Heart of Glass

by Diane Noble

  Unwilling to think of the sadness of that coming day when I—when perhaps both of us—would leave, I studied the block of wood. Before clamping and gluing the two soundboards to the curved sides, I must cut the sound holes. I bent over the workbench in concentration, considering the overall shape. As with most of the mountain dulcimer makers, Poppy’s sound holes were distinct and known throughout the county. He had cut everything from hummingbirds to hearts to moons and stars on either side of the fingerboard, but always with a flair that was entirely his own.

  Outside, the low tones of the mission bells rang throughout the mission grounds. I pictured Micheil pulling the ropes and wondered who would ring them once he left for Ireland.

  I stared again at the front soundboard, the one that would be atop the instrument. By the time the last bell echoed from the tower, I’d picked up the carpenter’s chalk and begun drawing. I drew the shape of a mission bell to the left of the fretboard, then fashioned the image of two flying swallows on the opposite side.

  Smiling, I admired my handiwork and began to make the cut. I bent over the workbench, carving and sanding a fraction of an inch at a time.

  A small giggle from the doorway made me turn to see Nita standing hand in hand with her mother.

  “Mommy’s brought us lunch,” she announced.

  Carmelita smiled. “For all the children,” she said in Spanish. She held a large basket in her hand.

  Rosa and Nando crowded through the doorway to see, the others shouting and bouncing behind.

  “Now, now,” I said with a laugh. “We’ll eat by the new pond. Pick up your tools and bring the spacers and blocks to me.” Nando called out my instructions in Spanish, and the children skipped back to their circle to do as I asked. A few minutes later we marched across the courtyard to the pond and winter-dead gardens where Micheil was hoeing weeds.

  I sat heavily onto a large flat granite stone, and the children nestled around me. Carmelita handed out the fresh-baked bread, spread with the strange green fruit of the alligator pear, and peeled orange sections. Micheil dusted off his hands and joined us, sitting between Juan and Carlos. He spoke to them rapidly in Spanish, with an eyebrow arched at Nando, who translated those words I couldn’t understand.

  Nando said with a grin, “Señor Micheil wants us to sing. All of us together.”

  Above us a flutter of sparrows hopped through the pepper tree leaves. Three lit on some dried brush beside the pond. The others hopped to higher branches, blending into the lacy leaves that rustled in the breeze.

  “I’ll start,” Micheil said as he popped an orange slice into his mouth. He smiled and winked at me. “But only if you children join me.”

  I held up a hand. “And only if the children sing one of their folk songs for us.” I laughed. “And please, don’t try to sneak in ‘The Old Gray Goose.’ ” I moved my gaze to Carmelita. “I’d love to hear a song of your heritage.”

  Micheil cleared his throat dramatically, causing Nita to giggle. Then he lifted his voice in song, singing at the top of his lungs.

  As I roved out thro’ Galway city

  At the hour of twelve at the night,

  Who should I see but a handsome damsel,

  Combing her hair by candlelight.

  “Lassie, I have come a courtin’

  Your kind favors for to win;

  And if you’ll but smile upon me,

  Next Sunday I’ll call again.”

  “Sing with me now,” Micheil said to the children. “Come on and let me hear ye belt it out!”

  Raddy a the too dum, too dum too dum

  Raddy a the too dum doo dum day.

  The children imitated his brogue, which caused Carmelita and me to explode with laughter. We threw back our heads and joined them.

  Raddy a the too dum, too dum too dum

  Raddy a the too dum doo dum day.

  Micheil started on the second verse, exaggerating his brogue even more and drawing out the words dramatically.

  What would I do when I go walking,

  Walking out in the morning dew?

  What would I do when I go walking,

  Walking with a lad like you?

  “All right, my lassie,” he said to Rosa and Nita. “This is the part ye’re supposed to sing. Can ye join me, ye think?”

  I whispered to the little girls, “I’ll help you.”

  Micheil started the verse again, and a giggling Rosa and Nita sang along in their Spanish-Irish brogues. I filled in when they didn’t know the words. When we’d finished, he started another verse, this time asking the boys to join him.

  Did you ever see a copper kettle

  Mended with an ould tin can?

  Did you ever see a handsome damsel,

  Married off to an ugly man?

  Laughing together—the children, Carmelita, Micheil, and me—we all sang the chorus at the top of our lungs.

  Raddy a the too dum, too dum too dum

  Raddy a the too dum doo dum day.

  The afternoon stayed sunny and bright as we traded songs of our heritage. The children sang in Spanish, teaching Micheil and me the words and music, Carmelita told folk tales from Mexico and Spain.

  As a wind kicked up and a flurry of dry leaves skittered across the courtyard, I told the tale of the old people who invited the Lord to supper. The children listened solemnly, with Nando explaining the words they didn’t know as I spoke.

  When I reached the end, not a sound was heard except my voice.

  “They kept the fire going and kept Jesus’ supper ready. And finally they looked out and saw him coming. They went to meet him at the gate and said, ‘We waited so long! We were afraid you’d never come.’

  “The Lord took their hands and said, ‘I’ve already been here twice.’ ”

  Soon after, Carmelita left with the children to see them home, and I stayed to finish smoothing the edges of the carved sound holes. Micheil walked with me to the wood shop, hesitating as I turned to step inside.

  “I don’t remember ever feeling so much joy in my soul,” he said, surprising me. “When you told your story just now …” I followed his gaze to the high dome and bell tower across the courtyard, the gulls that circled, the high puffed clouds skittering across the sky beyond. He seemed to be struggling to find the words to finish his thought.

  “It seems he visits us when we least expect it,” I ventured.

  He smiled then. “Aye. I was thinking the same. That we see our Lord in the faces of children, hear his voice in their laughter—”

  “Hear him rejoicing over us all with singing, when they lift their voices in song.”

  “And in your face,” he said quietly, studying me, “I see his love shining in your eyes, lass. I do.”

  Without another word, he turned and strode across the courtyard, leaving me standing there, watching him, and knowing I saw the same in him.

  Through the years, I’d wondered why God wasn’t with me in my darkness and sorrow. The scales of anger, bitterness, and self-pity had blinded me. Now I knew he’d been there all along. He had visited me, but I hadn’t known it was he.

  I returned to the workbench and examined the sound holes, trailing my fingertips around the bell and swallows. I would finish smoothing the cuts today; tomorrow I would ready the pieces for fitting together.

  Now that the California winter was about to begin, the three months of drenching Micheil said to expect, the glue would take longer to set, the varnish longer to dry. But come spring, likely March, just before my child would be born, the dulcimer would be ready to play.

  I stood back, resting my hand on my abdomen, considering the instrument. It would be done in time to play lullabies to my child. I pictured the place I would play, and the image of Zeb’s and my home in Oak Hill filled my mind.

  The image was dark, frightening, and I caught my breath. I tried to replace it with the warmth and sunlight of the cottage, the music of the surf and calling gulls, the scent of the sea air. I pictured myself rocking my baby
in the chair beneath the gazebo, but Oak Hill would not leave my mind.

  I bit my lip, feeling the old dark fears slipping into my heart. How could I return to my old life, even if Zeb forgave me—and I forgave him—and we started over?

  I stared at the dulcimer pieces, scattered across the workbench, knowing as a certainty that when the instrument was finished, it would be time to leave.

  Time to return to Oak Hill and Zeb.

  I again bent over the soundboard. “God, help me,” I whispered. “I don’t think I can do what you require of me.” I smoothed the edge of the mission bell, lightly drawing a small cut of sandpaper across the edges of the opening. “I cannot.”

  Twenty-Eight

  That night my fears returned. I tossed and twisted in my blankets and counterpane, willing sleep to come. The clock in the kitchen ticked endlessly on, and the distant surf pounded the shore. Finally, I fell into a troubled sleep. Dreams filled my mind, from sitting at Selah’s table for elderberry tea to hunting ginseng for Poppy.

  My old fears pounded my heart as the asylum rose dark and forbidding in my mind. I was running from the place, looking back over my shoulder at its towering brick sides and startling white dome. On and on I ran, my legs leaden, my feet sinking into the soil beneath me.

  Monstrous shadows pursued me, faces hidden, bodies taller than the four-story pillars at the front of the asylum.

  Panting, I tried harder to run, only to sink into the ground as if in quicksand. Just as I thought I might sink entirely to the bottom of the pit, I found myself in San Juan and hurried up a path that led from the ocean cliffs to the mission.

  I moved with agility now, almost seeming to float above the path. The mission loomed tall and white against the gray skies.

  I found myself at the gate, aware that the monstrous shadows still followed at a distance.

  I stepped through and called out to Micheil, to anyone who might still be working there. But the courtyard was deserted. Only the hollow echo of my voice came back to me.

  I ran through the dead gardens, skirted the pond, now stagnant again, and looked into the dark sanctuary.

  “Micheil?” I called, walking slowly down the center aisle. “Are you still here?”

  In its utter silence, the place loomed dark and frightening, its painted statues seeming to mock me. My heart pounding, I hurried outside again, only to be met by another blast of wind.

  “Micheil?” I called again. “Micheil?”

  Perhaps he was in the plaza. I gathered my courage as a greater darkness descended—from the skies and within me. Almost sobbing now, I ran through the arches. “Micheil!”

  I stopped by the fountain, breathing hard, my heart thudding against my ribs. Zeb would come for me. I knew it. The terror of his confrontation, his carting me off to some asylum brought terror and images of wolves pursuing my soul. Dark-shadowed, with bared teeth, snarling, growling … the images crept closer once more.

  I ran to the carpenter’s shop, but it was empty. Not even my dulcimer remained. Frantically I tried to find it.

  It was symbolic of myself, and without it I would disappear.

  Leaning against the adobe wall, I tried to catch my breath, to still my heart, my breathing. The harder I tried, the more breath squeezed from my lungs.

  “Lord, help me!” I cried. “Please, help me!”

  At once a figure stood before me, his face so alight with love I couldn’t bear to gaze into it for longer than a heartbeat.

  I am with you, beloved.

  I recognized it at once, with its sound of rushing winds and bubbling waters, with its music of a thousand dulcimers and harps and lutes.

  I have been with you all along.

  “I’m just beginning to understand.” I swallowed hard, feeling my fears dissipate in his presence. “Sometimes my fears are too great for me to believe it.”

  I felt the warmth of love move nearer as he reached for my hand. His big hand tightened, solid and warm, around mine.

  He led me through a graveyard I hadn’t noticed before. A place of death. I shivered and clasped his hand yet tighter. I knew if I let go, the fears would come again.

  We stepped into a meadow filled with bluets and buttercups. I smiled in recognition. A young woman sang and danced in the center of the meadow, her arms outstretched. She looked happy, carefree, young. So young. Her hair was the color of sunlight, her eyes the hue of the mountain skies overhead.

  “ ’Tis me,” I whispered.

  A shadow fell over the meadow in the shape of a man. Before I saw him coming up the trace, I knew it was Zeb. He walked over to the young woman, taking long, confident strides. He caught the woman’s hands in his and whirled her around the meadow.

  My heart caught when I saw the desire in his eyes, the desire for all that the young woman might bring him. The power he held over her at that moment. He was offering the one thing she couldn’t refuse, an opening of her closed world.

  Then I trembled as I saw the fire in the young woman’s eyes, when I saw how desperate she was to achieve her longings.

  Just when I thought I couldn’t bear to watch the two faces any longer, I noticed a third figure in the meadow. I knew at once he had been there all along, only I hadn’t noticed. His face was filled with sorrow, for he knew what lay ahead.

  He stood next to her, beseeching her without words to follow him. He offered her hope and the light and love and comfort of his presence, but the young woman looked through him into Zeb’s eyes.

  I dropped my hand from the One who now stood beside me and covered my face with my hands. “I can no longer look,” I whispered. “The sorrow is too great.”

  And when I looked again, we were in Oak Hill. Charlotte and Zebulon were standing near a window in the second story of their house, Zeb beside them. His parents wore looks of scorn, Zeb’s expression was a mix of exasperation, determination, and confusion. Below the house in the garden, the young woman sat with a dulcimer in her lap.

  Her face was a portrait of sorrow and shame. Her fears rose like a stench, forming thoughts I could see.

  I am unworthy.

  I am unlovable.

  I am undesirable.

  I am lonely.

  I am afraid.

  I started to look away, unable to bear the memory.

  Then again, I saw the young woman was not alone. Someone stood beside her, a look of compassion on his face, as if he could feel every harsh word being spoken. He reached for the woman’s hand, but she was too filled with the horror of what she had heard to notice.

  Her face crumpled into a mask of failure and sorrow, yes even self-pity, and she turned away from the One who loved her, the One who wanted to share her heavy burden, who knew her innermost thoughts.

  When she looked up again, her face had taken on a new look, one of defiance, brittleness, pigheadedness, and spite.

  “I used my husband,” I whispered. “I used him to get what I wanted. Escape from spinsterhood. Knowledge of the world. An education. I thought I loved him, but”—I looked down, ashamed—“in the end I used him for all these things.”

  I turned to the One beside me. “You were with me all along.”

  The love in his face was my answer.

  “It would have been easier to bear if I’d known,” I said. “If I had only known.”

  Next I saw the home Zeb and I built together outside Oak Hill. Its sweeping green hills, weeping willows, even my lush gardens. Zeb’s prized Arabians prancing in the white-fenced corral.

  Memories flooded my mind. Every harsh word Zeb had spoken to me, every criticism, every look that said I disappointed him, they all poured in, filling me with darkness.

  They rolled around in my mind like storm clouds, mixing with the failures and spitefulness I knew now had grown like a cancer in my own heart. I shuddered and hung my head in shame, the memories too much to bear.

  Beloved, he said with his voice of rushing rivers and gentle wind, I felt your every heartache. I loved you even when you
didn’t love yourself.

  “He betrayed me,” I whimpered, my voice small.

  He didn’t speak about Zeb’s sins, and I knew his life was not mine to know, his betrayals were between his God and him.

  Tears trailed down my cheeks. “I cannot bear it. I don’t want to see any more.”

  His presence was nearer now, and I felt the light of his love flood into me until the darkness was no more. Look again, beloved, he said. Look now.

  And I did. I saw the fluttering of the red-and-white-checked tablecloths in the breeze, Zeb’s colleagues, our acquaintances from town, and the storm clouds building in the distance. Heat flooded my face, and I caught my hand to my mouth. “Oh no,” I murmured. “I cannot. The pain is too great.” The dark would surely come now, a shadow too dense, too great to find my way out.

  I had seen them that day, locked in an embrace. Zeb and Jeannie.

  I started to weep, knowing that when I saw the young woman standing with her husband upon the dais and heard the love song she sang to him, my heart would break once more.

  For now I knew, looking deep into my heart, that I had loved Zeb after all. My fears of rejection, of not fitting in, my fear of failing him in this new life, had kept me from giving my heart to him.

  When I saw him in Jeannie’s arms, my pain had come from that place within.

  If I hadn’t loved him, he would not have had the power to hurt me so by his betrayal with another woman, by his suggestion of locking me away.

  “She looks so young,” I said. “And scared.”

  His voice was filled with compassion and understanding. You were still a child, beloved.

  I couldn’t hear the words the young woman spoke, or even those she sang when Zeb joined her on the platform. But I saw the sorrow on Zeb’s face, his knowledge of his own betrayal.

  Spread before the young couple was the beautiful house they had built together, the sweeping acreage and fine Arabian horses, but now, as I watched, they crumbled into broken dreams, broken lives, broken spirits.