Page 102 of And Still Her Voice
“After Thomas or Bob?”
“It actually means son of the sea.”
“And if it’s a daughter?”
“It fits for either a boy or a girl.”
“Perfect.
Dylan continued squirming as we sped along the 101 Freeway. Tommy drummed his left hand on the steering wheel and then merged onto the Glendale Freeway which confused me. We, the baby and I, began to get a little agitated. I squirmed, trying to adjust myself in my seat, rolling onto my right butt cheek, perching an elbow on the armrest. And then I felt something, like cool silk being pulled across my tongue out my mouth, like one of those magic tricks.
“Turn right on Cañada,” Grandma said in her low raspy voice. She was back. Please don’t. Oh, no. Not now. “And then after a couple miles, you’ll turn right on—” she said, and I slapped my hand over my mouth before she could finish. I stared straight ahead. Even though Tommy had always been curious about the house I grew up in, I’d done a good job avoiding the subject.
“Come on. Don’t you want to go see it?” He scratched his head.
I shook mine and it rattled my brain. I knew if I opened my mouth, Grandma would take over. Besides, I didn’t want to visit the place where my grandmother died, where my grandfather was buried in the back yard. I didn’t want to visit the place where my father blew his brains out. But I couldn’t share any of this with my husband. I didn’t want to visit the place I ended up running away from after I’d stabbed my father.
“Well, I do. I’m curious. I want to see this haunted house where you grew up.”
It wasn’t haunted. The people inside were.
CHAPTER 38
And Still Those Voices
And within moments, he’d taken the next offramp. We were cruising up Cañada Boulevard, I clutched the armrest as the Eagles’ “Hotel California” came on the radio. Well, if that isn’t just a little too on the nose, I thought, as Tommy sang along. He had no idea what bats in the cave had been disturbed. He turned to me and like an orchestra leader, waved an imaginary baton, encouraging me to sing along. As a US Coastie, he especially loved the part of the song where it mentioned calling up the captain.
And then before I knew it, he’d turned left onto Cañada Boulevard and we were parked outside my childhood home, the institution I’d run away from years ago. Tommy continued to sing about the voices calling from far away.
Welcome to the Hotel LeMar. My family had lost the house. So, there was no chance of them ever going back. Josie and Mom were now living with my Uncle Teodoro, Aunt Othelia, and my cousins who’d eventually been moved out of Campo Colorado to an apartment. I wished I could help out, at least financially, but that was not possible for the time being. Michael lived up at Stanford now on a scholarship studying physics, a complete shocker for someone whose father told him he wouldn’t amount to anything. Michael always wanted to be a physicist and study the universe like the dad inA Wrinkle in Time. Maggie had takena job in Arizona as an anchor for the local news station. Patty eventually married Alan and had two more kids.
Tommy reached out to put his hand on my thigh. “You okay?”
I managed to shake my head. No, I’m not okay. It’s hot and humid. The car had no air conditioning and it’s boiling hot as hell inside. I felt as if I were drowning in molten ash and the deeper I sank, the more I’m lost myself and all sense of time and place. All of my faculties seemed to be washing away. I’d lost the peaceful feeling I’d found back at the ashram. My heart clanged in my chest and I felt queasy. The nagging pain in my right side grew stronger. I rolled onto my left butt cheek trying to get comfortable.
I thought about how the song said you could check out but you could never leave.
I squeezed my eyes shut to try and block the memory of stabbing my father before I ran away—to try and block the image of the carpet stains up in his room.
A blast of citrus-scented Santa Anas came rushing into the car. I felt Tommy reaching over to roll down my window. The radio was off. I took a deep breath, sensing something familiar. “Oh, darling, I can just imagine the remnant fragrance of orange blossoms in bloom, the eucalyptus and freshly cut grass,” Grandma whispered. Perched between the telephone poles like music notes on wires were warbling song sparrows and cooing doves. The starlings serenaded each other up in the sycamores. At once, my senses were no longer numb. My ears were no longer blind as they pricked up like a cat on a bird scent.
“Is that better?” he asked. “You look a little green around the gills.”
I turned away from him. One eye open, I peeked out the window. The place had been spiffed up by the new owners, a Mr. and Mrs. Jones, Maggie told me. They’d bought it from the attorney Mom hired to help her save the place. Lousy attorney.
And then I heard piano music wafting out from inside the house. I closed my eyes, straining to listen as the music grew louder, somewhere back in the cobwebs of my childhood, in the mustiness of my mind, I could remember hearing those same notes.
There was a knock on the roof of the car. I sprung open the shades of my eyes to see a man. “Can I help you?”
“We’re sorry,” Tom said, leaning over me to talk to the man standing just outside my window. “My wife’s feeling a little queasy. We pulled over.”
Standing on a river rock embankment bordering the property, the man stooped slightly, hands on the thighs of his creased khakis. He was wearing a crisp, pinstriped shirt with one of those ponies on the chest pocket. He peered into the VW. “Oh, I see,” he said, obviously noticing my huge stomach as he ran a hand through his silver hair, groomed like one of those TV preachers. He took a step back. “You’re not in labor, are you?”
“No, no. It’s been a long day,” Tommy responded. “We were just passing through. She actually grew up here.”
That’s not true. Any growing up I did happened after I ran away from this place.
The man stood straight, placing one hand on his hip and bringing the other to his mouth. “Here? So, you’re a LeMar?”
