Chapter Nineteen #2
“Ma enjoyed listening to my compositions, and when I became stuck, she’d offer suggestions, encouragement, or a good thwack over the head.
Especially if I was overly dramatizing my certainty that a piece was utter drivel.
” The memory of the days when she engaged in life, engaged with him, gouged the always-tender wound.
He missed her. Music had been the one area that, no matter how bad she felt, could draw her out.
But eventually even that hadn’t been enough.
“I was working on the piece from Graham’s libretto where the insurrectionists clash with the guardsmen, but I was stumped on how to best express the last few lines. Ma slept most afternoons, but she never minded if I woke her.”
The moment played through his mind as clearly as he’d lived it the first time.
He’d risen from the piano, leaving the pages of his messy notations standing in the music rack.
Variations of the tune had played through his head as he jogged upstairs, and he’d even knocked on her door with a possible rhythm.
When she didn’t answer, he entered her room—and his music world crashed into silence.
“I found her on the floor, a glass of milky water tipped over, and the tin of rat poison on her nightstand. Thank God she’d not drunk enough to kill herself, but she did suffer complications that kept her in the hospital before being transferred to Longview.
I keep wondering if I hadn’t been so focused on my work with the operetta and the opera house, would I have realized what she’d planned and been able to stop her?
Could I have saved her from all this if I’d just been a better son? ”
Miss Davis set Tristan between her feet and took Ezekiel’s hands. “Look at me, please.”
Her initiation of touch surprised him, and he obeyed without thought.
Wet compassion displayed unabashedly on her cheeks. “It wasn’t your fault.”
He opened his mouth to protest, but she silenced him with a look.
“You couldn’t have known her plan, and I doubt very much you could have prevented it.
If there is one thing I’ve learned through Mum’s illness, it’s that her choices are hers alone.
We can do everything in the world to protect our loved ones—put rules in place, hide them from the dangers posed, shield them from pain—but we were never meant to bear the burden of saving them from themselves. We cannot even save ourselves.”
Her gaze dropped, and the creases in her forehead reappeared.
“We can do everything right and it still not be enough. Only God is enough, even though sometimes it doesn’t feel like He is.
I don’t understand why He is allowing this.
It feels wrong and unjust. I’m angry with Him, and I’m scared of what the future holds.
I don’t want this burden He’s given us, but I know it’s not our fault. I know it’s not our job to save them.”
He’d known when he’d chosen to pursue Nora that he would have a friend who understood his struggles, but this?
This was so much more. She didn’t blame him or judge him for his lack of ability to help Ma.
She spoke tender truth even in the midst of her own pain and wrestling with God.
Never had he wanted to hold a woman so badly, to comfort the pain he both saw and felt.
The long-ago verses Pa had encouraged him to memorize when he’d first struggled with his inability to help Ma struck him in a new way.
He hooked a finger beneath Nora’s chin—for Nora she would be to him after such an honest baring of her heart—and quoted the verses as much for himself as for her.
“‘Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.’”
“I know His Word is true, but those verses feel like a lie. This burden is so heavy, and there is no rest from it.” The weight of her anguish pushed free a fat, rolling tear.
He brushed it aside with his thumb. If only he could as easily wipe away the hurt and fear in her eyes. He dropped his hand and reclaimed hers. “Pa taught me those verses, and he spoke a lot about yokes. What do you know about them?”
Her shoulder rose in a one-sided shrug. “It’s a wooden beam across an ox’s neck.”
“Yes, and it generally connects a pair of oxen, allowing them to pull the load together. It doesn’t remove the load, but it makes the burden easier to bear because they share it.
The yoke also allows the farmer to control and direct the movements of the oxen while they work.
Pa said God never promised to remove the burdens of our lives, but to bear that burden with us and to help guide and direct us through it.
Maybe Jesus has paired us under the same yoke so we can share each other’s burdens as He guides us through this mess of life. ”
She studied him in silence, searching his face for some time before a soft, genuine smile formed. “I’d like to not have to carry this alone.”
“You were never carrying it alone, but it is nice to have a person to share it with who understands. Especially the hard points that test our faith. I’ve wrestled with anger over why God’s allowed this, but good has come of it.
” He squeezed her hand, though he would have preferred to softly kiss it and communicate how much he appreciated God’s gift.
“He’s brought you into my life to show me I am not alone in walking this journey, and He’s used you to help me hear music again. ”
She drew a deep breath, making an obvious effort to regain her composure. “I didn’t realize you’d gone deaf.”
“I know it sounds insane, but I used to hear music in everything. The patter of rain, the laughter of children, even Tristan causing mischief. Music played through my thoughts as steadily as blood flowed through my veins.”
“Mum always said music is the soul’s heartbeat.”
“Then I must have died when I found Ma. From that moment until this last Sunday, I’ve not heard a bar of music.”
“Singing praises to God does inspire the heart to come alive.”
He hadn’t considered God’s part in strumming the long-stilled strings.
I’m sorry for not recognizing Your part in this, Lord.
Thank You, and thank You for Nora. “I confess it was witnessing your impassioned response that reawakened the desire to create something just as moving for others.” He hesitated.
Would asking for her help ruin this moment, or would this new understanding make her more willing to say yes?
Victory didn’t come without risks.
“Graham needs the score soon, but I’m woefully behind. With your knowledge of and ability to sing opera, you’d be an invaluable help to me if you’d be willing. We could work at my home, where I have a piano.”
“As an unmarried woman, I can’t come to your house.”
“Right.” Sometimes he forgot the rules of propriety. It wasn’t that they didn’t exist in the theatre, but they were often lax or outright ignored. “That was a foolish idea.”
She gripped the cameo at her neck and rolled it between her fingers, her expression pensive.
“I could ask Mrs. Jerden if she wouldn’t mind for us to meet at her home.
I know she has a piano. Knowing Mrs. Jerden’s hope for us, I’m certain that she’ll happily agree.
Tell me about the libretto and what you have composed so far. ”
As he explained, Nora’s face lit with joy, and he’d never felt closer to anyone in his life. If times of open conversation and tender moments defined his private hack rides with Nora, then these once-dreaded rides to Longview might become his most anticipated times of the week.