The wind goeth toward the south, and turneth about unto the north; it whirleth about continually, and the wind returneth again according to his circuits.
ECCLESIASTES 1:6
BREATH OF ANGELS
6:00 P.M.
Supper is a quiet affair, but the solitude is a welcome relief from the tedious company of the afternoon. They’ve brought her a cup of warm beef broth and a plate of buttered bread.
“After all that rich cake this afternoon,” Nurse Betten said as she set the tray on Lynnie’s bedside table, “you want something easy on your stomach.”
Now Lynnie sips the broth and nibbles the bread, wishing it were melba toast.
It’s only six o’clock, but the room is already autumn-dark. It’s the best part about getting old, being able to put a day behind you as soon as the sun sets. She’ll take her last sip of broth during the final, feel-good story on NBC News with Brian Williams, waiting for Nurse Betten—or somebody—to assist her in one last trip to the bathroom, then doze until ten, when she’ll wake up to watch the local broadcast and see what has been happening in the world just outside the walls of Breath of Angels.
Another day. One of the many the Lord has given her.
There is a soft rap and a sliver of light slices across her darkened room, revealing the thin, irregular silhouette of Charlotte Hill.
“Can I come in?” she asks, and waits as if Lynnie can give her an answer before slipping through the narrow opening.
On the TV, a nine-year-old girl hauls a little red wagon along the sidewalk in some bighearted adventure. Charlotte watches the television, and Lynnie watches Charlotte, and that’s what happens until Brian Williams wishes them all a good night. Lynnie reaches for the remote, which is never far away, and pushes the big button at the top, plunging the room into deep shadow until Charlotte snaps on the lamp.
“Looked like a nice party this afternoon.”
Lynnie lets out a beef-broth-tinged breath and rolls her eyes.
Charlotte laughs. “All right, it looked terrible.”
Why didn’t you come in?
“They don’t know me, or that I’m family. Grandpa Jimmy—he’s your nephew too—always said we had family here, but Great-Grandpa . . .”
Never wrote more than a few letters until Ma died, and then . . . nothing.
“He lived a long time too, you know. He died about twelve years ago. He was almost a hundred. I guess longevity runs in our family, huh?”
Not Darlene. Just sixty-seven when her heart gave out.
“I remember him, though. Even though I was a kid, I loved to hear his stories about the movies. I can watch them with my friends and say, ‘See that? My great-grandfather built that.’ And my grandmother still talks about the day she fetched Lon Chaney’s makeup case and when she made Joan Crawford scream because she was hiding in one of the cabinets of a set her daddy was working on.”
Joan Crawford. Lucille LeSueur. She’d never forgotten the name.
“I told them that I was going to come find you as soon as I turned eighteen.”
Of course you did. It’s the age of adventure.
“It took me a while, though. I’m about to turn twenty. When I knew I was coming here, I looked for everything I could find about you. I didn’t bring the record, because I was afraid it would break, and Grandpa only had one copy. I’ve looked for it on eBay, but no luck so far.” She is speaking incredibly fast, taking what was left of Lynnie’s dinner and moving it to the table by the door. “But I thought you might want to see these.” She drops her leather backpack on the bed near Lynnie’s feet and takes out an old cigar box wrapped with twine. “These were with Great-Grandpa’s things. I snuck them out of Mom’s antique closet.”
She’s working the twine with her short, dark fingernails, finally untying it as the door flies open and Nurse Betten pokes her head through.
“Happy birthday again, Miss Lynnie,” she says before her eyes light on Charlotte. “What are you still doing here?”
“Just visiting,” Charlotte says. “A little longer. I’m kind of a fan.”
“A fan?”
“She was a singer. Back in the twenties? Gospel music, like bluegrass.”
“Is that a fact?”
“You know that song . . . ?” Charlotte sings a few lines and, hearing it live—not with that device—Lynnie could swear she is hearing her own voice transported through time. Roland Lundi would love this girl.
“I love that song!” Nurse Betten says. “And you’ve got a real nice voice. You should go on one of those shows.”
“Maybe,” Charlotte says. “If I could ever get the courage to go onstage. People scare me.”
Lynnie wants to say, Just close your eyes, and they disappear, but Nurse Betten beats her to it before waving a chastising finger in Charlotte’s direction.
“And not much longer. Miss Lynnie’s had a long day, haven’t you, Miss Lynnie?”
She shouts this last part, a habit Lynnie despises, and starts to duck out the door when Charlotte calls her back in. “Can I tell you something?”
“Of course, sweetie.” Nurse Betten comes inside. “What do you need?”
Charlotte takes a deep breath. “I’m not a CSV. I’m not a volunteer at all. See? No badge.”
Nurse Betten claps her hands and shoots Lynnie a smile. “So you’re just a fan? How exciting. But you didn’t need to sneak in. We would have let you come visit.”
“No,” Charlotte says. “I’m family. Distant, long-lost, whatever. My great-grandfather was her brother.”
“Oh.” Nurse Betten draws out the sound as if giving them a clue to the time it takes for her to come to a full understanding. “How was the party? Was it nice? I wish I could have been there, but—”
“I didn’t go to the party. They don’t know me; we’re not, you know, close.”
“Oh, that’s too bad. Life is so short.”
Charlotte laughs, and Lynnie loves her for it. “Not always.”
Nurse Betten looks confused for just a second before a chuckle ripples along her scrubs. “Well, I’m glad the two of you had a chance to visit today. But not too late, if you don’t mind. They get so tired at this age.”
“I understand.”
“Can I get you anything? Coffee, maybe? Or there’s cake from her party. The family left it for the nurses.”
“That sounds awesome,” Charlotte says. “Thank you.”
“How ’bout you, Miss Lynnie?” Nurse Betten shouts. “Would you like another piece of your cake?”
Lynnie holds up her hand. A small one.
“Well, fine, then. Why don’t you follow me to the nurses’ station and I’ll let you get just what you want.”
“Be right back,” Charlotte says over her shoulder before leaving Lynnie alone with the cigar box.
She should wait. Charlotte, after all, has no doubt brought whatever is in it to share with her. But she brings one finger to the lid, runs it along the edge. With the right amount of effort, the lid lifts and falls backward, exposing the contents within. She sits up, reaches inside, and finds the first item. It’s a folded, faded bit of newspaper, and she need not unfold it to know exactly what she will see. When she closes her eyes, she can hear the music—jazz, meant for dancing, and her feet twitch beneath the sheet in memory. She tastes champagne on her tongue and feels the bubbles misting beneath her nose.
And that dress—nothing she’s worn since ever made her feel the way that dress did. Even as the decades played on, when she wore perfectly modest sundresses or even—on much rarer occasions—shorts, she never felt that perfect combination of exposed and beautiful. She could feel the red silk brushing her legs, the touch of Roland’s hand on her back.
Lynnie thought of him now and then, more often in those first days when, out of the clear blue, her voice would come spilling through the family radio. “It’s nothing,” she’d explained at Sunday dinner. “They let anybody make records in Los Angeles.”
And after a few months, she’d never been heard on those airwaves again. In fact, she’d never heard that song again—not from her mouth or any other—until today.
She reaches into the cigar box again and brings out an envelope. Once white, it has come to something that looks yellow in the lamplight. In the top left-hand corner is the address for the Hotel Alexandria. She brings the envelope to her face and inhales, expecting to smell the perfumes of the elegant women who strolled its lobby.
It is addressed to Don Dunbar, care of Silverlight Studios, written in block, irregular-size letters. Much as Roland had worked to define his appearance and his speech, he still had the penmanship of a modest upbringing.
“You’re peeking.” Charlotte is back, proving why the shoes she wears are called sneakers. “But that’s okay—I was going to share with you anyway.”
She carries two plates of cake and a Styrofoam cup of coffee with the confidence of an experienced waitress.
“Eat now? Or after? I don’t want to get frosting on the pictures.”
Lynnie reaches her hand for the cake, eager for a moment of celebration.
“Do you want to hear about my family? Well, yours too, I guess.”
Lynnie nods, eager.
“It’s one of the reasons I wanted to meet you. One of my earliest memories is listening to Great-Grandpa and Great-Grandma tell about the day they met. She was jealous because he was talking to a pretty girl, but then he said it was his sister, and they had a bet. . . .”
The script girl!
Suddenly, the bite of cake on her tongue is the sweetest taste she’s ever known, and she can see hints of a sleek Louise Brooks bob in the irregular, pointed tufts of Charlotte’s black hair.
“And look at this.” Charlotte leans forward and reaches inside the cigar box, bringing forth a thin, silver coin. “He called it his lucky dime.”
My dime. But she wouldn’t take it back.
“This is their wedding picture,” Charlotte says, producing a photograph that confirms Lynnie’s assumptions. “My family says I look like her, and I was thinking about getting my hair cut like that. Everybody’s wearing bangs these days.”
Lynnie nods and hands over her half-eaten cake, eager to see the contents of the envelope, but Charlotte continues talking, listing names and events of people she’s never heard of and doesn’t particularly care about.
“Anyway, I didn’t know if you’d gotten married or changed your name, and I didn’t know your sister’s family name, so I talked my mom into doing one of those genealogy sites, you know? Then, you know, just a bunch of Google and stuff, and here we are.”
Lynnie goes so far as to put her twisted fingers on the envelope and nudge it across the table.
“Oh, yeah.” Charlotte speaks through the last bite of cake, leaving Lynnie mesmerized by the bit of frosting smudged on the ring piercing through her lip. It disappears briefly within her mouth and comes out clean.
Fascinating.
“These pictures are why I had to come find you.” She took out the first. “It says this is in St. Louis.”
Lynnie takes it from her, holding it close and as still as she can in her shaking hand. Roland had said, “You’ll be glad to have the memories.” But she’d refused his offer to have them mailed to her at Heron’s Nest. She’d stored every moment of those days within the infinite folds of her mind. What power could a scrap of paper, void of movement and voice and color, possibly have?
The image is tiny, but she remembers the moment vividly. It was the day they left, and the two women stand side by side. The old Brownie had captured them laughing, as if they’d been friends, or even sisters.
“That’s Aimee Semple McPherson.”
It is.
“She was an amazing woman. And you knew her?”
Lynnie nods.
“And this one—just says, sisters.”
It’s Darlene. Somehow, she’s always remembered Darlene as being ungainly, huge in her pregnancy. But those must have been her inexperienced eyes, because she looks beautiful. Radiant, but sad. Her smile is forced for the camera, as is Lynnie’s own. There’s a blur at the margin of the image where one of the boys—who remembers which one—had just been unceremoniously chased away.
Lynnie holds out her hand, making a writing gesture, and Charlotte digs through her bag, producing a pen. When she first came out of the last stroke, once she’d resigned herself to a life without speech, she often had a pad and pencil, ready to communicate as she could. But words often dissolved between her mind and the paper, and her life had become so simple, there’d been little need.
Now, as she takes the pen from Charlotte’s hand, the entire act seems unfamiliar. Charlotte turns the picture over and Lynnie writes, Darlene and me. Aug. 1922.
She’s horrified at the trail of letters left behind. They are disjointed and half-formed, more like the product of a seven-year-old than one who’s lived a century beyond that. But Charlotte brightens and says, “Oh, of course,” before picking another picture from the pile.
“I love this one. It’s you, I guess, playing your guitar?”
This is Kansas City, at a park just a few blocks from their hotel. That much she remembers, but the picture itself is a surprise. In it, she is hunched over her guitar, eyes closed—mouth, too. There’s a posture of prayer, but instead of having hands clasped, one holds the strings to a chord, and the other is a blur of motion.
“You look so beautiful . . . and peaceful. There aren’t a lot of candid shots from that era. I think the photographer was a little bit in love with you.”
Enough.
Lynnie drops the photograph and shakes her head, still fearful of the thought of it, even with Roland long in Glory and she not far. Had he loved her? Sometimes, when she thought back to that final afternoon on the beach, she knew for certain that he did. Not with the innocence that drove her own affections, but with enough compassion to set her free and send her home.
“This is the guy, right? Here with you next to this old car? This cracks me up because it says, Remember, my car! on the back.”
Lynnie would laugh if she had the strength, but a familiar, draining feeling hovers as the day takes its toll.
“You’re getting tired. I’m sorry, but just one more? I recognize the station, but I’m not sure if this is when you first arrived in Los Angeles or when you left.”
Lynnie doesn’t need to see the picture to know. There’d been no pictures when she arrived—not of her, anyway. Sister Aimee had been the subject of reporters’ and photographers’ interest that day. This picture was yet another that Roland called his “last one—just to finish off the roll, sweetheart.”
The girl in the picture is wearing a brocade skirt and peach-colored blouse that the woman in the bed can feel on her skin. It had been cleaned and pressed and was forever one of her favorites. He’d told her to take off her hat, as the shadow hid her face, and she’s clutching it in one hand while the other holds her ever-present guitar. A modest pile of bags is at her feet, and as soon as the picture is snapped, the tears that are invisible to the unsophisticated lens will pour down her face.
“So it’s the day you left?”
Yes.
“And you never saw him again?”
Surely Charlotte speaks of Donny, but the answer is the same for Roland.
Never.
When she remembers a last embrace, a final soft kiss, it is Roland, not Donny. Roland had bent to her, touched his lips to hers, merged forever the scent and taste of tobacco. She’d never smoke herself, for fear of tainting the memory.
Charlotte takes the picture and examines it closely. “You were even younger than me, weren’t you? You could have been a star. Would have made it much easier to find you.”
Suddenly it’s clear what must be done. This minute, before the rushing tide of sleep steals her away. Lynnie presses Nurse Betten’s call button on the side of her bed, then fumbles through the pictures, separating out the unposed image of her playing the guitar. She flips it over and drums her fingers, waiting.
“Is something wrong?” Charlotte asks. “Can I get you anything?”
Lynnie trains her eyes on the door.
“I’m sorry. If you want me to leave, I’ll go.”
A burst of strength surges through Lynnie as she grasps Charlotte’s arm. It’s the first time in her life that she’s touched a tattoo, and some part of her wonders if the intricate Celtic cross is somewhat responsible for the exigency she feels.
“What you need, Miss Lynnie?” Nurse Betten is amply cheerful as she walks through the door.
“I think something might be wrong,” Charlotte says, covering Lynnie’s hand with her own. “She just, I don’t know . . . changed.”
Lynnie beckons Nurse Betten over, and when she arrives at her side, taps the photograph.
“Is that you? My goodness, how beautiful.” She looks up at Charlotte. “She still has that guitar, you know.”
“Seriously?” Charlotte’s voice is full of awe.
Nodding, Lynnie takes the photograph and forces it into Charlotte’s hand, disregarding any folds or crinkles the transfer might inflict.
“You want the girl to keep the picture?”
Lynnie shakes her head.
“It is my picture.”
Lynnie presses it into her flesh and forces two grunts from her throat. Guitar.
Nurse Betten claps as if she’s solved a game show puzzle. “She wants you to have her guitar.”
Lynnie nods and points to the closet, but Nurse Betten, caught up in the enthusiasm of the moment, is already there, lifting the case from the top shelf.
Already Lynnie can smell it, feel the warm, worn handle in the curve of her fingers.
“It’s heavier than I thought,” Nurse Betten says, and Lynnie can feel the ache of it in her shoulder as she carried it on the train, and the surprising ghost of regret that would sneak up every now and then since the day she carried it off.
She moves her legs, making room for the case on the foot of the bed. Nurse Betten steps aside to give Charlotte the honor of opening the latches.
It’s not the first time Lynnie has heard this sound over the years. There had been other guitars—one given to her as a wedding gift by her husband, another on her fiftieth birthday. She’d played in countless Sunday services and every county fair, but never that song, and not with Donny’s guitar. Not since that morning in the recording studio. Often, when she’d find herself alone, and then later, when solitude loomed as a constant state of being, she’d flipped those latches, sometimes even opening the lid to tuck a treasure inside that space between the curve of the instrument and the softness of the velvet.
Charlotte looks into the case as if discovering a relic. “Can I lift it out?”
Lynnie pleads with her to do just that.
“It’s a Martin.”
1912.
She lifts it out the way one would lift a baby, with gentle support at the neck and an arm cradling the body. Lynnie longs to take it from her, but she knows it wouldn’t be the same. The silken sheen has turned to dry, parched wood, and the strings are little more than a layer of dust along the frets. Junk to anyone else—especially any of those who’d gathered today in the celebration room. Charlotte, though, holds it in all its priceless glory.
“They used to string them with actual catgut,” Charlotte says, whispering. “They’ve disintegrated.” She looks at Lynnie. “You haven’t played in a long time, have you?”
A lifetime.
“Is it ruined?” Nurse Betten asks.
“It’s in good shape,” Charlotte says, turning it over in her hands. “I know a guy in Santa Fe who does amazing work. He can restore it.” She looks to Lynnie. “If that’s okay with you.”
Lynnie gestures a blessing.
“And I’ll bring it back? It might be a couple of months, though.”
Lynnie waves her off.
“I think she wants you to keep it,” Nurse Betten says.
For a couple of months. From this point and forever.
“I couldn’t. This thing could be worth a fortune, and the rest of her family doesn’t even know I exist.”
Nurse Betten cups her hand around her mouth and whispers, “The rest of her family barely knows she exists. They’d just trash it.”
Lynnie looks away, embarrassed for both her family and the place she holds in it. She knows nothing of what has become of most of her material possessions—not those from her home, or her first apartment at Breath of Angels. She’s thought, always, that it didn’t matter. Once she’s with Jesus, in Glory, none of it will matter. They were the stuff of dust, like the catgut strings on her guitar. But now, seeing new life possible for the only object she’s ever treasured—a life that will take it to someplace as exotic as Santa Fe—that truth takes hold. Before her eyes, she sees both an inheritance and an heir, something she never felt she deserved.
“And who’s this?”
She can see that Charlotte is holding yet another snapshot, but the shadows are crowding too quickly to answer.