American Anthem

by BJ Hoff

  As if to make sure Susanna wasn’t left out, Gus, the wolfhound, ambled over and plopped down beside her chair to share the fire. On cue, Susanna rubbed his great head as she sat watching Michael and Caterina.

  She had grown fond of their evenings in the music room. These days Michael seldom stayed in the city. Clearly, he enjoyed being at home with his daughter, and just as clearly, Caterina delighted in his presence.

  Susanna didn’t always join them, intent on giving the two of them as much time alone together as possible. But of late it seemed that one or the other would come looking for her if she didn’t make an appearance. By now she had to admit she’d be disappointed if they happened to forget her.

  There were times of contentment for Susanna. Indeed, it surprised her to realize just how contented she was. Gradually, a subtle peace had settled over her relationship with Michael. As yet, she hadn’t told him of Paul’s disclosure. If he ever questioned what accounted for the fact that she no longer tried to quiz him about Deirdre, he gave no indication. Perhaps he was simply relieved to have an end to her incessant questions. Whatever the case, he clearly welcomed this unexpected truce and meant to leave well enough alone.

  In truth, it seemed that they were, at the least, becoming friends. If Susanna occasionally felt a vague, disturbing longing for something more—or sensed that Michael did—she deliberately refused to attach anything other than a fleeting thought to it.

  For now, she wanted only what she had: the joy of loving Caterina and being loved in return; the opportunity to live a quiet, fulfilling life in a place where she felt cared for and safe and even needed; and the dignity of knowing she was earning her livelihood rather than depending on Michael’s largess.

  At first she had questioned whether she would ever be able to put aside Paul’s shattering revelations about Deirdre. She wondered if the awful things she had learned would be engraved upon her mind forever, like a searing, indelible brand. The reality of all she had lost threatened to mire her in a fog of despair.

  Like Job in the Scriptures, she had attempted to counter desolation with faith: “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away.” It had been more difficult to add the final “Blessed be the name of the Lord.”

  But as the days passed, she became more and more caught up in Caterina’s—and Michael’s—busy world. The continuous flow of responsibilities and new experiences gave her no time for brooding, no opportunity for dwelling on the past. And so, almost without her realizing it, a quiet restoration had begun.

  In a way she had never before experienced, she began to feel the assurance of God’s love for her. Like a dawning sun, the healing warmth spread over her days. As she went about taking care of Caterina, she became increasingly aware that she, too, was being cared for—attended by a love that urged her past the gloom of disappointment and hurt into a better place, a brighter place.

  Sometimes she could even think of Deirdre without the accompanying stab of pain or the sick sense of shame and betrayal. She lived, after all, caught up in the swift current of a child’s needs, engulfed by a little girl’s love and laughter and affection.

  And always, there was the music. That same healing love that moved through other parts of her life was also present in the music, coloring and enriching her world, nourishing her spirit and feeding her soul.

  Absently she stroked the wolfhound’s crisp coat, her gaze returning to Michael and Caterina. Michael kept drifting in and out of Italian as he attempted to teach Caterina the melody line of what sounded like a child’s cradle song. It was a sweet, charming little piece, a simple tune.

  Caterina’s black curls fell about her face. Michael now stood behind her, his hand covering the little girl’s on the keyboard. As Susanna watched them, the ancient words of Job, at the beginning of his story, again echoed in her mind: “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.”

  But this time she also heard, even more clearly, the words that came near the end of Job’s trial: “And the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before…”

  With her eyes still locked on Michael and his child, Susanna felt an awareness rise up in her soul—an awareness infused by the same indescribable, divine love that had carried her through the past weeks. And in that moment she realized that although she had lost much, she had been given more.

  Michael turned just then, smiling. “Come join us, Susanna.”

  “Yes, Aunt Susanna! Please! Come sing with us!”

  Susanna hesitated. Ordinarily, she limited her participation to simply watching from across the room or occasionally accompanying them as they sang. But they insisted, so she rose and went to join them.

  When she would have taken the piano stool, however, Caterina stopped her. “No, Aunt Susanna. I want to play ‘Joy to the World’! You sing with Papa.”

  Always too inhibited to add her voice to Michael’s, Susanna simply hummed along as he began to sing. Caterina also chimed in, continuing to play the melody with great deliberation.

  At some point Michael had placed one hand on his daughter’s shoulder, and now extended the other hand to Susanna. She hesitated only a moment before clasping it.

  She had stopped humming and was only half listening when, unexpectedly, her thoughts went back to the day she had stood on the deck of the ship bringing her to America. She remembered the chill of excitement—and fear—that had seized her as she glimpsed New York Harbor for the first time. All the intervening months fell away, and she recalled with startling clarity the question that had been in her mind that day, the question that had nagged at her all the way across the Atlantic:

  Was this an ending or a beginning?

  For one shining instant Susanna heard the answer to that question ring out above the words and the music of the familiar carol. She had finally begun to move beyond the past, to accept and even exult in the present, to look forward to the future.

  Suddenly, eagerly, Susanna began to sing. Michael turned and smiled at her, tightening his grasp on her hand. In that moment, all her old apprehensions vanished, and she lifted her voice in harmony with the voices of her new family.

  She had her answer.

  Bantry Hill was both an ending and a beginning.

  It was also home.

  BOOK TWO

  CADENCE

  It matters not

  If the world has heard

  Or approves or understands…

  The only applause

  We’re meant to seek

  Is that of nail-scarred hands.

  —BJ HOFF

  Prologue

  THE TROUBADOUR’S QUESTION

  ’Tis past; ’tis gone. That fairy dream

  Of happiness is o’er;

  And we the music of thy voice

  Perhaps may hear no more.

  FANNY CROSBY, FROM A TRIBUTE WRITTEN FOR JENNY LIND, THE “SWEDISH NIGHTINGALE,” UPON HER VISIT TO THE NEW YORK INSTITUTION FOR THE BLIND

  New York City, 1869

  Bravo! Magnìfico!” The curtain fell on the final act of Il Trovatore to a deafening ovation, and the auditorium quaked under the riotous explosion.

  Michael Emmanuel made yet another deep, sweeping bow as bouquets were flung onto the stage and the applause and cheers grew more frenzied. The theater blazed with prismed light refracted by crystal chandeliers and diamonds worn by the ladies in the crowd. Even the gold filigree of the walls and cornices shone lustrous, as if reflecting the fire and passion of the enthusiastic crowd.

  Michael had performed the part of Manrico the troubadour on many stages, in many countries, to much acclaim. But never had he been lavished with more adulation and fervor than here in America’s greatest city.

  The crowd began to chant “Trovatore, Trovatore!” calling out the name like a mantra until he obligingly took another bow. Twice more the curtain rose and fell, but this exuberant audience seemed to have no intention of letting him go. As he stood at center stage taking his bows, the cries of the crowd washing ove
r him like a flood, he struggled to recapture even the slightest semblance of the elation that once would have accompanied such a triumphant performance. Instead, another feeling, all too familiar, drew in on him, engulfing him with a suffocating closeness. A wound in some dark hidden place, torn wider with each performance, had become a deep, aching pit of yearning—a yearning for some nameless, indescribable…something.

  The critics and the international press often spoke of Michael as having “the music world at his feet,” but lately it had come to feel more like a predator at his back. His joy had abandoned him, leaving in its place only a gnawing emptiness. The crowds, the acclaim, the glitter, the fame, even the music itself—none of it seemed to matter any longer. It held no meaning for him, no value.

  In that moment, a wildly irrational thought seized him. What would happen if, this very night, he were to take his final bow, turn, and simply walk away from it all—the years of study and preparation, the relentless discipline and drill, the never-ending rehearsals and performances and unceasing demands on his time and energy?

  The adulation of the crowds. The sense of power. The celebrity. The glory.

  Could he leave it all behind? What would it do to him? How would it change him?

  Would he be a different man? A lesser man?

  Or would he somehow become a better man?

  His mind reeled with the idea, and he found it impossible to recapture reason, to return to himself. The sea of faces dimmed; the clamor of applause receded. His throat tightened. Scarcely breathing, he waited for some cold touch of dread to descend on him, or at least some sense of impending loss and grief. But nothing happened. He felt nothing but the nagging weight of fatigue, the exhausting aimlessness that had plagued him for months now.

  Suddenly he thought of Deirdre. He had been questioning what such a radical change might do to him. Now he could not help but wonder what it might do to his wife.

  Instinctively, he glanced toward the wings, but Deirdre wasn’t there. She still blamed Michael for her failure to secure the role of Leonora. Incensed by his “betrayal” of her—his refusal, for the first time, to use his influence on her behalf—she hadn’t shown up at the theater since the day he had told her that Annabella Antolini had been signed for the coveted soprano’s role.

  If he were to quit, to leave the world of opera altogether, Deirdre would never forgive him. Never. There would be no end to her fury. She would believe—and perhaps rightly so—that his defection would strike the final blow to her already downward-spiraling career.

  He was suddenly jerked back to his surroundings as a young assistant placed a bouquet of roses in his arms. Michael stared at the flowers, then at the boy. Finally, he managed a forced smile and gave another brief, wooden bow to the audience.

  When the curtain came down once again, he stumbled from the stage. Ignoring his manager and the others milling about in the wings, he raced to his dressing room, closed the door with a firm thud, and turned the key.

  1

  A STIRRING IN THE HEART

  There is a murmur in my heart…

  EDWARD DOWDEN

  Bantry Hill Estate, Hudson River Valley

  Late November 1875

  No, no! Assolutamente non! I cannot do this, Michael!”

  “Pauli, listen to me! I told you, Dempsey will be with you the entire time. He and the handler will see to the horse. You will have nothing to do except to sign the papers.”

  “I do not like the horses, Michael! You know I do not like the horses!”

  “You need not like the horse, Pauli! The handler has been paid to bring him from the ship to the stables. You will simply go with Dempsey in case he should need your help.”

  “What help? I would be of no help!”

  Susanna, on her way down the hall in search of some clean sketch paper for Caterina, stopped short at the sound of raised voices coming from Michael’s office. She wasn’t intentionally eavesdropping, but it would have been impossible not to overhear the boisterous dialogue taking place between Michael and Paul Santi.

  Neither of the two men sounded angry, merely persistent. Some of their exchange was in English, some in Italian, but Susanna understood enough to gather that Michael had a new horse arriving at the harbor and was insisting that Paul accompany Dempsey to claim the animal.

  Clearly, Paul had other ideas.

  “You know I am no good with the horses, Michael.”

  “I know you are afraid of the horses, Pauli.”

  “No, not afraid. Terrified. I am terrified of the nasty beasts! You know this—and the horses know it also!”

  “I am not asking you to ride the horse, Pauli, merely to go with Dempsey.”

  “Why does Dempsey need anyone to go with him? Why can he not go alone?”

  “I told you. There will be papers to sign.” Michael lowered his voice. “Have you forgotten that Liam cannot read?”

  Silence. Then, “Oh, all right, all right! I will go! But you remember, cugino: if your precious horse ends up in the ocean and me with him, my death will be on your head!”

  Susanna smiled. She was used to these impassioned outbursts by the lively young Italian. Paul and Michael frequently sparred, but seldom about anything of real importance. She suspected that some of their disputes were deliberately instigated—sometimes by Paul, sometimes by Michael—simply because both of them enjoyed the verbal fencing. Michael often sounded amused during their contests, and it was common to see them both laughing and pounding each other good-naturedly on the back only minutes later, like schoolboys pleased with their own cleverness.

  Just then Paul emerged from Michael’s office, caught sight of her, and threw up his hands. “Why do I bother, I wonder? Always he wins!”

  “What have you gotten yourself into this time?”

  Paul rolled his eyes, giving a palms-up gesture of futility. “This is not my idea, you can be sure! It’s all Michael’s doing. He insists that I go with Dempsey to the harbor to fetch one of his ill-tempered beasts!”

  Michael appeared in the doorway, dressed in a dark wool jacket and white shirt—more businesslike apparel than he usually wore at home. Was he going away again? Susanna tried to suppress a pang of disappointment at the thought.

  He wore his dark glasses, too, and she wondered whether he had put them on for her benefit. He seldom wore the glasses except in her presence, a fact that she found increasingly puzzling—and annoying.

  “Paul would have me believe I endanger his life by sending him to the docks,” Michael said. “The truth is, I suspect he’s eager to go, to avoid working this afternoon.”

  Paul feigned an injured look. “Susanna,” he said solemnly, “if I do not return, I would like you to have my violin.”

  “But I don’t play the violin, Paul.”

  “All the same, I want you to have it. In my memory.”

  “Well, that’s very kind of you, Paul.” She imitated his grave tone. “You can be sure I’ll pray for your safe return.”

  “You see,” Paul said to Michael, “even Susanna knows you have placed my life at great risk.”

  One eyebrow went up as Michael crossed his arms over his chest. “I believe Dempsey is waiting for you.”

  “You are a hard man, Michael.”

  “So you have said. Many times. Now go.”

  “Sì, I go.” Paul shot an impish smile at Susanna, then hurried off down the hall.

  Susanna watched him go, relieved that Michael and his cousin were obviously back to normal in their relationship. She had developed a genuine fondness for Paul Santi, a bond forged the day Paul finally divulged to Susanna what Michael had refused to reveal about her sister.

  It had been Paul who explained about Deirdre’s alcoholism, her turbulent and disastrous marriage to Michael, and the events that had led up to her death on the treacherous mountain road after a violent argument. Convinced that by withholding the truth from Susanna, Michael would only inflict more pain on her and, ultimately, on himself, Paul had t
old Susanna what Michael would not, risking his own relationship with the cousin he revered.

  When he learned that Paul had broken his confidence about Deirdre and their marriage, Michael had been furious, bitterly denouncing Paul for a deliberate betrayal of trust. Only after much explanation and persuasion on Susanna’s part did Michael finally move past his anger and accept that Paul had acted with honorable intentions. Paul had seen what Michael could not: that in his efforts to keep Susanna’s memories of her sister untarnished, Michael was actually hurting her, fostering a distorted image of Deirdre, and encouraging Susanna’s increasing suspicion of himself.

  To Susanna’s vast relief, the two had finally reconciled. There seemed to be no lingering evidence of the rift between them.

  She suddenly realized that Michael was still standing in the doorway, waiting.

  “I…I was looking for some fresh drawing paper for Caterina,” she said, embarrassed by her own woolgathering. “She seems to have used up her entire stock.”

  “In here.” He motioned Susanna into his office. “Cati likes very much to draw, no? Does she have any particular ability, do you think?”

  “Actually, I think she shows quite a lot of skill for one so young. But, then, Caterina seems to do extremely well in whatever she attempts,” Susanna said. “Except perhaps for her sewing.”

  “So I have heard,” he said dryly. “Just so you’ll know, Rosa, too, has tried to interest Cati in the sewing, also with no success.”

  Susanna smiled to herself. Rosa Navaro, the famed opera star, had long been a close friend of the family—a neighbor and a surrogate aunt to Michael’s daughter. Caterina adored her; if even Rosa could not interest Caterina in sewing, it might well be a hopeless cause.

  Susanna waited as he crossed the room and opened the door of a floor-to-ceiling storage cabinet. As deftly as if he could see the shelves, he retrieved a thick pad of paper and handed it to her. “She likes best to draw the animals, no?”