The Music Box

by T. Davis Bunn

  He studied her face for a long time, then said, “May I call on you again?”

  “I would be so very pleased if you would,” she said, her voice much lower than usual.

  Melissa’s tread came down the stairs, drawing them back, but not before they had shared a shy smile of discovery. When she came into view, she announced, “We’ve missed the movie.”

  “So we have,” Carson agreed, glancing at his watch and rising to his feet. “It’s time we were going.”

  “Just one moment,” Angie said, rising with him. “There’s something I want to show your daughter before you go.”

  She led Melissa down the front hallway, stopped before the side table, and lowered herself until their faces were level. Melissa glanced at her, then followed Angie’s gaze to where it rested upon the ornate crystal compote bowl.

  It was shaped somewhat like a broad vase with a lid. The sides were segmented and deeply carved with a floral design. The wider sections were deepest blue. Each floral design was lined with silver filigree.

  “That’s the one you told me about, isn’t it?” Melissa’s voice was scarcely above a whisper. “The jar for your inside thoughts.”

  Angie nodded. “That is the one.”

  “It’s very pretty.” She reached out a tentative finger and traced her way down the surface. “What makes this color?”

  “It’s called cobalt blue. The crystal is melted and mixed with the chemical before it’s carved. And the silver is worked in very carefully once the flowers have been formed,” Angie replied. “I have no idea where it came from. Isn’t that strange? I can’t even remember where I found it.”

  Melissa started to lift the lid, then stopped. She turned and looked at Angie.

  Angie nodded a second time, understanding that it was her task, not Melissa’s. She hesitated a long moment, inspecting the bowl. The crystal lid was wrapped with a flowering silver vine, which joined at the top to twine about a large silver acorn. Angie grasped the handle and lifted. As the lid came free, it touched the side of the bowl, and the hallway rang with the bell-like chime of crystal upon crystal.

  Melissa looked inside. There was another moment’s silence, then she said, “It’s empty.”

  “Yes,” Angie agreed quietly. “So it is.”

  15

  That night, after they were gone and the house resounded with the quiet echoes of their departure, Angie opened the living room cupboard and began searching. She knew it was time. Part of her wanted to hold back, while another wanted to go ahead, step forward, accept the challenge. She flipped through her collection of records until she found the one she had been avoiding for months, ever since her first talk with Melissa. She opened the top of the cabinet, turned on the phonograph, and slipped the album from its cover.

  She put the music on and felt as though she instantly knew Melissa’s mother.

  “Scheherazade” was not as most classical music, rising to a single crescendo. The symphony contained far too much passion to run up a steep incline, shout a single cry, then slide into quiet submission. It was a rising series of peaks, like great waves upon a storm-tossed sea, flinging their emotional froth far and wide. Occasionally a flicker of light and calm would flash through, breaking into the tumult with joy and peace, only to be swept up again in the next exultant charge.

  Yes, she understood a bit of this woman, this wife who had left such a hole in two hearts and lives. Angie stood before the phonograph, hugging herself tightly, her eyes closed, swaying in time to the music. She could almost see the woman, not as in a picture, but rather in her heart.

  Angie saw someone who would have looked so contained to the outside world, like a proper orchestra in formal wear, all black and white and appropriate. Then there came the moment when the woman’s heart would open, and the undeniable truth of her emotions came clear. She released them, letting them run free, unfettered by time or the sweep of common events and ordinary people, unbounded by this world. A rushing river of feelings. Oh yes, Angie could feel the depths of this woman who had shared Rimsky-Korsakov’s passion for the unbounded, the almost impossible, the unearthly.

  The emotions ran from horizon to horizon. They began long before the music started and soared on afterward into infinity. The music was itself an instrument through which feelings and dreams and passions could emerge, exposing both gifts and destinies. Angie stood and listened, and she felt as though she danced with the woman who was no longer there.

  Angie began moving about the room, touching each of her beloved possessions in turn, feeling the need to anchor herself to the here and now. Even so, she sensed a presence. She could not explain it, but she knew there was more at work here than just the music and her imagination.

  She sank into a chair and lowered her head to her knees. A single flute rose above the strings and drums, a chanting melody too fragile to contain such emotions. Yet there it was, rising further still, joined now by a single chiming bell, now by a clarinet, now by a violin, now a horn, its lilting melody somehow powerful enough to lead the entire orchestra in a totally new direction.

  Angie listened, and then she prayed. The words seemed to come from outside herself, then deep into her heart, finally to soar upward to God. Words praying that she rely not on her own strength, but rather on the strength of God. Words as light as air, yet as powerful as the music’s passion. Words of trust, of giving, of healing, of hope.

  16

  In the weeks that followed, Angie’s world became split in three. To the outside world of town and school and church, she showed her usual reserve and proper demeanor. That way she could hold to what she had built for herself, she repeated internally whenever she gave it thought. Just in case things did not work out. She could always return to how things had been before.

  Her second world was the one built around Melissa and the joy she saw in the girl continuing to open up, to reach out. They talked together after school. They drove occasionally up into the highlands, just the two of them, watching as winter melted and ran in shimmering rivulets toward spring. They met with Emma to prepare for their duet. Angie felt a special thrill learning the song by Chatterton Dix, especially the second verse, which read:

  “Alleluia, not as orphans

  Are we left in sorrow now;

  Alleluia, He is near us,

  Faith believes, nor questions how.”

  The third world was the one that gave her trouble.

  Her time actually spent with Carson ran smoothly, but when she was once again alone, she found fears awaiting her every turn. Memories of her first marriage and the horror of being abandoned woke her up at night, her heart beating so hard she feared it would leap from her chest. She could only rise and pace the room, trying to recall the prayers she had spoken and say them anew. But in the depths of her lonely nights the words seemed like dust, and she felt little comfort, only the chilling prospect of being hurt once again.

  So she became distant to Carson. It was she who set the tone of their walks and their dinners and their drives down to the city for a concert or shopping or simply an excursion on their own. He responded with his quiet reserve. She was sure that he was uncertain about what she was feeling or how he should act. Yet she could tell that he was growing increasingly close to her, and that frightened her even more.

  They had taken to walking together in the evenings, a time that she treasured more than she wanted to admit even to herself. Most evenings, the silence between them was comfortable, and Angie found herself relaxing, reaching out, happy to be there, wanting the moment to last forever.

  Yet when they started up the front walk to her house, and she looked up at the home’s sad and peeling exterior, Angie felt as though she was confronted by an image of herself. There in the deteriorating house did she see how the past and the pain had aged her.

  At that point, all her current feelings became pressed together with everything that had come before, and the tumult turned her cool and distant. And after he departed, her fears rose l
ike thunderclouds, and her thoughts speared her like sudden bolts of lightning.

  Even so, Carson kept coming and walking with her. He seemed willing to allow things to continue as they were for as long as necessary.

  But they could not. In her nervous nightly pacings, Angie knew that if she were to go on as she did now, something would happen. Something would come and shatter what was being built.

  Her musings troubled her such that Carson could not help but notice. The first Monday of April, he finally interrupted her internal struggle by asking, “Is something troubling you, Angie?”

  Not even his concerned tone could ease Angie’s sense of suddenly being pressured. “Why would you ask such a thing?”

  “Your brow’s been furrowed all evening.” He paused to cough. He had been troubled by a wracking wheeze for several days now, but insisted it was just a cold he couldn’t shift. He recovered and went on, “You look as worried as I’ve ever seen you.”

  Angie sighed. She had never in her life felt so torn in two. “I’m just a little concerned about some things.”

  “Would you care to talk about them?”

  She walked on a moment, struggling with all she felt. The first buds of spring were beginning to appear. Gardens sprouted tulips and slender crocus shoots. The willows and the cherry trees looked brushed with strokes of golden-green. She scarcely saw any of it. “I . . . I don’t think I can. But thank you for asking.”

  Carson reached over and took her hand. It shocked her, both the act itself, and how comfortably it fit to the moment and to her. He said softly, “I’ve been learning from you how important it is to share things, even when it’s difficult.”

  But it was all too much, the pressures from within and without, the fears and the night terrors and the memories and the future. She drew her hand away. “Carson—”

  “It would be nice to offer that gift back to you,” he went on. Carson coughed again, almost doubling him over. He straightened, his cheeks flushed from the effort, and gave a shamefaced smile. “I’m sorry. That was not a very inviting way to share confidences.”

  “I don’t think . . .” She was going to say that she did not think she could allow their relationship to continue. But she was forced to stop in mid-sentence. Much as she wanted to end the walk and the talk and their time together, much as she desired to halt all the confusion and turmoil right then and there, she could not. The words simply did not come. They were cut off tightly, as though a giant hand had taken hold of her throat and was squeezing it shut.

  “Try,” he urged softly, misunderstanding her struggle. He stopped to face her, his breath coming in a rattling wheeze. “You’ve been so tense lately, I’ve been sure you had something troubling you. Please let me help, Angie.” His gaze held heartfelt concern.

  “I can’t—” Once again the words were cut off. Not stopped by her own will, but rather simply closed away. As though all the prayers and searchings of all her lonely nights were crowding in there, keeping her from halting the flow of time and events that had been set in place for her. For her.

  And in that moment of indecision, there came again the resounding message, the silent words, Share Yourself. The way was left open, to speak, to tell him of her troubles and fears. The invitation being offered was clearly something beyond Carson’s gentle encouragement.

  But Angie dropped her head in defeat and whispered only, “I can’t.”

  “Well, perhaps another time,” Carson said, obviously disappointed.

  They walked on, the silence broken sporadically by Carson’s coughing. When they arrived at her front walk, he halted and said, “I’ll bid you good evening, then.”

  With the force of a gust of winter wind across her face, Angie felt a solid knowledge that she was walking away from something vital. Something that might not come again. She opened her mouth to speak, to pour out her heart, but the tumult and the fear held her back.

  Perhaps inside, she thought. Perhaps there she would be able to tell him. “Won’t you come in?”

  “Not tonight,” he said, and the folds of his young-old face creased in tight concern. “Melissa came home with another cold. I need to get back and see how she’s doing.”

  “Of course,” she said. She watched him turn away and felt new defeat wash over her.

  ****

  The following week, Angie stood by the classroom window as Thursday’s final class straggled in. A saffron veil hung over the valley. The afternoon sun had just touched the high peak west of her, and the rays tinted the gently billowing mist the color of a lily. Angie scarcely saw it at all.

  Since their talk, Carson had not come by. Each evening she had waited until darkness threatened to make any walk impossible, then started off alone. These solitary outings had become times of remorse and regret. A half-dozen times each evening she would reach for the phone, only to turn away, knowing she would be unable to say what she should, frightened by the prospect of hearing that he had grown impatient with her coldness and reserve.

  What was more, Melissa had not been in class at all that week.

  When the bell sounded, she turned back to the class and felt a solid chill spread through her at the sight of Melissa’s desk, empty once again. The worry and the dread solidified into certainty.

  “Get out your textbooks, turn to the end of chapter sixteen.”

  The urgent edge to her tone brought a swift and silent response. Angie went on, “I want you to answer all the questions listed on the chapter’s final page. Take your time. You may reread the pages if you need. If I am not back by the end of class, leave your papers on my desk. This will take the place of next week’s test, so do your best here.”

  Astonished glances were exchanged around the class. But Angie did not have time to explain. “Mr. Whitley, bring your book and papers and come up here, please.”

  The biggest youth in the class, a traditional mischief-maker saved from being a real problem by a good heart and a fine sense of humor, gave a worried look about him as he did as he was told.

  “Sit here at my desk,” she ordered, and while he recovered from the shock, she cleared a space for him. Once he was seated, she leaned over and spoke with all the urgency she could muster. “I need your help. Can I count on you to make sure that the class maintains both silence and decorum?”

  “Sure, Miss Picard,” he stammered and seemed to expand at the sudden gift of responsibility.

  “Thank you.” She straightened. “Remember, treat this as a test.” Then she left.

  The principal was not in his office. Angie frantically scouted the halls, wondering whom she could disturb. Then Emma came down the side stairwell, her arms full of music scores. Angie rushed over. “Did you drive in today?”

  “Of course. Angie, honey, what’s the matter?”

  “Can you take me up to the Nealeys?” Already she was urging the larger woman through the doors and down the stairs and toward the parking lot. Her words tumbled over each other. “I need to get over there right now. I didn’t bring my car—”

  “Is something the matter with Melissa?”

  Angie waited until they were in the car and starting down the drive to respond. “She hasn’t been in for six days, no, it’s seven, and Carson said she had a cold. Oh, I don’t know, I don’t know, I’m very worried.”

  “Look at you. I’ve never seen you in such a state.”

  Angie leaned forward in her seat, urging the car to greater speed. “I’ve had a feeling all day that something is wrong.”

  “You sound just like a mother,” Emma said, then a hand flew to her mouth. But Angie barely heard her.

  When they pulled up in front of the Nealey home, Angie had her door open before the car rolled to a halt. She spotted Doctor Thatcher coming out of the front door and rushed over. “How are they?”

  “I was hoping you were the ambulance.” Thatcher was old and graying and recently had brought in a young man to gradually take over his practice. But the town still revered the old man and where po
ssible sought him out. Today he looked tired and strained. “They should have been here by now.”

  Angie gripped her chest with one hand. “Is it Melissa?”

  “It’s both of them, and that’s the problem. Bronchitis, hopefully not pneumonia, but at this stage it’s hard to tell for certain.” He snapped his black bag shut. “Carson’s been trying to take care of her by himself, and he’s got a fever hot enough to keep him flat on his back. The girl would probably be better off staying here, but she needs watching. I don’t like the sound of that chest.”

  DocThatcher glanced behind him. “I’ve had the dickens of a time getting Carson to let me take her. And the little girl’s in there crying her eyes out, which won’t help her congestion one bit. She doesn’t want to leave her daddy.”

  “Call the ambulance,” Angie said in the same tone she used on her class. “Tell them not to come.”

  “Angie Picard, what are you talking about? I’m telling you, that child needs round-the-clock watching, and the father is in no state—”

  Cutting off further argument, she walked back to where Emma stood uncertainly. “Can you go by my house and pick up some things?”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “I’m going to need to stay here and help out for a while.” She scrambled through her purse, came up with a marking pencil and an old envelope. “Both of them are down with chest colds. He wants to send Melissa off to the hospital.”

  “Angie, if Doc Thatcher thinks—”

  “She needs looking after, and she needs her home,” Angie said, thrusting the envelope and her keys into Emma’s hands. “Doc Thatcher can look in on her from time to time, and if things get worse . . .” She stopped, then said, “Just come back whenever you can.”

  Emma started to argue further, saw the set of Angie’s chin, and changed tacks. “I’ll stop by the grocers for some things. Never seen a bachelor’s pantry that didn’t need restocking.”