Chapter Thirty-One #2
A muscle in his jaw twitched. “I don’t talk about her much because it’s still painful. And I’m hesitant to tell you because I don’t want you to think I’m still hung up on her. I loved her very much, and that will never stop being true, but that doesn’t mean my heart still belongs to her.”
Blair squeezed his hand. “I know a person isn’t limited to just one love in life, but selfishly, I’m glad you said that.”
“Good.” Callum squeezed back as they turned the corner toward the choir room. “We met in Boston at a gig. She was the featured soloist in a performance I conducted.” His lips curved in a bittersweet smile. “I always thought love at first sight was total crap until I met her.”
Blair unlocked the choir room door. “I’ll take your word for it.”
“She was a beautiful woman with a beautiful voice, and by some miracle she fell for me as fast as I fell for her,” he said. “But she had bipolar disorder, so there were a lot of ups and downs. And when she felt better, she always went off her medication.”
They entered the choir office, where he settled into his chair and she perched on the edge of his desk.
“I always used to watch her take it, just to make sure she did.” He pinched the bridge of his nose, his face awash in painful memories.
“But then the pandemic hit. We were locked down. And one of Rayne’s roommates had received a kidney transplant, so she had to be super careful.
And that meant we didn’t see each other in person for months. ”
His eyes shone, and Blair gripped his hand. “That sounds so hard.”
“She insisted she was still taking her meds, and maybe she was. I don’t know.
But without singing, without me, without exploring the city and trying new restaurants, without going to Sox and Celtics games, without any of the other things that brought her life, she went downhill.
” He breathed a shuddery sigh. “The number of cases would go down, and that’d give us some hope that maybe we could get back together, but then they’d spike again and we’d lock down . . .”
“It was an awful time to be a musician.” Blair squeezed his hand. “To be a human.”
A tear snaked from the corner of his eye, and he gave his face a rough swipe.
“To make a long story short, everything fell apart. The choir disbanded, Rayne and I started fighting . . . We called off the wedding because of COVID restrictions, and with no hope and no end in sight, it was the perfect storm for her. Rayne’s disease prevented her from seeing that the storm, bad as it was, would eventually end. ”
“I’m sorry, Callum.” Her heart broke for him, and she pulled him into her arms, longing to take even a fraction of his pain away. “I’m so sorry.”
“Yeah.” He wrapped his arms around her, his voice tight. “Me too.”
The door to the choir room opened, and they jumped apart. Blair glanced through the office window, but to her relief, it wasn’t a student. It wasn’t even another teacher.
It was Vic Nelson’s wife.
“Marilee.” Blair hurried into the choir room and wrapped the older woman in an embrace. “Oh my goodness. Feels like it’s been ages.”
“It’s good to see you, Blair.” Marilee’s sweater still held the distinctive floral smell of her perfume. Even after all these years, at least one thing had remained the same.
“Have you met Callum?” Blair asked as they parted.
Marilee shook her graying head. “Not formally, no.”
Callum emerged from the office, and Blair made the introductions, then turned another smile on Marilee. “What brings you here?”
The older woman’s hands trembled, and her gaze darted around the choir room like a nervous bird. In fact, her whole demeanor seemed off. Uneasy. Guarded.
“Marilee?” Blair sought her gaze. “Are you okay?”
“Can I get you some water?” Callum asked.
Marilee shook her head with a sheepish smile.
“No, thank you just the same. I’m fine. I’m just .
. .” She balled her hand into a fist. “Vic has been acting strange the last few weeks. Ever since people started buzzing about Iris Wallingford again. He’s been holed up in his study. He’s like a ghost.”
“Is he composing?” Callum asked.
“I don’t know what he’s doing.” Marilee shook her head again, then muttered to herself. “No. No. I have to do this. I have to. It’s the right thing. Regardless of where it leads, God’s made it clear.”
Blair eased closer to Marilee and put her arm around the older woman’s shoulders. “Would you like to sit down?”
“No, I’m not staying. I just need to do one thing, and then I’m taking an Uber to the airport.
I’m going to stay with my sister, at least for a while.
” Marilee opened a large handbag and peered inside.
“I found this on a shelf in Vic’s study while I was dusting last week.
I must’ve seen it a thousand times, but I’d never really looked at it.
This time I did, and I think you need to see it. ”
The world shifted into slow motion, and Blair knew what Marilee had brought even before the falling-apart spiral notebook came into view.
Marilee lifted her chin, squared her shoulders, and handed Blair the notebook. “This belonged to Iris Wallingford.”