American Anthem

by BJ Hoff

  Michael sensed the very instant when Susanna’s panic gave way to command, her self-doubt to excitement, her fear to freedom. He knew, exactly to the beat, when she wrested control of the organ and conquered it.

  It happened long before the children’s lighthearted selections and the traditional carol singing had come to an end. The gate of her spirit opened wide, freeing her gift to rise above the concert hall, to soar beyond her self-limitations—even beyond his own expectations for her.

  From the first impromptu passage through the unexpected improvisations, the angelic winging of the descants, the elegant, inspired transpositions—he knew the fire that fueled her brilliance was holy fire. Her fear was gone.

  By the time they reached the “Hallelujah Chorus,” Michael himself was on fire, and the audience with him. The “Chorus” was, in his estimation, the greatest, most divinely inspired piece of music ever written.

  Handel’s servants had often found the composer in tears and exultation as he composed The Messiah, a miracle of music. He became a captive of its creation, writing in solitary frenzy, never leaving his house, day or night, until the work was completed—in an unbelievable twenty-four days. And when the final triumphant note had been penned, Handel himself had proclaimed that he had seen “all Heaven before me, and the Great God Himself.”

  Of all tonight’s selections, Michael knew that Susanna dreaded this one the most. She believed that in performing this incomparable work, one simply could not be anything less than brilliant, for fear of disappointing God Himself.

  Michael, too, was feeling the pressure, despite the fact that he had conducted the “Chorus” numerous times. He heard the crowd stir, but he gave the musicians a few seconds to ready themselves for the coming effort before turning and prompting the audience to stand. Then he lifted his shoulders, drew in a long, steadying breath, and inclined his head slightly in Susanna’s direction to indicate that she should lead them onward.

  Susanna had thought she would have to call upon every ounce of strength and skill available to her just to do an acceptable rendering of this greatest of all choruses. Instead, she found herself lifted almost from the beginning, empowered with an ease, an agility, and a depth of emotion she could never have imagined.

  It seemed she could do no wrong. Her hands had never held such power; her fingers and feet seemed to fly. She felt as if she were riding on the wind, and thought her heart would surely explode with pure elation before this was finished.

  She caught the look on Michael’s face—pure, unmeasured joy—and only then did she realize she was seeing him through a glaze of tears. For the first time, Susanna understood, at least in part, what Handel meant when he insisted that God had “visited” him in the creation of this greatest of all music.

  And then, as they arrived at the final measures, she heard the glorious, incredible voice that had once thrilled thousands on a different kind of stage now rise above the other voices to fill the entire concert hall.

  Michael was singing.

  Susanna’s gaze swept the sea of faces before her. All through the audience, people wept for joy as they lifted and clasped their hands in adoration. The hall vibrated with this thundering outpouring of music and praise and power.

  Her eyes went back to Michael, and his beloved face filled her vision. He would sing in public again, he had told her, only when God called him to do so. Only when he could not contain the joy…

  And He shall reign forever and ever.

  King of Kings, and Lord of Lords,

  Hallelujah!

  The Gift…the Giver…and the Glory…

  Oh, the glory!

  BOOK THREE

  JUBILEE

  The world cries out

  With a common voice:

  “Is there Hope? Where can Hope be?”

  To our wounded world,

  God still replies

  With the Cross of Calvary.

  —BJ HOFF

  Prologue

  TO HOLD A PROMISE

  I was made her guardian angel

  And to me the charge was given,

  Still to keep and shield her footsteps

  All the way from earth to heaven.

  FANNY CROSBY

  Bantry Hill, Hudson River Valley

  August, 1871

  Michael Emmanuel held his newborn daughter with extreme care, as if she might break from the pressure of his arms.

  The shallow, even breathing from across the room told him Deirdre, his wife, had fallen asleep, exhausted by the birth process. The doctor was gone, leaving behind the nurse to look after the mother and child. Michael heard the rustle of her skirts and the occasional clatter and dull thud of things being tidied up and put away.

  Night had gathered in on Bantry Hill, a sultry, humid night that hung heavy over the grounds. In spite of the August heat that had scorched the valley for days, the stone walls of the mansion kept the rooms pleasantly cool.

  Too cool for an infant? Immediately, Michael tested the thickness of the receiving blanket in which his daughter was wrapped. Satisfied that she was snug, he carefully got to his feet. He was eager to introduce his new daughter to the rest of the household, who would, he knew, be just as eager to welcome her.

  Ordinarily, he would have taken the wide, sprawling steps on his own, his blindness no hindrance in his own, familiar home. But not this time, not with such a precious bundle in his arms.

  “Nurse? Would you be good enough, please, to carry the baby downstairs for me? The others will be waiting to see her, and I don’t want to risk a fall.”

  “Oh, of course, sir. I’d be happy to.”

  She came and took the child from him, leaving him with an unexpected feeling of emptiness. Already he missed the warm sweetness of her small form in his arms.

  In the drawing room, as he’d expected, they found Paul, more brother than cousin, along with Liam and Moira Dempsey, the couple who had worked for Michael for years. Rosa Navaro, too, his good friend and neighbor, had been there throughout the day, waiting.

  Michael thought his face would break from the fullness of a smile he could not suppress. Perhaps, though, he could be forgiven a touch of drama as he parted the blanket away from his tiny daughter’s face, then lifted her for all to see. He was pleased by the ohs and ahs of admiration, the excited murmurings among them.

  It was Rosa who firmly announced that the child “looks just like you, Michael! Your dark hair—and so much for one so tiny!”

  Each of them had something to say, but it was Paul who most clearly voiced what was in Michael’s heart. With a gentle hand on Michael’s arm, his young cousin pronounced quietly: “She is your gift from heaven, cugino. You hold in your arms God’s promise for your life, your future.”

  “What is her name to be, Michael?” asked Rosa.

  Now he had to fight to keep his smile in place. His daughter’s naming had been of little interest to Deirdre. Her indifference had been just one more wound among many.

  “I don’t care what you call her! I never wanted her in the first place, and you know it!”

  Michael forced the memory of Deirdre’s angry words out of his mind and drew his daughter closer to his heart. “Her name is Caterina. Caterina Saraid—Saraid after my mother.”

  There was another round of approving murmurs. Then, after a few minutes more, Michael tucked the infant snugly against his shoulder and left them. He wanted to be alone with his child.

  Slowly and carefully, he made his way to the front door and stepped outside, onto the broad porch that ran the length of the house. The baby sighed against his shoulder, and he moved to cradle her in his arms, rocking her a little to and fro. The air was still warm and fragrant with the late summer roses from the gardens and the wildflowers on the hillside. No breeze stirred, and other than the usual night strummings of the crickets and the occasional screech of an owl, all was quiet.

  There should have been nothing but joy and excitement in his heart on this night. A man should be f
illed with celebration at the birth of his first child. And indeed the incredible happiness of holding his new daughter in his arms was enough to nearly overcome all other thoughts, all other emotions. But somewhere beneath the joy was a place where an old pain dwelt, a weight of misery that even the elation of new fatherhood could not dispel.

  His daughter, this small, incredibly perfect, and completely innocent infant, was unwanted—and unloved—by her own mother. As unwanted and unloved as he, her father.

  She must never know, this baby girl sleeping so peacefully in his arms, that her mother had tried to abort her, that in a drunken rage—rage at him—she had attempted to lose their child by jumping from the high-pitched porch of the carriage house.

  He had once thought there could be no pain more agonizing than that of living with a woman who despised him, who humiliated him at every opportunity, who continually sought to rub his face in her loathing of him. But he had been wrong. Deirdre’s resentment of their unborn baby throughout the months of her pregnancy, her indifference to anything related to their child, and her refusal to even pretend affection after her birth was the worst pain he had ever known, the greatest heartbreak of his life.

  And the greatest dread. For he knew his wife’s animosity toward him and their daughter would not abate simply because the birth had been accomplished. If anything, it might become even more poisonous and vindictive.

  Already she had refused to help name the child. She had also refused to nurse her, leaving them to either find a wet nurse or depend entirely on a nursing cup. In truth, had the doctor not unknowingly placed the babe in her arms after the delivery, Deirdre might not have held her at all.

  Before Caterina was ever born, Michael had vowed that she would never suffer from her mother’s coldness. Or her cruelty. Somehow he would have to become a buffer between the two, would have to give the child enough love that she would never suffer from neglect.

  But how? How did a man become both father and mother to his child? How would he ever compensate for what Caterina might lack from her mother? With a blind man for a father and a mother who was at best cold and indifferent, how would his daughter ever experience a normal childhood?

  His eyes burned, and his heart squeezed so painfully he caught his breath. The reality of his own helplessness suffused him, and he moaned aloud to ward off despair.

  As if alarmed by the change in him, the infant in his arms whimpered. Michael drew her soft warmth as close to his chest as he dared without hurting her. He attempted to soothe her, crooning softly in the language he knew best, the tongue of his Italian father. He must not give in to this hopelessness. He could not, would not raise his child in the shadow of fear. He must seek only the good, the best, for his daughter.

  What was it Paul had said?

  “She is God’s promise for your life, your future.”

  Michael passed a gentle hand over her tiny features, her crown of silken hair… like his, Rosa had said. He lifted the baby to press his lips against her cheek—so soft, so sweet, it made him ache.

  Suddenly, he felt a tiny hand groping, then finding his index finger and closing over it. And at that instant he realized Paul was right. Here was God’s promise; here was his future…his child, his daughter, his life. He had no idea how he would be all things to her, all the things she would need. But he would live his life trying, being as much as he could be, doing whatever he could to make sure this promise of God was safeguarded and fulfilled.

  1

  REUNION

  Let my voice ring out and over the earth,

  Through all the grief and strife,

  With a golden joy in a silver mirth:

  Thank God for life!

  JAMES THOMSON

  New York City

  Late March, 1876

  The first time Susanna Fallon saw Riccardo Emmanuel, she wasn’t in the least surprised that he was weeping.

  He had not seen his son, after all, for years. Not since the accident that had blinded Michael. It was all she could do to hold back her own tears as she watched Michael’s father grasp his son by the shoulders, study him, then pull him into a long embrace.

  Uncomfortable with the idea of intruding on such an intimate family occasion, Susanna had wanted to stay behind this morning. Despite the love that had blossomed and then deepened between her and Michael Emmanuel over the past months, she still found it hard to think of herself as his fiancée, not his dead wife’s sister and his daughter’s governess. Only at Michael’s insistence had she agreed to come to the city with him to meet his father’s ship. And so far she had managed to remain where she wanted to be—in the background.

  Around them, all was confusion and commotion. The New York City harbor brought back memories of her own arrival in America: the fear she’d had to struggle against when she’d first stepped off the ship into the midst of the other immigrants milling about the waterfront; the tall buildings along the wharf that had seemed so forbidding; the mix of foreign tongues and English, spoken more sharply and harshly than she was used to; and the ever present runners, most of them Irish themselves, who preyed on their fellow countrymen as they hustled them off to disreputable shanties and dilapidated tenements where unscrupulous landlords would take advantage of them yet again.

  Susanna shuddered and, shading her eyes with one hand, looked up at the bright March sky. Although winter still held the city in its tenuous grip, the late morning sun was clear and sharp, the bracing air full of promise that spring was on the way.

  Susanna watched as Riccardo Emmanuel released Michael to draw Paul, his nephew, closer and kiss him soundly on both cheeks. Then he bent to sweep four-year-old Caterina up into his sturdy arms, tugging at a long, dark curl as she squealed with delight.

  “Bella! Mia bella nipote!”

  My beautiful granddaughter.

  “But surely this cannot be your baby girl, Michael? Not this bella creatura! Why, she’s nearly grown!”

  Susanna smiled to see Caterina throw her arms around the neck of the grandfather she had never met, hugging him as if they’d been together forever. Clearly, this relationship held great promise.

  Only when Michael called to her did Susanna finally step out and approach. Seeing her, Riccardo Emmanuel set Caterina carefully to her feet, then beckoned Susanna closer.

  “Ah,” he said softly, with a quick glance at Michael. “She is exactly as you wrote of her, mio figlio.”

  She had only a second to speculate exactly as to what Michael had written before Riccardo turned to her. After only a slight hesitation, he brought her hand to his lips, his keen blue eyes taking her measure in one quick but thorough sweep. Had it not been for the unmistakable twinkle in his eye, that sharply discerning gaze might have intimidated Susanna. As it was, however, Riccardo Emmanuel seemed more intent on charming her than intimidating her.

  He was a big man, Michael’s father—nearly a head shorter than his son but of broad, even rotund, girth. Like Michael, he sported a neatly trimmed beard and wore his hair, liberally streaked with silver, somewhat longer than fashion dictated. With his weathered, ruddy skin, he looked like a man who had spent much time in the Tuscan sun.

  He was—dashing, Susanna decided. Impeccably tailored, freshly barbered. How had he managed that aboard ship? And where in the world had he found a flower for his lapel?

  And then there was his smile. Brilliant. Irresistible.

  Susanna liked him immediately.

  He lifted his head, still searching her face as he said, in surprisingly good English, “I am delighted to meet you at last, Susanna. We will spend much time getting to know each other, no?”

  “I’m looking forward to it, signor Emmanuel.”

  He shook a finger at her. “No, no! None of that. You are betrothed to my son. You will be my daughter, and so you must call me Papa.” He said all this with an ingenuous smile and a certain good-natured presumption.

  Well, then. In addition to being dashing, he was also adept at getting his way.
>
  “Very well. Papa,” Susanna said, aware that she was being dazzled and enjoying it immensely.

  At that point, Michael cleared his throat as if vying for attention.

  “We still have to take the ferry upriver, Papa. We should be going. Pauli will see to your luggage, and Susanna and Caterina and I will go with you through the registration.”

  Michael extended his hand then, reaching for Susanna. When he failed to find her, she moved closer and put a hand to his arm. She glanced at Riccardo Emmanuel and saw that he was watching his son with an expression of great sadness. In that instant, Susanna’s gaze met his, and a look of shared love and understanding passed between them.

  Then Michael’s father squared his shoulders, renewed his smile, and again caught Caterina up into his arms. “So—let us tend to the necessary business and be on our way! I am eager to begin my visit!”

  “And we’re so happy to have you here, Uncle Riccardo!” Paul told his uncle. “We intend to make your visit so very pleasant you will decide to stay and make your home with us!”

  “Ah, is that what you’re up to?” said Riccardo Emmanuel, tweaking Caterina’s nose. “Then the first thing you must do is to feed me as soon as possible! I thought I would most certainly starve on that ship’s swill. I’m sure I’ve lost far too much weight.”

  Grinning at Caterina, he thumped his considerable stomach. “Why, I must be a mere shadow of myself by now!”

  Caterina giggled and hugged him again.

  After completing the registration process, Susanna and Michael led the way to the ferry while Caterina, her grandfather, and Paul followed behind. In their wake came a boy towing a luggage cart piled with Riccardo Emmanuel’s trunks.

  “So,” asked Michael, his hand covering Susanna’s on his forearm, “what do you think of my papa?”

  “I think he’s absolutely wonderful, and I couldn’t be happier that he’s come.” Susanna paused. “Although it seems you may have a serious rival for your daughter’s affections.”