Sing for Me Read online

  But Sophy jabs her elbow into my jaw. She scratches my arms (time to trim her nails), and it’s not all right—not at all. And it could get worse. Now that’s she’s been roused there’s risk of a full-blown seizure.

  I lock hold around her chest and she howls.

  “Hurts, Rose!”

  She goes quiet then; the fit passed as quickly as it came. We’re breathing hard, in perfect time. The water is even murkier than before.

  “Ouch,” Sophy whimpers.

  “You’re fine.” I sound snappish. I’m not, though. I’m not angry. I’m just anxious, fearful for her health, her survival.

  But her breathing is slowing to normal. That’s a good sign.

  I study her skin. I’m always checking, afraid of hurting her, trying to help. But I’m the one who’s scratched and bruised now, not her. All that’s different now about Sophy is that she’s tired, exhausted. And her middle looks puffier than usual. Usually her belly dips down, a shallow bowl between her sharp hipbones. She must have taken food when Mother fed her breakfast.

  “You’re fine, Sophy. See? I told you it’d be all right.”

  Just look at the water slicking the floor, the small white tiles fairly gleaming in the sunlight. I can’t let go of her to wipe it up. One of us will probably fall, struggling out of the tub.

  “Sing.”

  I have to laugh. She never gives up, this one. Laughing, I grope for the empty jelly jar on the floor, dip the jar into the bathwater, tip back Sophy’s head, and begin to rinse her hair.

  I sing:

  Shall we gather at the river,

  Where bright angels’ feet have trod?

  When I’m singing, and Sophy is calm, I can rinse her hair with my eyes closed—the task is that familiar. So I rest my tired eyes.

  Shall we gather at the river,

  That flows by the throne of God?

  I was eight and Sophy was barely one the first time I bathed her. We were still living in northern Wisconsin then, outside the little town of Luck. This was on Aunt Astrid’s farm, before our move to the fancy suburb bordering Chicago, and our house there, with its indoor plumbing, electricity, stained-glass windows, heavy oak trim, butler’s pantry, two staircases, and five bedrooms, so that everyone, even Mother and Dad, could sleep alone. This was before the Crash and the hanging-on, until the hanging-on left us hung out to dry.

  This was before, in the quiet heart of the country.

  Mother boiled water on Aunt Astrid’s monstrous stove, then poured the water into a dented tin washtub. I don’t remember testing the temperature, or wet heat on my skin. I only remember skinny little Sophy descending through the steam, and me steadying her as she entered the water. And Dad hollering, in the mix of Danish and English he spoke at that time, and still sometimes does, when he’s in a rage: “Tekla! Have you lost your mind?”

  Mother took a long look at me. Her eyes were weary, her arms hung limply at her sides. She looked at me, for the first time, as if I were more comrade than daughter.

  “Quiet yourself, Jacob,” she said. “Rose is able. She’s her sister’s keeper.”

  Mother smiled at me in that special way she used to smile all the time before Sophy was born. Maybe being able would earn me more smiles, I thought, as Mother left the room. “Back soon,” she assured me at the door, nearly giddy, this little breather like a holiday. I held on to Sophy. Held on and on. Able felt scary, alone with my sister.

  Then one-year-old Sophy tried to tilt her face toward me. She tried to smile. I tried to smile back, and in spite of my fear, in spite of the past and my terrible mistake, in spite of myself, I began to sing. I sang “Row, Row, Row Your Boat,” “My Bonnie Lies over the Ocean,” and “Shall We Gather at the River.” I made my baby sister laugh, rocking her in time in my arms. Singing, I made her happy.

  I open my eyes. She’s happy now.

  “All done.” I squeeze water from the ends of her hair. Her beautiful hair, white as cotton, glossy and fine as milkweed when dry, goes silvery, wet. She rests her head against my arm. Her eyelashes spread like fans over the dark circles under her eyes. She must have had another restless night, haunted by dreams and a bed sore we can’t seem to heal. Maybe she was haunted by my absence, too. I pray—oh, I pray—that my night out had nothing to do with her disrupted sleep. I stroke her narrow head, wipe away the drops of water that trickle down her face, her delicate features. Yes, she is an invalid, palsied. But right now, and at other moments like this, when she’s not grimacing or having a fit, she’s also the most beautiful person I know.

  A gift from God. A gift better by far than music. Better by far than the notes that cascaded from the piano keys last night. Better, far, far better, than his touch.

  Sophy laughs like she can read my foolish thoughts. Sophy sounds like a bird when she laughs. She should have wings to fly away, I think, and then I think, far, far away, away from me, and I feel so bad.

  “Girls?”

  Mother peers around the bathroom door. Mother hasn’t had a bath herself for several days. She hasn’t taken the time. And she’s been saving the little warm water there is for us. Her bobbed hair hangs lankly against her strong jaw. Her hair is usually the same brilliant white-blond as Sophy’s, but you wouldn’t know it today; it’s that dark with grease and sweat. Sweat stains the neck of her blue dress, too, which droops on her frame. She’s been scrubbing the kitchen, ceiling to floor, cleaning as she’s done practically every day since we moved into this place. It’s as if she’s exorcising demons of misfortune or the downtrodden spirits of previous residents. And when she’s not working here, and I’m at home with Sophy, she’s working elsewhere for the Nygaards. Just look at her poor raw hands.

  She comes into the bathroom. There’s so little room between the tub and the door, she has to ease herself in sideways. She looks down at Sophy and me. Then her eyes—a stormier blue than Sophy’s—widen. Mother screams. The sound ricochets off tile and porcelain and bounces around the bath.

  I cry out, too, for now I see what Mother sees. Blood, twisting like a red silk cord in the gray water.

  Sophy is bleeding from some hidden place.

  My sister whimpers. She sounds like a small animal caught in a trap, wounded and afraid. Mother and I go quiet at her bleating, remembering ourselves—who we are, and who we care for, and how we care. I tighten my hold on Sophy. She’s trembling. I’m not able to stop it.

  “What’s all the noise?” Dad stands just outside the bathroom door. “Five minutes and I’m off to work. Can’t I have my coffee in peace?”

  “Jacob.” Mother hurriedly drapes a towel over Sophy; the towel, instantly sodden, melds to her body. “Wait.”

  “I’ll be late, Tekla.” Dad starts to retreat, but Mother grabs his arm and yanks him to a stop. Dad nearly slips—the water spread that far—but then he catches his balance. Dad always catches his balance. He’s a small man; the top of his balding head barely grazes Mother’s chin. He can move with the grace and agility of a cat when he wants to, which is most of the time, even when he’s carrying buckets of paint and plaster, or ladders and scaffolding, or Sophy.

  Mother leans over and murmurs something in Dad’s ear.

  “Bleeding?” Dad barely whispers the word, but I hear the horror in his voice. There’s panic in his eyes, which turns to blame when his gaze lands on me. I shrink down as if I can grow smaller, so small I disappear. Dad can sit Sophy on the toilet; he can wipe her bottom when she’s done. He’ll accept Sophy under any condition—naked, dressed, fitful, messed. As for me . . . I’m not someone fragile that Dad cherishes. I’m just someone who takes up the little spare time and energy he has left.

  “Hurts.” Sophy jams her fists into the towel across her belly. I catch her wrists to keep her from hurting herself more. Her breasts may be a woman’s, but her wrists are a little child’s. Whimpering, she pushes down against my hold, but I don’t let go, even as I understand. It’s like a message in the water.

  Sophy’s time has come.


  As never before, she’s going to need me.

  “She’s too young,” Dad says.

  He paces the drafty living room, stirring the air. Still chilled from bathing Sophy, I huddle on the love seat. I tug an afghan over my damp dress, tuck my bare feet beneath the cushions as Dad stalks past. Someone is whooping it up on the street below. Dad strides to the window. Even this upset, he’s graceful. He’s vain about his grace, Mother says. He’s vain about his lean good looks, too, and the wavy chestnut hair he’s so angry to lose, and his once carefully purchased, now carefully patched clothes. He looks dapper even in his coveralls, which are blindingly white now, at the start of the day, and will be blindingly white tonight, when he returns after long hours of apartment painting and repairs. He is that particular about cleanliness. He snaps the cuffs of his shirt into place and glowers down on whatever is going on outside. This window is his post when he’s home. He served as a sentinel in the Great War; now he guards his family. Sucking his teeth in disdain—whoever is below isn’t a threat, apparently, just common—he draws the heavy velvet curtains closed, shutting out the light and the outside world as best he can.

  Mother and Dad took these curtains from our previous house and hung them here, though the curtains are twice as wide and long as these windows. They took the lamps, sconces, chandeliers, rugs, and furniture as well. One by one, we sell or pawn these things when the pantry is bare. As for those things that are left—well, there are still plenty. We’re constantly scraping our shins on chairs, impaling ourselves on table corners, or stubbing our toes against unpacked boxes. There is no room to push Sophy’s adult-sized wheelchair around the apartment, so we leave it in the foyer and carry her, or ease her into her nowcramped child-sized chair if we’re feeling too tired. There is no formal dining room, so the largest chandelier hangs above Mother and Dad’s bed, and there is no entryway, either—just a door that opens onto a corridor—so the smaller chandelier graces the alcove in the kitchen. It’s apartment living, train car style, with the few rooms strung one after another down the hallway.

  In one of these—the bedroom Sophy and I share—Sophy lies sleeping now. There’s a hot-water bottle nestled between her hips, and, beneath her lingering bedsore, a sheepskin pad. My mother and I wrapped old towels around her to staunch her flow.

  “Sophy’s fourteen, Jacob.” Mother lowers herself onto an ottoman.

  Dad flings himself into the chair behind Mother, jostling the needlepoint pillow there. He grabs the pillow and balls up his fist. But instead of hitting the thing, he hugs it tight.

  “My little girl.” His voice goes wistful, the kind of voice he’d call weak in a man.

  “Who will grow bigger still,” Mother says.

  Dad glares. “What are you getting at?”

  Mother doesn’t answer.

  “Sophy belongs with us!” Dad flings the pillow aside. “You saw Donald. Where they put him.”

  Mother saw, and Dad saw, and I saw, too. This past fall, the three of us visited the place where the Larsens put their son—their Donald, who is only a little older than Sophy and similarly impaired, and who lives now in a redbrick building that rises out of nowhere smack-dab in the middle of cornfields. “Sophy could live there, too,” Mrs. Larsen had said enthusiastically to Mother after church one day. “She and Donald could keep each other company.” It was a two-hour ride to the institution, the last hour down dirt roads. Bare cornstalks rattled all around us in the wind. The place looked as pretty as a castle until we went inside. After our visit, it was hard to know what to say to the Larsens. How could we reveal what we really thought about the patients lining the halls, propped in wheelchairs or lying on dollies? The smell? Dad still refuses to speak to them, though Mother says they’re hiding their suffering, the pain they feel about Donald’s absence from their home. We must show the Larsens compassion, Mother says. So she and I do our best to do just that—though Sophy will never be Donald’s companion in that place. Not if we can help it.

  “My back hurts, that’s all, Jacob,” Mother says now. “These stairs—I’m not sure how much longer I can carry her up them.”

  Dad glares at me as if I’m at fault for this.

  “Rose helps all she can.” Mother’s voice is soft but firm. “You know, Jacob, how much she cares for Sophy, on top of all her other work. Rose works as hard as we do.”

  I could sing. I could make money doing that. This flashes through my mind unbidden.

  Mother takes a deep breath, emboldening herself. “I know you don’t like to trouble the Nygaards, Jacob, but perhaps we could ask them to let us move to a ground-floor apartment. It would be such a help.”

  “Speaking of hard workers, did I mention that I ran into Nils Hoirus on the street yesterday?” Dad is looking at me, pointedly ignoring Mother, making it clear that asking isn’t just a bother, it’s a humiliation. “Nils is still a clerk at the National Tea, but he said he’s in line for the assistant manager position. That fellow has promise, Rose. Works hard, saves his pennies. He said he’s going to change his name from Nils to Neil first chance he has. ‘I don’t want a name that makes people think of nil, of nothing,’ he said. ‘Not when I’m going to make something of myself!’ ” Dad claps his hands—a single, sharp crack of approval. “Whatever he calls himself, he’ll provide well for his wife, and care for her family, too. He’s the best of the old country, right here in the new.”

  I shift on the love seat, not just cold now but uneasy, too. I’ve known Nils since we moved to Illinois and started attending the Danish Baptist Church. He’s like a brother to me. No, easier than a brother—easier than my brother, at least. When we were kids, Nils and I teased each other mercilessly, made each other laugh, played hard. I still consider Nils one of my oldest friends. But his feelings for me seemed to have changed in the last couple of years. And it’s not just me who’s noticed. It’s Mother and Dad, too.

  “Nils is hoping to get together with you, Rose,” Dad says. “He spoke of a Saturday night—not tonight, but sometime in the near future. Do you have plans you can think of coming up?”

  “No.”

  “I didn’t think so.” Dad stands and goes to the bayonet he brought home from the Great War, his cherished souvenir from when he was young and heroic, a trusted soldier. He pulls a handkerchief from his pocket and begins to dust the bayonet, as he often does when he’s anxious. And he’s often anxious, so he often does. It always seems to reassure him. It seems to reassure him now. “I knew as much. I told Nils so.”

  In these last months particularly, Nils has started looking at me almost like I’m bedazzling, bright and shining, glorious with possibility. Sometimes I find it flattering. But other times, when I’m feeling contrary, I feel burdened by his new attention. On those days I’d like to shine a little less brightly. My glow, I fear, eclipses the person I really am.

  But who am I, really? After last night, I wonder.

  “This reminds me, Rose,” Mother says with forced cheeriness. “I was hoping you and Sophy would make a trip to the National Tea later today. We need a few things—flour, oatmeal, and the like. I’ve made a list. The fresh air will do Sophy good, and you know how she likes that store.”

  Like the rest of us, Sophy doesn’t simply like the National Tea; she’s loyal to it. Sophy, Andreas, and I were raised on tales of the store’s founders, the Rasmussen brothers, Danish immigrants who established their business in Chicago at the turn of the century. Within twenty years they were raking in the millions. Even now, with the economy what it is, the National Tea Company is one of the country’s largest grocery operations, with stores all over these forty-eight states. Nils is lucky to be a rising star there. And with his Danish heritage, his star will shine all the more brightly.

  “If you see Nils, say hello,” Dad says.

  Nils has a way of slipping me sweets now. On my twenty-first birthday, he gave me six white roses, freshly shipped to the National Tea. Those roses were just about the most beautiful gift I’ve
ever received—and the one and only gift I’ve received from a man other than a man in my family. Even now, remembering their petals, soft and cool against my cheek, I breathe in deeply. If only the scent lingered on the close air of this room. A man like Nils might very well shower his wife with roses. And the stems of those roses surely would be stripped of thorns.

  I promise Dad I’ll say hello to Nils. I promise Mom that I’ll make sure Sophy has a chance to say hello to him, too. I leave them both as satisfied as they can be now, with the velvet curtains still drawn.

  FOUR

  Bundled against the bright, cold day, Sophy and I make our way toward the National Tea. It’s tricky, pushing Sophy’s rickety wheelchair up icy curbs and down them, over frost heaves in the sidewalk, around potholes in the streets. Far trickier than navigating the well-shoveled walkways and plowed roads that framed the blocks around our Oak Park house—though, of course, there were curbs to manage there, and everywhere people stare, or look right through us. Being ogled or being invisible—Sophy and I can never decide which is worse.

  She is quiet now as we pass through Garfield Park’s wrought-iron gates; so quiet, I wonder if she’s nodded off in her warm cocoon of blankets. I’ve chosen this route because it provides a shortcut to the store. But for Sophy, Garfield Park is more than a shortcut. With its famous botanical conservatory and lagoon, the park is her favorite place in this neighborhood. I’d hate for her to miss a visit.

  I glance over her shoulder, checking, but she proves to be awake and watching. She’s thoughtful, that’s all. With all that’s happened to her today, I can see why.

  Perhaps the sights and activity will distract her. Sunlight glints on the curved glass roof of the Conservatory, and even with the steam coating the windows, the shapes and colors of the flowers and tropical plants inside create a kind of kaleidoscope for our eyes. This late in the morning, skaters skim and twirl, their blades making brilliant patterns across the frozen lagoon. Children hurtle on sleds down the little hills all around. If they are too poor to have sleds, which most of them are, they ride battered baking sheets and old tires. Some of the boys wear the fur-lined jackets and leather bomber hats that are so popular. The girls, in their simple wool coats and knit stocking caps, look vulnerable to the cold by comparison. There’s a snowball fight on the softball field, and couples stroll, huddled close, around flower beds accented only by rose cones, barren shrubs, and small, strategically placed conifers. From this distance everyone looks like they’re exactly where they want to be, coming and going as they please. Everyone looks so happy.