Lucinda's Solution

by Nancy Roman

  CHAPTER 57

  July ended and August brought scorching days and evening thunderstorms. We adjusted our days accordingly, going down to the beach earlier so that we could return before the heavens opened up on us. We were caught a few times, and it was both thrilling and frightening to find our way back to the cottage through black clouds and lightning. We could not run - not with Annie and not with Frank’s blindness. So we walked. Drenched and terrified, and fell into each others’ arms in relief when we were finally safe. I thought perhaps it might be a good way to die, but for precious Annie, who did not cry out in terror but laughed through each burst of thunder. She was too brave to surrender. I needed to go on for her sake.

  One day, instead of the young boy who brought our groceries, Mr. Longo came himself.

  Frank was not having a good day - he was weak and feverish, but he roused himself and was cordial and courteous to the man who over the past month had taken to choosing our food purchases himself, so that I seldom needed to walk to the market or leave Frank alone. He also, I believed, consistently undercharged us for our food. The boy would say, “Oh, but Mr. Longo said the grapes were a gift” or “Mr. Longo said that he could not charge for the bread, as it is yesterday’s,” as the youngster would hand me a loaf so fresh it could float from my hand.

  Mr. Longo arrived with a bottle of his own wine. He could see that Frank was ill, but his good manners required him to overlook this and treat Frank as a respected soldier and not an invalid. I poured three glasses of wine into our tin cups, handing one to Mr. Longo and putting one into Frank’s hand.

  “Saluti!” said Mr. Longo and we all drank. It was very good wine. The pain that showed on Frank’s brow lessened a bit with the familiar pungent flavor.

  “Alla tua salute!” responded Frank.

  And there was an animated conversation in Italian. I wondered if Frank missed Sofia, if hearing Italian made his heart yearn for her and her sweet song and sweeter heart. But I was also comforted to see him rally a bit.

  At some point, I understood that the conversation had turned to me. We all have a sense of being spoken about, even when we can’t understand the words.

  Mr. Longo left after a while, saying to me in English that he would stop by again, and that it was an honor to meet a soldier who had sacrificed so much in the war.

  That evening I asked Frank what he had said of me. He explained that Mr. Longo thought I was quite beautiful and wondered how we had met.

  “I told him you were the sister of a very dear friend, and that we loved each other from the first moment we met.”

  I liked the idea of that. But it also made me curious. “I don’t think it was exactly at the first moment,” I said, “so tell me… when did you know? When did you first think you might love me?”

  He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. He could not see, but his memory needed him to look inside. He smiled.

  “It was when you cut your hair. It was not that it made you more beautiful… you were already beautiful. It was in the way you were happy and defiant at the same time. This, I thought, is a woman of spirit!”

  “Did you really think I was already beautiful?”

  “Oh yes… and I wanted nothing more that instant than to touch your short, rebellious hair! So come here and let me do that now.”

  We had another visitor in August. Constance came with Sadie.

  Sadie was disappointed that Jonathan and Charlotte were not here, but we distracted her with sandcastles at the edge of the water. Constance and I had a lovely visit. She was gratified to see that our cottage was to our liking, and that we had plenty of food in our cupboard.

  We had gone to the beach without Frank. He was not up to the walk that day and instead lay on the bed on the porch, with his head propped on pillows. He had the newspaper on his lap, though he could not read it. It gave him comfort to feel its familiar rustle and smell the inky print.

  “I’m fine,” he said. “I will probably doze off in a minute or two… so you girls - all four of you - go down to the water, and I will listen to the breeze carry your sweet voices back to me.”

  I put a pill into his hand if the need should arise, and Constance and I took Sadie and Annie down to the beach. Sadie ran back and forth between the water’s edge and our blanket, where Constance held the baby and caught me up on the gossip of the other women from the park. She told me that the women’s voting amendment was about to be ratified. “I don’t think it will make a real difference in the world,” she said. “At least not at first. I think it will be fifty years at least - perhaps a hundred - before women will have to power to vote for each other, and not for men. Then the world will change.”

  “Well, when I am twenty-one, I shall vote. I will shake things up!” I laughed. “I will do it alone if the ladies won’t help.”

  “What would you change?” she asked.

  “Wars. Cancer. The way we judge one another.”

  “I have something else to tell you,” she said. “Your father came to me. He drove from Springfield, and he waited in the park, where he remembered he had taken Sadie for a ride. He confronted me and wanted to know where to find you. He knew you were in Madison, or at least had been there at the time you posted your letter. He wanted me to tell him exactly where you were.”

  “Did you say?” I asked, trembling.

  “I told him I didn’t know. I believe he intended to take you back to Massachusetts. That could be for the best. But I fear that it would not.”

  “No, I will not leave. My father may want to give me another chance to change my life - to make it right with God. But I am right with myself. And I owe that more to you than to anyone.”

  “You owe me?” she said.

  “You live how you want. You don’t measure yourself by any of the standards that our good and righteous society has imposed upon us. Once I saw the freedom and the happiness it brought to you, I knew that I could do the same.”

  “I am not always happy, Lucinda,” she said.

  “But you choose,” I said. “You have satisfaction and sustenance that the choice was yours.”

  “I do,” said Constance. She wiped sand from her hands. “Tell me, Lucinda,” she asked, “do you still want to save the world?”

  I thought about it.

  “Sometimes I do. In a smaller way. I think I could be a good teacher. I remember what you told me - that changing the world could start with the children.”

  “I think you would make a fine teacher. You should go to school.”

  “I’ve always wanted that. Maybe one day I will.”

  Constance laid back and shielded her eyes. Then she rose on her elbows and squinted at me, in that way that told me her sharp intellect had been at work.

  “Martin may be on his way to becoming a rich man. He could send you to college.”

  “Martin has three children to support!”

  “And two wives!”

  “Oh Constance, you always make me laugh!” I stood and scooped up Annie. “Let’s go back and see Frank.”

  When we returned, Frank was awake and a bit improved. I put the kettle on for tea, and picked up the violin.

  “Look, Constance, what Frank has taught me in a mere four weeks.” And I played a shaky but recognizable rendition of Fur Elise.

  “That’s quite good for just a short period of time,” she encouraged.

  “Ah, but that is her whole repertoire,” said Frank. “I should like her to play three songs well before I am gone.”

  “Then you had better live a long time,” I said.

  “May I?” asked Constance, putting her hand out to take the violin.

  I handed it over and she played. How she played! Constance played Fur Elise as if the music had been written for her, and then followed with an adagio so lovely that
my heart filled with tears.

  “My God,” cried Frank. “You play like a goddess! Like an artist and goddess!”

  She smiled. “My father and my uncle are both with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. I think I would be too, if I were not a woman. No place in the orchestra for a skirt. According to them, anyway.”

  “But you have played professionally? You must have shared this gift! What a loss if you could not!” I cried.

  “I play in small circles. The men find me a novelty.” There was a trace of bitterness in her words, but she shook them off. “That is how I met Sadie’s father, by the way. I was playing for a small party of people well connected in the music world of Boston. A patron of the arts, is Thomas. And he was quite taken with me. I seduced him with my bow, you could say.”

  It was a rather shocking thing to say, but Frank and I were no longer appalled by illicit love. We reveled in it. How quickly our lives had turned.

  “Oh, there is seduction in the violin, no doubt,” said Frank.

  “This is a fine instrument,” remarked Constance, turning the violin in her hand. She handed it to me. “I must go. The car I hired will be here in a few minutes. Let me get Sadie out of her muddy clothes and into something she can sleep in. She will be fast asleep as soon as we drive away.”

  And we kissed and hugged. I was loathed to let her go. I had seen so few people in the last six weeks, and her visit had cheered me enormously. To have so loyal a friend that she would defy my father, and yet come to tell me, in case I should change my mind. I knew that she would have taken us all back with her, had I asked.

  Later that evening, Frank said, “I wish we had a Victrola. Then it would be perfect here. I would like to hear music that beautiful every day.”

  “Done,” I said. “I will find one. I swear there will be music - and not my poor excuse - in this house before the week is ended.” I did not know how that would happen, but I knew I would do it. I could do anything. I was in a cottage with Frank and my baby. A year ago it had not even been an idea. And then I dreamed it. And then I realized it.

  “I need to tell you something,” said Frank in bed that night. “About the violin. Constance recognized that it was a fine instrument. Well, it is more than that. It is very rare. Very valuable.”

  “I’ll treasure it always,” I promised, and kissed him.

  “No,” he said. “I do not want you to treasure it. I want you to sell it. The money from that violin would take care of you and Annie for a very long time. If you do not wish to go to Ohio, or you go but you aren’t happy - well, you will have recourse to do whatever you wish. It would give me comfort to think I could provide for you, that I could give you a gift of the freedom to go and do and be whatever you wish.”

  “Frank, you have already given me that freedom,” I said.

  “Still,” he said. “Remember you have it. And Constance’s lover - Sadie’s father - he is probably the person to contact. A successful man and a patron of the arts. He would buy this violin or put you into contact with someone who would. And he would not cheat you, because he loves Constance - and Constance loves you.”

  “I’ll remember,” I said.

  The next morning, I gave Frank a light breakfast, got him comfortable on his bed on the porch, kissed him, took Annie in my arms, and set off to Mr. Longo’s market.

  “I have a great need,” I said. “And you are the only person I know here in Madison.”

  I explained that I needed to buy a phonograph and as many records as I could, and I needed to have it delivered to the cottage as quickly as possible. Frank is a musician, I explained, and he needs music.

  “I should have thought of it weeks ago,” I cried.

  “Do you not know, Mrs. Giametti, that I can procure anything you need in one day? Why, I am famous for it!”

  “I have nearly one hundred dollars left,” I said. “It must last for a few more months. That doesn’t count Frank’s burial money. We have that set aside already. So we will only need food and perhaps firewood when it gets cold, if we are still here.”

  “Oh, my dear!” he exclaimed, “You mustn’t speak like that. Frank will recover!”

  And so I told him the truth. That Frank was not convalescing. That he had cancer of the brain, and he had come here to die. Mr. Longo wept.

  “You will have a Victrola today!” he said. “And it won’t cost you a penny. I will loan you my own. The best phonograph in Madison. And I have recordings! Classico, Italian, Opera… your Frank will be delighted. I promise, I promise!”

  And that afternoon, Mr. Longo drove up in a truck with his Victor phonograph tied on the back. He set it up in our parlor. Then he went back to the truck and came back with stacks of recordings. It took him three trips to bring them all in.

  “I have even brought my grandson’s recordings of children’s songs. Just in case your baby might like them. Keep it as long as you need.”

  “But you obviously love music yourself,” I said. “Whatever will you do?”

  “Play the accordion!” he said with a laugh.

  And oh, we had the most glorious music. My favorite was Enrico Caruso singing “Che gelida manina” from La Boheme. Frank translated it for me, and the words were as wonderful as the sound, as Rodolfo falls in love with Mimi while they search for a light in the darkness.

  Frank loved everything. He loved the traditional Italian songs, as well as Beethoven and Schubert, and the patriotic songs of the Great War. We listened every evening for weeks.

  As the weather got cooler in September, Frank’s health started to fail. He could no longer hold a cup steady, and had to lean on me to walk. His pain was intense, so I doubled his medication. Then his hearing became erratic, often overly sensitive, and we often had to stop the phonograph in the middle of a song, as he could not bear the sound. He slept fitfully unless he took even more pain pills. I would hold him for hours and stroke his brow. In the morning, he would be filled with remorse, apologizing for making my life so difficult.

  This was the path I had chosen. I had known the outcome going in. But still, I was not prepared.

  The day that Annie sat up by herself for the first time, Frank could not sit up at all.

  He spoke to me sometimes in Italian. Whether he thought I was Sofia, or perhaps had just forgotten his English for a time, I didn’t know.

  Frank, in quiet moments, liked me to read to him. He liked Dumas much better than Dickens, but soon he was unable to follow the story. Instead of allowing the words alone to soothe him, he would become distressed at his failing comprehension. So I took to poetry, reading Whitman and Wordsworth.

  The weather grew too cool for sitting on the porch, so I moved the table back inside. I left the bed, in the hopes that we would have a respite as often happens at the end of September, with a few days of fine mild weather. I hoped to perhaps give Frank some additional moments in the sunshine - as if feeling the sun on his face would bring him back to the good health and strength I had seen in July.

  I received a letter from Martin. He was well satisfied with his new work, and the house was large and comfortable. He had purchased a motorcar and the family drove out to the countryside every Sunday afternoon. Jonathan had started school in Dayton; he was learning to read. Charlotte was losing a bit of her shyness - and she had a good ear for Italian, she easily skipped back and forth between the languages. ‘They are happy,’ Martin wrote.

  At the bottom of the letter was a postscript from Sofia.

  My English writing is not well, but I would let you no that I have made sure that Martin tells the children a story of there mother Caterine evary week. They will not forget her. For me, I tell them a story of when you were there mama. They like best when you spend the dinner money on wodden animals for there ark. I am happy. I love Martin. I am happy also that you love Frank. We miss you both.
I have a gardin.

  I sat for a long time, holding the letter. I gave it to Annie, and she happily tore it apart.

  I telephoned to Mr. Longo’s market.

  “I’m very sorry to bother you,” I said, “But I am wondering if you might be able to stop by some time today to visit with Frank? It is selfish of me, I know, but I feel a strong need for some fresh air. I would just like to take a short walk, but I am afraid to leave him.”

  I think Mr. Longo knew by the tremor in my voice that I was in despair.

  “I will come as soon as my wife comes to help out at noon. I will be there, Mrs. Giametti. Do not worry. I’m coming right away.”

  An hour later, the old truck pulled up to the cottage. Mr. Longo was not alone. There was a gray-haired woman with him, in a floral dress and big black shoes.

  “This is my wife, Millie,” he explained. “When I told her I was coming to see Frank, she insisted that we close the store and she come too. So she can watch your little one and you can clear your mind and take a nice walk.”

  It was impossible not to cry. These people that I barely knew would give up an afternoon’s revenue so that I could take a walk?

  “Go, go now!” said Mrs. Longo as she took Annie from me. “I was born to tend to babies. I had nine of my own and now I have fourteen grandchildren. And take a shawl. And don’t wear those shoes - it is too cool. And take as much time as you damn well please.”

  I walked nearly two miles along the beach. I stopped when I reached the state park. The seagulls were the only creatures I encountered, and they paid me no mind. Despite Millie’s warning, it was quite warm, and on the way back, I took off my shoes and walked in the water. The coldness of the water and the roughness of the pebbles beneath my feet reconnected me to the world. I’m still here, I thought. I am nineteen. I have a dying husband who is not my husband and a living child who is mine alone. The trick in music is to go on, to keep the rhythm, to not stop, to not worry over mistakes. I will go on.