A Mother's Strength

by Allie Pleiter

  While that wasn’t “I’ll never tell you,” it wasn’t much of an invitation, either.

  “We gotta fix this for Zack,” he said. They both knew he was shifting back to a safer topic. “And fast.”

  The urgency in his words matched the worry in her own heart. “How? Samantha’s already told Zack she doesn’t blame him. Not that he accepts that.”

  Sawyer pinched the bridge of his nose, wearily grasping for some solution. She hadn’t come up with anything, either. “A broken arm can’t be unbroken. Samantha’s going to be in that cast and unable to play piano for at least eight weeks, and we can’t change that.”

  It hit her just then. A small burst of an idea leaped out of hiding. One she couldn’t believe hadn’t occurred to her sooner. They couldn’t change Samantha’s injury, but they could change one of the consequences. Well, he could. She raised an eyebrow at Sawyer.

  He followed her thinking instantly, practically recoiling at the idea. “Oh no. No, not on your life.”

  “Why not? It would help. It would solve one piece of what’s happened.”

  The man’s frown was so fierce it was almost amusing. “I am not playing piano for your choir. Not in a million years.”

  “Come on, Sawyer. It wouldn’t be forever. It’d be just until Samantha can come back.”

  He crossed his arms over his chest. “That could be weeks. Seriously, you can’t tell me there isn’t another person who can play piano in this town.”

  “I’m sure there is. But not one who understands Zack and was part of how we all got here in the first place.” This was a good idea. Probably as much for Sawyer as for Zack. Molly wasn’t going to back down. “Zack needs to see us putting this right,” she went on. “He needs to see that when accidents happen, you don’t hide in regret, you figure out how you can help fix things.”

  The man grunted. “That isn’t a solution.”

  Molly fixed him with the glare sharpened by seven years of maternal convincing. “Well, no, it’s not perfect. But have you got a better idea?”

  Chapter Twelve

  An act of God.

  Sawyer didn’t have any other rational explanation than that for the fact he was seated behind the piano Thursday night in the sanctuary of Wander Canyon Community Church.

  Well, divine intervention and Molly Kane. He tried to console himself that there wasn’t a living human being who could stand up against that combination.

  You’re up there laughing at me, aren’t You?

  Not exactly a prayer—more like a wisecrack in the Almighty’s direction—but Sawyer hoped God at least appreciated his honesty.

  “Thanks for this,” Pastor Newton said over Sawyer’s shoulder for the tenth time. “Molly says your specialty is ragtime. I hope you’ll let us hear some after practice.”

  Sawyer simply grunted as he turned the accompanist’s hymnal to “Blessed Assurance.” It had been years since his sight-reading skills had been tested—he mostly played from memory—but the simple chord structures of the hymnals posed little challenge. Anyone with basic keyboard skills could do what he was doing right now. Sawyer wasn’t so sure he bought into Molly’s idea that his stepping in for Samantha made a difference for Zack.

  “It really is kind of you to step in,” Yvonne Walker said. Sawyer remembered she was the wife Chaz was waiting on when they first met outside of the church. Which also made her Wyatt Walker’s sister-in-law. Everybody really did know everybody else in this town.

  “Sure you don’t sing?” asked a man who introduced himself as Walt Peters. “We’re desperate for baritones.”

  “Trust me, you’re not desperate enough to need me,” Sawyer replied. “My musical talents don’t go any farther than these fingers.”

  The choir moved into “Be Thou My Vision,” where Molly sang a solo. There are some good parts to this bizarre setup, Sawyer admitted to himself. He got to hear Molly sing up close. And he got to accompany her when she sang. It was silly to enjoy that connection as much as he did. Still, her music was so important to her, and her voice was such a gift, that a small part of him was grateful to be in the world of her music.

  Her whole self lit up when Molly sang. It was like watching a high-octane version of what playing did to him—and evidently to Zack. Music soothed him, calmed him, pulled him back from the darkness that always lurked.

  Molly’s music didn’t just soothe her, it elevated her. It took her to this joyful place he’d forgotten existed. She was beautiful in so many ways when the music filled her. Sawyer could see her faith when she sang. The word fit her: she was faith-full when she sang. Being able to see it so clearly in someone made it just a bit easier to believe it existed.

  For other people, at least. Any faith like that still felt miles out of reach to someone like him. He’d never be faith-full.

  But it felt good to feel useful. To her as well as to Zack. Maybe Molly was right, and it would help Zack to know Sawyer had stepped up to fill Samantha’s role. If nothing else, Sawyer was selfishly grateful for a reason to still be involved in their lives.

  “Will you play just one?” Molly asked as they finished up rehearsal. “I want everyone to hear how good you are.”

  Sawyer had no doubt the pastor had put her up to it. He should head home and get a few hours’ sleep in before his shift tonight, but he couldn’t deny Molly anything. Especially not when she looked at him like that. The sparkle in her eyes reduced him to the kind of helplessness his dad would call smitten.

  Several other choir members joined in on the pleas, so Sawyer chose a Joplin number called “Grace and Beauty” and began to play.

  People were surprised, and a bit stunned. Sawyer couldn’t decide if that pleased him, or if it should bother him that his abilities caught them by such surprise. It had been so long since he thought of the piano as a talent. He’d always considered it more of a survival mechanism. A way to push back against all the ugliness a man saw in law enforcement. Perhaps the way these people saw hymns and church.

  “You’re amazing!” Pastor Newton said. The man looked as if he really meant it—or he was just that good at faking it.

  Sawyer felt his cheeks heat at the compliment. He wasn’t amazing. People like Molly were amazing, not him.

  He almost wished he hadn’t caught her eye after the pastor’s praise. The glow in them undid him a little—a lot, maybe—as if she was proud of him. She was proud of getting him in here, probably, or of solving the problem of a rehearsal pianist. She had no reason to be proud of him. Still, some part of him grasped at her glee and held it tight, like a kid clutching money to buy an ice cream. Smitten, indeed.

  The choir began to disperse, offering compliments and accolades as they passed by the piano bench, and Sawyer made to leave.

  “Wait,” Molly said.

  Sawyer’s whole soul—if he had one—snagged on the word, and he was caught and unable to leave even though he ought to.

  “Play your favorite, would you?”

  He had a dozen favorites, but he started in on the first bars of “Gladiolus Rag.”

  “Not ragtime.” She stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. The small gesture felt enormous, and Sawyer felt himself undo a little bit more. The tightness he’d bound around himself was starting to unwind, and there didn’t seem to be a single thing he could do about it. Or even wanted to. “None of those songs have words, do they?”

  “No.” The word choked out of him like a besotted teenager. She had no idea how beautiful she was. How would he ever be able to make this all about Zack and only Zack? “None of them.”

  “What’s your favorite song with words? You must have one. Everybody does.”

  He knew the answer to her question in a heartbeat. But in that same heartbeat he knew it was a terrible idea to let her hear it. Like peering over a cliff to see how far the drop went down even though you were going to jump an
yway.

  “Don’t be shy,” she encouraged, probably just trying to be friendly. She had no idea what she was asking.

  Sawyer put his hands to the keyboard, half praying he’d forgotten the notes.

  He hadn’t. Almost against his will the opening bars of Simon and Garfunkel’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water” began to float out over the quiet air of the sanctuary.

  Molly hummed her approval, recognizing the song. “Oh, good one.” She began to hum along, and with a jolt of something very much like terror Sawyer realized she was going to start singing.

  He ought to stop playing. He ought to run from the sanctuary and go home and sleep and spend the next hours in the safe dark of the security office. He ought not to accompany her sweet, clear voice singing words of grace and healing.

  She began to sing, and it felt as if the whole world stopped to listen.

  They were just lyrics. Words penned by famous singers decades ago. They should not have the power to cut into him like they did, to carry her voice high up into the rafters to mingle there with the chords he made.

  And yet Sawyer felt utterly exposed. It was as if the physical pain of that accident, the agony realizing what he’d done when he’d awoken in the hospital bed and the scarring of all that scorn could somehow appear all over his body, could somehow billow up like the music to fill the room.

  But there, sliding wondrously through all that, was Molly’s voice. Beauty singing pain. Grace singing agony. How was that even possible? How could he want to keep standing it?

  When Molly’s voice softened and the final chord hung delicately in the air, Sawyer felt as if he’d run a hundred miles. He stared at his fingers, stunned to find them still on the keys because he was sure they were shaking.

  Somehow she knew not to speak. The raging storm in his chest must have been obvious because she knew to let the room fall to a hush. He’d always been drawn to how she could see him—really see him—but that felt like a blaring spotlight right now.

  He tried to think of something to say. Anything normal, casual or ordinary, anything that would hide the enormity of the moment. The sheer power of emotions roiling through him. Nothing came to mind.

  She leaned against the piano, waiting. For what, he wasn’t sure. So even as he told himself not to, Sawyer eventually raised his gaze to hers. He expected something along the lines of “What on earth just happened?” to be in her eyes. Judgment, puzzlement or any of the hundreds of versions of morbid curiosity he’d endured in the past year.

  Instead, Molly’s eyes were warm. The look in them was a tender question, almost a welcome, without a hint of scorn. Care. That was what he saw in those eyes. Could it possibly be she cared for him? Sawyer absolutely, positively didn’t know what to make of that.

  Evidently, she did. Molly simply looked at him, nodded her head ever so slightly and said, “Welcome to church, Sawyer Bradshaw.”

  Without another word, she left the sanctuary, leaving Sawyer to sit there for a full thirty minutes wondering how in the world his soul had shown up now after months of being shredded and gone.

  * * *

  “Some kids were still mean,” Zack replied when Molly asked him how the last week of school was going. They were walking back home on a gorgeous afternoon day. Things hadn’t been good in the week since the festival. How could it have been? As his little backpack bobbed along over his shoulders, Molly watched the rubber band in his hands. It twisted and stretched in the nonstop fidget that had always broken her heart.

  “But it’s better, right?” That felt like a desperate question. Surely one or two of his classmates had to have been nice.

  “Mo Winters said she liked my hippo. She said it shoulda got first prize ’cuz it was one of the biggest.”

  “That doesn’t sound mean at all. Mo is a nice girl and a good friend.” Mrs. Hollings had left a voice message on her cell phone that Zack had spent the entire lunch recess sitting alone on a bench. The image of him sitting all by himself had hounded her all afternoon.

  “Billy asked me if I get to keep it.”

  In all the post-parade chaos of Samantha’s injury, the hippo cart had, in fact, been left in the parking lot for hours until Sawyer had towed it behind his truck and parked it in her garage. “It belongs to the golf resort.” Of course, it had been so radically altered she doubted the resort had much use for it now. She’d been so excited about it she’d forgotten to ask what would happen to it after the parade.

  “I don’t want it anyways,” Zack said in sad tones. Molly was struck again how things had turned out so very differently than she’d hoped. “I’m still sad,” he added with heartbreaking honesty. If his chin had sunk any lower it would be sitting on his chest.

  She’d spent so much time coping with an anxious Zack, this new sad version baffled her. “I’m still sad, too,” she admitted.

  “Do you think Sawyer is still sad?”

  “I know for a fact that he is. He was really proud of your hippo cart. Still is. What happened wasn’t anyone’s fault. It was...”

  “I know, I know, an accident.” Zack said the words as a bland recitation. “Mo said so. Everybody says so. But I wish everybody would just forget about it.”

  “In time they will. Nobody blames you, Zack.” She was pretty sure several people blamed her—herself included—but no one blamed Zack.

  It wasn’t fair that the last ten seconds of a day filled with so much happiness had turned everything sour. Zack had done this brave new thing. He’d made this amazing hippo cart that had won second place. It seemed wrong that nobody remembered that.

  She’d sent Steve the photo of Zack behind the wheel of the cart—a shot of the last moments before everything had gone wrong—and another later shot of the cart bearing its second place ribbon. Maybe this one time Steve would snap out of his heartbreaking disregard and send some sort of congratulatory note. Or call. Or anything.

  Of course, nothing came.

  Sawyer, on the other hand, had called after school every day this week. He’d been insistent to the point of badgering that golf lessons continue. Molly had waited for Sawyer to give her any hint as to the mountain of pain she saw well up that evening at church, but the man remained silent.

  Maybe that was for the best. She was starting to feel way too much for him. They had only seen each other at The Depot in the days since the choir rehearsal, and she felt his absence keenly. He’d come to belong in many parts of her life, not just mornings at the coffee shop. She thought of him constantly. Right now, he seemed to be everything Steve wasn’t—or ever would be—and that was calling to her in dangerous ways with a strength she was running out of ways to fight.

  A shocking question from Zack pulled her from her thoughts. “Can I quit school? There’s only four days left. It won’t matter.”

  Molly’s heart froze over. Or cracked. Or both. Zack had moaned and whined, complained and delayed, but he’d never asked to quit school before. I pushed him too far. I got all hopeful and pushed him too far.

  She wanted to sit down on the curb and wail, but Molly told herself to keep walking and talking in calm tones. “Why do you want to quit school? You can last four days.” She was pretty sure she knew why, but Molly wanted to hear how Zack would put it.

  “It’s no fun. Never was.”

  She picked up on Sawyer’s favorite phrase. “Feeling lousy?”

  “Yep. And not new.”

  No, the struggles of school were far from new to Zack. Life shouldn’t be so hard at his age. Life shouldn’t be so hard, period. “Lots of important things in life aren’t fun. Or new.”

  “Why does school have to be important?” Zack whined. His little blue sneakers plodded along the sidewalk as if the walk was miles uphill in a blizzard instead of six blocks in the glorious Colorado spring sunshine. “Why can’t just golf be important?”

  Molly wondered what S
awyer would have to say about that statement. Was it golf that was important to Zack? Or Sawyer?

  “I saw some guys on TV who were perfessonal—” Zack struggled around the large word “—golf guys. And there are grown-ups all over the golf course when everyone else is s’posed to be at work.”

  Molly almost had to laugh. How did this become about retirees, swanky vacationers and golf pros? “They are not in the second grade,” she replied. “I expect most of them went all the way to college before their mommies and daddies let them play golf all day long.” She had no idea if that was true of golf pros, but it was at least plausible so it served her point. “Even Sawyer doesn’t play golf all day long. He has important work to do.”

  Zack shifted his backpack and began working the rubber band again. “He works all by himself,” he said with admiration. Then he muttered, “He doesn’t have Davey Jacobs saying he drives a killer hippo.”

  Molly stopped walking. “A killer hippo? Is that what Davey Jacobs said to you?” What kind of an unfair crack was that? Molly’s heart burned. Davey Jacobs had been Zack’s nemesis since kindergarten. A handsome, outspoken and astoundingly mean little boy who bullied Zack and any other kid he could find. A mini version of his boisterous, boasting father, actually. While Molly ought to know better, the Jacobses were one of the few school families she had never invited to church. It was cowardly to protect church as the one place where Zack didn’t have to worry about Davey Jacobs, and she was ashamed of her shortcoming. All the ways church could help Sawyer stood out crystal clear to her, but Molly could never muster the compassion to see the ways church could probably help Davey Jacobs.

  “Part of growing up is learning how to deal with other people. Even the ones we don’t like or are mean to us.”

  Zack shot her a “moms are supposed to say stuff like that” look. He had a point—Sawyer hadn’t seemed to learn the lesson about dealing with other people. The man walked around as if the whole world was his own personal unfriendly second grade. Maybe that was how he had connected with Zack so quickly and with such intensity.