by Amy Harmon
“I was afraid of that. I realized something tonight, when I was listening to Beethoven. You’re like the tonic note. You’re the note that all the other notes revolve around and gravitate to. You’re home. Without you, the song just might not be a song, your family might not be a family. That’s what your afraid of, isn’t it? Who will step in and be the home base, the tonic note, if you go?” Samuel’s eyes were bleak as he continued, his voice husky and low. “That’s what you’ve been for me ever since I met you. The note I could hear, even when it wasn’t being played. The one I’ve gravitated towards all these years.” He leaned into me and kissed the top of my head gently. His hand cupped my cheek briefly, and his thumb traced my trembling lower lip.
“I love you, Josie.” Then he turned and walked out of my house.
The following morning his truck was gone, just as it had been the day after Daisy’s colt was born all those years ago.
20. The Leading Note
Samuel had been gone for two weeks, and I kept myself as busy as I could. I did all my regular duties - I cut hair, I taught piano lessons, and I ran several miles a day. In addition, I harvested what was left in my garden. Then I canned until the early morning hours, bottles of beets and tomatoes and green beans and pickles. I made lasagnas and casseroles and stuck them in the freezer in single serving sizes. When there was nothing left to bottle or freeze I alphabetized and reorganized my food storage. Then I decided the house was in need of a deep clean. I scrubbed blinds and washed curtains and steamed carpets. Then I started in on the yard. In other words…I was a mess.
I made myself listen to the music I loved as I worked. I would not be a coward anymore. If I acted like a lunatic, so be it! In my mind I raged and I vowed that Samuel’s leaving would not make me resort to musical holocaust. I was done with that nonsense! I played Grieg until my fingers were stiff, and I worked with the frenzy of Balakirev’s ‘Islamey’ pounding out of the loud speakers. My dad came inside during that one, and turned around and walked right back out again.
On day 15, I made a chocolate cake worthy of the record books. It was disgustingly rich and fattening, teetering several stories high, weighing more than I did, laden with thick cream cheese frosting, and sprinkled liberally with chocolate shavings. I sat down to eat it with a big fork and no bib. I dug in with a gusto seen only at those highly competitive hotdog eating contests where the tiny Asian girl kicks all the fat boys’ butts.
“JOSIE JO JENSEN!” Louise and Tara stood at the kitchen door, shock and revulsion, and maybe just a little envy, in their faces. Brahms ‘Rhapsodie No. 2 in G Minor’ was making my little kitchen shake. Eating cake to Brahms was a new experience for me. I liked it. I dug back in, ignoring them.
“Well Mama,” I heard Tara say, “what should we do?!”
My Aunt Louise was a very practical woman. “If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em!” She quoted cheerfully.
Before I knew it, Tara and Louise both had forks, too. They didn’t seem to need bibs either. We ate, increasing our tempo as the music intensified.
“ENOUGH!” My dad stood in the doorway. He was good and mad, too. His sun-browned face was as ruddy as my favorite high heels.
“I sent you two in for an intervention! What is this?! Eater’s Anonymous Gone Wild?”
“Aww, Daddy. Get a fork,” I replied, barely breaking rhythm.
My dad strode over, took the fork from my hand and threw it, tines first, right into the wall. It stuck there, embedded and twanging like a sword at a medieval tournament. He pulled out my chair and grabbed me under the arms, pushing me out of the kitchen. I tried to take one last swipe at my cake, but he let out this inhuman roar, and I abandoned all hope of making myself well and truly sick.
“Tara! Aunt Louise!” I shouted frantically. “I want you gone!!! That’s my cake! You can’t have any more without me!”
My dad pushed me through the front door and out onto the porch, the screen banging behind him. I sunk to the porch swing, sullenly wiping chocolate crumbs from my mouth. My dad stomped back inside the house and suddenly the music pouring from every nook and cranny stopped abruptly. I heard him tell Louise he’d call her later, and then the kitchen door banged, indicating my Aunt’s and Tara’s departure. Good. They would have eaten that whole cake. I saw the way they were shoveling it in.
My dad lumbered out the front door and sank into the swing beside me. We rocked in silence for a while, my feet tucked under me, his feet in his old boots pushing back and forth, back and forth. There was a briskness to the night air that hadn’t been there a week ago. The fall was in full thrust now; the leaves brilliant in their death throes. I felt the winter coming on. What had Samuel told me about Changing Woman and spring being a time of rebirth? Changing Woman ushered in the seasons, brought new life. This season wouldn’t be ushering in a new life. My life would remain the same.
I suddenly felt very old and tired. And full. Shame and fatigue crashed over me, and I reached for my dad’s hand. His palms were chapped and worn, and they were almost as brown as Samuel’s. How I loved my father’s hands! How I loved him. I’d made my dad worry about me. I looked up into his face and saw the emotions I was feeling mirrored in his eyes. I brought his hand to my cheek and leaned my face into his palm. He cupped my face in that big palm, and his eyes filled with sadness.
“Josie Jo. What am I going to do without you?” His voice was gruff and tired.
“I’m not going anywhere, Dad.” I said softly, my voice cracking a little as I thought of Samuel.
“Yes, honey, you are,” Emotion shook in his voice. “You are going to go - I won’t let you stay here anymore.”
I felt the bottom drop out of my chest and my heart plummet, crashing in tiny pieces at my feet. My hand, still holding onto his, fell to my lap.
“Don’t you want me to stay with you, Dad?” My voice quavered, and I bit down on my bottom lip.
“Honey, it isn’t about what I want anymore. I’ve let you take care of me and your brothers since you were nine years old! I just can’t, in good conscience, let you do it anymore.”
“Dad!” I cried out in denial, “You’ve taken care of all of us! I just did my part!”
“You did more than your part, Josie. You never were a child - not after your mother died. You always had this wisdom and maturity that made me feel like maybe it was okay to let you have your head. But your heart rules your head, Josie. You would stay here forever just to take care of me and stay true to a love that will never be returned. Not in this life. Kasey’s gone, baby. He isn’t coming back.”
“I know that Dad, believe me, I do….I just don’t know how to say goodbye this time. It isn’t the same as it was with mom. I knew it was coming, even as young as I was. I knew she was going to die; I knew she was going to have to leave me. And I knew she expected me to go on living and loving and learning. I just don’t know how to say goodbye this time,” I repeated, and bit back a sob. My dad pulled me into his lap, just like he’d done over four years ago when he’d found me in my mother’s wedding dress.
He rocked me, rubbing my back, and smoothing my hair as I wept into his shirt. I thought I was done with tears. I didn’t want to cry for Kasey anymore. But I knew I wasn’t crying for him. I think I was crying out of self-pity, and that was even worse. I rubbed angrily at my cheeks and pressed my fists into my eyes, willing myself to stop.
“I’m in love with Samuel, Dad.”
My dad’s feet stuttered a little in their rhythm and then, with barely a hitch, resumed rocking.
“I thought maybe you might be. You’ve been acting so strange lately.” He lifted me up off his chest so he could stare into my face. “But honey….isn’t it a little too soon to know? He was only in town about a month.”
I laughed out loud, the sound harsh and humorless. “I’ve loved Samuel since I was thirteen-years-old, Dad.” I responded, staring back into his eyes, smiling at his shock. I patted his cheek, reassuring him, “Don’t worry, Dad. It wasn’t like that.�
� I leaned back against him as I told him our love story. For that is what it was.
“Samuel and I met on the school bus. We were assigned to the same seat. For eight months we rode that bus back and forth from Nephi, and we slowly became friends. We fell in love to Beethoven and Shakespeare. We argued about books and bias and principles and passion. Our friendship was truly unique.” I paused a little, gathering my thoughts. “I didn’t know how special he was until he was gone. I didn’t realize I was in love with him; I just wanted my friend back. And he was gone so long. He was gone long enough for me to believe he was never coming back - gone long enough for me to fall in love again. The second time, with Kasey, I was old enough to recognize it for what it was. I was smart enough to hold on tight, and that made losing Kasey even harder. I had been in love before, and I knew how it felt to lose it.”
“I never knew anything about Samuel, Josie.” My dad’s voice was disbelieving.
“Nobody did, Dad. I didn’t know how to share him. I thought if I talked about him it might make you nervous. He was eighteen years old - and half Navajo Indian to boot, which would have made you even more uncomfortable because you didn’t know anything about him or where he came from. I was your thirteen-year-old daughter. Do you see the dilemma?”
“Yeah. Not an easy sell, huh?” My dad muttered, and chuckled sympathetically at my long ago plight.
We rocked in silence once more.
“So what now, Josie?” My dad said slowly. “Where is he?”
My heart contracted fiercely. “I told him I couldn’t marry him, Dad. This is my home. He’s a Marine, and he has responsibilities. He can’t stay, I can’t go. That’s all there is to it.” My voice carried a bravado that was all pretend.
“Is it because of what you said before, Josie?” My dad asked gently.
“What do you mean?” I asked hesitantly, not following.
“When you said you didn’t know how to say goodbye this time. Why can’t you say goodbye? You just said yourself you loved Samuel even before you loved Kasey. Why would you give Samuel up when Kasey is lost to you, anyway?”
“I’ve never been the one to leave, Dad.” I didn’t know how to put any of this in to words. My dad looked at me somberly, waiting. “Everyone has left me….Mom, Samuel, Kasey, even Sonja. They left. I stayed. I don’t know how to leave. It just feels wrong. It feels wrong to leave Sonja, wrong to leave you, and it feels like a betrayal to let Kasey go.”
“Don’t you think he’d want you to?”
“I honestly don’t know, Dad. Being left behind is horrible.”
“Ah honey, you’re not thinking straight.” He was quiet for a moment, and I could tell he was struggling to say what came next. “And don’t think I didn’t know that some of your dilemma is leaving me. I won’t have it, Josie. I am your father, and you are not going to stay here your whole life out of loyalty to me. Growing up and moving out is not the same things as leaving, and you can’t think of it like that.” His voice was stern, and I decided not to argue with him.
“Do you think Kasey loved you, Josie?” My dad asked after a moment or two.
“I know he did, Dad.” I answered, and felt myself getting choked up all over again.
“I know he did too, honey. But I don’t know that you would have been as happy as you coulda been, if you’d married him.”
I was stunned. “What are you talking about?” My dad had never expressed any misgivings to me about Kasey.
“Kasey was a good boy. He was everything a man wants for his daughter. He would have been loyal and hardworking. He would have been loving and faithful and committed to you all your life.”
“But . ..?” He had indicated a ‘but’ in this equation, and I couldn’t even guess at what it might be.
“But you woulda been lonely deep down. You woulda been fightin’ it all your life.”
“I wasn’t lonely with Kasey, ever!” I argued sincerely.
“You woulda been, honey. You have this hunger for…for things that are a mystery to me. You’ve got music in your blood. You see beauty in things other people just take for granted. You need understanding, and, and….. deep conversation, and someone who can keep up with that mind of yours! When you were just a little kid you would ask me the strangest things about God and the universe . . . things that would blow me away. One time, you were playing with this puzzle on the floor, and you couldn’t have been more than five or six. You stopped and looked at the puzzle for a long time. Finally, you asked me “Dad, do you think this puzzle could ever put itself together if I shook it just right?” I said ‘No honey, I don’t think there’s any chance of that.’ Do you remember what you said then?”
I shook my head in soggy bewilderment.
“You said, ‘Well, then I guess there’s no way the world just happened by itself. Someone had to put it together.’ I thought about that for two weeks! Hell, Josie - I don’t understand half of what you say when you talk....and I know for dang sure poor Kasey Judd didn’t have a clue most the time either.”
I didn’t know what to say. I just sat there with my mouth agape.
“You said you and Samuel fell in love to Beethoven and Shakespeare. That tells me somethin’ right there.” My dad leaned forward resting his hands on his knees, looking off into the moonlit sky. When he spoke again his voice was hoarse with emotion.
“What does Samuel do when you talk to him, Josie? What does he say? Does he hear you, the way none of us can?” My father gazed at me then, and there were tears in his eyes.
I brought my hands to my dad’s face, deeply moved by his understanding. An understanding I’d never given him credit for. Tears trickled down my cheeks and ran along my jaw, spilling down my neck.
“The way I see it Josie, is God knows your heart.” My dad’s eyes never left mine, and we both wept unabashedly. “He took Kasey away for a reason. Kasey was not for you. You would never have seen that on your own. I know you’ve thought God turned his back on you. But He’s looked out for you, Josie. He’s prepared someone for you who can love every part of you. I don’t want you holdin’ back all your life, sharing yourself in doses that people will accept. If Samuel is man enough to take it all, every last drop...then I hope you know where Samuel is . . . because I expect you to find him.”
My dad stood up, walking towards the front door, the emotion of the evening getting to be too much for him. He needed his horses like I needed ‘Ode to Joy.’ His hand rested on the handle of the door, and he turned towards me again. “You have somethin’ written on that wall in your room. I remember reading it….It’s been there forever. It’s scripture, I think…but you changed it a little. Something about what true love is. If what you and Kasey had was true love Josie, he wouldn’t want you to stay.”
He sighed. He’d said what he’d needed to say and was eager for a cessation of conversation. “I love you, Josie. Don’t stay out here too long. You’ve gotta do somethin’ with that cake mess in there.” He smiled at me and was gone, trudging through the house and out the back door, escaping to the solace of his equine friends.
“‘And true love suffereth long, and is kind; true love envieth not; true love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil. True love rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; true love beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. True love never faileth…’ “I whispered the words to myself, and finally found a way to say goodbye.
Dear Samuel,
When two complimentary notes are sung or played in perfect pitch, a phenomenon occurs. The related frequencies actually split, like light through a prism, and overtones can be heard. It almost sounds like angel voices singing along in perfect harmony. They can be difficult to hear, they glimmer in and out like faulty radio reception, but they are there, a little miracle waiting to be discovered. The first time I heard them I thought of you and wanted to tell you that I’d finally hear
d it, a strain of God’s music. When I’m with you a similar phenomenon occurs. I hear music.
Wherever you go, I’ll follow. I just want to be with you. Will you marry me?
I love you,
Josie
Postlude
I married Samuel Yates a month later, the day after Thanksgiving, in the beautiful chapel in Levan. Samuel had a friend, a fellow Marine, who played the piano by ear. He was stateside for our wedding, and after listening to Samuel’s Song a few times, was able to play it flawlessly as I walked down the aisle. Sonja was unable to attend, but she was there in that song. I remembered her words to me when I’d poured my heart and soul into it so long ago. “If I didn’t know better, Josie, I’d think you were in love.”
Samuel was breathtaking in his dress Blues. Both of his grandmothers and his mother sat together and wept as a trio. My dad and Don Yates were equally overcome. The chapel was full of family and friends. Even Kasey’s parents came. I like to think maybe he and my mother were able to attend, to step into our realm for a brief moment.
I wore my mother’s dress and swept my hair up under the long white veil I’d wrapped myself in years ago on our front swing, mourning the bride I thought I’d never be.
Tara was my only bridesmaid, and she wore yellow and gleefully tossed pink rose petals as she pranced down the aisle. When it was time, I walked with measured steps towards Samuel, and his face reflected the joy that sang in my soul. He reached out for me, accepting my hand as my father gave me away and then slid into the pew next to Aunt Louise, letting her hold his hand while he cried, unashamed.
Samuel and I exchanged the simple vows of countless generations, but he surprised me by reciting the verses written on my Wall of Words from 1st Corinthians, Chapter 13. As he spoke the words with such heartfelt devotion, I marveled that God had brought me to this day and to this man.