by Karen Welch
Emily had to laugh. “I promise. And I hated lying to all of you, really I did. It just seemed the simplest thing to do. I thought about telling you I was invited to Florida for Christmas, which I was, but I knew you'd never believe that.” Turning wide eyes up to him, she wondered what his response might be. That brief visit to the home of her only aunt had been a memorable disaster.
He scowled down at her. “You're darned right. I still think I should have called the authorities down there. You sure can get yourself into some fixes, young lady. First your aunt and her 'parties' and now a half-dead boy wandering into the yard. You sure you can be trusted on your own here?”
“I'm sure. Pop knew what he was doing, don't you think?”
“Maybe. Or maybe it was just time. Maybe you're ready now. I know one thing, it was lucky for that boy you were here. But Em, that could have been a real tragedy. You two could have been stuck here for a lot longer, or he could have died.”
Emily smiled up at him, a sweet little half-smile that instantly made him think of her mother again. “But he didn't, Jack.”
They continued to sit by the fire, talking of things past and things to be done. He would have the phone turned on, he said, so he wouldn't have to drive up here to check on her every day. She insisted that she'd be fine.
“All the same, the next man who wanders this way might not be so helpless.”
“I think I could defend myself,” she protested. To which Jack replied with a grunt that she probably could at that.
“You've grown up to be quite a force. How are you handling those college boys?”
“Just the way I handled the high school boys, I guess. I don't. I really haven't met anyone I wanted to waste that much time on.”
“Sensible; but don't think you won't fall for someone someday, usually when you least expect to. And when you do, all of this may not seem so important.” His gesture took in the whole of the valley. “Land and a house won't substitute for a family, Em. Don't expect them to.” She made no reply, but they both stared into the fire for a while, each considering what they knew of loneliness, she suspected. Finally, he stirred and in a weary voice said, “In the meantime, I think I'd better turn the water on for you.”
With a laugh that brought a dimple to one cheek, she nodded. “I really do need a shower.”
“And I guess I'd better see if Martha Jean’s has some shoes that will fit you.” The only ladies’ clothing shop in town, the boutique was run by the very enterprising Miss Martha Jean Clark. “What size do you need?”
“Eight, but I'm sure I'll find mine when the snow melts.” She couldn't imagine Jack picking out shoes for her.
“Well, you sure can't wear those things to church tomorrow night.” He pointed to her feet, still clad in Stani's ruined boots.
“Oh, dear. I never thought of that. I don't have anything with me that I could wear to church. I only brought jeans and sweaters, and most of those are dirty now. I'll have to stay home, but thanks for inviting me.”
“I wasn't inviting. Your father would never allow you to miss a Christmas Eve service. If he sent you up here, he surely expected you to go to church. I'll just have Martha Jean get something together for you. What size dress?”
She knew when she'd been overruled. “Martha Jean will know, and you'd better tell her 'from the skin out'.”
Jack grinned. “Got it. Now let me see if I can find a pipe wrench.”
Emily slept that night on a pallet of clean linens. She had repeated dreams of snow, falling and blowing, and finally gleaming in the sunlight. But there was no fear in her dreams. She woke sometime during the night to stare at the moonlight streaming through the window. The angel on the mantel glowed in the soft light, and she thought sleepily that it was smiling down at her. She had always believed in miracles, and now she believed she had lived through one. She looked forward to being in church late on Christmas Eve, to singing hymns about angels and shepherds, and to giving thanks for prayers answered and a miraculous homecoming.
Chapter Twelve
That night the two of them waited at the hospital in Manhattan for Stani's arrival. They said little to each other, blessedly occupied filling out various forms and arranging for the private suite Stani would stay in while he recovered. When the ambulance arrived at well past midnight and the stretcher was rolled in, they rushed to meet him, concerned smiles glued to their faces. Not until that first sight of him, only his face visible beneath the bandages, his motionless body completely swathed in layers of white blankets, did they grasp the gravity of the situation. His face was pale and bruised. His eyelids, almost translucent, never fluttered. There was no indication that he knew they were there. Milo was reluctant to touch him, but Jana sought under the blankets and found his hand.
Once Stani had been taken into a treatment room, where the doctors and nurses began to work over him, stripping away the blankets and hanging the IV fluid bag and the sack of dark red blood above him, they were allowed to come to his side for few minutes. He seemed so small, Jana thought, as if he had been deflated. His breathing seemed normal, but other than the rise and fall of his chest, he was absolutely still. A doctor talked to Milo, explaining that Stani was heavily sedated, but not in a coma. Although his head injury was serious, it did not appear life-threatening. As soon as the surgical team was assembled, they would operate to repair his shoulder.
Escorted back to the corridor by a sympathetic young nurse, they discovered the Virginia State Trooper, who had accompanied the ambulance, waiting for them. In his hands were Stani’s blood-stained overcoat and a bag containing some of Stani's clothes and his wallet. He talked with them briefly about the accident, and Jana asked how Stani had been found.
Though the details were still sketchy, he explained, it seemed that Stani must have walked a good distance from the car. Yesterday at around one in the afternoon, six hours after the car had been discovered, he was spotted by a local resident. He had been taken into a farmhouse and there he had spent the next eighteen hours. The power had been knocked out by the storm, and there was no telephone in the house. Earlier today, the county sheriff, a personal friend of this resident, had come by to check on things and discovered Stani there. The ER physician had credited Stani's condition at the time he finally reached the hospital to the quick thinking of the woman who had found him.
“A woman?” Milo pictured a strong country woman, with weathered face and rough hands, carrying Stani in out of the storm.
“I can get her name for you if you'd like to get in touch with her.”
“Please. That's an amazing story.” Milo's voice trailed off as the doors opened and Stani was wheeled past them, now prepared for surgery. The officer looked after him, shaking his head.
“It’s really a miracle that he walked away. The officer at the scene said he must have been thrown from the car before it hit the tree. The other two died on impact. There was nothing to indicate that a third person was ever in the car, or there would have been a search party. The whole thing defies reason, when you think about it.”
“Who were the other two people in the car? We don't even know where he had been that night.” Jana struggled to understand as much as possible of what had happened. She would need to explain these things to Stani when he woke up.
Consulting his notepad, the officer read off the names of the victims. The driver had been Mark Stevenson of Albany, New York. The other passenger was a woman named Elizabeth Mason, from Manhattan.
Milo recognized the man's name immediately. The already notorious son of a powerful political family, his death would be headline news. But what possible connection could Stani have had to him? Whatever the circumstances, he would need to act quickly to shield Stani from the kind of publicity this was certain to generate.
Betsy was dead. Jana's first thought was to wonder if Stani had been in love with her. If so, how would he react to the news of her death? She began to prepare herself for what lay ahead. The next weeks, perhaps even months,
would require all of her energy. Stani would need her, not only to nurse him back to health but also to help him accept the inevitable changes in his life.
They followed Stani through the swinging doors and into the surgical unit of the hospital. A nurse directed them to a sitting room where they could wait; or if they would prefer to go home, she would see that they were called when the surgery was over. It would most likely be several hours, wouldn't they like to go home and get some rest? They would wait, Milo said. The streets were treacherous. Better not to risk going out now.
They sat side by side, each beginning to absorb the reality of this night. Glancing at Milo, Jana recognized the look of grim determination in his tired face. She placed her hand over his, without saying a word, letting him know that she understood how difficult this was for him. To have to sit and wait, when his mind was already running to all he would need to do to safeguard Stani's career until he was healed. They had been together for so long, they easily read each other's thoughts. She knew Milo was blaming himself, fearing that the boy he had invested his life's work in might never be the same, even when the doctors had done their best for him. She would need to be strong for Milo as much as for Stani. As if in response to her promised support, Milo patted her hand gently, continuing to stare at the blank wall opposite. She knew that in fact he was staring at the vision in his mind, planning, calculating, reasoning his way around the fear.
She had known him all her life, it seemed. She had been twelve years old, barely adjusted to her new life in the strange little world that was Oxford, when her father had brought home a student, a Hungarian like themselves, he had said by way of introduction to the tall, gaunt boy who still wore the wariness of a refugee in his dark eyes. She had come to England in a move sanctioned by her father’s position at the university, while Milo had arrived by a very different road, as he and his parents had slipped out of Eastern Europe just ahead of the rumbling that threatened the security of even the most prosperous Jewish households. For over a year, they had journeyed quietly, finally reaching out to Jana’s father, an old acquaintance from that other world, now forever closed to them.
Twelve years old, and a tiny girl at that, she knew Milo Scheider saw her as a mere child, yet he was none the less admiring of one who had already committed her life to music. But Jana had instantly fallen in love with his intense dedication, his aspirations to make a mark in this new world, and of course his dark good looks. Already elegant in dress and manner, with much of the old world reflected in his impeccable English, he was her girlish fantasy, quickly becoming her womanly ambition. If the truth be known, had he not come for her once she was old enough to be interesting, she knew she would have found her way to him.
Milo had dedicated himself to acquiring an education, to building a new life and to providing for his parents and making them proud of his efforts. He had shown little interest in the daughter of his mentor until years later, by which time Jana had absorbed all there was to know about him and expanded her commitment to include joining him in whatever endeavor he chose. Always, what Milo wanted had come first, ahead of any ambition of her own. Ironically, it had been her talent as a pianist that had eventually provided him with his direction.
The life they built did not allow for the addition of children, which suited both of them; but then Stani had come along to force them into at least the semblance of a family. Stani had focused the two of them on one goal, had in fact brought warmth to the businesslike rhythm of their marriage. Just as in those early years, when they had carefully molded a space around the gifted little boy, reshaping their routine and always considering the next move with an eye to his future, tonight they sat together in the stark, sterile waiting room, both afraid to anticipate the next turn.
Looking again at Milo’s profile, Jana tried to swallow the tears that threatened. She rarely cried. Why the sight of his finely sculpted features, etched now with lines of weariness and worry, should cause this overpowering sadness, she wasn’t sure. Most likely, it was the knowledge that behind the tightly held composure, Milo’s heart was weighed down with as much fear as her own. What would they do if Stani’s career, or God forbid his life, were over? He might not have been the child of their bodies, but he had been the child of their mutual effort. His sweet willingness to become whatever they required, his undemanding adoration, expressed in childish gestures and the unwavering effort to please, had been their reward. Without Stani, who would they be? How would they identify themselves without Stani’s career to move their lives forward into comfortable old age? It was those questions—born of fear as Stani passed through those doors to an uncertain future, fear she would never voice to Milo—that brought tears to her eyes. It was that same fear that made her certain she would do whatever she could to see that they never learned the answers.
Three hours, Milo thought, then the recovery room, the nurse had said. He could have accomplished a great deal in three hours. But it was the middle of the night now. There was no one to call, in an effort to learn what had happened in the past two days of Stani's life. They were so much together, the three of them, traveling, touring, rehearsing, performing. Even at home, they were in constant discussion over new music, tour schedules, arguing amiably over the merits of this conductor or that orchestra. It was unusual for them to be separated for more than a day or two. Milo had been tired lately, lacking his normal energy. He was after all getting older. He and Jana had talked for years of taking a vacation, just the two of them. They had decided at the last minute to take four days and go to Aspen. Stani had not objected to going to Washington on his own. He had made other overnight trips, to perform in Boston and Philadelphia. They should go, he said, have some fun. He would be fine. What had happened? How had he ended up lost, wandering in the woods, miles from Washington? How had he come to be in a car with Mark Stevenson? If in fact he was the son of that state senator, what was he doing traveling with Stani and the girl, Betsy?
Stani had obviously been acquainted with Betsy Mason, she had phoned him at the hotel. They had been seen leaving together. But where did this other man come into the picture? He would never know until he could find someone who had seen them along the way. He didn't even know where they had been that night, where to begin looking for the trail. He would have to hire an investigator, who could make discreet inquiries on his behalf. He'd had great success with that sort of thing in London when he'd found John Kimble.
During the year Stani turned ten years old, Milo had received a series of disturbing letters. The first, from a man identifying himself as Harry Moss, had been a birthday card for “my son.” It had arrived in July. Stani's birthday was in April. Milo hadn't mentioned it to Jana, but it had concerned him enough that he had stopped allowing Stani to ride the bus alone to his lessons. By that time, there had been several publicized concerts, featuring a formal photograph of Stani in his tuxedo, proudly holding his violin. There had also been a small layout in one of the pictorial magazines, showing the boy as he went through his busy routine of lessons and rehearsals, as well as a photo of him with Jana at the park near their flat. Milo couldn't imagine that this man wanted to harm Stani, but still, one could never be too cautious.
When the second letter came, a brief note stating that he “knew what Milo was up to” and he intended to take care of his own, Milo had tried to make some inquiries on his own. The letters had been postmarked from a little town in the Scottish lowlands, not far from the border with England. He'd had a vague impression that Stani's father had returned to Glasgow when he left his family, but a small rural village might be an easier starting place. Telephoning the post office, he had asked if by chance Harry Moss was known to them. He said he was an old friend from Harry's days in the London pubs, and had heard Harry might be living there now. He might have some work for Harry if he could be located.
The woman at the post office had said with some disdain that she might have heard the name, but she didn't give out that kind of information over the tele
phone. If he was so anxious to find this Moss, he could direct a letter to him in care of the post office, and she'd see if he could be located.
Milo had done just that, composing a very sympathetic letter assuring Harry Moss that the boy was well and happy. While he could understand a father's concern for his son's welfare, he wrote, he felt it would be in the child's best interest to leave him in the secure environment he'd come to consider his home. He'd sent the letter off, and at the same time he'd begun to look around for someone to act as bodyguard for the boy.
They had been fortunate indeed to find John Kimble. A former police investigator, John offered his services as a security escort and did a little private investigation on the side. He’d been intrigued by Milo's offer to take on the job of watching over a small boy whose talent impressed even his untrained ear. John quickly became part of the household, making himself useful as he kept an eye on Stani and Jana when they were home alone. Stani was fascinated with this mysterious man, who showed him how to lurk about unseen in the bushes at the park, but also had time for lengthy chess games, and even tried to teach him to play football.
Milo asked John to make some inquiries through those channels open only to the police. In the midst of this period, yet another letter arrived, stating that Harry had an opportunity to talk to a journalist about “their situation” and was seriously considering exposing Milo's “exploitation of the lad's God-given talent.” At last John had run him to ground in a tiny village on the southern coast of Scotland. Milo merely wanted proof, John told Harry Moss, that he was in fact Stani's father. Then he would be willing to work out an arrangement satisfactory to them both. All Harry could offer, other that some vague stories of Stani's first year of life, the color of his hair and the memory of Stani's mother as a cold, selfish girl, was a faded photograph of a toddler who could have been anyone's child.