How Sweet the Sound

by Jacquelin Thomas

  A moment later, Thornton tapped off a slow, steady beat. “All right, follow my lead.”

  Foot tapping filled the room and the four led the choir in a soul-stirring medley of spirituals.

  Later, with the choir’s plan in place and arrangements made for one more “rehearsal,” Carys and Thornton finally made it to their initial destination, the parking lot.

  “The class picnics will be starting soon,” Thornton said. “Were you planning to go?”

  “My sorority is sponsoring it.”

  “That’s too bad,” Thornton said.

  She raised an eyebrow. “That the sorority is in charge?”

  A smile tilted his mouth. “No, that you’re not available.”

  Their gazes met and held. Carys’s breath caught. Was she supposed to infer another meaning to his comment? Whether intentional or not, she’d picked up on something besides a conversation about the alumni reunion picnic.

  “About last night…” she started.

  Thornton reached for her hand. “It was my fault,” he said. He traced the hairline of her face, tucking in a stray curl. “Let’s really catch up.”

  Carys closed her eyes for a moment, reveling in his gentle touch. Then the reality of the moment caught up with her. She was a widow with a grandchild. He was one of the nation’s most prominent preachers. What they’d shared twenty-five years ago couldn’t be replicated now. Could it?

  “Catch up on what?” she asked him.

  “How I let the woman I loved get away from me.”

  Chapter Five

  Thornton wasn’t sure who was more surprised at his words, Carys or himself. They’d sprung from a place deep inside, a place that recognized though he’d loved his wife with all his being, he still had room there for this lovely woman, someone he’d never really stopped loving.

  He realized that the atmosphere, being on the campus again, reliving old memories, finding Carys widowed—and therefore available?—all contributed to the complexity of emotions ricocheting through him. He wasn’t the gangly kid he’d been all those years ago. He could ask a woman out without getting tongue-tied and sweaty palms.

  At least he hoped that was the case.

  Instead of playing coy with him, Carys laughed. Which confused him.

  “T.C., you sly dog. It’s always the quiet ones.”

  His confusion must have shown on his face.

  “All right,” she said. “I’ll play hooky with you from the picnic if you promise to tell me who the mystery woman was.”

  Thornton’s brow furrowed. “Mystery woman?”

  She nodded. “The one you loved and let get away.”

  Was she serious or pulling his leg?

  Not too much later, they settled in at a booth at a restaurant near the campus.

  “You were that woman, Carys,” he told her. “I think I fell for you the moment I saw you.”

  Stunned, Carys stared at him. A thousand different thoughts rushed through her head, chief among them the what-ifs. What if she’d been strong enough to defy her parents and marry T.C. or someone like him? What might the last two decades have been like? What if, what if, what if?

  “You never let on,” she said, her tone almost accusing. “You never said anything.”

  “What was I supposed to say? I had little to offer a woman like you.”

  “What do you mean, a woman like me?”

  He reached for sweetener to add to his iced tea. “You were wealthy, a campus queen. I was a country boy, who’d transferred in from a junior college few people around here had ever even heard of. I didn’t run with the right cliques. Stood no chance of even being accepted into them.”

  “But you were the sweetest guy I knew. I could always come to you with my problems.”

  Thornton nodded. “Even then I think my calling as a counselor and minister was evident, though I didn’t know it.”

  Considering who she’d been at that time, Carys nodded. “You know, you’re probably right. I wouldn’t have been receptive to you then. I was too afraid of rocking the boat in my family. That’s why I married Carl.”

  “Tell me about him.”

  Carys took a deep breath and leaned back. She closed her eyes for a moment. “There’s not much to tell. He was a man like my father. A surgeon. Prominent. Wealthy. Domineering.”

  “He hurt you?”

  She shook her head. “No. In our relationship, I did the hurting.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I didn’t love him,” she said. “Not the way I should have.” She picked up her fork and moved lettuce and a cherry tomato around on her plate. “That’s the only thing he ever wanted from me—for me to be in love with him. I never gave him my heart.”

  Thornton’s gaze met hers. “Why?”

  Carys’s eyes filled with tears. “I don’t know. It just wasn’t in me, I suppose.”

  He reached in his jacket pocket, pulled out a handkerchief and pressed it into her hand. “I didn’t mean to make you cry.”

  She shook her head. “You didn’t.” But she wiped at her eyes anyway. “I’ve been nothing but a leaky faucet since the moment I got here. Too many memories, I guess. Being here, seeing everybody again gives me too many moments to wonder what-if. Twenty-five years, T.C. It’s been twenty-five years. Where did the time go?”

  “It went into raising your kids, into living each moment to the best of your ability at any given time,” he said. “There’s no reason to look back with regret.”

  “What about you?” Carys asked as she folded his handkerchief. “Is there anything you regret about the time spent since graduating?”

  He shook his head. “Every step of the way, for better or for worse, led me here. I can’t regret that.”

  Carys smiled. “You’re still a philosopher.”

  “No, just a realist.”

  Their server appeared at the table and refilled their iced tea glasses. “Can I take these away?” Neither had put a dent on the large salads before them. “Would you like a couple of boxes?”

  After looking to Carys who shook her head, Thornton said, “No, but thank you.”

  “You know what I would like, though,” Carys said.

  “What’s that?”

  “Dessert.”

  The server laughed. “You barely touched your meal, but you want dessert? I like your style! The house specialty is a hot fudge double-brownie sundae made especially for sharing.”

  “Up to you,” Thornton said.

  “Sounds decadent,” Carys said. “We’ll take it.”

  While they waited for the brownie to bake, Carys asked him about his ministry.

  “Shortly after I was called to be senior pastor at New Providence, my wife died. Talk about being adrift and without a raft. My new church family was incredibly supportive, but there I was with this baby girl and no idea how to raise her.”

  “What’d you do?”

  “Hollered for Mama,” Thornton said on a laugh. “My mother came to live with me, to take care of Lydia while I worked and ministered. Before long, I’d established a pattern, a way of coping with both the grief and my loneliness.”

  “That’s the hardest part,” Carys said. “The being alone. But it’s also the most liberating, at least in my opinion. Why didn’t you ever remarry?”

  He shrugged. “I didn’t have time. My ministry took off. The church grew from two hundred members to twelve hundred, then a couple of thousand. Today, there are about four thousand members. We do three services every Sunday and offer support ministries to both members and people in the community.”

  “And you write books.”

  Thornton smiled. “And lead seminars and maintain a full travel schedule.”

  “I guess that doesn’t leave time for much else.”

  “And that is exactly what my problem is,” he told her. “I fill my calendar jammed so I don’t have to face the truth.”

  “What truth?”

  “That I’ve tried to fill the emptiness with bu
syness.”

  Shaking her head slightly, Carys must have looked as bemused as she felt.

  “What?” he inquired.

  “None of it shows,” she said. “I saw you on television once. I’ve read your books. You must do a lot of hiding behind facades.”

  “I don’t hide my emotions,” Thornton said. “At least I don’t think so. Whenever I’m going through something, it comes out. The Lord works on preachers just like he works on everybody else. I have my own issues. Like most people, some are private. Others are public.”

  “Well, it’s pretty easy to see when I’m an emotional wreck,” Carys said. “It shows here,” she said, lightly touching the area near her eyes. “And here,” she said as she placed a hand over her heart. “I used to carry a song in my heart.”

  “What’s there now?”

  She smiled and it was like old times, baring her heart and boyfriend troubles to T.C. “Before I arrived on campus this weekend there was nothing but a hollow emptiness there, like a bass drum cylinder without the membrane to give it sound.”

  “And now?”

  She smiled at him. “Now I hear humming, like the gently swelling melody of a forgotten love song.”

  Both the moment and her words carried an expectant note. The voices of other diners and the muted clink of silver on china faded to nothing when Thornton gazed into her eyes.

  He leaned forward. So did she.

  His hand covered hers. Carys’s gaze dipped to the joining, then returned to his face.

  “Carys.”

  “Yes, T.C.?”

  “I’ve missed you so much.”

  She smiled. “I’ve missed you, too.”

  “Carys?”

  “Yes?”

  “Do you know what I want to do?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Do you mind?”

  “Stop talking, T.C.”

  When his lips covered hers, it was like a soft rain on a spring day, like coming home after a long absence. The kiss was meant to be.

  She lifted her hand, caressed his face. He captured her hand and squeezed it.

  “I didn’t have the nerve to kiss you when I was nineteen going on twenty. I’ve always wondered what I missed out on.”

  “And now that you know?”

  He grinned. “Better than expected.”

  Her answering laugh eased the tension a bit. “You’re a mess, T.C.”

  “And you’re still as beautiful as the day I met you.”

  Three tables away, two women craned their necks trying to see what was happening at Carys and Thornton’s table.

  “I’m telling you, that is Pastor Holloway over there.”

  “Move over some. Let me see. If he’s kissing on someone, it ought to be Melva.”

  “Well, unless Melva has lost about thirty pounds, put some extensions in her hair and started looking and dressing like she’s headed to a country club, I’d say that’s not her.”

  “Ooh, where’s my cell phone,” the other woman said as she reached for her purse. “Just wait till I tell Gloria about this.”

  “Well, I think it’s nice,” her companion said.

  “You think it’s nice that he’s stepping out on Melva?”

  The woman chuckled, but the sound wasn’t amused. “No, I think it’s nice that we finally have some proof that Dr. Thornton Holloway is human like all the rest of us.”

  Kissing T.C.—Thornton—had seemed so right, their time together had been filled with laughter and light and had ended with a kiss that held sweet promise.

  Now, however, Carys felt conflicted. She’d hoped that attending the reunion would enable her to disengage from some of the emptiness she’d been feeling lately. But instead of getting her head and her act together, she was making herself more confused. She’d hoped that in returning to the place where she’d made decisions that affected her entire life, she might find a new clarity, a new beginning for this second part of her life. What she’d stumbled into, though, were all of the not quite forgotten fragments of her youth. A youth spent subjugating her own dreams while being the obedient young woman and wife.

  She was forty-seven years old. Wasn’t that old enough to start living for herself?

  “I hope that dreamy look in your eyes was put there by a man. Maybe T. C. Holloway?”

  Lynn’s remark jerked Carys out of her reverie. The sorority sisters were at a tea with the younger members of the organization. Having had a full lunch with Thornton, one that consisted primarily of a rich chocolate brownie and homemade vanilla ice cream, Carys didn’t touch the finger sandwiches or petit fours, but did sip at a cup of tea.

  She reached for that cup now. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “Um-hmm,” Lynn said with a knowing smirk. “I didn’t see you at the picnic.”

  Carys glanced at her friend, then looked to her left and right to make sure no one was listening. “All right,” she whispered. “T.C. and I left and had lunch together. No big deal.”

  “No big deal?” Lynn’s voice carried so loud that several people turned toward them.

  “Shh,” Carys shushed her.

  Lynn leaned toward Carys, her voice low. “No big deal? You two were made for each other.”

  Carys rolled her eyes as Lynn turned her attention to the speaker. “Shh.”

  She was trying to sort out her burgeoning, not to mention complicated, feelings about T.C. There had always been an attraction between them. She didn’t need or want Lynn to point out something that now, in hindsight, seemed so obvious. But she wouldn’t trade the journey she’d ultimately taken—at least not most of it. She’d had a decent life, a pampered life. And she also had two terrific kids who’d never caused her any of the heartache that some of her friends’ children caused them.

  The only problem with Carys was Carys—her perception of what she’d spent the time since college doing. And perception, she knew, was just as, if not more powerful, than reality.

  Carl had been gone for more than a year now. She knew women whose husbands were barely in the grave before they’d started dating again with remarriage the goal and as soon as possible.

  For Carys, it wasn’t so much a matter of time as it was degree. She’d spent two decades of her life being Mrs. Carlton Shaw. And before that she’d been Carys Chappelle, daughter of Dr. and Mrs. Chappelle. For her entire life she’d accepted and worn labels put on by other people. For the first time, she felt as if she were finally—at long, long last—coming into her own.

  She was enjoying just being Carys.

  Then T.C. showed up wreaking havoc in her carefully controlled and modulated world.

  She wasn’t naive enough to think that a few songs and a kiss during a weekend fraught with reminiscences of how it used to be and what might have been equated with a long-term future or walking down the aisle with T.C. But just being here, thrust into an environment that made her question her own independence, was enough to send Carys running home to her big empty house.

  What might it be like to live in a small one- or two-bedroom apartment? A condo that she’d picked out all by herself just for herself or maybe even a town house with an extensive flower garden that she maintained—without the assistance of professional landscapers?

  Those were the types of thoughts that had crowded her mind in recent months. Now, though, she found herself questioning even those desires. A favorite Scripture from her college days came to mind: “Delight thyself also in the Lord, and He shall give thee the desires of thine heart.”

  What did her heart desire? To sing a new song? One of joy and peace and everlasting love? Or did she, at least for now, need to continue on the lonesome and sometimes wretched road with her soul crying out for mercy, for sustenance?

  Carys closed her eyes for a moment, praying a jumbled prayer, not quite sure what, exactly, she sought entreaty for from the Lord.

  “Carys?”

  Her eyes popped open. “What?”

  “Get up there,” Lynn prompted. “They�
�re trying to honor you.”

  She glanced around. “Honor me? For what?”

  “A service award,” Lynn said. “Go on.”

  Slowly, the faces of the women around her registered on Carys—sorority sisters of all ages, from newly pledged undergrads to sorors in the emeritus class who’d graduated from the college more than fifty years ago. Many of those faces looked expectedly upon her now.

  “Go on,” Lynn urged.

  Putting aside her thoughts of Thornton, Carys rose to applause from the group. The sound swelled, carrying her to the podium where the presiding soror waited.

  This was something she knew how to do—put on the gracious public face she’d learned to wear as the wife of a prominent surgeon. A moment later though, a genuine smile emerged when she was presented with the sorority’s Alumna of the Year award.

  “For your tireless support for and mentoring of young women,” the senior sorority sister said.

  Accepting the engraved plaque, Carys shook her head. “This doesn’t belong to me,” she told the ladies assembled for the tea. “It belongs to all of you, all of you who have ever taken a moment of your day to offer assistance to someone in need. That half an hour or hour you spent meant the world to someone. All I’ve done is make sure that the steps I take leave a path for someone to follow.”

  She then told them the story about a young single mom she’d met who was working at a dry cleaner’s and the young woman’s struggle to succeed despite the odds stacked against her. “What she needed,” Carys said, “was an opportunity.” As she finished, she called out several of the volunteers she’d worked with throughout the year, highlighting each woman’s work or sacrifice with a mentoring program that helped women like the one who worked at the dry cleaner’s. “These are the ladies who should be receiving this award today,” she said. “I’m honored to be standing here representing them.”

  After thanking the committee and assorted officials, Carys made her way back to her seat where she got a hug from Lynn.

  “That was excellent,” Lynn said, wiping her eyes. “Just excellent.”