found Gerda leaning against the kitchen door, tears brimming in her pale eyes.
“Your mother taught you well,” Gerda said.
Desi nodded. “She did. She loved music. All kinds. But you probably knew that.”
“I taught her how to play, you know.” Gerda stood straighter. “She was such a natural.”
The questions swimming in Desi’s head almost poured out of her mouth: Why did mom need to run away? Why did she rarely talk about you? Why did Mom insist it was just the two of us? What could have been so horrible for her mother to run away and sever all ties? But seeing her grandmother’s fragile state, the emotion she wore on the shabby midnight-blue bathrobe sleeve, Desi kept her questions silent.
“Do you still play?” Desi asked.
Gerda’s eyes brightened, and she proudly walked toward the piano. “I’ll have you know, besides being mayor pro tem of Heartlandia, I’m also the most sought-after piano teacher in town.” A mischievous smile stretched her sallow and lined cheeks as she sat on the other half of the bench. “For anyone under the age of twelve, that is.” That explained the candy and stickers.
Gerda chuckled and it sent a chill down Desi’s center. Her mother had laughed exactly like that. Up close, though Gerda’s eyes were milky blue, they were shaped like her mother’s, and though Gerda’s hair was all white now, she could tell that it used to be blond, also like her mother’s. The two women fit together like misplaced puzzle pieces, and why wouldn’t they, since they were mother and daughter?
Yet Mom had said very little about her family over the years. That was until her last days. All Desi knew growing up was the road and hotels and Mom. No strings. Just the two of them. Deep down Desi had always suspected it was because she was of mixed race that they’d kept to themselves. Though her mother had not once hinted at that being the reason. Being constantly on the road, with her mother working for a big Midwest hotel chain as the lounge entertainment, playing one month here, six weeks there, made it impossible to make friends or, evidently, keep in touch with relatives. Only on her mother’s deathbed had she asked for Gerda to come. And Desi had finally learned about the man named Victor Brown, the father she never knew.
Gerda had started playing a song meant as a duet. Desi had been taught the same song by her mother when she was a kid. Without being asked, she jumped in and played her part in the higher octaves, and if that sparkle in Gerda’s glance meant anything, Grandma was pleased.
They smiled tentatively at each other, then sat companionably for several minutes playing the piano together, and Desi was grateful that at least through music, they had a way to open up their communication. Otherwise, she felt like a stranger in a strange land in this place called Heartlandia.
“So you’re the mayor?” she asked at the end of the piano piece.
Gerda nodded. “Not by my choice, but the town likes to choose its mayor from people long invested in Heartlandia.” She looked straight ahead as she spoke. “I can trace my people almost back to the beginning. The only problem with that method is we get stuck in history, and these days we have a lot of new residents moving in because we have so much to offer families.”
“Not keeping up with the times?”
Gerda glanced at her. “Something like that. I’m only temporary, though, and we’ll have our general election next year. They promised the job wouldn’t be hard, but I’m clearly in over my head.”
“And then I show up.”
Gerda hung her head. “Desdemona, I wish we could have one huge do-over where you are concerned. Your mother ran away because she was ashamed of being pregnant. We found her when you were born, and I am deeply sorry to say Edvard and I were surprised when we saw you. Ester was such a touchy one. Always had been. I didn’t mean her to think what she did... You were my granddaughter. I loved you. But Edvard—”
“—couldn’t accept that I was half-black?”
“It’s not that simple, Desdemona. Please don’t think that.”
What was she supposed to think?
“I wanted to bring Ester and you home. She insisted she could take care of herself. I admit, I didn’t fight hard enough and gave in to Edvard.” Now Gerda connected head-on with Desi’s eyes. “I kept watch over the two of you as best I could, though from a long distance. And I sent money whenever Ester was especially hard up.”
Her mom must have kept those times to herself because in Desi’s memory they lived hand to mouth most of their years on the road. But then, out of the blue five years ago when Ester first got sick, they were able to buy a small house. The home they’d always dreamed and talked about. The timing was perfect, since her mother couldn’t keep up with traveling and chemo. Had her mom been saving Gerda’s money, or had Gerda helped out, as she’d previously suspected?
There was a reprieve from the cancer and Ester was able to take a few playing jobs here and there, but the cancer came back. Even then, Ester stayed away from Heartlandia.
“Why didn’t we ever visit?” Desi asked. It was an honest question that her mom had always evaded.
“It wasn’t because I didn’t invite you. Please know that. Your mother—” Gerda hung her head again. “She just didn’t want anything more to do with her home, I guess.”
Desi’s heart tightened. It must have been hard for Gerda to be rejected time and again by her daughter. Deciding they’d shared enough heartache for one morning, she went back to playing another simple song and soon Gerda, accepting the quiet reprieve, joined her.
After a few more duets and small talk, they went their separate ways, Gerda to spend some time at city hall and Desi to shower and dress.
She did some laundry and took a walk around the backyard, trying to figure out why her mother had been so stubborn, insisting on keeping her to herself despite the invitations to come home.
An abundance of rosebushes in assorted colors filled the air with a strong fragrance. A huge white hibiscus bush in the far corner seemed no less than twelve feet high. The Victorian-style house hadn’t looked nearly as bright yellow in the dark of night. Trimmed in green, with a pitched roof and a third-story dormer with a fanlight window, the house looked like something out of an old movie. Desi circled the perimeter of the house and noticed a partially covered balcony at the front and a second balcony on the side. What a gorgeous place...the home her mother had run away from.
Returning to the scene of the crime of last night—the gated side yard with overgrown bushes and shrubs—she glanced next door at another Victorian. It was painted completely white with a small bay window at the front, the only color in sight an aqua-blue door at the side entrance. Kent’s house almost looked medicinal. Churchlike. She wandered toward his house, noticing the artful subtleties of the architecture. But white? Really? It seemed such a waste.
Soon growing bored with trying to figure out why the big guy had the blandest house on the block, Desi’s gaze drifted to the imposing Columbia River several blocks away, down by the railroad tracks and the docks. The water twinkled beneath the strengthening sun. In the distance, the longest bridge she’d ever seen arched from this side of Oregon far across to what she assumed must be Washington State.
Though June, the brisk air brought gooseflesh to her arms even through her light sweater. She turned to go back inside. On the hillsides behind her
