Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
How could Caleb have gotten himself into this position?
Since Granddad had wheeled himself back to his rooms, Caleb and Ariel had spent the past two hours searching for the parlor suite keys in the office, reception desk, maintenance rooms, and every other area he could think of.
He’d stopped short of searching Granddad’s suite, since he’d helped with its spring cleaning and hadn’t seen them.
Now, down on his hands and knees in the storage room that had once been the lobby’s cloak room, he looked for some out-of-the-way cubbyhole or secret sliding panel or hidden compartment that might reveal a big, heavy ring of brass keys.
“I know every hiding place on this property and used them all when I was a kid. The keys are not in this hotel.” He honestly hadn’t expected to find them. But Ariel had seemed so certain they would, he’d hated to dampen her enthusiasm. Now he stood and brushed off his knees.
“I still think you and Michelle might have missed them during spring cleaning in your grandfather’s suite.” Ariel turned from her place next to the shelves of shampoo, conditioner, and soap, where she’d shone a flashlight up into a dumbwaiter shaft.
“Maybe, but in this big building, I think he would have found a more obscure hiding place. If someone was looking for them, they’d search his rooms first.” If things had been different, Caleb could have simply asked his grandfather for the keys.
But he hated to think of the fireworks that would set off.
“Mr. Caleb, you need me to find something?” Michelle stuck her head in the door, her eyes wide at the sight of her boss and a famous musician rooting around in a room that housed the less-glamorous side of hotel hospitality.
“Not unless you can tell me where to find the keys to the parlor wing.”
She reached into an oversized pocket on her blue scrubs and drew out a ring of brass keys. “You didn’t think to ask me before this?”
What? Michelle had them all along? “Since Granddad told both Uncle Augo and me that he hid them, no.”
“He did. In my pocket.” Michelle handed him the keys and started down the hall toward the elevator. “Even empty rooms need dusted and swept every week.”
Caleb glanced over at Ariel, her eyes wide. “So much for Granddad’s promise never to let anyone in the parlor wing.”
The old keys hadn’t changed, nor had his memory of the thirty-seven unlabeled keys of various shapes and sizes. Apparently Michelle had taken over Grandma’s job of polishing them, because they shone as brightly as he remembered.
Now with the keys in his hand, Caleb wanted nothing more than to run to the parlor then up to his old room in his family’s third-floor apartment. Somehow to go back, to do things differently, to block the parlor door and keep his parents home that night.
“If you’d rather go alone, it’s okay.”
Ariel. For a moment, he’d nearly forgotten she was there watching him, a little line of concern on her forehead and one eye on the keys.
“No, come with me. We can play your song while we’re there.”
They retrieved Ariel’s guitar case from the office, where they’d kept it during their search, then took the main hallway to the rear of the hotel.
Beyond a few turns and three long hallways stood the original rooms. The stone stairs of the former back entrance, uneven from decades of use, stood before the wide wooden door, painted black, that opened to the parlor.
Caleb stopped at the worn pine threshold that connected the two wings and spanned a distance as long as he was tall, its patina rich and mellow and inviting.
Would the room and its history invite or repel him?
He set aside the apprehension he’d felt the past two hours. If Ariel hadn’t come along, he would run from this room and never return.
But she seemed to know he needed her. So Caleb breathed a silent prayer, asking the Lord’s presence and comfort in this place. “I have no idea what we’ll find. Grandfather might have kept it the same, or he could have sold all the furnishings. And the piano.”
For Ariel’s sake, he hoped it still stood in its place in the center of the room.
He fumbled to find the right key, then turned the brass knob and pushed the door. It creaked and groaned and, to his surprise, sounded like a greeting. Like warmth and home.
Just as Caleb had asked and more, the Lord had entered the room before them.
A light flower scent met them—the same scent he remembered in the parlor and in his family’s apartment years ago. He breathed it in—the fragrance of home and Mom and hospitality—as memories of this room rolled from the past into the present.
There was something about that scent…
“It smells like lavender.” Ariel’s eyes grew wide as she took in the parlor’s beauty.
“That’s what Mom called it.” His voice husky, he cleared his throat so he could get down to business and check out the room’s condition.
Heavy draperies, pulled over floor-to-ceiling windows, darkened the room. Caleb crossed to the south wall and pushed the brass button and turned on the chandelier—even bigger and more ornate than the garden wing’s giant light—and the wall sconces, drawing a gasp from Ariel.
And there it was, just as he remembered.
The social hub of the island’s musically inclined and those who appreciated the vast genres played by professionals and amateurs alike, here inside these dark, raised-paneled walls.
The gathering place of book club members and other bookworms who not only met here but also borrowed from hundreds of leather-bound books in the built-in, floor-to-ceiling bookcases in the east and west walls.
The home of fellowship and worship as church members, friends, and hotel guests laid down their burdens and took up the shield of faith in daily Bible study groups, ladies’ guilds, and youth meetings.
This part of the inn truly was a home. Not just for the Kennedy family, but for all of Jonathon Island’s residents and visitors.
He’d never know how many people had sat in his great-grandmother’s antique leather armchairs and how many children had played on the oversized ancient Persian rugs of burgundy, blue, and sage and on the ebony grand piano that, in his childhood days, had seemed a mile long.
Seeing this room again, the scene of his happiest moments and his greatest pain, and recalling its former vibrancy and the anger and grief that had closed its doors—the mix of powerful, conflicting emotions hit him so hard, he merely stood, in the space between remembrance and truth, and took it in.
For just a moment, it seemed his entire life had taken place right here in this room.
The love and companionship that once lived here—that was the true Kennedy legacy.
Why had they let it die?
Why had he?
The piano, showcased in the room’s center, probably still had his DNA on its keys from the hours he’d spent in his childhood, pounding them until his bitten-down thumbnails bled. And the tears he’d shed as an eight-year-old trying to conquer “An Evening at the Village” by Bartók.
But experiencing this room and its spectacular piano, remembering his obsession with music, even as a child, stirred more than mere memories. It brought back his passion for creating beautiful music that he’d considered his calling from God since the first day he’d practiced until he’d drawn blood.
“Caleb…” Her voice a hush, Ariel turned in a circle, scanning the room, her eyes wide and her hands clasped at her chest. “It’s more beautiful than I remembered.”
He tried to see the room as she saw it—elegance, timeless beauty, matchless style. “This was a great place to be young and creative and individual, without the stamp of others’ opinions and tastes. Yet.”
“We’re still young and creative.” Ariel smiled and laid her hand on his shoulder. “We should open this room again, Caleb. Make it what it used to be, only better.”
“But painful memories mingle with the good. Granddad’s temper looked bad today. But you should have seen him the time in seventh grade when I sneaked away to the state solo and ensemble contest instead of playing guitar for his and Grandma’s blowout thirtieth anniversary party.”
“Sneaked?” Her laughter filled the room, its perfect acoustics turning the sound to silver. “That’s difficult on an island with only one escape route: the ferry.”
“You have to be creative. I forged a permission slip and slid right on that boat with the rest.”
“Why did you have to sneak?”
“Granddad insisted I stay home and play for the party, and my parents backed him. All the island locals were invited. But I thought it was unfair to make me stay home when my ensemble members needed me.”
Ariel ambled around the room and stopped at the front windows. Gazed out at the original entrance on what had become a side street a hundred or so years ago, with its giant cedars and an old, bubbling fountain. “Couldn’t you play both events?”
“I thought so at the time. But the ferry had mechanical problems, and we got home after dark. Granddad berated me in front of all the kids who’d gone to the contest, plus the music teacher I loved.
” That night held more than one kind of darkness.
“He wouldn’t listen to my explanation, and he never looked at me the same again. ”
Her beautiful eyes clouded. “If that happened to me, I’d fear making another wrong decision and hurting someone else. He damaged you that day by treating you so harshly. But that was wrong, then and now. Love and forgiveness don’t act like that. You don’t deserve it.”
“Maybe I do. Doesn’t matter, since that’s what I have to work with.”
“You say that as if he can’t change.”
He wanted to laugh but held it back. “At his age? Slim chance.”
“No, it’s not. ‘A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.’”