A Song Bird
an excerpt

A Song Bird

Rita stood at the weathered gray door. Each crack seemed familiar, yet alien at the same time. The old key was under the canning jar to the left of the front window. The same place it had been her whole life. The hinges moved as if yesterday Rita had entered the living room. A gulf of stale air pushed at her. She moved around the room, touching a pillow here, sniffing a candle there. The lace curtains, yellowed but elegant, filtered the daylight. A layer of dust rested on each object like a protective blanket. On the fireplace mantel sat a photo of her and Mama, hand in hand, walking on the beach. The colors were a tad off the way all film was in the eighties. The ocean breeze had just brushed a long wisp of dark brown hair over Mama's face, masking her expression. Had she smiled at the young, eager Rita, who wore her admiration in her huge brown eyes? Who had taken the picture? Was it Dad? No, somehow she knew Dad wouldn't take pictures of Mama, not at that time in their relationship. Rita rubbed her finger over the glass, tracing Mama's profile. Was she plotting to die even then? She stared into the gold-framed mirror hanging on the wall and fingered an intricate lace table scarf.

A slow bouncy, jazzy tune whispered through the room. She closed her eyes and listened. Mama's sweet voice echoed in her mind. The way she drew out a word in a twangy note gripped Rita in the stomach. The baby grand sat in the same place. She had missed it most after Mama died, almost as much as her. The scraf was covered with big fat roses. She opened the cover and sat on the bench that groaned with age. The keys gave way to her touch, out of tune, but music to Rita all the same. Dad always sat on the sofa, listening with a gin and tonic in his long slender fingers. He was a fine looking man without the bludges and thickness he had now. Mama sang to him, Bye, Bye Blackbird, snapping her fingers. Rita sat under the piano, watching the through the long black fringe of the scarf, willing her Daddy to smile, to praise Mama. That was early on, that was before Dad stopped coming, long after their hate walked into a room before one of them.

The large round oak table in the kitchen at the back of the house was still set for a supper that Mama and Rita never ate. She ran her finger through the thick dust. She drew a 'M'. M for Mama, M for Maureen Paschel Middleton long dead Jazz singer from Darien, Georgia. The plate was thin china with tiny pink roses, roses again. The urge to hurl the plate came and left her body in an instant. How could she stay here all summer? But there was no going back. She was in this for the next three months. She'd return to Harvard after Labor Day.

It was June 10, 2001 and Rita was twenty-four years old and in her second year of law school. Her father, Parker R. Middleton was quite disappointed with her for not taking summer classes, but that was completely out of the question even if Rita wanted to take classes, which she did not. Her jeep sat in the front yard packed with a few clothes that still fit her, several novels, a box of jazz cds, a stereo, and her potter's wheel. She would set it up the sunroom that looked out over the beach. Her clay and oven would be delievered tomorrow. All of this to help her to make a decision, actually several decisions.

****

Out back, close to the beach, stood the three-hundred-year old oak tree, Rita's childhood safe haven when life became way too loud at night. Dad, when he still came to the house, before Mama forbade him to enter the door again, drank each night until he was drunk. Mama's throaty laugh always a warning. On those nights, Rita became the tree, twisted, leaning away from the ocean, the source of everlasting change, scars from the constant battering wind, pleating the sould, long Spanish moss wrapping around the limbs, stiff to the touch like the long gray hair of a woman.

'Come out little song bird.' Mama always let her know when the coast was clear.

Rita stood with the memories wrapped around her like a long cloak, hanging with weight on her shoulders. She stared at the tree until her eyes watered, or were they tears? That would be silly. Crying for years and years before seemed a waste of time. Boy did she sound like her father. Yet there were worse things. She could be like Mama. And that's the last thing she wanted. As if her very thoughts collected and formed, the woman leaned on a cane close to the tree. Was she real? Or did Rita's thoughts conjure her from the tree. The area was known for its voodoo, its mystical tales. Mama had known them all.

The woman had long gray hair, which blew in the wind, flapping like the longs skrits of the same color, blendng with her hair. She cocked her head to the side and smiled a tooth-gaped smile. "You've come home, song bird." The words hung in the ocean wind.

"Are you real?"

The woman moved with each measured step, fragile like a skeleton. "What do you think?" She looked at the house. "I keep watch over this old place. Your mama loved it so. And as much as it pains me to say such, it wasn't him that ruined it. It was her and her deed."

"What deed? What are you talking about?"

"She turned her back away. She ran from this very place denying it was ever here. That just stirs up all kinds of spirits." The woman looked at Rita. "This place just full of old spirits. You used to talk to them all when you was a bitty thing. You ain't lost your touch cause you listening and talking to me."

"I'm losing my mind." She rubbed her hand over her eyes, hoping the woman would disappear, but she didn't.