hand. She put the bucket down and strolled toward Crandall, who swayed side to side with the precision of a metronome.
It was a relief and a pleasure to see her from a distance, to take her likeness to me in a smaller dose. Her back and shoulders seemed straighter, more graceful than I felt myself to be when I walked. She stopped at the fence and held her hand out as I had instructed her to when meeting someone for the first time. From where I stood on the porch, I saw her in profile. Her mouth moved, but I was too far away to hear what she said.
He didn’t break rhythm of his scale or acknowledge her. Her hand remained in the air, innocent. Suddenly, I realized that I needed to explain his odd behavior to her. I jumped off the porch and jogged toward them, focused on her hand, motionless above the fence. As I came near, she tilted her head and, bending over, peered up at his face. For that second, they seemed similar, twin oddities. I had my hand out to touch her shoulder. As Crandall paused to inhale, a crisp, loud tone pealed through the air one perfect octave above his last note, like nothing I had heard from her so far. A short, clear pop of a question like a single sharp rap on a triangle.
Crandall froze. Addie’s hand shot out and caught the falling harmonica. His eyes focused, shifted rapidly from her to me then back to her, his expression dead calm, open, as her nonverbal question fell into silence. I could not see her face, but as his gaze returned to it, she held the harmonica out to him, touching his hand. For a second, he looked at her. Then his features contorted and he exploded in a guttural scream. He spun, snatching the harmonica from her and ran, stumbling back toward his home.
Suddenly, I could not breathe. I was sure he recognized her unnatural nature. My next thought was that we were safe: whatever he’d seen or heard, he would not be able to report, no one would believe him.
She whirled around to face me, wide-eyed. “What happened? I was asking him to say hello.”
I opened my mouth, mirroring her.
Then she answered her own question. “He is not like us,” she announced.
“Like ‘us’?” I thought. Like us? I giggled.
She frowned and glanced toward the Lay home. “Why is he afraid of me?”
The question sobered me. “No one can do what you just did. None of us make those sounds.” I touched my own throat and asked, “Can all your people do that?”
She waved the question away. “I don’t know who or where my people are or what any other people can do.” She spread her fingers on her chest. And I heard a drone, the timbre of a large bell, a pure tone without question or inflection, a simple demonstration that blossomed through my head and chest then vanished into the air between us. “No one can do that?” she asked.
I hesitated. Perhaps others could. Maybe I was the innocent one, the ignorant one. But I shook my head and took her arm to lead her back toward the house. “No. No one here can.” Suddenly, it seemed best if we were out of sight. “He’s in his own world, Addie. He usually doesn’t notice anyone. I’ve never seen him look anyone in the eye, not even his own momma. He’s not hurt. He’s just different. It was a kind of compliment that he reacted to you at all.”
She tapped herself on her breastbone and then waved her hand in a graceful arc. “If no one else can do that, then I won’t do it out here. But I won’t be able to stop it at night with you. Then I forget everything. Everything. For a moment.”
“Then is okay.” I remembered the night before, the moan of her into my mouth, flushing through me. For a second, I could barely walk. Then I ran ahead of her up the steps of the house and held the door open for her. She entered, grinning like an ordinary woman.
When it comes to personal things, affairs of the family or the heart, there seem to be two kinds of men. There are men who ask questions and may even pry. These men may be tender in their solicitations or simply authoritarian, but they are present to their families. The second kind of man never