The Music Box (11 page)

“No, that's okay.” She almost stumbled when descending from the chair, but managed to keep hold of both her balance and the box. She walked over, put it down at Angie's feet, and pulled off the top. “This was Momma's. It's real old.”

Angie peered inside and gasped. “Melissa, it's beautiful. May I touch it? I promise I'll be careful.”

“All right.”

Angie seated herself on the dressing table stool. Melissa stepped back and to one side, as though wanting Angie to shield her from whatever was inside. Angie pressed back the wrapping paper, then lifted up the contents. Melissa told her quietly, “It's a music box.”

“I know it is.” Angie inspected the small porcelain box with the exquisite figure of a ballerina on the cover, then lifted it up to see the trademark underneath. “Vienna, Austria,” she read. “This is simply beautiful, Melissa.”

“It plays the song ‘Greensleeves,' ” Melissa offered quietly.

Something in her tone caused Angie to pause just as she was reaching to lift the top. She turned and saw how the girl was watching, her eyes big and sad. “Would you open this for me?”

Very slowly, Melissa shook her head, back and forth, her eyes not leaving the box.

“Why not, Melissa?”

She did not reply.

“Would you like me to put it back?”

“You can hold it if you want,” Melissa replied, her voice as soft as the wind.

“I don't want to make you sad.” Hesitantly, Angie reached out and stroked one hand down the side of Melissa's face. The hair beneath her fingers was as fine as silk. “You must have brought this out for a reason. Did you want to tell me something about it?”

A tiny shrug, then a whispered, “When she got sick, Momma listened to this box a lot. She said it reminded her of all the good things, and remembering helped her face what was still to come. That morning, I went in to see Momma, and she asked me to sing. I tried, but I couldn't. I just couldn't. So she asked me to open the box and hold her hand. After a little while, Momma closed her eyes. And she didn't . . .”

“Oh, honey.” She reached out both arms and enveloped the child. One hand continued to stroke through the soft auburn hair as the other held her close.

They stayed like that for a long time. Then Angie glanced down at the box in her lap and saw how one of Melissa's hands had reached over, and one finger was tracing its way around the delicate figure on the top. The other arm remained wrapped around Angie, as though drawing the strength to reach over and touch the box. And remember.

Angie took a breath and said quietly, “I have a crystal bowl with a cover back at home. A very pretty one. Not as nice as this box, but pretty in its own way. It was the first antique I ever bought. Oh, my mother had some nice things I suppose that's where my interest in antiques comes from. But this was the first one I found for myself. So it has always remained very special to me. It's called a compote jar. Have you ever heard of that?”

A soft voice said, “No.”

“Back in the last century, people used to keep a bowl of sweet drink handy for when guests came calling. Sometimes it had spirits in it, sometimes not. And because it was sweet and might attract insects, the bowl had to have a lid on it. In nice houses, the bowl was shaped out of crystal and silver and looked like a plump round vase with a lid.”

She did not understand why she was telling Melissa this. But the simple rightness she felt could not be denied. It was not just for Melissa, either. She
knew
this. “After my husband died, I went back to the university and finished learning how to be a teacher. Then I came home. My folks had retired down to the coast, where Daddy got ill and couldn't travel. They left the house here for me. I discovered that it was very hard not to think about my troubles. Even though they had all happened somewhere else, I couldn't just leave them there.”

Melissa laid her head against Angie's shoulder. Her arm shifted to the soft space just under Angie's ribs. The quiet voice said, “Neither can Papa. He doesn't say anything, but I know.” The auburn head moved back far enough to fasten wide gray eyes upon Angie's face. “And today was the first time I ever heard him talk about, you know, everything.”

Angie nodded in understanding and Melissa nodded back. “It made me sad,” she explained, “but it was good. I don't know how exactly, but I think it was good Papa talked to you like that.”

Angie searched for words but could come up with nothing. She watched the small head nestled back against her and stroked the fine hair. Finally she said, “Where was I?”

“You had problems with your thoughts.”

“That's right, I did. And so I decided that something had to change. I couldn't be a good teacher if I was always thinking about the past. But I knew I couldn't keep myself from thinking about those things all the time. I had tried, because I wanted to. But I couldn't. So I decided I could think about whatever I wanted whenever I was home and by myself. But when I went out, I had to leave all those thoughts there at home.”

“That must have been hard,” Melissa said softly.

“It was at first. But then I put that crystal jar of mine in the front hallway. And every time I left the house, I stopped and saw myself leaving all my inside thoughts there in the bowl. That's what I called them, my ‘inside thoughts.' ”

She stopped for a moment. She had to. It was only then that she realized the story had an ending. Angie sat there at the dressing table, the music box in her lap and the small form snuggled at her side.

Melissa stirred and without releasing her embrace asked, “What happened next?”

“Well,” Angie said with a great sigh, a release of years and years of having nothing
next
to speak of. “One day I discovered that I didn't need the container anymore. And now the bowl has become simply an object of beauty again, not a storehouse for everything that was painful to remember.”

Melissa raised her head then. Grave eyes inspected Angie's face, eyes wanting to believe, wanting to be sure that what Angie said was true. “Really?”

“With God, and in God's time,” Angie replied. “And now my inside thoughts are just memories. They are sad ones, a lot of them, but still special. I still keep the jar there in the hallway, because I can look at it now and remember, and it's okay.”

“It doesn't make you sad?”

“Not anymore,” Angie said, meeting the gaze full on. “I feel glad. Glad to be alive, glad to be teaching, glad for all the joy that life still holds for me. It's not perfect, and a lot of things aren't how I would have them be. But I still have a lot to be thankful for.”

Big gray eyes continued to regard her. “I wish . . .” Then Melissa stopped as she caught sight of something behind them.

Angie turned around to find Carson standing in the doorway. He was leaning against the frame, so still he appeared planted there. His arms were crossed, and he was watching the two of them with an expression that Angie could not identify. His eyes went back and forth from one to the other, then he said quietly, “Lunch is ready.”

“Thank you,” Angie said, her voice as soft as his.

He turned and walked back down the hallway. Only then did Angie decide what Carson Nealey's expression had seemed most of all was hopeful.

12

The remainder of the month was spent observing. Angie saw Melissa in class and both of them at church. But other than the occasional smile and brief conversation, there was no contact between them. Angie did not mind. There had been so much contained in that day.

The month's final Friday dawned clear and brilliantly sunny. The temperature was iron-hard cold as she walked to school, but by lunchtime the valley had captured the warmth so that even her sweater felt heavy. As she waited for her last class to gather, she found herself impatiently staring out the window and hoping the weather would hold.

“Miss Picard?”

Angie swung back around. “Hello, Melissa. You caught me daydreaming.”

“Yes, ma'am.” She held out the folded sheet of art paper. “This is for you.”

“Why, thank you.” She raised up the paper, read the penciled inscription, “To my friend, Miss Picard. With love, Melissa Nealey.” Angie smiled at the girl, anticipation on her face. “This is just too sweet.”

“You can open it if you want to,” she said shyly.

Angie checked the rapidly filling room. There was little attention cast their way. She knew from experience that the final class before the weekend concentrated mostly on what was to come. She returned to the page in her hand.

The paper had been carefully sealed with a little ribbon. Angie untied the bow, opened the page, and gasped aloud.

“The teacher asked us to draw a picture of spring. I knew this was for you even before I started.”

Angie turned so she faced the blackboard and away from the class, all without lifting her gaze from the picture. She swallowed, the sound made loud by the tightness in her throat, the same tightness that turned her voice hoarse as she whispered, “This is beautiful.”

“It's the best thing I ever drew,” Melissa said simply, standing so she could see both the page and Angie's face. “You like it. I can tell.”

“Very much.” Angie had to struggle, but she managed a little smile. “I am very touched that you would want me to have this.”

“You're my best friend,” Melissa replied simply. “I like being able to give you something.”

The drawing was mostly pen and ink, done with a minimum of line. It showed a tree trunk, one chopped off a few inches above the ground. The trunk's upper surface was smooth and clean, displaying the whorls and age lines. But that was not what held Angie's attention.

“I got an A for it,” Melissa was saying, her voice full of quiet pride. “Miss Jenkins looked at it and got the sniffles.”

A single branch had sprouted from the side of the trunk. It rose, slender and fragile, sending out a few tiny shoots of its own. At the top bloomed a single blossom, its pink petals a lone splash of color upon the page.

“It's a cherry tree,” Melissa went on. “We had one in our front yard, but it got sick and Papa had to cut it down. Then the spring we left to come here, it started growing that little branch. I've thought about it a lot since we talked. I don't know why.”

Angie forced out the pressure in her chest with a long sigh, then folded the sheet, turned in her seat and set it purposefully down on her desk. “I was thinking about taking another trip up into the hills this weekend.”

“To buy old things?” The girl's eyes lit up with excitement. “Can I—?” and she stopped, looking embarrassed.

“Yes, please come, if your father says it's all right.” Angie patted the folded page once, twice. “Thank you for this gift, Melissa. I'm going to find just the right frame for it. And I will treasure it always.”

****

The highlands at this time of year were great reaches of snowy starkness and lonely roads. Icicles dripped from every branch and rock outcrop. They sparkled like brilliant prisms as the sun marked their passage. Angie drove with determined concentration. The sun meant that the road was clear. But she needed to be back long before the winter-shortened day ended and the water dribbling across the road refroze.

Melissa remained plastered to her window and the front windshield for much of the journey, exclaiming over snowy vistas and half-frozen rivers and vast, empty stretches.

An hour into the drive, however, she announced, “Mrs. Drummond has been talking to me.”

“Emma? What about?”

“She wants me to sing a solo for the church this spring.”

“Do you want to?”

“I don't know.” She kicked absently at the seat. “Sort of.”

Angie risked a quick glance. “You're not scared, are you?”

“A little.”

“Do you want your father to sing with you?”

Melissa leaned forward, planting both hands upon the dashboard and setting her chin on her knuckles. “I don't want to ask him.”

“You don't? Why not?”

“Because he might do it for me,” she said, staring out the front. “And he might not be ready to do it for him.”

Angie slowed so that she could give the girl a longer glance. “You are very remarkable, Melissa,” she said.

Melissa took that as an opportunity to swivel in her seat and ask, “Will you do it with me?”

“Me? I don't . . .” Angie stopped herself. A brilliant shaft of sunlight filtered through the trees and transformed the windshield into a sheet of solid gold. As quickly as it came, it disappeared. Angie drove on, searching within, asking herself,
Am I ready
?

With a sudden billowing of excitement, she announced, “I would be delighted to sing with you.”

Melissa squeezed her hands together in excitement. The words rushed from her lips. “Mrs. Drummond said if she asked you, you'd say no, but you might do it for me. She said if I asked you and you said yes, she was going to do a jig in front of the whole class.”

Angie had to laugh. “You be sure and wait so I can come and see that one for myself.”

The rutted lane leading to Mother Cannon's homestead was cleared only as far as the first gate. As they left the car and began trudging through the snow toward the distant cottage, Angie knew this was the only stop they would make that day. Even so, the drive had been a grand success. Despite lingering moments of panic, she was thrilled by the thought of singing again.

Mother Cannon's eldest son came around the side of the house as they drew near. He laid down his ax and basket of kindling and said in greeting, “Got yourself a pretty day for a visit.”

“Hello, Clem.” Angie stopped at the bottom porch step to kick the snow from her boots and catch her breath. “Have I come at a bad time?”