Heartsong

by Melinda Cross

  Her mind played the bass part as he continued to play the treble, and then suddenly just playing the accompaniment in her mind wasn't enough. 'Chopsticks' wasn't 'Chopsticks' with only two hands on the keys. You just had to have four.

  She didn't remember actually crossing the room, sliding next to him on the piano bench, hesitating only a moment before her hands picked up the bass. All she knew was that suddenly they were side by side, both grinning down at the keyboard while the raucous sound of a counterpoint 'Chopsticks' rose from the concert grand with the sound of a syncopated symphony.

  They embellished, they ad-libbed, they inserted trills and arpeggios in totally inappropriate places, never thinking how odd it was that the world's most serious composer and the world's most serious pianist were accomplishing together what neither of them had ever accomplished alone: they were having fun with music.

  Finally, as if the ending had been carefully prearranged, they both struck a last triumphant chord then grinned sideways at each other over the keyboard, holding each other's eyes for a moment longer than was comfortable.

  Disconcerted, Madeline dragged her gaze from his to scowl down at their four hands resting on the keys. At first the silence was awkward, but within seconds it became unbearable. 'I want to paint the shutters,' she blurted out abruptly.

  His hands flinched on the keys. 'What?'

  Madeline pressed her lips together, her face reddening. 'The shutters,' she began to babble uncontrollably. 'I want to paint the shutters on the house because they're chipped and bare in a lot of places and the wood is going to rot if somebody doesn't take care of it soon and—'

  'Maddie.'

  She closed her mouth and her eyes abruptly and took a deep breath. 'What?' She couldn't bring herself to look at him.

  'I didn't bring you up here to paint that damn house. I don't want the shutters painted. Let them rot.'

  Her hair flew as she spun her head to face him, pale eyes snapping open with frustration. She had to concentrate to keep her voice steady. 'What is it with you and that house?'

  'I hate that house,' he said flatly.

  Madeline pursed her lips and frowned. 'That's crazy. Hating a building is crazy.' She hesitated a moment, her own words giving her pause. Was his hating the house any stranger than her loving it? 'You don't know how lucky you were, having a place like that,' she rambled on nervously. 'If you'd never had a home, if you'd never had a place that was always there, you'd understand just how lucky…' She stopped at the bright surge of disbelieving curiosity that suddenly brought his eyes to life.

  'You've never had a home?' he asked quickly, his hand reaching tentatively for hers.

  She jerked her hands down to her lap and stared at them, pursing her lips furiously. 'I had a lot of homes,' she mumbled.

  'Your family moved around a lot?'

  She shook her head, scowling now, but refused to look at him. 'I don't have a family. I spent my childhood in foster homes—a lot of them…'

  She could hear the steady sound of his breathing in the silence that followed, and finally raised her eyes tentatively to find him staring at her.

  'Paint the shutters, Maddie,' he said quietly. 'Paint the whole damn house if you want.'

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Wives did this sort of thing, Madeline mused as she strolled the streets of Brighton Square, shopping for paint for Elias's house. The thought, dangerously close to fantasy, lightened her heart. She stopped to peer into shop windows, she smiled and nodded at all the people she met, and, for a time at least, she felt that she belonged in this town, and that this town belonged to her. For this one afternoon, normally sombre and reclusive Madeline Chambers—a woman who dreaded the sidelong glances of strangers who marvelled at her odd pale appearance—had disappeared. There was no trace of that colourless creature in the reflection she saw in shop windows. Instead, there was a sun-kissed, smiling young woman, almost frivolous in a bright rose sundress that echoed the colour of her cheeks—a woman Madeline thought she might like.

  By the time she'd returned to Rosewood, Becky had gone home, Elias was sequestered in his studio, and the house and the grounds were hers alone. She exchanged the sundress for baggy jeans and an old T-shirt and went downstairs to paint.

  The faded, chipped green of the shutters surrounded the front windows, making them appear small and sleepy. Instinctively Madeline had decided against a matching green paint, choosing a brilliant white instead. Foolishly, childishly, she talked to the house as she dipped her brush and touched it to the first shutter. 'This will wake you up; see if it doesn't,' she muttered under her breath, her brush busy. 'You won't look empty and abandoned and closed up any more. You'll be different; you'll be changed, and all because I was here.' She worked diligently, carefully, lovingly; transforming the house as surely as she had transformed the rose garden.

  By the time she'd finished the shutters on the front the tan of her arms and face was spattered with white, strands of sweat-dampened hair dangled crazily down her forehead, and the sun had crept to its afternoon home in the western sky. Dripping brush clutched in one hand, she backed up and cocked her head at the house, assessing her work, smiling at what she saw.

  Sunlight glanced off the windows that now appeared huge, flinging white arms wide as if to welcome the world. The once-dull bricks seemed warm with a rosy glow, as if the house itself were blushing, a little embarrassed by a rather daring new suit of clothes.

  It's perfect, Madeline thought, stretching to ease the nagging ache of her shoulder muscles as her eyes roamed happily over the house. Just perfect…except that now the tangle of neglected shrubbery hugging the porch and the path-way looked more unkempt than ever.

  Without a second thought, she set aside her painting paraphernalia and plunged headlong into the jungle of untended foliage. By the time she was finished her hands were black with encrusted soil and the muscles in her back and arms were screaming in complaint, but one look at the front of the house made it all worth it. Shapely honeysuckle and blooming dogwood shrubs graced the entrance, with frivolous clusters of fragrant lily of the valley dotting the mulch at their base. Sighing, her hands pressed to the ache in the small of her back, Madeline backed away once again, brushing her soiled hands on the sides of her jeans.

  Now it's perfect, she thought and then her feet nearly left the ground as Elias spoke from behind her.

  'My God, Maddie.' He moved up to stand beside her, his eyes fixed in wonderment on the front of the house. 'First my music, then the rose garden, and now this… It seems that everything you touch comes to life.'

  Madeline felt her heart leap momentarily, and then still in her chest. Except you, she thought sadly. I can't bring you to life. Only Becky can do that.

  She glanced back at the house. 'I love this place,' she murmured.

  'You and my mother,' he chuckled sadly. 'She thought the sun rose and set on this little piece of ground.' He looked at her suddenly, frowning a little. 'What made you love the house so much, Maddie?'

  Madeline looked down at the ground, lips pressed together. 'When I was a kid,' she began softly, 'I used to dream of having a house of my own…a house I'd never have to leave.' She looked back up at the house and took a deep breath. 'It looked just like this one does.'

  Elias was silent for a moment, but she could feel his eyes on her. 'You said you had a foster family—'

  'I said I had a lot of them,' she corrected him automatically. 'I was never in one place for very long.'

  He fell silent again, perhaps imagining a childhood where no one, and no place, was permanent.

  The silence made her nervous. It meant he was thinking about what she'd said; probably pitying her, and she didn't want that. 'I told you why I loved the house,' she said suddenly, turning to him with an overly bright smile. 'It's only fair that you tell me why you hate it.'

  His features froze, and the green of his eyes seemed to darken as she watched. His smile was thin, laced with bitterness. 'I was happy here as a child, liv
ing with my mother, so I thought I would always be happy here, as if happiness were a place, and not a condition.'

  He paused and his jaw tightened. Madeline thought his eyes looked like two flat green stones. 'So I brought my wife here to live, after we were married. She hated the place; hated the isolation; and eventually she ended up hating me for bringing her here. I found her in bed with a man I'd thought was my friend—in the very bed you sleep in, as a matter of fact. That was the last day I set foot in this house—until you came.'

  Madeline felt his pain like a blow to her stomach, and the feeling was achingly familiar. She knew what it was like to give your heart, then suffer the silent blow of someone who didn't want it giving it back. She'd felt it a dozen times, every time she'd left another foster home.

  She looked at the rigid lines of his profile, the defensive set of his jaw, and in his face she saw the child she must have been; the child who struggled so hard to be brave; to pretend that rejection didn't hurt.

  The need to comfort was so strong it was almost an ache. She wanted to reach up and press her hand against his cheek, to ease the common pain that had bound her to him from the first time she'd heard echoes of her own despair in his music. She wanted to reach out, but the space between her and another human being was far too vast. Her hand quivered at her side, then stilled. 'I'm sorry,' she murmured.

  Elias took her shoulders and turned her gently to face him. 'Sorry?' he asked incredulously. 'My God, Maddie, why should you be sorry? Look what you've done. You've made me see it the way it was when my mother was alive, when the house was filled with love. You've made me realise what a fool I've been, letting one bad memory ruin years of the good ones I had in this place.' He bent forward to press his lips against her forehead. 'Thank you for that, Maddie,' he whispered.

  She dropped her head and stared at the paint-spattered toes of her tennis shoes. 'All I did was paint the shutters,' she mumbled, embarrassed.

  Elias gazed tenderly at the top of her bent head. When he finally spoke, his voice was a whisper. 'You have no idea what you are, do you, Maddie?'

  Madeline raised her eyes quickly to meet his; almost flinched at the depth of the emotion she saw shining there. Oh, no, she begged silently as his face descended towards hers. Oh, no, please don't do that, please don't kiss me, please don't be nice, don't even talk to me, because then I'll want it forever, and nothing is forever, and it hurts so much to keep learning that lesson again and again…

  His lips were the merest brush of a butterfly wing, and then he was at a safe distance again, smiling down at her. There. That wasn't so frightening. It hadn't been a man-to-woman kiss after all; more like the tender, gentle kiss of a father, or a brother, or a friend whose heart is filled with gratitude. There had been no passion in it. None at all. Madeline blinked rapidly to hold back the same tears she'd been holding back for most of her life.

  'We were supposed to be friends, remember?' he asked quietly.

  Madeline nodded, not trusting her voice.

  'So can two friends go out to dinner together?'

  Her lips quivered with the beginnings of a smile.

  'We'll celebrate. The music, the house…' his eyes fixed on hers '…friendship.'

  Madeline showered and dressed hurriedly in a simple, conservative dress of navy blue linen— the kind of dress one would wear to a dinner with friends. There was nothing seductive about the modest square neckline with its white trim, nothing suggestive in the way the fabric fell in a straight line from shoulder to hem, and that was good. She couldn't allow herself to think of this dinner as anything more than an interlude with a friend.

  She brushed her hair almost carelessly, letting it crackle over her shoulders in a silvery mist, then frowned curiously at her reflection. Her eyes looked different, as if there were a hint of green beneath the arctic grey. For one fanciful moment she wondered if even the wintriest heart held the promise of spring, trying to break through the icy shield of pretended indifference. If eyes are truly the windows to the soul, she thought, then mine are revealing too much. She scowled at her reflection, then turned quickly from the mirror.

  She'd expected to find Elias at the bottom of the stairs or, failing that, in the kitchen, the only other place in the house he seemed comfortable. It surprised her to finally find him waiting for her in the small parlour, perfectly at ease in a wing chair with his feet propped up on an ottoman.

  'There you are.'

  He looked up at her and smiled. 'Should I have left a trail of breadcrumbs?'

  She chuckled out loud, then started at the sound. How long had it been since she'd heard herself laugh? 'I've just never seen you in here before, that's all.'

  He glanced over at the baby grand piano in the corner, his eyes distant for a moment. 'I had my first piano lesson in this room, on that very piano. I was awful. My mother was the real pianist in the family.'

  Madeline walked over to the wall of photos and looked at one in particular; one of a young, gangly boy with an impish grin and dark hair falling over his forehead. She looked over her shoulder at him. 'Is this you?'

  He nodded. 'The one next to it is of my mother.'

  A young woman smiled at Madeline from the photo. She stood in the middle of the rose garden, surrounded by blooms. 'She looks a little like you in that photo,' Elias said from across the room.

  'No, she doesn't. She's beautiful.'

  'So are you, Madeline. Don't you know that?'

  The room was so silent she thought she could hear the sound of her heartbeat.

  He sighed and cleared his throat. 'I'm starved; how about you?'

  She turned with a smile that faltered a bit when she saw him rise from his chair, and wondered if the day would ever come when the simple sight of this man failed to move her. He was wearing trim, dark trousers and a white shirt that billowed away from his body with every movement. The contrast between his black hair and light skin seemed more pronounced now, as if she'd drawn her own new colour of health more from him than the sun. 'I'm ready.' And she nodded, walking over to take his offered arm.

  It felt right to Madeline, walking through the house they both loved arm-in-arm…too right; too perfect. She caught her lower lip between her teeth as they walked out of the house, towards the car. She knew what happened when things were too perfect.

  They ended.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Madeline and Elias ate supper at a crowded little Italian cafe tucked out of sight on one of the village's back-streets. 'It's not in the guidebooks,' Elias told her on the way in, 'but travellers seem to find it anyway. I think you'll like it.'

  Like so many of the great Italian eateries of the east, there were no pretensions here. No candles stuck in Chianti bottles, no red-checked tableclothes, no garish wall murals or straining violins. The interior of the place was almost spartan, with simple wooden tables and chairs, dark panelling, and dim lights. The only concession to atmosphere was a single candle on each table, held by its own drippings to a plain white plate.

  'They aren't much on ambience here.' Elias stated the obvious as he guided her past groups of diners to an empty table in the back.

  Madeline breathed in the mouth-watering redolence of fresh garlic and spices. 'I'm inhaling the ambience,' she replied, and he rewarded her with one of his rare smiles.

  Within the first five minutes what seemed like the entire staff—clearly all members of the same family—had come to the table to greet Elias like a long-lost son or brother. It surprised Madeline a little to see this reserved, contained man as the object of such demonstrative affection. What surprised her more, and charmed her as well, was that their obvious fondness for Elias spilled over to include her, simply because she was with him. She sat blushing at the table after they'd finally been left alone, a little overwhelmed by the unaccustomed attention, the noisy kisses of strangers still burning on her cheeks.

  'Sorry about that,' Elias said sheepishly, noting her discomfort. 'The Scarpellos are like family. They're very…
affectionate.'

  Madeline smiled tentatively, remembering the large man with the brilliantly white smile beaming down at her, saying, 'I approve, Elias. She's obviously not Italian, which is unfortunate, but, nevertheless, I approve.'

  'They're wonderful,' she murmured, still basking in the warm glow of such immediate acceptance, even though she hadn't known how to respond. Elias focused green eyes on hers with something like surprise. Later she ordered in flawless Italian, setting off a round of noisy, delighted accolades from the Scarpellos, leaving Elias looking more surprised than ever.

  'I didn't know you spoke Italian.'

  'I speak Italian food,' she corrected him. 'That's all.'

  Giorgio, the large man who had won her heart with his approval, brought a carafe of deep red burgundy to the table and presented it with a flourish, saying, 'From my own cellar. I must have known you were coming, Elias. I decanted this earlier.' He beamed at Madeline, passing her a nearly full glass. 'Drink,' he commanded. 'All great nights of love begin with wine.'

  Madeline blushed scarlet.

  'She's my pianist, Giorgio,' Elias put in hastily, 'not my lover.'

  'Simply a matter of time,' Giorgio proclaimed certainly as he bustled away to cater to other customers.

  Equally uncomfortable, Elias and Madeline both pretended to gaze nonchalantly at their surroundings, then their eyes met as though they were two startled birds, each surprised by the other. Elias relieved the awkwardness with a smiling, helpless sigh. 'He's incorrigible. A die-hard romantic.'

  Madeline smiled and felt her shoulder muscles relax. 'Is he always like this?'

  Elias shrugged. 'I've never been here with a woman before.'

  Madeline sipped at her wine, her thoughts busy with the curiosity of why he and Becky never ate here together.

  When she met his eyes again he was smiling at her, a little sadly, she thought. The candlelight flickered in his eyes like yellow spots of heat centred in cool green glades.