American Anthem

by BJ Hoff

  A RISK TOO PRECIOUS

  Is this my dream, or the truth?

  W. B. YEATS

  I can help you. We will work together,” Michael said, clasping her hands in his.

  Susanna had no idea what he meant, and she was far too aware of the warmth and strength of his hands to think clearly. Something had shifted between them. A boundary had blurred. The moment she admitted that she trusted him, the reins of restraint—which had provided not only a pattern for behavior but, at least for Susanna, a kind of self-protection—seemed to have slackened.

  She wondered if Michael felt it, too, but if he did he gave no sign. He seemed more intent on keeping her immobile, as if he feared she might bolt from the room.

  If he only knew…

  Susanna had no desire to be anyplace but where she stood. Close to him, so close she could count every line in his face, except for those concealed by the dark glasses. Close enough to see the silver in his hair. Close enough…to be overwhelmed by the closeness.

  And then she realized what he was saying, and the feeling quickly dissipated.

  “…The orchestra will perform the Anthem in sections—in movements—until it’s completed. I have need of someone for the piano. Or organ perhaps. You play both. And I would not rush you. I promise to work with you until you feel ready. We can—”

  “No.”

  Above the glasses, his dark brows knitted together. “Susanna, I can help you. I can help you gain confidence, lose the stage fright—”

  “No, Michael.” She forced the words through gritted teeth as she freed her hands from his.

  “But you could be—you have so much to offer—”

  Something in Susanna seemed to wilt, to shrink and die, like a blossom too frail to survive. She should have known. Why had she ever imagined she could be enough for a man like Michael?

  What she heard him saying was that he wanted to change her, make her into something more than what she was. But why had she expected anything else? He lived in a different world from anything she had ever known.

  And he was accustomed to a different kind of woman, a kind of woman she couldn’t even pretend to be. He had fallen for Deirdre, hadn’t he? Deirdre, who had glittered like the brightest jewel, with a zest for life and a sense of the dramatic that bedazzled every man she met. Deirdre, who had always been so alive. Whatever else she might have been, Deirdre was never dull, never timid. Audiences hadn’t intimidated her—they energized her. Nothing was ever too large, too grand for Deirdre. She rode through life like a princess royal, driving her own chariot, trampling beneath her wheels anything—or anyone—that got in her way.

  A man like Michael would hardly be interested in a country mouse who turned to pudding at the very thought of mingling in a crowd, much less walking onto a stage.

  “I can’t do what you want, Michael. I’m sorry.”

  “But how can you know this unless you try? I don’t understand.”

  He seemed genuinely puzzled, and for an instant Susanna found herself torn between self-doubt and the desire to please him. But there was a gaping chasm between where she wished she could go and the conviction that she could actually make the leap.

  No more had the inner struggle begun than she felt a surge of anger at herself. Was she really so hungry for his approval, his affection, that she would actually wish to become someone else? Someone like Deirdre?

  She had never entertained the least desire for greatness. Her entire life had been unexceptional. Indeed, she knew herself to be just an ordinary person, had no thought of ever being anything else.

  But she couldn’t expect Michael to understand that. Everything he did was extraordinary. He basked in the spotlight of success and glamour and celebrity. Even after the loss of his eyesight and the demise of his operatic career, he still enjoyed the life of a hugely popular, successful musician. Renowned, respected, and revered, how could he possibly understand why she wanted no part of that world?

  In truth, Susanna wasn’t at all sure she understood it herself.

  “Susanna?”

  He was waiting for some sort of an explanation. But how did she go about explaining her very nature?

  Frustrated and confused, she fumbled for the right words. “Michael, this isn’t something I can explain. Please, can’t you just accept the fact that what you’re asking goes against everything I am? I’m simply not made that way.”

  “And you think I want to change you.”

  Susanna bit back a reply. That was exactly what she thought.

  “This is not about changing you, Susanna. I meant only to help you overcome an unwarranted lack of confidence. Possibly I can be more objective about your abilities than you. You are much more gifted than you realize.” He paused. “But perhaps for me it is a selfish thing as well, because I would like very much for you to be a part of what I do.”

  His voice dropped even more, and she strained to hear him over the moaning wind and the rattle of sleet on the windows. “Susanna, believe me, I have no desire to change you. You are…” He hesitated. “I would not change you for anything.”

  Susanna searched his face for any sign of insincerity. But without eye contact, it was impossible to read his intent. What she did know was that Michael was not an impulsive man. Yet she had the distinct feeling that he had just spoken on impulse.

  She saw that he was clenching and unclenching his fists. Watching him, sensing his discomfort, Susanna felt her resistance waver. Her pique with him, and with herself, began to drain away.

  “It’s not that I don’t value your opinion, Michael. To the contrary, I’m flattered that you would even consider me, and I’m sorry—”

  He shook his head and lifted a hand to stop her. “You need not apologize. It’s not my intention to make you uncomfortable or try to coax you into doing something you don’t want to do. I respect your wishes. But if the time should ever come…if you should ever change your mind, you will tell me?”

  “Of course,” Susanna said, unable to imagine such a time.

  “Susanna,” he said, moving a little closer, “would you allow me to…look at you?” He lifted his hands, palms outward.

  Completely unprepared for this, Susanna felt her throat constrict. Tom Donoghue, her mother’s cousin, had been blind. And the Widow Blaine. What Michael was asking was a fairly common practice for the unsighted, the only way they could “see” another’s features. But with Michael, it seemed more significant. More intimate.

  Her hesitation was just enough to make him step back. “If you would prefer that I not—”

  “No, I…don’t mind.”

  When he still delayed, she tried for a lighter, more casual tone. “It’s fine, Michael. Really.” Then a brash thought seized her. “One thing—”

  “Sì?”

  “I wonder—would you please do something for me?”

  He tilted his head and waited.

  “Would you please take off those glasses?” The words spilled out all at once. “You never wear them with anyone except me, though I can’t think why! In truth—it hurts my feelings.”

  For a moment he seemed to freeze, and Susanna cringed, ashamed of her crassness. She had made him angry, and she wouldn’t have blamed him if he had bludgeoned her with a scathing retort. But even as she braced herself, he slowly lifted a hand, removed the dark glasses, and slipped them into his pocket.

  His eyes remained closed. “Just so you’ll know, Susanna,” he said, his voice exceedingly quiet as he stood facing her, “I never intended to hurt your feelings. I wear the glasses in order that I not offend you.”

  Susanna held her breath, her nails digging into her hands. After the accident Deirdre had written that his eyes were scarred. Ugly, even frightening.

  And then he opened his eyes.

  They were beautiful. Blue crystals, deeply set and thickly lashed. They lacked focus, of course, but this merely gave him a contemplative, intense expression that conveyed a depth of feeling she would not have thought poss
ible.

  There were no scars, no disfigurement of any kind.

  It was inconceivable that Deirdre would have lied about this, too. And yet the evidence of her sister’s pitiless deceit stood before her.

  Oh, Deirdre…Deirdre…how could you?

  “I am not offended by your blindness, Michael,” she managed to say. “How could you have thought I would be?”

  He shrugged, but Susanna already knew the answer. “What did Deirdre tell you?” she said.

  He stilled, lifted a hand to one temple, then passed it over his face. “My eyes—”

  “Your eyes are perfect. But that’s not what Deirdre said, is it?”

  He paled, silence his only reply.

  “Surely Paul told you the truth? Rosa? Someone…”

  “Sì. Of course. But even after they convinced me, Deirdre insisted I wear the glasses. She hated the blindness.” He paused. “But, Susanna, I wear them on other occasions, not only with you. I almost always wear them in a crowd—especially in an unfamiliar setting. I am a large man. I could easily hurt someone if we should collide. The glasses, at least, call attention to the fact that I cannot see where I’m going. You understand?”

  Always, it seemed, he thought of others before himself. And this was the man Deirdre had repeatedly called “selfish.” “Inconsiderate.”

  When she spoke again, her voice trembled. “I didn’t realize…”

  “You prefer I not wear the glasses when we are together?”

  Susanna’s gaze went to his eyes, and in that instant she was struck by the irrational sensation that he was looking directly at her. She swallowed, then shook her head as if to expel the feeling. “I think—yes, I think I’d rather you didn’t.”

  “So, then—I won’t.”

  Inordinately pleased by his quick response, Susanna moved to close the distance between them, lifted her face, and waited. “Yes…well, then…”

  He dipped his head, resting his hands lightly on her shoulders.

  “Michael?”

  He hesitated.

  “I’m nothing like Deirdre,” she blurted out.

  His countenance went solemn. “I know,” he said softly.

  “People never took us for sisters, unless they knew us. I don’t resemble her in the least.” She stopped. “I’m quite plain.”

  Why had she felt the need to tell him that? He would find out for himself soon enough, after all.

  His mouth quirked. “That is not what I have been told.”

  “But it’s true—”

  “Susanna?”

  “Yes?”

  “Hush now.”

  Susanna drew in a sharp breath and closed her eyes, holding her breath as he began to trace the oval of her face with his fingertips.

  It was an unsettling experience—but not unpleasant. As Michael himself had stated, he was quite a big man, and when he conducted the orchestra or embellished his speech with dramatic gestures, Susanna invariably caught a sense of great power in his hands. She hadn’t expected such gentleness. But as he molded her face with his fingers and began to skim every feature, his touch was light and deft—and in no way overly familiar.

  “You need not hold your breath, Susanna.”

  At the note of amusement in his voice, she opened her eyes and found him smiling as he continued his exploration. Once he nodded, as if his touch had confirmed what he already knew. His expression intent now, he continued to trace her features.

  His fingertips were calloused—from the mandolin, she supposed. And from gardening—Michael loved to work in the gardens. He brushed over her forehead, lightly winging out from her eyes, even seeming to take note of her eyelashes before moving down over her cheekbones and the hollows beneath them. Susanna tensed, but he allowed his thumbs to graze the corners of her mouth only for a second before briefly skimming his fingertips along her jawline.

  He fanned his hands outward, noting the length of her hair, and only then did Susanna remember that she hadn’t bothered to put it up again. Heat rose to her face, but of course he couldn’t see her disarray. Somehow, the thought didn’t help.

  Finally, he gave a slight nod—Susanna thought he might have sighed as well, though she couldn’t imagine why. She was keenly aware of his hands clasping her shoulders, just as keenly aware that she didn’t really want him to release her.

  “Thank you, Susanna.”

  There was a huskiness, a tenderness in his voice she had never heard, a softness to his features she had never seen, but she tried not to attach too much importance to either.

  “You are wrong, you know,” he said, his voice even lower now. Susanna looked at him.

  “What?”

  He was still smiling. “You are not in the least plain.”

  And it occurred to Susanna that, for the first time in her life, she didn’t feel plain.

  And then he bent to touch his lips to her forehead. In that moment, her last slender thread of caution pulled free and dropped away. The kiss, in its gentleness and poignancy…and carefulness…seemed more like a benediction. She did not so much feel herself kissed…as blessed.

  Michael had been almost overcome by her closeness. Both elated and unnerved, he stood stunned by the force of his own feelings. The cool softness of her skin under his fingertips and the subtle fragrance of roses he had come to identify with her very nearly distracted him from “seeing her,” being able to form his own image of her appearance rather than depending on Paul to convey that image to him.

  And now he knew why he had refrained for so long. Her features were delicate but distinct, her face thin, but not gaunt. Her youthful skin was cool and silken. He grew almost dizzy when he realized her hair fell free, when he tested the weight of it. Honey, Paul had said. Her hair was the color of honey.

  Feelings he had suppressed for years blazed up in him: a deep, humming pleasure in her loveliness, a loveliness of which she was completely unaware. The unfettered lightness of simply being close to her, being in her presence. The wrench of pain at the very thought of parting from her.

  Still holding her, he struggled to clear his head. He couldn’t bring himself just yet to let her go. Whatever boundary had stood between them seemed to be gone. It was a moment that signaled either a crossing or a retreat. They were poised at the edge of what was safe and familiar, facing each other across an unknown terrain. They could back away and maintain the amicable, comfortable relationship they had forged—a relationship without risk, for the most part. Or they could cross over into a new province where nothing was charted, nothing was absolute.

  Only a few years ago, he would have pursued her, courted her, with all the confidence and arrogance of a youthful buccaneer. But the disaster of his marriage, the tragedy of Deirdre’s death—and, yes, the loss of his sight—all stood between the man he had once been and the man he was now.

  He could not afford the luxury of daydreams or assumptions where Susanna was concerned. God had healed him, restored him to wholeness, that was true. But there were parts of him, deep and hidden, that were still bruised from the years of rejection and humiliation—and from the soul-shattering realization that he had allowed himself to be used by a woman who had never loved him, who had simply seen him as a means to an end.

  But Susanna was, as she herself had said, “nothing like Deirdre.” She was totally without guile. And perhaps it wasn’t only her directness and lack of pretension that inspired his trust. Perhaps the fact that in the beginning she had so obviously mistrusted him made it easier for him to sweep his own doubts and suspicions aside.

  Still, he was afraid. Afraid to risk, unwilling to chance losing her friendship, her acceptance of him. He would rather have something than nothing.

  And as much as he wanted to be completely free with Susanna—free to love her, to hope that she might come to love him—in his spirit he knew this wasn’t the time. What they had right now, at this moment, was too precious to risk. She brightened his world and lighted his life and brought grace and joy and p
eace to his existence. For now, that must be enough.

  Even so, he could not stop himself from bending to touch his lips to her forehead in a light, decidedly chaste kiss.

  And she did not pull away.

  12

  AN UNLIKELY GUARDIAN ANGEL

  Some have entertained angels without knowing it.

  HEBREWS 13:2 (NASB)

  Andrew Carmichael was alone in the dispensary, measuring medicines and filling bottles when the office bell rang. He glanced up, wiped a hand over the front of his laboratory coat, and went out into the waiting room.

  It was going on five, a miserable evening with a punishing wind and a mixture of ice and snow. A blast blew into the waiting room as soon as he opened the door.

  The woman who stood before him was quite different from the usual run of patients who showed up on his doorstep. She wore a tastefully designed hooded cloak that had probably cost more than the sum total of his accounts due. Although her face was partially concealed by the fur trim of the hood, he could see that she was a woman of refined features.

  “Are you Dr. Carmichael?” she asked in a breathless voice.

  Andrew nodded, quickly standing aside to let her enter.

  She stepped inside at once, glancing about the waiting room. She was a small woman, scarcely reaching Andrew’s shoulder, but something in her bearing gave the impression of greater stature.

  “How can I help you?”

  She withdrew a piece of paper from her handbag and gave it to Andrew. “I wondered if you would be good enough to call at this…residence. I believe you will find a need for your services there.”

  Andrew looked at her, then at the paper. It was an address on Mulberry Street, a particularly wretched area of shanties and log hovels.

  He glanced up to find the woman watching him closely.

  “You’ll be paid whatever you require, of course,” she said. “I’ll send my driver around tomorrow to take care of your fee, and if further visits are necessary, you’ve only to give him your bill.”

  “May I ask who the patient is?” Andrew said, puzzled by the lack of information being offered.