straight to the office, input the code, and test it. Then James sat down beside me, said hi as he tucked a carry-on under the seat, and all of a sudden, I couldn’t have programmed my way out of a cardboard box.

We talked for an hour and a half on the flight, shared cheap airline food, and compared his childhood on a small farm in Virginia to mine
in Boston. I teased him about being a farm boy, but he didn’t really seem like one. He was sophisticated, intelligent, secure in himself, and just arrogant enough to be successful. He had beautiful hazel eyes, gorgeous light brown hair, and a countenance that made him seem mature, despite that he was only twenty-seven, just two years older than me. He liked music, everything from classical to James Taylor, but he wasn’t one of the starry-eyed dreamers I’d dated in college. He had an actual, practical college degree and a career path, a plan for the future. He loved flying planes, and he was on track to eventually move from first officer to captain. I couldn’t help thinking that even my parents would like him. By the time the flight was over, there was nothing I wanted to do more than go to Tanglewood with him, wander around the grand old Berkshires estate together and listen to the Boston Symphony. I knew, even at that point, that it wouldn’t really matter who played that weekend. All I could see was him.

It was like that every time we were together, from the moment he flew into town until the moment he left. After two months, he surprised me with a weekend trip to Nantucket and a proposal at the top of Sankaty Lighthouse, overlooking the massive cranberry bogs. We bought a ring at one of the little art shops in town and married at a little chapel right there on the island. It was, he confessed, one of the few impulsive steps he’d ever taken. I loved him even more because of that, but as time went by, it was one of the things that frustrated our relationship. For James, life was a flow chart, carefully mapped out on the squares of invisible graph paper. Lines all over the place, no reason to talk about anything that deviated from the flight plan . . .

Kate nudged me as Jenilee and Caleb broke off the kiss and turned toward us. Kate wiped her eyes, and my thoughts flipped back to our conversation about Dell. Kate and I had deviated from our usual flight plan, gotten emotional and honest for a moment, and now it seemed uncomfortable. I’d said too much, revealed too much of myself.

All of the habitual self-defense mechanisms went up. By the time we sat down on the porch with Jenilee and Caleb, both Kate and I were back to our unsentimental selves. Jenilee set the box of mystery letters
on the wicker table between our chairs, and we regarded it like a welcome distraction.

“I haven’t read them,” Jenilee told us. “There was so much to do after the tornado last spring. Drew, Nate, and I worked for nearly a week cleaning out what was left of my grandparents’ old house. Daddy had junk stored there for years, and I didn’t even know some of my grandparents’ things were in there until the tornado scattered their papers everywhere. We boxed everything up after the tornado, and I didn’t start going through it until a couple weeks ago.” She lifted the lid, and the musty scent of aged paper drifted from the box. “It seemed like the right thing would be for all of us to go through these together. I never even knew my grandmother had a sister.”

“There were three sisters,” Kate interjected, her voice taking on an air of mystery. “I found an old family Bible in the attic, and there are three sisters listed—my grandmother Rose, your grandmother Augustine Hope, and Sadie, who would have been two years older than my grandma Rose. Her name was scratched out of the family Bible, but there’s no explanation.”

“That’s weird.” Jenilee’s reaction was much like mine had been. “I wonder why.”

Kate shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m hoping we’ll learn something from the letters.” She tentatively touched the letters, and a crow called in the garden like some mystical omen. Our circle suddenly had the feeling of a séance.

No one said anything until finally I suggested, “Why don’t we each start reading individually? If one of us finds something interesting, we can read that part out loud.”

A sudden breeze slid along the porch, and across from me, Jenilee shivered. “That sounds good. Let’s do that.”

Each of us reached into the box and took out a letter.

Chapter 7

T
he three of us read as the afternoon shadows lengthened. Slowly, one word, one page, one letter at a time, we began slipping into the lives of our grandmothers. The things they chose to write about, the words they used, the styles of handwriting told us who they were. Rose’s pen was quick, angular, practical, to the point. She talked about the weather, the price of crops, the children, the household work, the birth of young animals in the spring, and the weaning in the fall. Her relationship with her younger sister was parental; her letters were often filled with advice and tips on cooking, canning, housekeeping, and marriage. She didn’t sign her letters
With Love,
but simply
Your Sister,
as if no more needed to be said.

Augustine Hope’s hand was precise, contemplative, the lines gently curving and artistic, the words carefully thought out even when she was describing the most ordinary events. She did not address my grandmother as Rose, the nickname my grandfather had given her after their marriage, but just by her initial “B,” short for Bernice.

Dear B,

Today I put up jars and jars of the peaches gathered from our secret tree in the wood near Mulberry Creek. How good to go back after all these years and find that our enchanted glen
remains! Our sister trees still stand in the center of the glen, side by side, as they were when we played there, each of us claiming one lofty sycamore as our imaginary castle. Such good memories those are.

As I finished the canning today, I sat looking at the fine golden jars of peaches and wondering—who planted the peach tree in such an unlikely place, deep in a glen of sycamores where no one would find it? I suppose we will never know. Perhaps no one planted it there at all. Perhaps the seed fell from the basket of young lovers on a picnic, or dropped from the pack of a wandering tinker looking for work. Perhaps it fell from the mouth of a bird or floated down the river from some fine plantation far away. Or perhaps it was planted by the wood fairies. Remember how we could see them hiding among the cowbells and Queen Anne’s lace, wearing their little skirts of hollyhock petals? I have not seen one in years. But then, I have forgotten to look.

We never told their secret, did we? Not even on that horrible day when we trotted home with our little bucket of peaches, a surprise for Mama’s birthday. She was certain we’d stolen them from someone’s orchard, and she came after us with a switch. You wrapped your body over ours and whispered, “Don’t tell. Don’t tell. Don’t tell.” You didn’t want Mama to find our secret place. We kept silent, and when Mama wasn’t looking we went back to the sister sycamores to hide away. We could hide from everything there. Nobody knew.

Do you ever think about that place? Do you remember how many trees stood in the glen? There were three.

In my mind, I see them yet.

 

Your Beloved Sister,
Augustine Hope

Jenilee looked up with questions in her eyes when she finished reading, and for just an instant, I saw my grandmother the moment before she died, when she was trying to tell me something, but time had run out.

My mind replayed that silent good-bye. What did she want to tell me? What was she thinking at that moment?

Dimly, I heard Kate talking about the letter—saying something about my grandmother’s mysterious older sister. “I think I have the letter that answers that one,” she said to Jenilee. “I didn’t understand it until you read yours.”

I tuned in to the conversation again, but in the corner of my mind, I was still thinking about Grandma Rose just before she passed from this world to the next.

Kate picked up a letter to read, just as the front door opened and Caleb poked his head out. He and Jenilee smiled at each other, and I had another pang of missing James. How long had it been since we’d smiled at each other that way?

“Need anything?” he asked. “Need any help?”

Jenilee glanced around our circle, then answered, “I guess not.”

Kate winked at him. “It’s kind of a girl party out here. What are you guys doing in there?”

“Watching a ball game. Ben put the baby down for a nap.” The TV got louder, and he glanced over his shoulder. “Josh is having a blast, but I don’t think Dell’s too into it.”

Kate chuckled. “Tell her to come out here with the girls. This is much more interesting than baseball.”

“All right. I’ll tell her.” Caleb smiled at Jenilee one more time, then closed the door.

Kate was getting ready to read again when Dell peeked out the door. Pausing, Kate motioned for her to join us. “We’re reading through some old letters. Trying to solve a family mystery.”

“Cool,” Dell said, but she didn’t seem overly enthused. Crossing the porch, she stood by me. “I taught Joshie to play a C chord on the piano.” She waited expectantly for my approval.

“That’s great.” The words conveyed a rush of pride in my unlikely pupil. “Just had your first lesson, and you’re teaching piano already.”

She tried not to look too pleased with my comment. “Can we play some more later?”

“Sure.” I noticed Kate watching our conversation with interest. Deep inside me there was just the slightest bit of gloat, like we were kids again, vying for the same playmate. I knew that was the wrong way to feel. “Aren’t your fingers getting sore by now, though?”

Dell quickly shook her head. “Huh-uh.”

“All right, then, in a little while, after we go through some more of these letters,” I said. “Kate was about to read us a letter that Grandma Rose wrote to her sister when she was young, probably not too long after she got married and came here to the farm.”

Dell glanced at the letter with mild curiosity as she sat on the porch floor and crossed her long, sun-browned legs. I watched her, wondering what she was thinking.

Kate started reading the letter.

Dear Augustine,

I suppose it is all the emotions of coming motherhood that make you go on so about the sister trees, but do you think it wise, when you are heavily in a family way, to go walking so far back in the wood, so deep into the past? I do not think of the sycamores any longer. I do not think of her. When I was younger, I dreamed of that place, but now I have banished it even from my dreams.

It is only a fading picture left too long in the summer sun. I will not dwell there any longer, and neither should you. What good, now, is all her talk of castles and fairies? What good was it ever?

Augustine, you must not walk in the past. Finally, after these many years of wanting, you are to be a mother. Rest, Augustine. Take good care. When it is closer to your time, I’ll leave my little ones here with their father and come to be with you. Don’t argue. They can do without me for a little
while, and you will need a woman nearby to help care for you and the babe those first days. I would not be anywhere else but with my only sister.

 

Your Sister

“But Augustine wasn’t her only sister. We know that from the entry Kate found in the family Bible,” I said as Kate finished the letter. “The third person they’re talking about is probably the other sister.”

Jenilee shrugged in a way that said
Maybe so
, and Kate frowned thoughtfully. “We don’t have any way to know for sure, I guess. I wish I could have asked Grandma about Sadie.”

A breeze slipped across the porch, and on the horizon the amber sun disappeared behind a bank of clouds, dimming the afternoon light as Kate spoke the name of the mysterious long-lost sister. I’d never been a believer in spirits and séances and messages from beyond, but gooseflesh rose on my skin.

Kate whistled the theme song to
Scooby-Doo,
lightening the moment.

“She didn’t like to talk about Sadie,” Dell muttered so quietly the words were almost part of the breeze. If I hadn’t been sitting so close, I wouldn’t have heard her at all. I glanced sideways, and she was sitting cross-legged, lazily drawing lines in the sand with a blue jay feather.

“What?”

“She didn’t like to talk about Sadie,” Dell repeated, loudly enough for everyone to hear.

Kate stopped in the middle of folding the letter into an envelope. “Did Grandma talk to you about Sadie?”

Dell nodded, seeming more focused on drawing in the sand than on us. “Sometimes she dreamed about when her and Sadie and Augustine was little girls. Sadie had red hair, and Grandma had brown hair, and Augustine had blond hair. Everybody thought that was pretty funny and maybe they didn’t have the same daddy, like with me and my baby brother. He’s got yellow hair and pretty skin and blue eyes. Uncle Bobby says that’s because he didn’t have a nigger daddy, like me.”

I jerked upright at how easily that word rolled off her tongue.

Kate closed her eyes, clearly trying to hold back an emotional reaction. “Dell, I told you that’s not a nice word.”

Dell shrugged and went back to drawing in the dirt. The lines were slowly becoming a portrait of one of the climbing roses blooming on the porch railing. “Uncle Bobby says it.”

Kate grimaced, her hands clasped tightly over the letter, her expression frustrated and helpless. I could tell this was an issue she’d been dealing with for a while. “He shouldn’t say it, either, and he shouldn’t say it to you. If you want, I’ll talk to your granny about it.”

“Huh-uh.” Dell quickly shook her head. “I won’t say it anymore. It’s no big deal.”

The porch fell silent. Jenilee leaned forward and studied Dell’s picture in the sand. “You know, Dell, sometimes people in your family do things that aren’t right just because they don’t know any different. It doesn’t make you a bad person, but it doesn’t mean you should do the same wrong things, either.”

A look of understanding passed between them, and Dell answered, “That’s what Grandma Rose said.”

Jenilee smiled. “It sounds like she was a pretty smart lady. You know, I never really got to know my grandmother. She and my grandfather both died when I was still little. I think that’s why I like reading her letters. It lets me know her a little bit.”

Dell nodded. “Grandma Rose said Augustine was kind of quiet-like.” Dell might have been uncomfortable talking to the rest of us, but she seemed perfectly at home with Jenilee. “Sadie was really, really pretty, and folks used to talk about it, how pretty she was and all. She didn’t have to do any work because when she was little, she’d have spells and faint dead out. Their mama was always afraid she was gonna just up and die one of those times. Grandma Rose used to have to do all the work because Augustine was too young and Sadie fainted. Grandma didn’t think that was real fair. Sadie was a good singer, and everybody made a big deal about that, too, and Grandma Rose used to get jealous of her. It’s not a good thing to be jealous of other people’s gifts—Grandma Rose told me that. God gives everybody different stuff.”

Kate and I both sat transfixed, wondering how Dell could possibly know the secret history of Grandma Rose’s childhood, a childhood she had kept from her children and grandchildren, a life of poverty and neglect. Why had she been so willing to share all of this with Dell and not with us? Did she think we wouldn’t be able to relate because we had been brought up in a privileged Boston home? But then, I’d never asked her. I’d never taken the time to talk to Grandma Rose about those old times or the family history. I’d barely even listened when she told stories of way back when. Now I wished I’d paid attention.

“Grandma felt awful sorry about Augustine and Sadie.” Dell’s words broke into my thoughts.

“You mean because they passed away?” Kate interpreted.

Dell squinted, her lips twisted to one side, as if we should already know the answer. “Because they had a fight. Grandma said being mad at people for a long time is like leaving the bread dough out too long. It just gets bigger and bigger until it’s so huge you can’t do anything with it.” The corners of her lips tugged upward. “Me and Grandma saw it on
I Love Lucy,
and that’s what made her think about it. Lucy’s bread dough got way too big and it went all over the kitchen. Grandma said that’s how it is when you put a mad on and keep it for a long time, like she did with her sisters.”

Kate quirked a brow.

“So why were Grandma and her sisters mad at each other?” I asked.

Dell shrugged. “She never did tell me that.”

Jenilee reached into the box and thumbed through the letters. “I don’t think we’re going to find the answer in here—the ones we just read have the most recent postmarks. I do know that my grandmother’s baby died not long after birth. There was another letter I found earlier on, blowing around in the grass after the tornado. In that letter, my grandmother was writing to her baby daughter—you know, sort of a note for the baby to read someday when she grew up. She was writing about how heartbroken she was after her baby’s death and how a woman came to them with a baby girl, and my grandmother took the baby in. I thought that baby was my mother, but now I’m not sure. My mother was an only child, but her birth certificate doesn’t say she was
adopted, so maybe they ended up giving that baby back to her mother, and later on they had my mother. Mama never said anything about it, even after she came down with cancer and we were trying to trace family medical histories and that kind of thing. And also I look a lot like my grandmother, and . . . well, when I came here and saw how much Josh looks like my brother Nate . . . well . . . we have to be blood relations. There’s no way my mother could have been adopted.”