An American Tune: A Novel

18 "Teach Your Children”

178 “Teach Your Children” It worked sometimes to talk softly to Jo about things that had happened in the past, going back in time to when Charlie was a little boy and then reeling her in toward the present, story by story. But today, Nora did not have the heart for it. The stories would lead to Claire; theyalwaysdid–memoriesofherinfancyandchildhood–anditwas justtoopainfultorememberthoseyearsandyearswhenthedemands and pleasures of caring for Claire had occupied them all so completely that there was rarely a moment for contemplation or regret. How bright and funny she had been! “Songs!” she would cry out, in the car. But she did not want just any song on the radio. At two, she sat in her car seat, her eyes closed, listening to Mozart or Bach. “Mama,more!”shesaidwhenatapeendedandsilencefell.“Noyike,” she said to the easy listening music Jo played in her car, which always made Charlie laugh. She missed Claire so much. She read the e-mails Claire sent over and over, imagining her daydreaming through comp class in Woodburn Hall, walking back to the dorm on the wooded path that ran alongside the creek that wound its way through the old part of campus. “It’s called the Jordan River,” Claire wrote. “Someone said the waterusedtorunblackbehindtheJournalismBuilding,becausethey dumped the ink there. Is that gross, or what?” 18 179 “Teach Your Children” Nora remembered the inky water washing over the stones, how it grew lighter and lighter the farther away it got from Ernie Pyle Hall. She remembered, too, an unseasonably warm, rainy afternoon in March of her freshman year when she and Bridget had taken off their shoes and waded the Jordan River from Ballantine Hall all the way to the SAE House, where days and days of rain had caused the creek to swell into a little pond. Drenched and laughing, cheered on byabunchofboyswatchingfromanupstairswindow,Bridgetsether soggy book bag on the sidewalk, walked in to her knees, her shoulders –and finally submerged herself completely, invisible but for her long red hair floating out around her. Then she burst forth, grinning, splattering water everywhere. She ached, knowing she could not write back to Claire and share these memories. Instead, she kept her up-to-date on news about Jo, Monique and Diane, and what was happening around town. She wrote about Astro, who thoroughly sniffed Claire’s room each morning , as if determined to find her there, then curled up and slept on the old sweatshirt of Claire’s that Nora had put there to comfort him. About the leaves in the forest turning toward fall. SheprintedClaire’se-mailsforCharlie,whoreadthemandwrote letters in return. What was in them, Nora wondered? He looked embarrassed if she came upon him, writing, and cupped his free hand to make a little wall around the script. She was tempted by the crabbed handwriting on the envelopes, the heft of the folded paper inside the sealed envelopes he left in the mailbox by the side of the road. She felt, not exactly jealous, but . . . left out, extraneous somehow, when she thought of Claire opening and reading them in her dorm room. Still, Nora had her own small private life, which included following the news about Laura Ann Pearson and about Iraq. Charlie’s lack of interest in Claire’s old computer had made it her province. She’d letDianeinstalltheaccountingsoftwareshe’dbeentryingtotalkher into for over a year, making Claire’s room an extension of the clinic office,sotherewasnothingunusualaboutherclimbingthestairsand settling in at the computer each morning after her walk. Overseeing the business end of Charlie’s veterinary practice went more quickly, as Diane had promised it would, and there was time before lunch to read the New York Times online; then, from there, to check the web- 180 An American Tune site Laura Ann Pearson’s friends and family maintained to keep her supporters abreast of any news and, ultimately, to Google through a series of political sites, each of which deepened her understanding and alarm about what seemed more and more like an inevitable war with Iraq. Of course, she said nothing to Charlie about Laura Ann Pearson –and she had resolved to stop talking to him about Iraq. But she could not seem to help herself from trying to startle him from the vague, complacent world-view formed mainly from the five-minute, top-of-the-hour news spots on the classical music station he listened to and the occasional foray through Newsweek. “Are you...