A Basket Brigade Christmas (33 page)

Mrs. Miller looked at her husband. “It
would
be nice to have time to visit. We haven’t seen our newest grandson.”

“Very good, then,” Cardiff said. “Take this as a blessing in disguise.”

It was good advice.

“Go ahead, Anabelle. Play the song.”

As twelve-year-old Anabelle played Zona’s piano, she hit far more wrong notes than right. With a sigh, she stopped and let her hands fall into her lap. “The notes blur together. I can’t do it.”

“Of course you can. What have I told you about the posture of your fingers?”

Anabelle looked to the ceiling. Suddenly, she held her hands like she was mimicking a bear’s paw.

Zona laughed. “I knew you’d remember, though you need to relax your fingers as you curve them.” She took hold of the girl’s hand and helped them relax from their animal-attack mode. “In order to smoothly move from note to note, you have to strike the key with the pad of your finger, not the length of it. Try again.”

This time, there were far fewer mistakes. “There you are. Can you actually hear the music in it now?” As much music as there could be in the simple version of “I Dream of Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair.”

Anabelle finished the song, her cheeks pink with pleasure. “I did it!”

“Indeed you did. Now, please remember: curved fingers.”

“I will. I’ll try.”

Anabelle looked to her lap, and it was clear she had something on her mind. “I wanted to thank you for letting me be in the Christmas musicale, Miss Evans.”

“You’re welcome. You’re a very good singer.”
A better singer than a piano player.

“Too bad about Richard’s voice.”

“Next year his voice will be all settled—though lower.”

She nodded once. “I know a boy who sings prettier than Richard ever did.”

Zona felt her eyebrows rise. “Why don’t I know about this boy?”

“Cuz he’s shy. I don’t think he likes to sing in front of people.”

“Then how have you heard him sing?”

She bumped shoulders with Zona. “He didn’t know I was listening. He was walking a horse with a game leg from the Sandersons’ to his grandpa’s livery and was singing.”

Livery. “Johnny Folson?”

Anabelle nodded. “He sings like an angel, Miss Evans. You need to get him for the musicale.”

Everyone knew Johnny. He was ten or eleven and worked at the livery with his grandfather, but also did odd jobs around town.

“I’ll go have a talk with him,” she said. “Thank you, Anabelle.”

“Miss Evans.”

“Mr. Folson.”

Johnny’s grandfather removed a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his face, which was glistening with the heat of exertion and the forge. “I don’t remember you having a horse.”

“I don’t.”

Johnny hauled in a bucket of water from outside, a layer of ice skimming its top. “Hello, Miss Evans.”

“Hello, Johnny.” She turned to his grandfather. “Actually, I came to talk to your grandson.”

“You have some odd jobs that need doing?”

She hesitated, hating to lie but sensing a partial truth was the only way to gain a moment alone with the boy. “I may have.”

Mr. Folson nodded to the boy and took up his hammer and the tongs that held a horseshoe ready for shaping. “Go on, then. But bring in more wood when you come back.”

Miss Evans led Johnny outside. As snow was beginning to fall she got right to the point. “I hear you’re a wonderful singer, Johnny.”

He looked as surprised as if she’d told him he was a wonderful ballet dancer. “Who told you that?”

“Someone who’s heard you sing.”

He shook his head and scuffed at the snow. “I don’t let nobody hear me sing.”

She lifted his chin with a hand. “God says we shouldn’t put our light under a basket.”

“Huh?”

His eyes were the deepest hazel. “Your light—your gift of singing—is meant to be shared, not hidden.” She dropped her hand. “Sing something for me.”

“Now? Here?” He scanned the street, shaking his head. “I can’t.”

“Then come to my house when you’re free today.”

“Grandpa won’t let me.”

She thought a moment. “I do need help taking some props out of the storeroom. I’ll pay you a nickel for your time.”

He hesitated then said, “All right, then. I’ll come.” He turned to head back inside. “But I’ll only sing for you, Miss Evans. No one else.”

This could be a problem.

A knock rattled the door.

Zona peeked out a window and saw that it was Johnny. “Go!” she said to Mary Lou. “Go upstairs or he’ll never sing.”

“I’m not sure this is wise, sneaking around his grandfather.”

“I’m not hurting him. Now, go!”

Although grumbling, the older woman disappeared up the stairs. Only then did Zona open the door. “Johnny. I’m so glad you came.”

He entered warily, looking around the small front room. “I can’t be gone long.”

“And you won’t be. I promise.”

She started to sit on the settee then realized it might frighten him by placing her in the position of being an audience. “Let’s go into the auditorium.”

She led him through the connecting door to the piano. She took a seat and patted the place beside her on the bench. “I do love Christmas carols, don’t you?”

“I remember Mama singing ’em when I was little.”

Little-er. She remembered hearing that Mrs. Folson had passed away in childbirth a few years previous. The baby had died, too. And now Johnny’s father was off to war.

“Do you know ‘Joy to the World’?”

When he nodded, she played the last few measures as an introduction then began to sing, to entice him into the song. “‘Joy to the world, the Lord is come…’”

When he joined in, it was as though she had Richard back, yet a better Richard, for Johnny’s voice had a simple purity that made her forget every other voice she’d ever heard. She let her own voice fall away and let him sing a phrase by himself.

He stopped singing.

She looked at him. “You have a tremendous gift.”

He reddened, looking to his lap. “I like to sing.”

“You are meant to sing. Born to sing.”

He looked up at her, his eyes mournful. “Pa didn’t think so. Grandpa doesn’t think so.”

“So they’ve heard you?”

He shrugged. “They heard me once, but they told me to stop because I reminded them of Mama and it made them sad.”

“That makes
me
sad. Your mama was a good singer?”

“She was always singing. When she was cooking dinner or mending or tucking me in at night. She couldn’t walk to the pump to fetch water without singing.”

Zona put an arm around his shoulders. “What wonderful memories you have.”

“I miss her.”

“I miss my mother, too. And my father.”

He looked at her with new eyes. “You don’t have neither?”

She shook her head. “My mother was musical just like yours was. That’s why I play the piano and put on the musicales. In her honor. You could do the same.”

He slid off the bench. “I can’t. It’s not allowed. I needs to go. You needed help with some props?”

“I can handle it.” She led him toward the exit then remembered… “Here’s a nickel for your trouble.”

He palmed the coin and looked up at her, his eyes sad. “Sorry I can’t sing with you, Miss Evans.”

She closed the door behind him feeling sorry for herself, for Johnny, and for the world.

C
ardiff settled into his seat on the train, his heart pumping with the exertion of the trip preparations. When he’d come downstairs this morning, he’d spotted three trunks stacked neatly in the foyer and had informed Gregory that one trunk and his medical bag would have to suffice. He was taking up residence in a rooming house near the hospital—arranged by Dr. Phillips, who had telegraphed last night, expressing his joy at Cardiff’s affirmative answer.

Sorting through his belongings, choosing just the basics, was taxing on both men’s nerves. By the time Cardiff got to the depot, bought his ticket, checked his trunk, and chose a seat, he was exhausted and relieved he’d made it on time.

He checked his pocket watch. Three minutes to spare.

As the train filled, he watched the final soldier on the platform, his hands cupping the face of his beloved. Their gazes were locked upon each other, her chin upraised, their bodies as close as propriety would allow. Closer.

Suddenly, Cardiff was taken back to another soldier leaving his love …

He closed his eyes and saw Zona’s face peering up at him, her eyes rimmed with tears. It was another depot in another time. Another war. And other emotions beyond love and longing.

Anger was involved. And bitterness.

For they were betrothed, and Zona had designed a life for them to suit her girlish dreams. They would marry and have three children. They would live in a house near her parents in Chicago, and Cardiff would work in her father’s printing company, grooming himself to take over one day.

Because he loved her, Cardiff had let her weave the dream around the two of them. But as the weeks wore on, as Zona began making wedding plans, he found himself pulling away. He’d been on his own since he was orphaned at twelve. He wasn’t used to anyone else making plans. He made his own.

He’d been thrilled by Zona’s attention, for he was but an employee at her father’s printing company. Who wouldn’t be flattered? She was a petite and pretty girl with auburn hair and brown eyes that flashed with wit and a zest for living. And willfulness.

Unfortunately, what Zona wanted wasn’t what Cardiff wanted. He’d thought it was. He’d tried to embrace her vision of their future, but he’d felt boxed in, as though his hard work and ambition were of no value.

Everything changed when the Mexican war broke out and a friend got the idea to go off and fight.
“Come on, Card. We’re too young to settle down. We need an adventure.”

His memories evaporated as the train whistle sounded and a conductor warned the soldier on the platform that he must board immediately. The young man jumped onto the steps beyond Cardiff’s view. But Cardiff saw the girl take a few running steps toward him, her arm outstretched, her face pulled in grief. As the train moved away, she blew kisses until she disappeared from view.

Cardiff’s throat tightened as he remembered Zona standing on the platform as his train pulled away. Her arms had been wrapped tightly around her body, her eyes glaring at him, her jaw tight against him. How dare he tell her no.