Phyllis grew up in the deep shade of magnolia trees in South Georgia. Born during a hurricane, she is no stranger to the winds of change: In addition to her life as a novelist, Phyllis is a seminary graduate, concert pianist, and cofounder of a national cable network with health- and disability-related programming. Regardless of the role she’s playing, Phyllis brings creativity and compelling storytelling.
She frequently appears at conventions, conferences, civic groups, and churches, performing half-hour musical monologues that express her faith, joy, and thoughts about life—all with the homespun humor and gentility of a true Southern woman.
Phyllis currently serves on several nonprofit boards. She lives in the Texas Hill Country with her portrait-artist husband.
Website: PhyllisClarkNichols.com
Facebook: facebook.com/PhyllisCNichols
Twitter: twitter.com/PhyllisCNichols
Room 602 at Emory Hospital was as quiet as a recital hall an hour after the concert. Caroline squirmed in a fake leather chair that stuck to flesh and whose cracks she had memorized. It was no more comfortable than when she arrived five days ago, not even for her petite frame. Sitting up straight and stretching her arms high above her head gave some relief. She pulled the hair tie from her ponytail and leaned over with her head between her knees, allowing her dark brown curls to almost touch the floor. The cracked linoleum had the look of a high school biology lab and had probably been doused with similar organic fluids and cleaning chemicals through the years.
Caroline massaged her scalp and brushed her hair with her fingers. Her unruly, wavy hair, inherited from her father, was the only undisciplined detail of her life. She sat up and tried taming it once again, pulling it severely to the top of her head and entrapping it with the hair tie. Tendrils escaping along her temples were beyond coaxing. She coiled into the chair and wrapped the blanket tighter around her.
Gretchen, free now of the tubes that had sustained her since the surgery, rested in the bed next to Caroline’s chair. The bruising on her face and neck was migrating from a deep purplish-blue to green, and the swelling was subsiding. Prints of the brute’s hands and fingers still encircled her neck—marks of evil, but she was beginning to look more like Gretchen. Her unblemished hand, like wax, rested on the white sheet. Caroline studied it, thinking of the gentle way Gretchen caressed Bella’s hair. How can one person’s hand bring so much pleasure and another’s so much pain? Caroline could almost hear what Sam might say in his courtroom voice before pronouncing Ernesto’s sentence: “Something wrong with a man who caresses his hound dog and kicks his wife in places where no living thing should be kicked.”
The doctors did not know how long Gretchen’s brain had been deprived of oxygen resulting from the attempted strangulation and the amount of blood loss. They’d know more when she could talk. Her size, her delicate features and porcelain skin, left them all wondering how she had survived such a vile attack.
Caroline’s phone rang. She unwrapped the blanket and reached for her phone in her bag beside the chair, hoping not to disturb Gretchen’s sleep. Roderick’s number appeared on the screen. Since meeting him in the summer and playing a recital in his Kentucky home, Caroline looked forward to his calls. “Oh, good morning, Roderick, you can’t know how good it is to hear your voice.”
“Yours, too, Blue Eyes. How are things this morning?”
“Improving slowly every day. The doctor removed the tubes last evening, and we’ll see how Gretchen does today. I just hope she can talk.”
“And Bella?”
“Oh, she’s more resilient than I thought. Her little face is healing and no permanent damage to the eye. She’s with your sister and Dr. Wyatt Spencer. Fortunately, or unfortunately, this situation has given him the opportunity he wanted to observe Bella.”
“And Dr. Spencer?”
“The professor from the University of Georgia.”
Roderick interrupted her. “Yes, I remember Dr. Spencer.”
“Well, he has permission to use the facilities here at Emory. So he brought in a few colleagues from Athens to take a look at Bella. It seems his way of staking the university’s claim on Bella. But I’m so grateful Sarah’s here to monitor things.”
“That’s my sister, Sarah, the child psychologist coming to the rescue.”
“And to my rescue. It’s amazing to watch her with Bella. They’re really bonding.”
“That’s what she’s trained to do, and she’s good at it because it’s her passion.”
“Passion. Oh that everyone’s passion would lead to goodness.” Caroline pulled the blanket tighter around her.
“So you’re philosophizing this morning?” Roderick asked.
“No, just thinking. Had plenty of time to do that the last few days. Since I’ve known Bella is a savant, I’ve had to honor Gretchen’s need to keep it secret. If Ernesto knew Bella and Gretchen had been away from the house and up to the University of Georgia, I fear there would have been more than a beating.”
“Do you suppose he found out?”
Caroline’s right eyebrow automatically rose. “Don’t think so. All the testing and observation have been done in secret, but the secret games are over.”
“You’re right. Bella’s free, and so is Gretchen. With Ernesto behind bars, their lives will be quite different. And yours too, Caroline.”
What he said was true. Bubbles of change had been surfacing since last spring, since meeting Bella and since her trip to Rockwater. “When are you coming home, Roderick?”
“I leave London tomorrow. Acer’s meeting me at LaGuardia with the jet. He’ll fly me straight back to Rockwater, and weather permitting, he’ll fly me to Atlanta early Friday morning.”
“You’re coming here?” Her pulse quickened.
“Yes. You don’t think I’d leave you alone with Dr. Wyatt Spencer too long, do you?”
Caroline grinned for the first time in days. “You’re worried about Wyatt?”
“Of course. I have to make certain that Dr. Spencer’s making his professional mark with a young musical savant and not his personal mark in the life of the talented and beautiful pianist, Caroline Carlyle, who discovered her.”
She hoped what she heard was a bit of honest jealousy. “I knew there was something more that I liked about you besides the fact that you like to fish. You’re honest and straightforward.”
“Oh, really? I’d like to think my business associates would agree. Although, they’d probably add that I’m cautious. But somehow with you, my caution heads downstream to wherever that big trout is waiting for your return to Rockwater.”
She pictured Rockwater—the mansion, the gardens, the stream, and the view from the loggia windows. “Tell me, Roderick, what color is Kentucky bluegrass in October?”
“I won’t tell you. If I do, perhaps you won’t return to see for yourself, especially since your piano is now at home in your bay window instead of mine.”
A bit of melancholy enshrouded her. She had met Roderick in July after discovering that he owned her beloved Hazelton Brothers 1902 piano, the instrument that had defined her and had been her place of joy and well-being during her childhood. Her parents sold the piano to pay for her college education. Selling the piano had been like separating conjoined twins, but playing this recital for Roderick’s friends at his invitation had been like returning home again after a long and solitary journey.
The trip to Rockwater, the Adair family estate outside Lexington, had been magical. Roderick had stirred feelings in her that she was still sifting three months later, familiar feelings that had long been put away the way you dispose of a dead woman’s clothes.
For six years since David’s death, her life had been on autopilot, void of any feelings other than her pride in being Moss Point’s piano teacher and charting the progress of her students. But meeting Roderick and his covert piano swap had disconnected her autopilot button. Roderick had surprised her by delivering her antique piano and loading her studio grand onto a tru
ck bound for Rockwater while she and Angel were on a day trip to Atlanta. He declared it on loan, like a painting or a museum piece.
She and Roderick had spoken several times since the stunning delivery, but they had not seen each other. She wished it had been something other than this tragedy that brought him back to Georgia. “I’ll be so happy to see you, Roderick.”
“I’m sorry. Just when I could have been of help to you, I was away. But I’ll see you Friday. I must go for now. Take care, my . . .” Roderick paused. “Take care, Caroline.”
Caroline didn’t miss his caution. “You too, Mr. Adair.”
Gretchen stirred a bit. Caroline moved to her side. “Good morning, friend. You’re awake.”
Gretchen stretched her eyelids and attempted to talk. “Bell— . . . Bel-la?”
“Bella’s just fine. There’s so much to tell you. Do you remember anything I’ve been telling you?” Days of Gretchen’s unconsciousness had not kept Caroline from talking to her as though she could hear.
Gretchen nodded her head.
Caroline saw her flinch in pain as she moved her neck. “You must still be sore. I’m so sorry, Gretchen. But everything’s fine now. You came through the surgery, and you’ll be back to normal in a few more days. Bella’s great. She still has a sore nose, and they’ll remove the stitches from her cheek Friday.”
“Er . . . Ernes . . . ?”
Caroline took Gretchen’s right hand. “Ernesto only had some bruises and minor lacerations. He’s in jail where he’s going to stay for a very long time.”
The bruised woman struggled to speak. “I hit . . . hit him . . .my mir— . . . mirror.” A single tear, maybe of relief or maybe of sadness, rolled down Gretchen’s left cheek.
Caroline gently wiped it away with the corner of the sheet. She knew that Gretchen bore scars of other beatings. She also knew Gretchen had been long-suffering with Mr. Silva, forgiving him and making far too many excuses for him. She stayed with him out of gratitude for something in her past and because she was financially dependent on him. Perhaps soon Caroline would hear her story—the part of Gretchen’s story that caused her to leave her family in Austria and marry an American soldier in Germany.
Caroline walked to the window and turned around to look at Gretchen. She could not conceal her excitement any longer. “I have a surprise for you. It’s even a grand surprise for me too. Roderick’s coming Friday. You’ll finally get to meet him.”
“He . . . he . . .” Gretchen’s reach for her throat revealed the cast on her left arm.
Caroline walked back to the bedside and pulled her chair close. “It’s okay, Gretchen, it’s okay. Don’t try to talk. The doctor says talking will be easier when the swelling goes down. Your left arm was fractured, and you’ll be in a cast for a few weeks. That’s the only broken bone.”
Gretchen became very still.
“So let me talk now that you’re awake. Remember, I told you about Roderick’s sister who is a child psychologist, Dr. Sarah McCollum? I met her when I went to Kentucky for the recital. You saw the letter from her I found in my suitcase when I got home. Well, she and her husband just moved from Boston to Raleigh-Durham. He’s teaching medicine at Duke, and I think she’s taking some time off because they want children. When Roderick found out what had happened to you and Bella, he called Sarah.”
Gretchen tried to nod again.
“Apparently Sarah meant what she said in the letter—I mean about helping with Bella. She called me right after she talked to Roderick and was on a plane for Atlanta the next afternoon. I don’t know what I would have done without her, and Bella’s so comfortable with her.”
“Bella . . . where?” Gretchen strained to formulate her words.
“She’s with Sarah now and Dr. Wyatt Spencer. Oh, let me back up a bit. I called Dr. Martin over the weekend to cancel my piano lesson at the university on Monday. Do you remember her? I took you and Bella to meet her when I first suspected Bella is a musical savant. And she introduced us to Dr. Spencer, the professor and psychologist.”
Gretchen nodded. Her acknowledgment meant she could remember. Surely that was a positive sign, and Caroline would report it to the doctor.
“I told Dr. Martin that you and Bella were here in the hospital at Emory. So ten minutes later, guess who calls? Dr. Wyatt Spencer, insisting on coming over. He’s been here since Monday to work with Bella and review the test results. Lucky for us that Sarah arrived on Sunday afternoon. I filled her in on his interest in Bella. So now she’s Bella’s self-appointed guardian—a professional one at that. Dr. Spencer has a group of experts observing Bella this morning.”
Not even the soreness and discomfort could keep Gretchen from smiling.
“I know, I know, Gretchen. Now they’re all going to see what you and I already know. Bella has a rare gift.”
“Sarah?” Gretchen struggled to speak.
“Yes, and Sarah’s there to protect her. I can’t wait for you to meet Sarah and see Bella with her. She’ll never allow anyone, not even the ambitious Dr. Spencer, to upset or exploit Bella.”
Gretchen drifted off to sleep again. Her faint smile face hinted at a more peaceful rest.
“Okay, Bella, my name is Tom. Do you think you can lie very still for just a few moments? If you can lie really still, I have some candy for you when we finish.” He covered her body with a thin sheet.
Mamá says, “No candy, Bella.” Where’s Mamá?
Bella lay on the metal table covered in a sheet for the CT scan. Her body was still, her arms lay motionless at her side, but her fingers played the song in her head. I’ll come for you. Go, Bella. Not to the hiding place. Not to the safe place. Mamá said, “Go to Caroline’s.” Play the piano. Where’s Mamá?
Sarah stood beside her, caressing her arm, while the tech in bright blue scrubs made preparations. Sarah spoke to him of Bella’s hypersensitivity to music and suggested that he turn off the CD player. He complied and described the procedure to her.
Sarah explained to Bella that she must leave the room for a few minutes.
Bella lay quiet and still as she was instructed. Lying still in the darkness was nothing strange to her. Only the cold table and the metal cylinder closing in around her were new. Mamá says, “Go to your hiding place. Bella, be still and quiet so he won’t hear you. Shhh, Bella. Be still. He’ll go away soon. You’re safe here, Bella.”
The test took only a few moments, nothing like the hours she had spent on the floor in the back of the bedroom closet. Her mamá kept quilts there to cover her.
Mamá says, “Bella, you were good. Tomorrow, we can go to the safe place.” Good and quiet. Where’s Mamá? I want to go to the safe place.
Bella’s twelve-year-old petite frame was lost in the hospital gown and robe. Her grandfather’s clumsily aimed kick left her cheek and eye area deeply bruised, but not even the awkward patch over her eye kept her from playing the piano with perfection. This morning, she had been hustled from a second CT scan, through an ungainly interview to a university conference room where a studio piano had been rolled in. Six professors sat in a semicircle of folding chairs around the piano observing her. Sarah was within Bella’s reach, but not a part of this jury.
Bella played the last phrase of the Clementi sonatina. She hung her head and rhythmically rocked back and forth rubbing the palms of her hands together. “Mamá said, ‘Go to Caroline’s.’ Mamá said, ‘Go to Caroline’s.’ ”
In his uniform of khakis, a blue-striped shirt, and a yellow sweater draped over his back with its sleeves tied in a loose knot just below his Adam’s apple, Dr. Spencer was parked in chair number one. He sat casually, long legs crossed, exposing his sockless, tan ankles and twirling his pen between his fingers before pointing it at the pianist in the sixth seat. “Do you have something a bit less structured, say something from the Impressionistic Period, that you could play for her? I’d like to see what she’d do with that.”
The pianist rose from her chair and approached Bella. “May I p
lay the piano now?”
Still rocking, Bella was statuesque and unmovable. “Mamá said . . .”
The pianist looked to Dr. Spencer. He gave her the go-ahead nod. She moved behind Bella, placed her hands on Bella’s shoulders, attempting to steer her from the piano.
Bella winced. Her rocking motion increased, and she rubbed her head around the bandage covering her stitches.
Sarah rose quickly from her chair. “I think this is enough for today. You seemed to have forgotten this girl has been traumatized from a beating less than a week ago.”
Dr. Spencer looked at his watch. “But it’s only 2:30. Could we give her a break and maybe start again?”
“I think not. She seems tired and a bit agitated. Perhaps tomorrow, you may see her again.” Sarah put her clipboard in her bag and removed her reading glasses.
Dr. Spencer approached her but kept a respectable distance. “Do you know how important this is? We need this time while we have controlled access to her.”
Sarah did not waver. “Yes, Dr. Spencer, I am aware of the value of knowing as much about Bella’s abilities as we can discover, but this is bordering on something less than professional, and certainly has crossed the line of insensitivity, and I’ll not be a part of it.”
Dr. Spencer nodded. “Of course, you’re right. I apologize for my… for my enthusiasm with this project.”
“Might I remind you this project has a name? Her name is Bella.”
“You’re right again, Dr. McCollum. Please forgive me. Actually, this will give me time to talk with my colleagues about the test results and to send the data back to the university. I’d also like to review the tapes we’ve made today. Would you like to be a part of that?”
“Thank you for the invitation, but I, too, have had enough for one day. I do believe you will need signed releases before the videotapes can be used.”
Return of the Song Page 37