Hearts Unfold (32 page)

Chapter Twenty-seven

At the end of
the spring term, Emily packed to go back to the valley for good.
 
She would have the summer to relax and enjoy
just being at home before the next phase of her education began.
 
She needed that time to sort her life and lay
her plans before the two full years of nurses' training ahead.

The prospect of
separation from Penny was troublesome.
 
Her friend was still struggling with her loss, trying to adjust to a
future so different from that she had dreamed of.
 
It was hardest, Penny said, to just get used
to the idea that Frankie was never coming back, that they would never stand up
in church together, or furnish their first home as they had planned.
 
For Emily, the changes in Penny—the absence
of that spark so often turned to fire and the laugh that had echoed in their
tiny room—were much like the death of a loved one.
 
She grieved silently, even as she tried to
support this new Penny in their final weeks together.

They promised
to write often and see each other whenever possible in spite of their very
different and busy schedules.
 
They would
still need each other’s encouragement, no matter the distance.

“I know you'll
make a fabulous nurse.
 
You've already
saved at least one life.
 
And even if we
don't see each other often, I know we'll always be long-distance best friends.”
 
There seemed to be tears in Penny eyes so
frequently now, but at their final good-bye they had both wept unashamedly.

Before Emily
had time to unpack her things, the call came from the nursing home.
 
Her father had suffered another stroke and
was in a coma.
 
Jack drove her through a
rain-drenched night, and he and Angela stayed with her until her father died
two days later.

Emily had tried
to tell him about the plans she’d made for her future.
 
She liked to think he had understood and
given her his blessing.
 
She took comfort
in knowing that he was no longer held captive so far from everything he'd loved
and she often thought she sensed his presence as she worked around the farm
that summer.
 
More than ever, she
believed she had done the right thing, the thing he had encouraged her to
do.
 
There had been signs, even miracles,
all pointing clearly to the future she knew her parents would have wanted for
her, the future she now wanted more than anything for herself.

With the
passing of J.D. Haynes and Emily's return to the farm, the little community in
the valley came out in force to welcome and support her in ways she could never
have anticipated.
 
Like most children,
she had considered the adults in the neighborhood to be her parents' friends.
 
Her own friends, mostly her classmates from
school, were away now getting their educations or beginning careers, some
already married.
 
But to her amazement
everyone, from the shopkeepers in town to the neighboring farmers around the
valley, made certain she knew that she was one of them.
 
Just as they had little more than twenty
years before when J.D. and Lilianne had moved in, they came to visit, bringing
food or offers of help with the farm.
 
While Jack and the McConnells were the closest thing she had to family
and she had always known she could count on their support, she now realized she
need never have felt so alone.
 
She was
part of a tightly knit community where everyone watched out for the young and
the old, as they did their own families.

Emily spent
much of the summer making subtle changes to the house, in hopes that it would
cease to be such a profound reminder of her parents' absence.
 
Not wanting to spend money on new
furnishings, she rearranged the bedrooms, moving pieces from one to the other.
 
Her own room she furnished with things from
all over the house, creating a retreat where she could read and relax while
looking out the big dormers at the trees and fields beyond.
 
She dragged her father's worn leather easy
chair up the stairs and placed it by the window overlooking the barn.
 
The desk from his little office she tucked in
the front dormer where she could gaze through the branches of the oaks to the
view of the hills beyond the gate.
 
She
exchanged her white spindle bed for her parents' cherry four-poster and placed
a steamer trunk from the landing at one side to act as a night table.
 
By replacing her pastel-checked curtains and
bedding with the dark blue taffeta drapes from her parents' room and spreading
a brilliantly hued velvet quilt on her bed, she forever banished the “lollipop
shop” her father had teasingly named her childhood space.

Hard work, as
always, proved to be a tonic for Emily, yet another gift her father had given
her, she realized, the satisfaction of a job well done.
 
Most days, she was busy from early morning
until nightfall, taking the occasional afternoon trip into town as her only
form of recreation.
 
She invited Jack to
dinner every Friday night, and they went to church together each Sunday.
 
She kept a regular weekly lunch date with
Sara McConnell and spent time with Pastor Mike doing little jobs in the church
office for him.
 
For the week of Vacation
Bible School, she was surprised to find that Sara had put her in charge of the
children's music, explaining that after her experience in high-school and youth
choirs, she was the perfect person to teach the little ones to sing.

“But I can't
play, not well enough to accompany them,” she had protested.

“Nonsense,
dear.
 
They're just simple tunes, ones
you already know, for the most part.
 
You'll do fine.”
 
Sara, already
fully engaged with the business of this annual event, was not to be swayed by
Emily's stage fright.

She had opened
up her mother's piano, trying to tell herself that what she'd been taught would
come back to her.
 
After a moment of
tearful prayer over the keyboard, she had begun in earnest, practicing for
hours and to her surprise discovering that she could indeed provide at least
adequate if not exactly inspired accompaniment for her young charges.

Following the
Sunday morning program, when the children demonstrated all they had learned
during the week, she was proud of their performance.
 
And to her amazement, she found she had not
been at all afraid to sit down at the piano and play and sing with them.
 
No one seemed in the least surprised by her
newly revealed talent, and Pastor Mike commented that she might consider
relieving the regular organist occasionally.
 
She assured him in no uncertain terms that that was not even a remote
possibility.

Still, she
admitted to a sense of accomplishment and hoped somehow her mother knew.
 
Her lack of musical talent had been a
disappointment to her gifted parents, and her mother in particular had been
frustrated by Emily's lack of interest in what was the driving passion of her
own life.
 
While she would never consider
herself a musician, she could at least contribute in some small way by teaching
the children to “make a joyful noise.”

Her days were
full and never lonely.
 
Neighbors stopped
by unannounced, just to visit or bring something from their kitchens or
gardens.
 
She knew they were checking on
her, making sure she was not too much alone.
 
It touched her to know they were concerned, and at the same time she
believed they respected her independence.

Emily was
content to work around the house and the yard, knowing that in the next two
years she would rarely have more than a day or two at a time to spend at
home.
 
She replanted the flower beds
around the yard, giving her mother's prized roses special attention.
 
She took long walks over the fields she hoped
one day to return to productivity.
 
Tramping up and down the worn furrows of her father's garden, she made
her plans, determined to be as successful as he had been.
 
Jack teased her that she would soon turn into
a weathered old maid in patched overalls.
 
But she was not to be discouraged.
 
This little plot of land was hers she told him firmly, and she intended
to make it earn its keep.
 
The rhythm of
life in this quiet place made sense to her, kept her grounded and calm, in
spite of her sometimes turbulent moods.
 
They were a perfect pairing, she decided, the constancy of nature and
the ebb and flow of her emotions.
 
They
would have a fine life together, she and her farm.

For all the
changes she made to her home that summer, for all the careful plans she laid
for her future, she had to accept that she had not yet been able to alter her
feelings around her encounter with Stani Moss.
 
Try as she might to think otherwise, she continued to feel that they
were somehow bound together by those few shared hours.
 
She considered the days of her homecoming a
time of miracles.
 
First her own
realization that she could return home and then the miracle of Stani's survival
seemed to set those days apart.
 
She had
experienced a tidal wave of emotions, from ecstasy to despair, and ended in a place
of such peace and confidence.
 
It had
been an intensely spiritual time for her, and Stani Moss would forever be
present in that time.

It didn't help
matters that he was such a public figure.
 
Even if she had been able to forget him lying in the snow or by the
fireside, his name and face were forever being thrust into her
consciousness.
 
They lived in the same
world, she told herself, and he was a celebrity.
 
She could not hope to avoid him.
 
She would have to learn to guard her
emotions.
 
The fact that the mention of
his name still caused an odd, unfamiliar warmth to rise within her would have
to remain her secret.
 
She schooled
herself to ignore the all too vivid image of his face when his recordings
sounded over the radio in the kitchen, knowing only too well that she had
failed miserably.

Late in the
summer, when Jack arrived for dinner bearing a copy of one of the big, glossy
pictorial magazines, she found herself put to the ultimate test.
 
He had held up the cover for her to see, just
as she was setting a platter of steaming pasta on the kitchen table.
 
There, in full color, was the gently smiling
face, nestled against the glowing wood of a violin, the brown eyes gazing
intently into the camera lens.
 
The
caption across his dark sweater read, “Stani's Miraculous Return.”

Jack watched as
the deep red blush crept up her cheeks and her lips parted in a silent
gasp.
 
“I thought you might like to see
this,” he said softly, embarrassed at the emotions revealed in her face.

Carefully
placing the platter on the table, Emily took the magazine from his hands, and
to his surprise, carried it into the front room.
 
She returned a moment later, taking her place
calmly at the table.

“Aren't you
even going to look at it, Em?”

“Later.
 
Thanks for bringing it.
 
That's just what I'd been hoping for.”
 
He could see that she was not about to go
into the subject further.
 
Instead, she
turned the conversation to the problem she'd been having with the water pump,
asking who she should call to find out the cost of a new one.

Before he left
her that night, Jack asked her directly how she felt now about saving that
boy's life.

“I didn't save
his life, Jack.
 
I was just in the right
place to help him get to someone who could.
 
I told you then that I didn't want to take any credit for what was
clearly an act of God.
 
I'm just relieved
to know he's all right.
 
It would have
been tragic for him if he could never make music again.”
 
Even Emily didn’t sound quite convinced by
her reply.
 
But Jack knew for certain
there was more going on behind those intense gray eyes.

When Jack had gone,
she spent what seemed hours staring at the pictures and reading the
article.
 
Stani was shown practicing his
violin with a petite, middle-aged lady at the piano who was named as Jana
Scheider, his adopted mother.
 
Did that
mean Milo Scheider was actually his father?
 
Other photos showed him working with therapists on equipment that had
been moved into the Manhattan apartment following his surgery.
 
In the background was a tall, pretty woman
who seemed to be encouraging him with a smile.
 
His sweetheart, or just a friend?
 
She seemed too old for a lover, but then again, the look on her face
suggested more than friendship.
 
In the
picture of him talking about his recovery with the interviewer, his expression
was so intensely expressive, his right hand gripping his left shoulder as he
recalled the injury.
 
At the table beside
him sat a very dignified older man, who appeared to be watching him
closely.
 
Milo Scheider, named as Stani's
manager, wore an expression that Emily thought seemed fiercely protective.