The Swan House (65 page)

I sighed.

Rachel affirmed, “You've done well, Swannee. I didn't know if you'd make it, but you have. You're just great, you know it?”

“Thanks, Rach. Thanks. That means a lot.”

We listened to Jean-Pierre until the record ended, and as I lifted up the needle and turned off the record player, I said, “Speaking of changes, Rach, are you ready to tackle the
atelier
?”

“You bet!”

So we ran down the steps and into Mama's studio. I'd decided to clean it up and make it mine, and Rachel had offered to help me get everything organized.

Right away she wanted to start throwing things out. “I'm not sentimentally attached like you.”

“But I can't just toss out Mama's things.”

“You can't, but I can.”

“You have to check it out with me first,” I insisted.

“Fine. Take this, for example. It's a half-empty tube of paint that's all dried up. Please don't tell me you feel a sentimental attachment to it.” And to prove her point she pushed hard on the middle of the small tube with red paint caked on the top. Suddenly a long flow of oil paint squirted out at me, and the look on Rachel's face was priceless.

I started giggling, and then she joined in, and before long we were in hysterics. That lasted a few minutes, but Rachel quickly regained her composure and went about her task in complete seriousness.

As I carefully stacked up different sketchbooks, I came across the one that Mama had used on the European trip, the one that Daddy had brought home in his suitcase. Slowly, reverently, I leafed through the pages. She'd sketched in Paris, London, Edinburgh, Amsterdam, Vienna, Madrid, Florence, and Rome.

“I'm going to Europe,” I announced.

Rachel didn't even look up. “Good—you'll enjoy it.” She'd been to Europe three times.

“No, what I mean is that I'm going to Europe, and I'm going back to visit each of the museums Mama visited, and I'll sketch and paint to my heart's content.”

That got her attention. “Wow, Swan.”

“I have to do it, for her memory. You can come, too, if you want.”

“When will you go?”

“I don't know. I guess I'll have to wait and see. I'm sure someone will make it clear to me.”

“Someone?”

“Yeah.” I nodded heavenward. “Someone.”

Rachel just rolled her eyes at me and said, “No doubt about it. You've changed.”

Near the beginning of May, Daddy and Jimmy and I drove up to Resthaven on a Sunday afternoon. By now the long treelined drive and the stately brick mansion with its white columns looked familiar to me. Dr. Clark greeted us at the entrance.

“I hope we haven't inconvenienced you, Dr. Clark, coming on Sunday.”

“Not at all. My pleasure. Please come have a seat.”

After a few minutes of polite conversation in his office, Dr. Clark led us outside and through the gardens, which were so very similar to what Mama had painted in her
Spring Bouquet
. The colors!

I recognized the path to the old tool shed immediately. But I certainly didn't recognize the shed when Dr. Clark threw open the door and we stepped inside. The ceiling had been lifted, the walls repainted, and comfortable leather furniture offered plenty of room to sit and browse. Two rooms had been added to the shed, so that the building had the appearance of a small, intimate art gallery.

And all of Mama's paintings were framed and hanging on the walls.

Daddy was nodding his head in approval. “It's amazing that you've been able to complete it so quickly. It looks beautiful. Just what I had in mind.”

“Yeah! What a change from the way it looked in January!” I added.

“You'll want to read the plaque by the door,” Dr. Clark said, and Jimmy and I joined him at the entrance where a bronze plaque was engraved with these words:
The Sheila McKenzie Middleton Room. This
gallery has been donated in loving memory of Sheila Middleton (1924–
1962), an artist who found great inspiration for her work at Resthaven. It is
the wish of her family that many others who come to Resthaven will find
refuge and hope through art
.

“And her paintings will always stay here?” I asked.

“Actually, Swan,” Daddy said, “the High Museum is very interested in having an exhibition of your mother's work. They've already scheduled it for next fall. Many of these paintings will be featured there, as well as the original three that were lost. The Metropolitan Museum in New York has also agreed to loan the High three Impressionist paintings—one by Monet and two by Cezanne. After the exhibition is over, we'll decide what to do with all of Mama's paintings. The one of you and Ella Mae will return to Mt. Carmel. Some will come back here, of course, but the purpose of this gallery is to display many artists' works. The money from the memorial fund helped create this gallery and also will provide supplies for the studio and art classes for patients.”

“It's just what Mama would have wanted.”

“Yes, I think so. And Mrs. MacIlvain at the museum told me that you decided to donate the money from the Raven Dare to the memorial arts school. That's a good idea, Swan.”

“It wasn't just me, Daddy. The whole junior class voted to do that.”

Jimmy was inspecting the paintings. “Hey, Swan. Look at this one of you and me and Muffin!” In the painting, Jimmy, around ten, was trying desperately to yank a football out of Muffin's mouth, and I was doubled over laughing. “That's a really neat painting,” he added. It was the first time I'd ever seen Jimmy interested in Mama's art. “And look at that one of you, Dad! It's
exactly
how you used to look when we'd interrupt you in your study.” Jimmy was pointing to the painting of Daddy rising from his desk with the smile on his face.

“I hope I'll look that way again, son,” Daddy said, coming over to Jimmy and putting his arm around his shoulder.

“Oh, sure, Dad. I'm sure you will.”

For the rest of the afternoon, Daddy and Jimmy and I walked round and round in the little gallery and relived the life that Mama had captured for us on canvas.

“Your dad said
that
?” Robbie asked as we sat in his red convertible, staring at the stars.

“Those were his words. If you'll set up another Day at the Park, he'll be glad to come down and lend a hand. So I think you should—maybe another workday with a cookout in Grant Park afterward. He said he'd pay for the supplies and the burgers for the kids.”

“What made him all of the sudden want to do that?”

“He said Mama always wanted him to go down with her and just get to know some of the people, but he never thought it was a good idea. But now he realizes how important it was for Mama to help out among the poor—how helpful it was for her as well as for the ones she taught, and he told me that he's really glad I've been helping out too. ‘That Ella Mae was one wonderful lady,' he said the other night. ‘She had the biggest soul of anyone I ever knew.' I think he wants to do it in memory of Mama and Ella Mae.”

“Well, there certainly is plenty to do. And what did Miss Abigail say?”

“She said, ‘Fine. Plan it.'” I smiled at him. “Just like Daddy, she thought
you
might like to figure out all the details.”

“Aha! Well, sure. As long as it happens before mid-June. Dad's taking me on a trip to visit colleges.”

“And?”

“And what?”

“Are you going to tell him that you don't want to go up north to school?”

Robbie got an uncomfortable look on his face. “Not yet. I figure I can at least check them out first.”

“I hope you can choose what you want to do with your life.”

He grinned suddenly. “Me too. I already know what it would be anyway.”

“What?”

“I've told you. Long time ago.”

“A city planner?”

“Well, yeah. Maybe. But that's not what I mean.”

“Well, spit it out, Robbie!”

“I'd just like to follow you around for a while and see what happens next.”

“It's a deal.” And the way I felt right then, I hoped Robbie Bartholomew would follow me around for a very long time indeed.

Late one night, right before the first anniversary of the Orly crash, I went into Daddy's study and got out the folder where he'd stashed all the newspapers that told about the crash. For some reason, I knew I had to read them again. Hugging the thick folder to my chest, I crept up the steps to the
atelier
, went inside, and shut the door. For at least two hours I cried through every article in every paper. The first one I read was a column that Doris Lockerman, assistant editor for the
Atlanta
Constitution
, had written two days after the crash, on Tuesday, June 5. “The Sunday of disbelief is past. The wounding, restless, agonizing night is over. A weakened Atlanta moves into the long misery of realization.”

Long
. All the adults had known it would take time. A very long time. The deep, painful eyes of my orphaned classmate, Lanie Brad-shaw, haunted me.
I'll call her,
I told myself. I couldn't let her disappear into bitterness. Maybe she just needed a friend, someone to understand. Maybe she needed something to do, the way I had.

Then I reread Ralph McGill's editorial from the
Constitution
, written on the Monday after the crash. Ralph McGill was the editor, a controversial man who certainly supported civil rights.
“You know what
they say about Ralph McGill,”
Daddy liked to remind us.
“Half the people
of Atlanta can't eat breakfast until they've read Ralph's editorial, and half the
people can't eat breakfast after they've read it.”
I smiled to think of Daddy's words.

But no one could disagree with what he had written the day after the crash:

It is an awesome thing to be confronted with the ancient truth that in the midst of life we are in death. It is a difficult enough fact to accept when it is an isolated, personal one. When it occurs in the mass, as in a battle, the loss of a Titanic at sea, the wrenching crash of steel trains, or the explosive, flame-wrapped smash of aircraft, the shock of it is one which makes a community grow silent and put its mind to the business of trying to understand the swift transition of more than 100 men, women, and children from life to death. A rector put his arms about a sobbing woman, “In the inscrutable mystery of life and death,” he said gently, “there is no glib answer. There is faith or there isn't. Faith is an assuagement of grief, though not of your sorrow. With faith one can accept the painful reality of loss. With faith one can accept the finality of death. We are created, we live, we die, we live again. ‘In my Father's house are many mansions. If it were not so I would have told you.'”

There is faith or there isn't
. Yes, that was what I had gained from this tragedy. Faith. Faith that let me accept it all. It didn't hurt any less; in fact, I think it may have hurt more. But I had faith. And I had something else. A scar. A scar that I would carry with me forever on my heart as a reminder of how I found my Savior.

On a sweltering Saturday morning in June, Robbie stood in the fellowship hall of Mt. Carmel with an assortment of men, women, and teens seated around him at those long tables. Many of the same teens from Mendon and Wellington joined us again. Rachel and Julie and Millie and Patty were all present, oohing and ahhing over baby Jessie's fledgling steps. Cassandra beamed at her daughter. Larry and Big Man were telling Robbie about an invitation the jazz band had received to play at another “white man's club,” as they put it.

“Carl shore wishes he could be here,” Leo said. “Poor guy. 'Bout ta go crazy with those classes he's takin'.”

There were several new faces among us. Lanie Bradshaw, orphaned Lanie, had agreed to join us when I'd called. Several of the fathers who had volunteered at the first Day at the Park had returned. And Daddy was there, sitting next to them and talking about the stock market. Trixie and Lucy were talking to Cassandra's mom. And Jimmy was, of all things, admiring Mr. Murphy's pocketknife. That made me almost give a belly laugh. Mean old Mr. Murphy had become meek as a lamb and volunteered for every project or activity offered at Mt. Carmel.
Rachel says I've changed, but he has
really
changed. That's for sure,
I thought to myself.

“As far as the work goes,” Robbie was saying, “Miss Abigail has given me a list of homes that need emergency repairs. I've divided you up into five different teams. Each team has a leader who, I hope, knows what to do.” Robbie nodded to the men, and they chuckled among themselves.

“Plus another team of teens is going to do some painting around the church. Later this afternoon, we'll all walk down to the park with the kids and have some games and a cookout.”

And so the second Day at the Park began. Miss Abigail got in her Ford, and the rest of us followed in an assortment of cars. At she stopped at each house, Robbie got out and unloaded the supplies and handed the team leader a long list of instructions.

Unbeknownst to Miss Abigail, Robbie had put her house on the list too. Mr. Murphy was the leader of that team. When I drove by after lunch, heading back to church with supplies, I saw Jimmy and Mr. Murphy repairing the screen door on her porch. Jimmy waved at me, grinning broadly, and Mr. Murphy nodded my way.

“A regular engineer, this brotha' of yours is, Mary Swan,” he called out.

Around four o'clock we met back at the church. At least thirty children were waiting for us. We all walked down to the big open park for which this part of Atlanta was named. Rachel and Cassandra played freeze tag and Red Rover with the youngest kids. The men and teens got some of the older kids involved in a softball game, and Trixie and Lucy brought out coolers of lemonade from Daddy's car and began pouring it into paper cups.