The Music Box (9 page)

The man seated before her looked as though he had turned to stone. His frenetic movements had stilled. His gaze was fastened upon her, the gray eyes deep and open, as though it were not his ears that were hearing her, but his heart.

“In the darkest of my hours, I felt the Bible was of little comfort,” Angie continued. “That is a confession I have spoken to no one else, but you need to understand just how deeply I feel for what you have faced.

“All through the Scriptures there is the command to be fruitful and multiply. But I cannot do this. And the inability to do this cost me my marriage. I am a barren woman. In the Bible, Sarah, the barren believer, ends up becoming pregnant. This is the way God dealt with barrenness in those holy pages. It leaves me with a mixed feeling, hope on one side, and disappointment on the other. I still hope, Mr. Nealey, I still pray for a miracle, I will not deny this fact. But I also know the medical facts. I am barren like another person is crippled and bound to a wheelchair. Jesus made
some
cripples walk, but nowhere in the Gospels does it say that He healed
every
cripple. He raised Lazarus from the dead, but He did not end pain and suffering and death forever. Does it mean that every believer should be healed and protected from suffering? I cannot answer this, not now. Perhaps in time, but not now. All I can say is that I pray about this as well.”

Carson Nealey opened his mouth, closed it, swallowed, then found the strength to say, “And still you kept your faith.”

“There was one day, a Sunday just like this one,” Angie remembered aloud. “It came several weeks after my husband's funeral. I was in church because it was Sunday. I was going through the motions of a life. Almost without thinking. You must know what that is like.”

“All too well,” he murmured.

“When it came time to bow my head in prayer, I felt like I was falling. I do not know how it was possible to sit there in the pew and yet know I was falling. But it was as real as this chair I am seated upon. And everywhere was darkness. I felt as though I had passed through this endless chasm and out beyond sorrow entirely.”

He gave a single slow nod. “As though there was nothing left to feel. Nothing at all.”

“And yet,” Angie went on, “there in the depth of my utter despair, I found God waiting. Not with an answer. I did not need answers then. I needed comfort. And that is exactly what I received. I felt the Lord enter my life and felt Him be with me there. He shared with me my sorrow, just as He shared with me my sin upon the Cross. He was there, and He has stayed with me through my long return. He gave me the strength to return to school and finish my degree. He accompanied me back to this town I love so, and He gave me classrooms of bright and eager children I can love and teach and help to grow and learn. God has been with me every step of the way. And He is with me still.”

Angie waited a moment, as though offering him a chance to turn away, to refuse to accept what he must have known was coming next. But Carson Nealey's gaze remained fastened upon her, open and yearning. So she said, “That is why I have shared all this with you. Because you need to turn to the Lord and let Him be with you in your sorrow. You need this, and your daughter does too. You need Him to guide your footsteps, as He has done mine. No matter that He does not offer you the answers you would like to have. No matter that you are still in sorrow, even despair. Trust Him. That sounds so simple, but doing so will profoundly affect your life. He will give you peace.”

9

In the weeks following, there was no response from Carson Nealey. Angie decided he either hadn't understood or could not accept the truth she had shared with him. But all of life seemed held by strange and unexpected currents that year. Even the seasons were out of kilter, coming more slowly than anyone could remember. The first snowfall did not arrive until two weeks after Christmas, a Christmas which Angie had spent at her parents' seaside cottage, and which had held more bustle and talk and even laughter than she had known in years and years.

There had been snow flurries during much of December, quick little storms that painted brush-strokes of white across the upper reaches but did not touch the valley. Christmas was white only for the uppermost hillfolk and for those who hiked their way up slopes, made steeper by their frosting, to cut special trees and carry them home. But the second week of January, the clouds gathered as they can only do in the higher reaches. They closed the sky tight with frowning gray beasts of burden, their loads so heavy they drooped down to rest upon the peaks. The air turned still and cold, and everyone knew that winter had finally arrived.

School was closed for three days, a long time for a valley town accustomed to winter storms. But the snow fell so heavily that poor visibility made it hard to walk, much less drive. It was not until Friday that the town managed to reclaim the streets. Which meant that on Friday the students were nearly impossible.

“Three days of a world turned into a giant playground, followed by one day of school, followed by a weekend.” Emma huffed her disgust at such bureaucratic decisions. She followed Angie through a lunchroom just a half-breath away from utter bedlam. “Only somebody sitting in an office ten miles from the nearest classroom would ever think that made sense.”

Angie walked determinedly to the window table where a dozen teachers pretended not to notice what was going on around them. She put down her tray just as someone said, “What I don't understand is how they can eat and make so much noise at the same time.”

“They're not eating,” Emma replied, taking the place next to Angie. “They're foraging. Jungle beasts circling the kill.”

The principal rose wearily to his feet. “As head animal trainer, I suppose I better go make the rounds.”

“Speaking of noise,” Emma said to Angie. “I had a little surprise this morning.”

“So did I,” Angie replied. “One of my students slipped a bullfrog into my top drawer.”

“Don't tell me you let something like that get to you.”

“Not until it jumped about thirty feet straight up and came down in my hair,” Angie said grimly. “Then I proceeded to put on a little show I am positive will keep them talking for years to come.”

Emma smiled with the rest of the table. Then she said in a voice that could only be heard by Angie, “You remember that little girl I couldn't get to sing?”

“Melissa? What about her?”

“Nothing really,” Emma replied, her tone overly casual. “It's just that I finally got a peep out of her. Since she's the only one in the class who knows the difference between musical notes and hieroglyphics, she's been turning the pages for the pianist. Then all of a sudden this morning she started singing.”

“After five months of no sound at all, and you call that nothing?”

“Look at Little Miss Eager here.” Emma obviously was delighted at Angie's interest. She squinted in the direction of the window. “So. Think we'll get the second helping of snow this weekend?”

“Emma, I have been looking to throttle somebody ever since my shimmy with the frog this morning. Now, tell me what happened.”

Emma's smile broke through. “It was something, honey. I wish you could have seen it. There we were, a roomful of children doing their best imitation of two dozen cats caught in a burlap sack. And I'm standing there on my little podium, waving up a good breeze with my baton and stomping my foot like a pile driver.”

“What were you singing?”

“Oh, some hymn.”

“Emma Drummond, you are choosing the wrong time to test my patience.”

“Amazing Grace,” Emma conceded. “I thought a few of the old-timey hymns might calm them down. All of a sudden, this new sound chimes in. It was a shock, pure and simple. For a minute, I thought an angel had gotten lost and slipped inside our class.”

Angie pushed aside her tray and leaned closer. “She has a nice voice?”

“You'll have to hear it to believe it.” Heavy shoulders bounced at the memory. “I kept waving my baton for a time, slower and slower, on account of the fact that one by one every voice in the room had gone quiet. Could have heard a pin drop.”

“Is this the truth, Emma?”

“Absolutely. You know those little silver bells, the ones that sound so pure you'd think they were fashioned in heaven? That's how she sounded. This tiny body, her head cocked over to one side, eyes closed, standing there beside the pianist who's the only one with enough sense to keep going but missing some of the notes on account of her eyes are on Melissa and not the keys. And she just keeps on singing, flying off somewhere and carrying us all with her.” Emma's smile had a wistful quality. “Yes, ma'am, I do so wish you had been there to see it happen.”

****

Angie was not sure whether she should say anything when her last class came bounding in. The little form slipped through the door, keeping to one side so as not to be caught by the boisterous revelry. But instead of heading for her desk, Melissa gave Angie a smile and walked over. “Good afternoon, Miss Picard.”

“Hello, Melissa.” The girl's evident happiness spurred her to say, “I heard something interesting about your music class this morning.”

“It's been a special day,” Melissa replied, slipping an envelope from her notebook. “This is for you. It's from Daddy.”

“Why, thank you.” Angie held the envelope and watched Melissa move down the aisle to her desk at the room's far corner.

She should have called them to order. She should have started the class immediately. It was the only way to handle such a situation. But their mood was infectious, and her own curiosity overwhelming. Angie lowered the envelope below the level of the desk and tore it open. What she read made her read it a second time. She looked up only when the noise level threatened to shatter the windows. She spotted what looked to be a key perpetrator and raised her voice, saying, “Mark Whitley, stand up, if you please.”

The oversized youngster did so, struggling to tuck his grin back out of sight. Angie stared at him for a moment, then said, “Define ‘decorum' for me, please, sir.”

“ ‘Decorum' means, ah, proper behavior, Miss Picard.”

“And that is exactly what I expect from all of you,” she said, trying for sternness. “Is that clear? Very well, you may sit down.”

The young man made a chore of slipping back into his desk. While his head was bent over and his face out of sight, he gave a remarkably realistic imitation of a very large bullfrog.

Angie then made a fatal mistake. She laughed.

Two of Mark Whitley's best friends actually fell out of their desks, they were laughing so hard. Angie tried to call the class to order, but she couldn't stop chuckling long enough to do so. And every time a student looked her way and saw her grin, their mirth rose another notch. Fearing the principal would come in and complain, Angie rose to her feet, which brought the din down a fraction. She raised her hand and demanded in as severe a tone as she could manage, “Mark Whitley, was that bullfrog your idea?”

“No, ma'am,” came the reply. “But I surely do wish I'd thought of it first!”

She let them have another moment, then said, “It sounds like you all have heard about this morning.”

Perhaps this was what gave the sense of a special place with her students, she thought as she observed their glee. Having the ability to share with them such things as a smile. Was that special? She raised her hand once more and said, “I think the wisest thing to do would be to consider that we've accomplished all that we can today. I'm going to let you all go early. Have a nice weekend.”

There was a chorus of gleeful shouts, and as the students piled out, she stopped the tall youngster to say, “That was a funny-once sort of prank, Mr. Whitley. Do you understand what I mean?”

“Yes, ma'am, I think so.”

“I would be most grateful if you would speak to the perpetrators on my behalf,” Angie went on, signaling for Melissa to remain where she was. “Please inform them that my poor heart would not stand the strain a second time.”

When the boy had taken his leave, Angie walked back and eased herself into the desk next to Melissa. She listened to the excited commotion of youngsters reveling in thirty additional minutes of unexpected freedom, made sweeter by the fact that all their fellows remained imprisoned. Before she could speak, the door opened and the principal demanded, “What on earth was that all about?”

“I have admitted defeat,” Angie replied. “I could not abide their presence one minute longer.”

He started to protest, then nodded acceptance. “I suppose I'd better do it for the whole school or risk mutiny.”

His progress down the hall was greeted with a rising crescendo of unbridled joy. Angie smiled and found her heart twist at the sight of the sweet face beside her, beaming in response. Melissa's shoulders hunched up, as though the pleasure of smiling was almost too much to bear. Angie asked, “Do you know what your father has written to me?”

“Daddy wants to go to church with you and then have you come over for Sunday lunch at our house,” Melissa replied breathlessly. “Can you come?”

“I would be honored. Can you tell him that, or should I write him a note?”

“Let me tell him, please, please.” Her face shone with pleasure. “There's something else, Miss Picard.” She had to pause for another breath before announcing, “We've been praying together.”

“You and your father?”

“Every night. And sometimes in the morning, we'll read the Bible, if he's not already busy thinking about the factory. Daddy says he needs to do it more, too.”

Angie opened her mouth, closed it, and then tried a second time. “That's just wonderful.”

“I think so too. This was Daddy's idea, having you come. He says it's time we found us a church home. He asked me what I thought about asking you to take us. Know what I said?”