Songs without Words (32 page)

Chapter 26

JULY 11

The diffused light of dawn was barely perceptible through the closed blinds of Harper’s bedroom. She lay on her side, her head propped up on her hand, watching Chelsea peacefully sleeping, a morning ritual she had been enjoying almost daily for two weeks now. She had reluctantly come home after a heavenly three days in Mendocino, Chelsea following a day later. Here they had resumed their happy reunion.

Harper had feared that bringing Chelsea back to the real world would somehow dispel the fantasy of their newfound devotion to one another. In Mendocino, that fairy-tale town by the sea, they had done almost nothing but love one another and delight in children’s pleasures like seashells and ice cream cones. The myth of Orpheus was prominent in her mind as she left. While she trusted absolutely that Chelsea would follow her, there remained, on the edge of her consciousness, the fear that the gods might yet play a cruel joke on her, that they might fling Chelsea into the sea or dash her against a rock and she would be taken away forever like ill-fated Eurydice.

But, no, Chelsea had arrived safely. She now breathed silently and steadily beside Harper, her angelic face perfectly calm, a sheet covering her body except for one flawless shoulder. Harper felt an incredible sense of tranquility. The words she found to express her state of mind—peace, joy, harmony—these were the same words people used to describe a state of grace. She didn’t believe that was a coincidence. The thing that struck her most about how she had changed was how completely she had lost her need for autonomy. What she wanted now was to belong to Chelsea and for Chelsea to belong to her, completely and exclusively, all the time and forever. Whatever it was that had appealed to her in the past about independence had vanished. Now, being alone simply meant being without Chelsea, and that meant being less alive.

The smell of fresh paint drifted in from the living room. Yesterday, Saturday, they had spent the day painting it a shade of light sage with off-white trim. Harper felt a twinge of pain in her shoulder from the hours of overhead rolling. Today would be a well-earned play day. She watched Chelsea for several minutes until a scowl passed over her face, wrinkling her freckled nose, and her eyes opened. When she saw Harper, she smiled.

“Good morning,” Harper said quietly.

Chelsea reached up and put her arms around Harper’s neck and sighed deeply.

“I’ll make coffee,” Harper said, then kissed Chelsea and slid out of bed. Chelsea sprawled out as Harper pulled on an oversized T-shirt and slid her feet into slippers.

“I’ll just stay here,” Chelsea said, “and let you wait on me.”

“I’ll happily do so. Then we can talk about what to do with our Sunday.”

“We can do whatever you want. I don’t care, as long as we’re together.”

Chelsea fluttered her eyes dramatically. Harper smiled at her and went to the kitchen. Although she knew that Chelsea was exaggerating a bit, it was still true that they both had few desires to fulfill these days other than their desire for one another. Harper went to the pantry for the coffee beans, glancing at the calendar on the wall again, focusing on the date circled in red only two weeks away. That was the day she was to fly back East for her family visit. The closer it came, the more it seemed like something to be feared. She didn’t want to leave Chelsea. If it wasn’t for her promise to return Sarah, she didn’t think she would leave. She could send Sarah on alone, of course, but that probably wasn’t the responsible thing to do. This fear of hers was not rational, she knew. There was no reason to act on it.

With a silent chuckle, Harper noted again the fortune-cookie saying taped to June 29, the date of her reunion with Chelsea. When she’d shown that to Chelsea, she’d stared wide-eyed, then said, “If this were the seventeenth century, you’d be burned at the stake.”

Sarah came into the kitchen, yawning, wearing pink pajamas, her feet bare. She winced at the noise of the coffee grinder. When it whirred to a stop, she said, “Hi, Aunt Harper.”

“Good morning. Chelsea and I were about to discuss our plans for the day. We might go hiking. Do you want to come along?”

“No, thanks. I have plans of my own.”

Harper wanted to ask her what they were. She thought she probably should ask, but she didn’t want to seem to be prying. So many things about Sarah left her unsure. Harper definitely didn’t want to alienate her. She didn’t want to assume the role of parent. She preferred the role of friend.

“Anything fun?” she asked, dumping the ground coffee into the filter.

“Just hanging out.”

Harper nodded, as if she had gotten an answer. “Well, I’m glad you’ve made some friends here,” she added. “Are you sure you don’t want to come with us? We enjoy your company. We’d like you to come.”

“No, that’s okay. Thanks, though.” Sarah poured some shredded wheat and milk into a bowl and sat down to eat it while Harper waited for the coffee.

Since their return from Mendocino, Harper and Chelsea had spent every day together, sometimes alone, sometimes with Sarah. The three of them had gone to San Francisco, doing the usual tourist things. Sarah had seemed like a fourteen-year-old again that day, all agog at the Golden Gate Bridge, Fisherman’s Wharf and Coit Tower, which they ascended for a magnificent view of the city skyline. They had spent a day in Santa Cruz as well, playing pinball at the boardwalk, riding a roller coaster, eating fish and chips on a pier with pelicans gliding low beside them. While they were there, Harper had taken them to the UCSC campus for a quick look at her alma mater.

“I wish I could go to school here,” Sarah had said.

“Where are you going to college?” Harper asked her.

“I may not be going.”

Harper, stunned, said, “Why not?”

“It’s so expensive, you know. Mom and Dad will let me go to Wheaton if I live at home. I don’t know how I can afford it on my own, though.”

“So what’s wrong with Wheaton,” asked Chelsea.

“Nothing’s wrong with the school,” Sarah explained. “It’s the living at home part that’s the problem. It’s been bad enough while I’m in high school. It would be impossible. I’d have to be home by ten o’clock every night. I’d just die. I wish I could do what Aunt Harper did. Just go thousands of miles away where Mom and Dad wouldn’t have anything to say about it.”

“You can get pretty homesick,” Harper pointed out.

“I’d be willing to take that chance.”

As they left the campus, Harper had made a mental note to discuss this situation with Neil and Kathy. Given Sarah’s intelligence and enthusiasm for learning, she had to go to college. Harper didn’t see any choice in this matter and hoped that her parents were like-minded.

Throughout all of these activities, Sarah remained agreeable, enthusiastic and apparently happy. The raging tyrant that Neil and Kathy had come to know and dread was nowhere to be seen. Harper knew that it was just a matter of time, however. Sarah was relishing her freedom. She was on her best behavior because she and Harper didn’t know each other well and because they hadn’t yet tried to test one another’s limits. Harper bought her a bus pass and let her come and go as she pleased, including making frequent visits to Mary’s house. She always returned with ideas swimming in her head. One day she even returned with a painting of herself. Mary had painted her sitting in a huge chair, reading a book, in front of library shelves filled floor to ceiling. The chair’s size was exaggerated, making her look like a child of ten, as if she had lofty aspirations to read all of those books. It was a charming painting.

Sarah opened herself up, absorbing everything she could from Mary, from Chelsea, from Harper. Chelsea spent an evening with her going over the lines of her song, refining her word choices. Then Harper wrote down the music, and the three of them put it all together. They all lamented the fact that Sarah wouldn’t have time to learn to read music herself. She promised Harper that she would take lessons, that she would learn to play the piano as soon as she got home. Now, of course, she wanted to be a musician, a pop singer.
Nothing wrong with that,
thought Harper,
as a dream.

Remarkably, this inspiration wasn’t a one-way street. Because of Sarah, Harper was recording the soundtrack for her new documentary herself. Roxie had agreed to help, and when Harper returned from the Cape, she planned to put together a small group of musicians to record some additional tracks.

“You know,” Chelsea pointed out when she heard about this, “you’re only a step away now from writing your own compositions.”

That idea had seemed far-fetched to Harper, but it was working on her subconscious, occasionally peering out at her enticingly.

Harper took the coffee back to her bedroom where Chelsea had put on a shirt and was propped up in bed with pillows. Harper sat beside her, handing her a cup.

“So, what about today?” Harper asked. “What are we doing?”

“Let’s go down the river. I can borrow a kayak from a friend. It’s going to be blistering hot. A good day to be on the water.”

“Okay. I’ll make sandwiches.”

Chelsea sipped her coffee, then said, “I think that Sarah could be a real handful if you got on her wrong side.”

“I know. I’m just holding my breath, hoping that I don’t set her off. So far, it’s been great. We’re still friends.”

“Yes, she really looks up to you. I still can’t get over how she ended up at Mary’s house like that. And that Mary let her stay! How bizarre is that?”

“I think Mary’s lonely. I think she misses you.”

“Yes, well,” Chelsea said, embarrassed, “she doesn’t have to be alone if she doesn’t want to. She has options.”

Harper remembered the young woman she had seen with Mary at the symphony. Is that what Chelsea meant by “options”? Chelsea didn’t like talking about it, so Harper knew almost nothing about what had happened between them, about why they had broken up. She assumed it was the same as before—Mary was unfaithful and Chelsea was disillusioned. It was inevitable. There was no way that the awestruck girl from eight years ago could have survived. Nobody could live up to the image she’d had of Mary. Harper knew, though, that Chelsea had no such illusions about her. Chelsea had seen her flaws from the beginning, pointing them out on occasion, gently, as observations, not as demands for change.

Chelsea had matured so much over the past eight years that Harper often felt she was the younger of them. Chelsea’s rate of maturation had been accelerated, perhaps, by her close association with a mentor so much older and more experienced than herself. Harper liked that about Chelsea, appreciated her sound judgment, her caution, her realistic viewpoint. When it was required, Chelsea was extremely steady and reliable, but she still was also optimistic, trusting and playful. It was as though she had taken the best possible lessons away from her association with Mary. She had not become jaded or pessimistic from the blows she had received. Harper knew that the gifts Mary had given her were considerable. It was hard to imagine that Chelsea wouldn’t feel gratitude for that for the rest of her life. That was a kind of love. It was a bond the two of them would always have. Harper was certain that bond would draw them together again someday. She just hoped it would be under vastly different circumstances, as friends instead of lovers.

Between the joy of having Chelsea back in her life and the joy of mentoring Sarah, Harper was quite simply overjoyed. This summer, full of unexpected twists, was turning out to be such a happy surprise. She tried not to think about what would come next. In the past, the end of summer had always signaled a huge shift in her life. For that reason she was purposely not thinking too much about the fuzzy cloud beyond August and trying to root herself in the present. If this time with Chelsea was destined to be just another summer romance, she wanted it to be the best that it could possibly be, even if that meant clinging resolutely to the belief in a never-ending summer.

They ended up on the river by noon, gliding on a mostly gentle current downstream. The occasional stretch of whitewater snatched them, adding a bit of a thrill to their drifting pace.

“Duck!” yelled Chelsea, tucking her own head down between her knees as the kayak rushed over a small waterfall and into a thicket of tree branches. Harper ducked too, feeling the branches scrape her shoulder and tear a hole in her shirt. She dug her paddle hard down to the streambed and pushed away from the shore. They glided into a gentler section of the river then and relaxed. Chelsea steered with her paddle, straightening the kayak so that it pointed downstream again.