Mama had played the piano for the church services in Red River as long as I could remember. She’d pound out the hymns while Pastor stomped across the stage, his arms waving to and fro, singing the words at the top of his lungs.
Every week she’d practice and once in a while I’d sneak over and sit on the church steps listening to her play. I’d close my eyes and imagine those fingers of hers were dancers, leaping from one piano key to the other.
I always wished she’d teach me to play. I never asked her to, hoping she’d offer. She never did. I wondered if it was something she’d wanted to keep just to herself, playing songs the way she did.
In my Peter Pan book it said that Wendy’s mother had a kiss in the corner of her lips that she didn’t give to anybody. Not to her children or her husband even. I’d tried picturing what that might look like. Seemed to me Mama not offering to teach me piano was something akin to that held-back kiss of Mrs. Darling’s.
One day while Mama practiced at the church, I’d sat on the steps as usual expecting to hear her playing loud and fast the way Pastor liked all the hymns to be. But instead, she played light and slow, like she felt the sounding of each note all the way down to her toes. I’d imagined the music fell from high up in the sky like stars, twinkling and sparkling as they came.
Then Mama’s voice had filled the sanctuary, rich and smooth, singing of stardust and love and lonely nights. She didn’t belt it out, that wasn’t Mama’s way. And she didn’t hold out the notes like some folks did when they wanted to show off. She just opened her mouth and the sound sailed out, drifting along on the air all the way to where I sat.
I couldn’t help myself from stepping inside so I could watch her. Her eyes were closed as she played, her fingers not straying to a sour chord, not hitting a wrong note. Every once in awhile she’d move her head from one side to the other or rock forward as she moved her hands along, tapping her foot on the pedal to make the piano sound hold out as long as she could.
She finished, not taking her hands off the keys but letting them rest there until the piano fell silent. I’d thought how pretty she was. The prettiest mama in all the world, as far as I knew. Turning her head, she noticed me.
“Hi there, Pearl,” she’d said, her voice gentle and her face full of sunshine.
I remembered that while I stood in the living room in the house on Magnolia Street, holding the telephone receiver to my ear. I wished Mama’d had a little sunshine to her voice that night, too. But she didn’t.
“Hi, Mama,” I said.
“Is your daddy home?” she asked, her voice cool and short.
I swallowed, trying not to be too disappointed that she hadn’t asked how I was or said how she missed me. Even if it wasn’t true, her missing me, she still could’ve said it. I’d have made myself believe it.
“No,” I answered. “He’s at a town meeting.”
“Are you home alone? At this hour?”
“Ray’s here,” I said. “And Opal, too.”
“All right.” She made a sound like she was sniffling and I wondered if she was crying.
“Are you okay, Mama?” I asked.
“Fine,” she said. “I’m fine. How about you?”
“Yes, ma’am.” I tried thinking of something to say to her that might make her want to come home. Something exciting or new. Nothing came to mind, though.
“You know when you’re expecting your daddy home?”
“I don’t, ma’am.”
“Well, you have him call me when he does,” she said. “You’ll remember?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“He has the number.”
“All right.” I held the cord of the telephone with my free hand, feeling how smooth the wire was. “Mama?”
“Yes?”
“Are you coming home?” I asked.
“Pearl …”
“Are you?”
She sighed and I imagined she had closed her eyes. “It’s not that easy.”
What I wanted to ask was if it was easy for her to leave us. But when I thought about it, I didn’t think I needed to know the answer to that. It would’ve hurt too much.
“I’ll tell him you called,” I said.
“Thank you, Pearl,” she said.
“I love you.”
But I’d told her too late. She’d already hung up.
Daddy waited until Ray and I had gone up to bed before he called Mama back. I didn’t try to listen in and I didn’t let myself imagine what it was they had to talk about. What I did was work at convincing myself that I just did not care.
But when I heard Daddy walk up the steps and come in to check on me, it took all my self-control to pretend to be asleep and not ask him what Mama had wanted.
From the way he didn’t stay at my bedside longer than it took to pull the covers up over my shoulders, I thought he wouldn’t have wanted to talk about it anyway.