Samantha, although she was still refining the subtler issues of the piece’s phrasing, turned out to be one of those students. She was still struggling with it, but in the places where she was comfortable her playing was precise without rounding off the rough edges. She brought emotion to music that Iris had often heard drained of fire and art.
For most of the hour Iris sat with her eyes closed, listening intently. She opened them only when Mr. Kimmelbrod stopped Samantha to push and prod her fingers into place, or to hum for her the music as he wanted her to play it.
When Becca was a child Iris would on occasion take a book or a pile of papers that needed grading and lie down on the couch while her daughter practiced. Iris would work as Becca went through her scales once, twice, even three times, until they were perfectly in tune. Periodically the music would trail off and Iris would raise her head; a frown was usually enough to get Becca back to work. But had she ever just sat and listened? Even when Becca was a small child, Iris had never attended the girl’s lessons, and while Becca had often entertained them with impromptu concerts over the years, from “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star,” when she was a toddler, all the way up to her senior-year performance of Bach’s Violin Partita no. 2 in D Minor, Iris could not recall ever just sitting like this, her feet up, her eyes closed, listening to her daughter practice.
Had she known how little opportunity life would bring her, in the end, to hear Becca play, Iris might well have become one of those helicopter mothers, the ones who pressed their ears against the doors of rehearsal studios and sat in the back of empty concert halls, hands folded in their laps, eyes fixed on their children. If only she had known how briefly Becca would be with them, how ephemeral childhood was, how quickly it vanished, she would have paid more attention. If she had, perhaps Becca would never have stopped playing. And if she had not stopped playing, then her life would have been different. If she had married John at all it would likely have been on a different day, in a different place. All it would have taken was a single beat of the butterfly’s wings, and Becca would not have died.
“Okay, my dear,” Mr. Kimmelbrod said to Samantha, after a little more than an hour. “I think we’ve worked enough for now.”
“I can keep going,” Samantha said eagerly. “I’m not tired.”
Mr. Kimmelbrod rose from his seat and laid his palm on top of her head. “I see that. But I am afraid that I am tired.”
Succeeding only partly in suppressing the signs of her disappointment, Samantha carefully packed her violin away in its case.
“I’ll drive you home, Sam,” Iris said.
“I’ve got my bike.”
“Oh, of course.”
As they watched the girl ride away, wobbling on the crushed-gravel driveway, the violin strapped on her back like a backpack, Iris said, “She’s really good, isn’t she?”
“Yes,” Mr. Kimmelbrod said. “She’s a unique talent.”
“Yes,” Iris repeated, nodding her head.
“But the practice rooms of Juilliard and Usherman Center are replete with prodigies.”
“The prodigies at Juilliard and Usherman Center all have parents who would happily bankrupt themselves on behalf of their children’s talent. Samantha has nobody but us.”
“She has a mother and a great-aunt.”
“Please. She has a mother who spends more time polishing the buckles on her straightjacket than caring for her daughter, and a great-aunt who doesn’t know the first thing about music. Without us Samantha’s gift will be wasted.”
“Iris, the girl is very talented, but she’s eleven years old.”
“You were her age when you made your debut.”
“By the time I was her age I had been playing for six years. Samantha has barely a year of experience. She has a tremendous amount to learn. There are vast parts of the repertoire that she’s never heard, let alone played. She’s very talented, perhaps even extraordinary, but she is still very young. Musically, she’s very young.”
“That’s my point exactly. She’s never going to be able to mature musically in Red Hook. Not if she has to rely on teachers who can’t give her the attention she needs.”
“We are doing what we can. I am teaching her in the summer, Arturo is doing his best in the winter. There is only so much we can do.”
“We could bring her to New York.”
Mr. Kimmelbrod gave her a puzzled frown. “Are you serious?”
“Why not? She could live with Daniel and me. She could study with you. It would be wonderful for her.”
“Iris, you are stepping far ahead of yourself.”
“I know that. I know I’m stepping far, far ahead of myself. I haven’t asked her aunt. I haven’t even really asked her. But she’s miserable here, Dad. She’s doesn’t know any other Cambodian children. She feels isolated and different. It’s not good for her. She needs to get away from Maine. She needs to come back with us to New York.”
“Are you really saying that you want to take on the responsibility of a young child? You want to transform your life in that way?”
Iris hesitated, instructing herself to give the question the consideration it deserved. Exactly how would this work? Samantha would live with them; they had plenty of room. She would go to school during the day, and to her lessons in the afternoon. Iris would likely have to organize her own schedule to be available to shepherd Samantha from school to her lessons, at least until the girl became comfortable doing it on her own. At her age Becca and Ruthie had freely taken the bus and the subway, but Iris supposed times were different now, and, more important, Samantha was not a city girl. New York would be overwhelming and strange. It would require work on Iris’s part, but if she found she couldn’t manage it she could always hire a Columbia student to hang out with Samantha after school. It would take planning. But that was all right. Planning was what Iris did best.
“I think it will be fine,” Iris said.
“You need to consider why you are doing this, Iris. You need to consider your own motivations.”
She thought, I’m doing this because my life has been empty of meaning since my daughter died, and I have a feeling this girl could give it some. Because my marriage is in trouble and I want a distraction from that pain, too. Because my remaining daughter has rejected me. Because I am selfish, and bossy. Because I need her.
She said, “I’m doing this because we owe it to Samantha.”
“And why do we owe it to her? She is not your child. Not your relative. You have not assumed the burden of her care.”
“But she is a relative. She’s the niece of my machetaynista. You’re the one who taught me the word.”
The raised eyebrow, the slightly curled lip, was an expression that Iris knew well. When she was too rambunctious, too noisy, when she pressed her point of view too firmly, he would give her this look. As a child she had withered beneath it. As an adult it made her dig in her heels.
She knew as well as her father did the obstacles to the plan she was hatching. She knew that Jane was sure to object, and that Daniel might, too. She knew that it would not be easy to care for a child again, especially one new to New York, new to cities in general. She knew that Samantha would require her presence in a way that her girls had not for a very long time. But this was, in the end, exactly what she wanted. To protect and care for a child, to nurture her special talents, to encourage her and participate in her life. To be—in a sense that made her a little uncomfortable to consider—a mother again, or something like a mother.
Mr. Kimmelbrod leaned his head back against the headrest of his chair. His bradykinesia had been particularly acute since the morning, his movements slower even than normal.
“Dad,” Iris said. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” he said. He closed his eyes.
“Dad, if I convince Jane to let Samantha come back to New York with us, will you agree to keep teaching her?” Iris asked.
Mr. Kimmelbrod sighed, but raised his hands in defeat. “I supp
ose if she were to visit, I could continue her lessons. She is a thoroughly delightful student.”
“You see, it’s a great idea.”
“Great or not, it’s moot, because you may be an irresistible force, but Jane Tetherly is an immovable object.”
“Well, we’ll see about that, won’t we? Thank you, Dad.”
Iris left her father in the living room and bustled off to her office. There were people she needed to call, arrangements that had to be made if she were to put the plan into place by the end of the summer. Her first order of business was to sit down and make a list of everything that had to be done.
VIII
Iris and Jane sat in Jane’s kitchen, cups of tea growing tepid before them as they battled furiously, though politely, over Samantha’s future.
“It’s fine in the summer, because my father teaches her,” Iris said. “But Arturo travels too much. She needs more consistency, and there isn’t another teacher of that caliber in the area.”
That they were having this conversation at all boggled Jane’s mind. If she were not already all too familiar with Iris’s seemingly infinite capacity for shoving her nose where it did not belong—from putting the yacht design course into John’s head to insisting that the kids be buried side by side to arranging Samantha’s violin lessons in Bangor and only after the fact making a halfhearted show of consulting with Jane—Jane would have assumed she had simply misunderstood the woman. What kind of person tries to take away another woman’s child, or even her grand-niece?
“Last year you said that her teacher in Bangor was the best,” Jane said.
“He’s certainly the best in Maine, and she’s learned a tremendous amount from him. As she progresses, however, it becomes more important that she not have long breaks in her instruction. But it’s not just that. She needs exposure to better music and to a wider variety of musicians.”
“We’ve got plenty of musicians in Maine. I must have driven that girl over to Bangor ten times this winter to hear the orchestra.”
Jane could see, to her satisfaction, that this information surprised Iris. The drive was no small thing. An hour and a half long under the best of conditions, the road was clogged with logging trucks heading in and out of the paper mill in Bucksport. In the winter the bridges iced up, and you had to go the long way around because on the side roads the plows weren’t as regular as they might be. Iris clearly had so little respect for Jane, she probably could not even believe that Jane had been willing to contend with that long drive back and forth to Bangor just to take Samantha to the symphony, when she was already taking her twice a week for lessons. Jane hadn’t suffered as much at the symphony as she’d expected to. Most of the music was dull, true, but there had been a couple of pieces that she recognized from songs she’d heard as a girl. And she’d enjoyed watching Samantha, who’d hardly seemed to breathe from the moment the orchestra started tuning their instruments until the intermission.
Iris’s tone softened. “Wow. I—I didn’t know that. It was wonderful of you to do that for her.”
Jane shrugged off Iris’s compliment. It was neither wonderful nor not wonderful. It was what you did for family. Samantha was her family. Jane thought Iris could stand to be reminded of that fact.
Iris continued, “But as good as the Bangor Symphony is, it’s not enough. In New York on any night of the week she could hear a dozen different orchestras and chamber groups. She could go to the opera. She’ll meet other students. She’ll live her music. Jane, please, just consider it. Will you do that? Samantha needs to spend time in New York.”
Jane crossed her arms over her chest and said, “She’s eleven years old. What she needs is to be with her family.”
“Of course she does. And you’ve taken such marvelous care of her, under what can’t have been the easiest circumstances. But aren’t we family in a way, you and I? We’re in-laws. And I care very much for Samantha. I would take very good care of her for you.”
In-laws? Jane thought, almost shocked by the idea. Hardly. Whatever terrible moments of tragedy and loss they might have shared, she and Iris had been in-laws for all of an hour. And anyway, what kind of nonsense was this—she knew Iris didn’t respect her, but did the woman think she was an idiot? Whoever handed over their kid to be raised by an in-law?
“I don’t know what you think you are to me, Iris, but I know that she’s not your daughter,” Jane said. “And she’s not my daughter, either. Samantha’s got a mother already.”
“Yes. Yes, of course. But you’re her legal guardian, aren’t you?”
“No,” Jane said.
“You aren’t?” Iris said.
Jane cursed herself for revealing what it wasn’t Iris’s business to know. “I’m taking care of her.”
“Because her mother isn’t in any shape to care for her, is she? The burden is falling on you.”
“It’s no burden. She’s family. And anyway her mother will be out of the hospital soon enough.”
“Jane, I absolutely understand that this is a difficult thing to contemplate. But I worry that if you insist on keeping her here you’ll cost her, not just her career, and it could be a marvelous career—my father says he’s never seen any child more talented. You’ll cost her her happiness. Music is Samantha’s whole world, Jane. You know that even better than I do. But most musicians with Samantha’s gifts have spent years learning the repertoire by the time they’re her age. As talented as she is, Samantha has a tremendous amount of catching up to do.”
“Last year you said that going to Bangor every week was the only way she’d catch up. Now she’s got to go to New York. What’s it going to be next year? China?”
Iris leaned forward, earnestly. “I know how hard this is for you, Jane. I’d have the same feelings if the roles were reversed. And of course you would still have ultimate authority over her—you and her mother. We’d follow any family rules that you expect her to follow. If she has a bedtime, for example.” Iris reached into her purse and pulled out a sheaf of pages. “And I’ve printed out the academic calendar for the year. You can see there are long periods of vacation that she could spend here with you. We could even arrange for her to come home one weekend a month. Or even every other weekend, if that feels more comfortable to you.”
Jane refused to allow herself to slip into an attitude of negotiation with Iris. Instead she said, “No.”
“Please, Jane. Samantha has the potential to be a world-class musician. A musician who, yes, someday might even play in China. China, Japan, Europe. All over the United States. Conceivably she might even make a handsome living. How can you stand in the way of her future?”
Jane pushed her chair back from the table and stood up. Her manifold debts to the Copakens had all been assumed grudgingly, and she was determined never to incur another. There was no way to repay them for the gravesite, nor for the lessons Mr. Kimmelbrod had been giving Samantha. Iris had done a poor job, too, of concealing the fact that she was paying for the lessons from Mr. Weinstein. Jane had permitted the charade to continue because Samantha had been so desperate for them, so full of joy as she progressed, and Jane could not have afforded even a fraction of the cost. But there was only so much pride she was willing to sacrifice.
“I appreciate your and your father’s interest in Samantha,” Jane said, as politely as her fury would allow. “But the answer’s no, and that’s final. If you want to find somebody else to clean your house, I understand.”
IX
Late in the evening a few days after Iris’s fruitless conversation with Jane, Daniel came upon his wife sitting at the kitchen table with a pot of tea, a pen, and a bottle of Wite-Out, working her way through a formidable stack of printed forms.
He’d been avoiding her as much as he could, spending his mornings at the gym and his afternoons in town, reading the newspapers at the library or just wandering around. A few times he’d even ducked into the Neptune for a beer or two. Anything to keep from going home.
Now he said,
“What’s all this?”
“Some stuff I downloaded from the New York Board of Education Web site. I was looking to see what our school options would be if Samantha came to stay with us. There’s a middle school for gifted and talented kids on West Eighty-fourth Street.”
“The Anderson School,” Daniel said.
“Right. I thought I’d better get the application in now, just in case. We’ve already missed the deadline, but I’m hoping they’ll make an exception in her case, especially if my father asks the head of the Juilliard youth program to write a letter.”
Daniel stood behind a chair on the opposite side of the table, gripping the back. “She’s not coming to New York,” he said. “Jane said no.”
It was maddening to Daniel that Jane’s refusal to acquiesce to Iris’s plan to bring Samantha back to New York had had no effect on his wife. Nor had his own resistance to the idea. She continued to plot and plan. He could not understand his wife’s blithe embrace of the idea of taking on a child. It was as though she had forgotten what parenthood demanded, as though she were willfully refusing to consider how much work and expense were involved. Although he knew that work and expense were not what was really troubling him. What bothered him was the idea of bringing into their home another witness to their struggles and disconnection.
Iris said, “I wish this school had been open back when the girls were young. It’s a really remarkable place.”
“Iris!” Daniel said.
Iris finally set down her pen. “She’ll be no trouble,” she said. “She’ll be in school all day, and she’ll be studying with my father. You’ll barely see her. And anyway, it will be nice to have a girl around the house again. Don’t you think?”
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