seat of the car and wheeled the chair back into the school, down the hall, around the corner, and into the music room.
It wasn’t empty.
“Evelyn?”
“Lucy. We . . . we thought you were gone for the day.”
“The light’s on in my office.” Maybe it was time to consider her doctor’s suggestion about blood pressure medicine.
Evelyn Schindler glanced at the two men with her, as if they could offer a response on her behalf. “This is a team from our contractor’s office,” she said. “Just here to take some measurements. We’ll”—she turned then to face Lucy—“try not to get in your way.” The woman’s smile hadn’t had much practice in her seven decades of living. It was so rusty now, it almost creaked.
“Measurements for what?” Lucy would ask forgiveness later for noting that Evelyn’s posture shift made her look like a sandhill crane prepared for liftoff.
Evelyn turned toward one of the men who extended his palm as if to say, “This is all yours, lady.”
“We hope to have . . . the room converted into two regular classrooms before school starts in the fall. Getting estimates now.” Matter of fact. Matter of farce.
And that’s when the rickety bridge Lucy’s emotions had been teetering on splintered. Lucy spiraled—free-falling without a chute—into the blind, bottomless abyss. The school board decision hadn’t merely eliminated her job. It had obliterated music. Remodeling shouldn’t have come as a surprise. Contractors were inevitable, contractors hired to erase the evidence that music once lived in this space.
As she plunged deeper into the cold darkness, she heard her insides crying over the loss, crying for the children.
Chapter 3
3
Maybe it hadn’t been such a good idea to strip her office and the music room of her personal belongings before the end of the school year. Her administrator thought she’d find it comforting that school-owned equipment, instruments, music stands, and textbooks would be sold or given to another school. Comforting? Like iron spikes pounded into her vocal cords.
It took more willpower than she’d ever used against a sleeve of Oreos not to respond, “You mean, sold to a school that cares about the arts?”
Even the inattentive students noticed how bare the room seemed with the life stripped out of it. But their enthusiasm for the upcoming summer break overrode somber moments. Lucy had spent the last few days of the school year—of her career at the school—encouraging students to consider other ways to keep the music going. Private lessons. Small ensembles. Singing or playing for church activities. Community youth music programs, which an especially sharp student was quick to point out didn’t exist in Willowcrest.
“You, Mrs. Tuttle. You could make a program.”
In the community that allowed its school board to evict music? Not an environment likely to get behind a project like that.
“I don’t know what my plans are right now,” she’d answered. That was no fabrication.
For the first time in twenty years, she had no plan. Even in the years before she’d applied for this position, she’d had a plan. She’d get Sam and Olivia through school, taking every recertification necessary and every continuing education class she could fit in and afford, serve for every music boosters event, accompany the choirs, sing for every wedding, play for every funeral, stay in the forefront of hiring minds, so when her dad was ready to retire, she could be considered a logical choice to take over the program he’d crafted, despite her years off to raise her family. Her heart soared in each of those endeavors. They brought significance and meaning while she waited for her life’s goal.
Her father’s music program left a true legacy in the community. He died from a brain aneurysm four years before he was slated to retire. Lucy’s plan got bumped up. But the decision-makers agreed they didn’t need to look farther than Cottonwood Street for a replacement for Lucy’s beloved father.
Her final note in the final measures of her role as music teacher for K-8 at Willowcrest School—a bitingly cold thought on an otherwise cloudless day in early June—was that she’d failed her father.
She’d grown hoarse with the effort, but in the end had been ineffective in convincing the new decision makers that art and music weren’t just as important as science, math, English. They helped students understand and perform better in academics. Stay in school. Develop a success mind-set. Become more well-rounded young citizens and learn to work in community. Music gave students interests and options.
She couldn’t stop the bulldozer of budget cuts that demolished her father’s programs. It had run over her too.
How much therapy would it take to recover from that?
***
It couldn’t be the flu. The nausea that hit as she pulled into the driveway at home came on too quickly for it to be the work of a virus. It had all the earmarks of melodramatic disappointment.
For nineteen summers she’d skipped across the threshold, relatively content the school year ended, tamping down her exuberance for the following September with the natural exhaustion from nine months of intense labor and the late-in-the-school-year squirreliness of students more than ready for a break.
She steadied herself against the car door and waited for the wave of nausea to pass. It didn’t. She’d have to cross the threshold despite it.
Charlie had the door open before she got there. Again. “Hey, LucyMyLight. Welcome home.” He grabbed one of the boxes she carried and stepped aside to let her in.
Nausea and headache. The house bulged with people.
Congratulations! Way to go! You should be proud of what you’ve accomplished! And the stinger—Happy Retirement!—twirled in a cacophony of well-intentioned noise from friends and family. Family. SamWise and Olivia?
“Hi, Mom.” Her daughter leaned close to Lucy’s ear. “We tried to talk Dad out of it, but he insisted you needed a party.”
“I so don’t,” Lucy whispered back without moving her faux-smiling lips.
“I know. I’ll help you get through it.”
“Sam, honey. How did you get off work on a weekday?” Lucy hugged her taller-and-thinner-than-Charlie son. Leaning into his sturdiness steadied her.
Charlie joined the hug fest. “We pulled it off, didn’t we, kids? Okay, let’s get this party started. Happy Retirement Day, Lucy.” He cupped her face in his hands. In a volume only she could hear, he said, “Making the best of it, love.” His kiss on her cheek came first. Then the tenderest of smiles.
If it hadn’t been for that brief hint of understanding, that grace note, she might have ground her teeth to nubs. Locked herself in the bathroom. Called 9-1-1 to have them break up the hilarity on Cottonwood Street.
Instead, she braced herself for the well-wishes and the so-sorry-to-hears and the you’ll-find-something-else-to-dos. The buffet Charlie organized consisted of all desserts. Smart man.
No, he didn’t! Yes,
