He let out a little whimper. "But, Momma, it hurts so much. I can't open my eye." He paused for a long moment, then spoke in a voice radiating confusion. "Why'd they have to hit me?"
A warm hand stroked his hair. "I don't know, sweetie. I don't know. But, we're taking you out of that school. From now on, I'm going to teach you guys. How does that sound?"
Another whimper and a groan of excruciating pain."It sounds good, Momma. I'm gonna take a nap now, 'kay?"
The hand continued its stroking. "Okay, Taylor. I'm going to go check on your brother now. You just get some sleep and keep that ice on there."
With a sigh, Diana stood up and walked out into the hallway where she promptly leaned back against the wall for a moment. This was the third time this week that her boys had gotten into a fight. Now her middle son had a black eye that rivaled the black orchids in the flower shop downtown and her eldest son had a few swollen knuckles and a gash under his left eye that was now stitched up and taped. They were both taking pain medication and were under strict doctor's orders to move as little as possible and to rest as much as possible. Another sigh and Diana was moving again , headed toward the living room where her eldest, Isaac, was lying on the couch, groaning, and holding his hands tight to his chest.
Diana realized that her sons were not the popular boys of the neighborhood. With their longer than normal haircuts and what the neighbors called a "peculiar upbringing", they would probably never be the popular boys. But, they seemed happy when they weren't in pain. Now though, she and her husband, Walker, had made an important decision. Walker would take a new position being offered with his company in the Caribbean and she would teach her sons. It was a popular thing in Tulsa: homeschooling. Only, she would do it because she didn't quite trust schools anymore; not when her sons came home like this because a teacher didn't stop a fight during recess because she thought it was only "pickin'".
Diana didn't quite know how her children would react to the news. Jessica, her youngest child and only girl, was still a toddler and probably wouldn't care. Zachary, her youngest son, seemed to be content wherever he was. Her real trouble would be with Taylor and Isaac. Although they had no friends at school, they loved the area and had a few cousins that they loved to see. They would need something to occupy them during those long months in hot weather.
She was brought from her reverie by the sounds of a few chords of music. The Hanson's were lucky enough to own a small keyboard from Diana and Walker's college years and Isaac and Taylor had been taking lessons for a short while. Zachary was still too young to be able to stretch his hands to play any chords, so he would get to choose when he wanted to start lessons, if at all. Diana traced the source of the sound to the keyboard where it had been plugged in after the TV had sacrificed its outlet for the cause. There, kneeling on the floor in perfect happiness, was Isaac. He played the few chords he knew, badly, with swollen knuckles and seemed to be able to disregard the pain. The emotion that seemed to encompass him was happiness, as though a single middle C note could heal the world and a few complementing keys pushed haphazardly all the while could maintain a blissful reverence across the globe.
Behind her, Diana heard a door creak open and then quickly shut. Testing the waters, she walked off into the small kitchen and waited with an eye peering curiously into the living room. Isaac's chords continued brightly and moments later a grinning Taylor joined the scene and began to tap out a beat on the plastic edge of the keyboard's casing. They continued their musical experimentations until Zachary entered the room with a teddy bear in tow. Zachary threw the bear down next to the keyboard and bounced on top of it. "Play."
Play they did. Isaac continued on with the keyboards, trying his best to be perfect. Even Taylor tried his hands at the keyboard, though he ended up banging out notes rather than playing them. Zac just rocked back and forth, smiling all the while. Diana observed it all and after being satisfied that the boys would not kill each other with sofa cushions, she headed off to do some much needed laundry.
When her husband came home that evening, Diana pulled him into the bedroom and left the children alone at the dinner table to fend for themselves for a moment. Walker questioned it, but Diana held fast in her pursuit. "Walker, our kids love music. This is what we've been looking for. This is what they can do in the Caribbean. We don't have to worry anymore!"
Walker continued to glance nervously in the general direction of the dining area, a small, stout wooden table off to one side of the slightly-more-than-meager kitchen. "Diana, are you sure they're not throwing anything?"
Diana embraced him. "No. But, I don't care. They've found something they like that doesn't involve getting black eyes. Isaac adores his fights, but you should have seen his face when he was playing. Three chords and he was in heaven."
Leaning down to kiss the top of her head, Walker smiled. "Alright. So, we'll brush up on our knowledge so that we can teach them. Now, can I go see the shiner my middle son got?"
Diana grinned. "You bet. Let's go."
When the pair entered the kitchen, there was not a bit of foul play discovered. The boys were sitting at the table, humming as well as eating, and their little sister was waving a spoon in the air. When their parents entered, they stopped humming and all looked up as though they had done something wrong. Isaac spoke. "I'm sorry. We're not supposed to make funny noises, are we, Mommy?"
Diana smiled at her husband. "Walker, dear, when are you going to teach those boys to sing?"
Taylor looked up from the peas he had been staring at in a mixture of curiosity and disgust. "What's singing?"
Diana burst into a bit of song in a strong, but airy soprano tone. "'Tis the gift to be simple. 'Tis the gift to be free. 'Tis the gift to come 'round where we are to be. For when we find ourselves in the place just right... 'Twill be in the valley of love and delight."
The boys clapped and begged for a little more. It was at this point that Walker moved in. "Hey, guys, I want you all to try to sing. What you do is this: you start to hum, but then you open your mouth and act like you're talking. Say whatever you want."
After a moment of hesitation, they began. It was soon discovered that they brothers had talent for such a task and Walker decided to press further. "There's something called harmony that I think you might like to try. I'll get you all to sing one note, only you'll sing at different levels, and then you'll try to sing it all together to see how it sounds. Okay?"
"Okay."
Walker directed him sons in their notes, amazed at how quickly they caught on to real singing. They'd sung before, of course, in church and at school, but they had always done more of a spirited shout than a controlled sound. After getting the brothers to their desired notes, Walker held out his hands. "Now, sing."
The effect was amazing. The three young voices wrapped around one another in an insatiable quest for perfect harmony that had not quite been acheived. Regardless, Walker and Diana were stunned and Jessica sat in her high chair giggling happily. Walker fumbled for words. "Wow... That was... just... Wow... Amazing. Do you want to try to sing 'Amen' like that?"
The three boys smiled at their parents reactions and nodded. Walker proceeded to teach them their parts, smiling at the fact that their pitch was so good while they were young. Then, the moment of triumph: with a long breath, the three brothers lifted their voices in song, in unison, and let forth, with gusto, two notes with the power to make a grown man cry, and that it did. Walker's eyes welled up with tears at the sound of his three boys expressing a soulful 'Amen' with music and doing a damned fine job.
It was that night at the dinner table that Diana and Walker broke the news about moving. None of the boys seemed to mind when it was promised that they would continue to be helped with their music while there.
The next day, packing began. Diana spent a grueling 4 hours diligantly packing away almost everything in the attic. At that point, she was so covered in dust that it wasn't worth it to try to do anything more because she would sneeze every few seconds. So, she took a quick shower and sat down on the couch to watch a little television. A commercial came on advertising a Time|Life tape collection of music from the 1950's and 1960's. Diana raised an eyebrow at the screen adn thought of her sons. Almost immediately, she picked up her phone and dialed the number on the screen. She ordered the collection from 1958 with rush delivery and hoped that her sons would be reared well on that music. Then, she remembered herself growing up on the same thing and knew they would enjoy it.
Somehow they would survive and grow. They would make it in a world that had it against them from the start and they would do it in a way that no one believed possible. And they have.
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