Sister of Silence (5 page)

Daddy was smoking too, so as we played pool, Carla and I begged him to blow smoke rings for us. He laughed and said, “All right, just a few.” Forming an O-shape with his mouth, he produced the most magical, perfectly round wisps of smoke that escaped from his lips, floated a short distance away, and then vanished before our eyes, making us beg for more.

Then he walked over to the bar and ordered another beer. By then, we’d been there so long we were bored. I hated to interrupt him when he was talking or playing pool, but I wanted to go home. I knew Mom would be worried if she came home and couldn’t find us.

I tugged gently at his shirtsleeve. “Daddy, when are we going home?”

He grinned. “As soon as I finish this one.”

It was what he always said, and I never knew if that meant the drink he was working on, or the next one. I turned away and tried to find something to do to keep from being bored.

Later that night I was upstairs with the new ballerina music box Daddy had won for me
playing some game with the bartender, and that’s when I heard my parents downstairs. I’ll never forget Mom’s fiery voice as their words drifted up the stairs, like the smoke from one of Daddy’s cigarettes.

“Dale, I can’t believe you took our daughters to a beer joint again!” She hissed the words, unsuccessfully trying to keep her voice a whisper. Mom only talked to Daddy like that when he came home staggering and couldn’t speak, the ever-present row of empty beer bottles his sole companions, or when he just sat at the kitchen table and stared straight ahead, ordering me or Mom to get him another beer from the fridge.

“Oh come on, Honey,” he replied. “They like it. They had a good time.” His words were slurred.

From upstairs, I opened and closed the music box lid, trying to watch the ballerina bend over and disappear each time, only to stand up and reappear when the lid opened again. I could hear their voices but only needed to imagine their faces. It was a scene I’d seen played out too many times before. My mother would have a stern, unsmiling expression, in direct contrast to the drunken, silly smile on my father’s face.

“I don’t care if they did like it,” she said. “I do not want my daughters around those people. Those drunks!” I could picture her stormy blue eyes, and the way she would lean forward, shaking her finger at him.

“Wuz wrong wif’ them?” Daddy asked. “They’re my frenz.”

Mom was probably shaking her dark head. “I think you need to choose better friends, Dale. Remember that time one of your
friends
dropped Carla on her head? Besides, you drove home afterward, and you know I hate it when you drink and drive! What if something happened? What if you wrecked the car and the girls were hurt?”

By then she was crying, and I heard Daddy’s chair scrape across the floor as he stood, legs
probably wobbly as he went over and put his arms around her like he always did.

“Hey Eileen, I’m sorry, Honey. I dint know it would make you so upset. I won’ do it again. I promise.”

But he did. The same thing would happen again the next week. And within a year or two, it grew even worse.

Throughout elementary school, Carla and I were together through good times and bad. Her tomboy tendencies made Carla a perfect “daddy’s girl,” which complimented my close relationship with Mom. In spite of the similar looks that declared us sisters—both fair-skinned, blue-eyed towheads—we were polar opposites. I liked to wear dresses, while Carla was happy in cut-offs and a tee shirt. I loved school, but Carla tried everything she could to escape it. I had a serious nature, while she was full of mischief. And on the way home from school, I took pains to walk around the puddles—while Carla jumped right in them, laughing as the muddy water stained her clothes.

That first summer
in Preston County, West Virginia, Dad often took us to the Western Union microwave station where he worked, and we’d play at a workbench in a room that had equipment as tall as the ceiling, a smell like that of baked electrical wires, and humming engines. Sometimes, Dad would take us outside and show us where to find nearby blackberry patches, so we could feast on the juicy black fruit. Other times, Mom would take Dad his lunch, and when he came out to greet us, he took turns tossing us up into the air, twirling us around like little airplanes. Then Mom would hand us plastic buckets and take us into the deeper woods, where the best blackberries were hidden from human eyes.

Our
first few years in West Virginia were good, in spite of Dad’s drinking problem, and one of the best things about moving there was getting to know my cousins. Anne and Jeannie wore pretty costumes and took tap dancing and ballet lessons. The first time we went to visit my grandmother in Sissonville, just outside of Charleston and about a four-hour drive, the four of us dressed up in their costumes, pretending to be famous dancers.

Their basement served as our dance floor, and we pulled out the costumes from where they were stored in a corner. I found a pink leotard with a white tutu, but when I tried to wear the little black ballet slippers, my toes wouldn’t stay pointed like my cousins’ toes did.

“That’s because we take ballet lessons,” Jeannie said.

“When I grow up, I want to be a ballerina,” I said.

“You can if you take lessons, too,” Anne said.

Because I couldn’t get my toes to work right, I donned a bright green sequined leotard with a matching hat and feathers sticking out, and some shiny black shoes with silver metal plates on the heels and toes. After trying to imitate my cousins’ movements, I soon learned how to dance a few steps. I loved the loud clicking sound of the silver metal against the solid concrete floor, but what I enjoyed most was watching Jeannie and Anne perform for Carla and me, their feet making clickety-click movements as they danced together.

Afterward, as we left their house, I tugged on Mom’s arm. “Can I please, please, please, take dance lessons like Anne and Jeannie?”

“We’ll see,” she said, leaving me clinging to the hope that someday I would get to dance.

In 1971, Dad and Mom bought an ancient two-story brick home for us in Independence
, several miles south of Albright. I was just eight and liked to believe my parents bought it just for me, because someone had left an old, upright piano sitting in the downstairs hallway. Its ivory keys had long since yellowed, its varnished wood was as dark as the shadows where it sat, but when I placed my fingers on the keyboard, it sounded perfect. Mom couldn’t read sheet music but could somehow play anyway, having learned some tunes many years before. She taught me to play and before long, I was tapping out songs on the old keys.

When Dad heard me playing, he said I was going to become a famous concert pianist. He promised he would someday send me to a music conservatory. I would sit for hours on the little bench, trying to play the old, worn-out instrument. For years, just as I had with dancing, I begged for lessons, but there was never enough money.

So instead, I went outside to play, or stayed inside and read. After school, I would jump off the bus, eager to explore on my way home. Mom always waited for us at the bus stop. Then she and Carla walked home while I dawdled behind. I walked down the narrow country lane on my own. It was a short walk, made longer by the presence of a general store and post office in a gray-shingled building. Inside, I bought pieces of nickel candy from Mr. Engle, the elderly shop owner who shuffled slowly around, helping me remove the lids from the candy jars that sat atop glass display cabinets. He also sold ice cream and all kinds of household and garden items in the comfortable but dusty old shop, and I would slowly wander around savoring my sweets as I peered closely at everything there.

Mr. E
ngle’s son worked in the post office next door. Jim was the postmaster and he sorted mail in a room barely big enough to turn around in, but which had the most lovely, little brass boxes from floor to ceiling. There was row upon row of them, except where a small window opened in the center. That was where customers bought stamps or leaned over the narrow ledge, eager to share neighborhood news.

Each brass box had its own small window, and an even smaller brass knob with a pointer that turned around a numbered dial to unlock the boxes. I loved turning the little knob and opening its tiny, hinged door, to find someone had sent me a letter of my very own.

I would practically run off the bus every day, stopping long enough to buy something from the store if I had money, or go into the post office in case my mother had left mail in the box for me. Jim would always come out whenever any of the neighborhood children came in, smiling kindly and asking how our day had been, or what we were learning in school. I enjoyed talking to him for a few minutes, before skipping happily down the road.

“Well Miss Daleen, how are you today?”
Jim asked.

“I’m fine, but I don’t see any mail in my box.” I was disappointed.

Jim grinned. “Then you’ll be happy to know that’s because it’s too big to fit into the box.” He turned and picked up a big bundle and opened the small door between his work area and the customer service area.

“I think this is yours,” he said, handing it to me.

“It’s my weekly delivery of
Grit
newspapers!” I practically danced out of the building, yelling as I went. “Thank you, Jim!”

The papers were too heavy to dally, but on other days I would stop to gaze at the
jewelweed that grew alongside the road. I called the bright specks of orange hidden among the tall bushes touch-me-nots. My hand would be poised to touch one of the elongated pods that hung on the same stem as the small, delicate flowers when it would suddenly pop without warning, exposing a tiny curled green vine and a few white seeds. One of the things I really enjoyed during late spring and early summer was to try to pop as many of the little pods as I could. Sometimes, I would pluck them very carefully from their stems, place them in my open palm, and make a game out of trying to reach home with the buds still intact, because even stepping too hard could cause them to pop. Then I would sit down and with barely a touch, I would watch the remaining ones burst open, revealing the amazing coiled green tendrils inside.

From the general store to my home, it was a short walk down a small hill and past the touch-me-nots, over three sets of railroad tracks, and across a bridge under which ran a small creek. Each day was an adventure, and I often stopped just to watch a groundhog or a rabbit run by.

Our home sat at the end of the bridge. Sometimes in summer, I would stand and look over the railing to the water far below, dreaming about how nice it would be to take off my socks and shoes and climb over the rocks. I knew they would feel good, because for several years while growing up, that’s how Carla and I, and all the neighbor kids, stayed cool on the hottest of days.

My girlhood dreams came alive and found fruition in the tiny town. I was an entrepreneur, so by age eight I spent countless hours dreaming about what I would do if I could earn my own money. Not long after, I got the job delivering more than fifty newspapers on my bike, covering a two-mile route each week.

Dad had convinced me to get the route selling the quarter-a-copy papers. Having grown up during the Depression with a single mother and four other siblings, he had once had a
Grit
route himself.

One ordinary house near the middle of my route, though, created within me a fear that threatened to eat me up. That’s because “Lurch,” as I named him, lived there. He was tall and towered above me, and he scared many neighborhood children. He was also a stranger and because he looked mean and had a deep voice, I was terrified he would kidnap me. Fortunately, his parents usually answered the door, smiling and trading coins for the
Grit
I held out. I was always eager to leave before Lurch could appear. Each time, I talked inside my head, telling myself, just like my mother had chided me, that Lurch only looked mean. That he was just different, and that he did, in fact, actually have a problem: he was a boy trapped in a man’s body.

So one day when I nervously knocked at his door, praying his parents would answer, I was hardly able to speak when Lurch
opened the door and looked down at me. I swallowed hard and managed to squeak, “Here’s your paper.”

“Hold on,” he said, turning away.

I wanted to bolt. Instead, I tried to tell myself that he wouldn’t hurt me, that my parents had checked with Jim, who’d told them Lurch was harmless.

But it seemed to be taking Lurch more time than it should just to get the money to pay me. My mind began racing
. Could he be getting a knife?

The door opened in the middle of my fanciful fears, and Lurch reached out, coins in his palm. “Here you go,” he said, smiling as he emptied them into my hand.

“Thank you,” I said, handing him the paper and turning to leave. I forced myself to walk slowly when my feet wanted only to flee, because I knew he was standing in the doorway watching. But as I got on my bike and glanced back, I saw him wave.

I gave a shy wave back.

I hated to spend the money I collected from my customers each week, knowing I was my only reliable source for getting more. But even beyond carefully counting and stashing it away in a dresser drawer, was the joy of sitting down at the end of the long route and reading the weekly serial story within each issue. I would lie on my stomach across my bed, head in hands, and read furiously, trying to race to the final few words to see how it ended. Most of the time, I was forced to wait until the next week, and the week after, until the story finally ended weeks later.