THE CAVERN OF DEEP HARMONY

 

PART SEVENTY-THREE:

 

About three in the afternoon Eden and Marshall, with Wadsworth along, drove over to Stuart's house. Neither of them mentioned anything about the sleigh they'd ridden in a week ago to do the same trip. Connie and Ryan were the first to greet them as they arrived at the door. Connie threw her arms around her cousin in a welcoming hug, but Eden flinched just a bit.

"What's the matter?" Connie asked, moving her arms away from Eden's shoulders.

"Curtain rod," Eden replied. Connie raised her eyebrows.

Ryan noticed a slight limp to Marshall's walk as he crossed the wide porch. "You hurt your leg, Marsh?"

"Kitchen stool."

Ryan looked at Connie then back at the newly-weds. "And just what sort of wedding night did you two...have?" Then he chuckled. "Sounds a bit rough."

Connie poked Ryan in the ribs. "Don't ask that, for Pete's sake."

Ryan chuckled again. "Why not? May be some useful information there."

Martha came bustling up. "Happy New Year's," she said warmly. "What's all this about kitchen stools and curtain rods?"

"We're not supposed to ask, Mom," Ryan added, rolling his eyes at Connie, "but I think they broke your inn last night."

"Oh...Ryan!" Connie poked him again.

"This morning, actually," Marshall said, quite calmly, and it was Eden's turn to roll her eyes. "Stool's fine and we rehung the curtains before we left," he added.

"Rehung...?" Martha's mouth dropped open a bit.

Ryan had to clap a hand over his mouth to keep from laughing out loud. Connie glared at him and he gasped out, "I'm not even gonna ask which room the curtains fell down in."

Connie grabbed his arm and dragged him out of the entrance hall, mumbling something about "uncivilized" as she went.

"Are you both all right?" Martha asked.

"Just a couple of bruised knees and a scraped shoulder," Marshall replied. Ryan was still close enough to hear and totally unable to stifle a big, snorting laugh.

The three still by the door turned as Mike's truck pulled up. He went around and opened the passenger door, handing Maria out.

"Mike's truck?" Marshall asked, recognizing the sound of the engine.

"He's brought Maria," Martha added, pleased. Ryan had called Mike after Maria had accepted the invitation to dinner, letting him know so he could offer her a ride if he wanted. Obviously he had wanted.

Ryan escaped Connie and still with a smile on his face came back when he heard Mike's arrival. The smile broadened when he saw Mike take Maria's hand as she stepped down from the high cab of the truck. Martha leaned close to her tall, slim son. "Pleased with yourself, are you?"

"This is a good thing, Mom. You know that."

She did, indeed. She'd known Mike for too many years not to have been aware of the expression on his face when he looked at Eden. She also knew how entirely Eden's focus was on Marshall. Mike would be hurt, was hurt. It had been inevitable. Then Connie and Ryan had immediately
clicked. She couldn't be sorry about that. She just couldn't. But her heart ached for Mike's aloneness. Then last night at the wedding, well, after the wedding, it seemed someone might just have stepped into his circle of light. So she went forward to greet Maria with genuine warmth.

"I'm so glad you could join us today, Maria. You, too, Mike." She looked from him back to Maria. "Mike's been a part of this family ever since he was a boy."  She didn't add except for when he was married and his wife wasn't particularly fond of coming over here or to the inn.

Maria smiled in return. She was an only child, raised by quiet, bookish parents, and wasn't used to such an enormous group of happily interacting family members. Mike knew this about her now and gave a gentle squeeze with his hand that still held hers.

Marshall, too, picked up the slight, soft hesitation in her voice and said something to her in Greek that made her stifle a small chuckle. The combination of that with the gentle pressure of Mike's large fingers served to get her past the noisy greetings on the porch. She was, she found, entirely glad she had come. Her eyes flickered briefly up to Mike's strong profile beside her.

Ryan, ever observant, saw the glance, closed his own eyes a moment and blew out a long breath.

"You ok?" Connie asked.

"I've been very ok for a week now," he grinned, opening his eyes and looking down at her. He touched her cheek with the back of his knuckles.

Her eyes misted over. "I don't know how I'm going to be able to leave tomorrow." Her chin began to tremble. "You'll...hurry...won't you?"

"Cleveland holds very little attraction for me any more," he said softly. "I'll be in Pittsburgh before the end of January. I promise."

The dinner at the big table was different in many ways from the one a week ago. There were no covert glances from Mike in Eden's direction. He'd settled quite comfortably into letting her

sail off into the happiness she shared with Marshall. He would always be terribly fond of her,

he knew, but it was an easy fondness now, uncomplicated by dreams. Ryan and Connie were no longer just getting to know one another. Marshall was a week further along in his recovery and was feeling much less tired than he had Christmas Day. Luke, though, still sat at Marshall's side
and Wadsworth was mostly tucked under his chair. Wadsworth's job, his desire, was to be close to Marshall but the evenness of that had been disrupted so often in the last two months that it was hard for him to lie back and just trust any more that Marshall would always be near. So he rested his muzzle atop the toe of Marshall's left shoe and remained on the alert, not distracted from his vigilance even by the nearly overwhelming scents of food wafting down from the laden table. And there would be no sleigh ride to take them back to the inn.

Martha looked around the table, her gaze settling on first one and then another of those gathered around it. Tomorrow so many of them would be leaving. She watched Luke's eager little face turned up to listen to what Marshall was saying to him. Elizabeth and Dale were taking him home tomorrow. She worried about him, about the near inevitability of what the doctors said was coming for him. Marshall seemed to make it all seem better somehow, not so frightening. She was glad Luke had had this time with him, wished, though, it could be more. Her eyes passed on to where Ryan was whispering something in Connie's ear. He was happier than she'd seen him in years. He'd said there were possibilities there. Watching the two of them, Martha didn't think possibilities was quite good enough a word. And if...? She let her mother's heart, her grandmother's heart linger on what that might mean. Connie would be family, real family, then. And if Connie were family, then Eden and Marshall would also be family. They might return for more gatherings like this. And Marshall might still be there for Luke. She wanted this table gathered like this again. She wanted it more than anything.

Mike laughed quietly and Martha looked at him. His attention was centered entirely on the lovely, quiet nurse beside him. And Maria would not be going far away, only into the town where the hospital was. The hospital Mike worked out of. Thank You, God, Martha whispered. Thank You for all of it.

After dinner, they gathered in the living room and Martha sat at the piano, playing a lot of the old standards. Marshall knew the words to them all and the others joined in when they, too, remembered lyrics. Martha loved it when Marshall sang as she played. She'd miss that. When she played Wonderful, Wonderful Copenhagen and his deep baritone filled the room, Ryan took Connie's hand and swept her out into the wide hallway, curving her around to the grand, full tones of the piece. Several of them sang Scarlet Ribbons and Three Coins in the Fountain together. It was all very old-fashioned, very warm, very...together. Martha smiled as she played, as she sang, thinking this was as near to heaven as it could get on this earth for her. Her fingers moved into Till the Clouds Roll By and on through On the Street Where You Live. One old song after another came to her mind and suddenly she wanted to hear Marshall sing Old Black Joe. Did he know it? He did. She asked if he'd come and stand alone by the piano and he obliged, straight, dignified, with his right palm resting on its edge. And he sang it just as though he'd lived it, each word filled with the full meaning of the lyric. He'd dropped his voice even slightly deeper than usual and he made it...beautiful, so beautiful it rather hurt the soul to hear it. It

was that sort of song and he was the sort of man who could get inside it. She'd known he could. She wasn't completely sure, even, why she'd wanted to hear him sing it. It had been countless years since she'd heard it sung at all. It was a song that would mean nothing if not sung from the inside and that he could do it, could find the heart of the old, worn black man who was dying, confirmed to her everything she'd come to believe about him.

"Thank you," she whispered to him when the last note faded away, and she reached out to put her hand atop his.

The room had grown perfectly silent as he sang. He could not, of course, see the expressions on the faces that watched him sing. Eden thought her heart might burst with love for him. He was totally unaware of how splendid he was and that only made him all the more splendid. Then he held out his hand toward where he knew she was sitting. "Come," he urged, "let's all sing one more, all of us together."  As they started to get to their feet and join him, he added, "This was the theme song of my family when I was a kid. We sang it more times than I can count. And you," he slid his right arm around Eden's waist, his left over Luke's shoulders, "are my family now."

So he led them into a happy, laughing rendition of Side By Side.

"Oh, we ain't got a barrel of money...maybe we're ragged and funny...but we'll travel along, singin' a song...side by side. Don't know what's comin' tomorrow...maybe it's trouble and sorrow...but we'll travel the road, sharin' our load...side by side. Through all kinds of weather... what if the sky should fall...just as long as we're together...it doesn't matter, doesn't matter at all. When they've all had their quarrels and parted...we'll be the same as we started...just trav'lin' along...singin' a song...side by side."

And it seemed to him, there in that warm, loving room, that Jeffrey and his mother and father were singing, too. He smiled and laughed and blinked tears at the same time. He tipped his

face toward the ceiling, mouthing silently, "I love you," then put his lips to Eden's ear and whispered, "I love you, Mrs. Sinclair."

 

 

ON TO PART 74

 

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