Hearts Unfold: Miracle at Valley Rise Book 1

Chapter One

December 20, 1967

It seemed to Emily that her father must have known. He must have read the misery in her eyes and drawing on what little strength remained, he’d roused himself to give her the benefit of his wisdom one last time.

Three barely discernible words, stammering and slurred, forced from his unwilling lips with such tremendous effort, yet they had spun a web of possibilities in her brain. She argued with herself that it was her own directionless longing that magnified those words, transforming them into what sounded like fundamental wisdom. She was grasping at straws in her need to find some way to put her life back on track. She had prayed for a sign, for clarity, for a miracle. What she received seemed to be a mere suggestion, a few words uttered by a man who might not even realize what he was saying. But she couldn’t accept that. Her heart urged her to believe otherwise. In the end, she had followed her heart.

Now here she was, at home as she had never expected to be again, and she was certain beyond any shadow of a doubt that her father had sent her. Pop must have known the future she was blindly seeking lay in her past, in the dreams and plans that once appeared shattered but were in fact hers for the rebuilding. Had he known that once she walked back into the house, saw that it was waiting for her to return, she would understand what she was meant to do? Perhaps he’d merely been encouraging her to come back, to see what was here and decide what she wanted for herself. It would be like him to tell her to try something, and if it didn’t work out, chalk it up to experience. Failure was most often in the hesitation, he’d always said.

It hadn’t been quite that easy. She’d fought a protracted battle with her more practical side. There were obvious flaws in the logic of just coming here alone in search of answers to questions too painful to put into words. She would have to try to explain something she couldn’t make sense of herself. She would have to stand firm against the arguments that the house had been closed up for years, that a nineteen-year-old girl had no business alone in such an isolated place, that she should be spending the holidays with friends, not closeting herself away to brood over the past. In the end, coming here without telling anyone seemed by far the easiest thing to do. That led to the question of where to tell them she was spending the Christmas break. They would all want to know, Jack, Angela, the kids at school, especially Penny, even Mike and Sara. She had handled that with what she knew to be a despicable lack of honesty.

She’d never believed herself capable of a convincing lie, but evasion had become second nature since she’d been at college. Reluctant to expose herself as a lonely girl without a family or a real home, she trained herself to skillfully evade the issue. She was sure her classmates considered her a snob, but she dreaded the idea of their pitying looks, or worse still, their thoughtless gossip. Rather they wonder what she was hiding than suspect her of seeking sympathetic attention. So when she was asked about her holiday plans, she glibly alluded to a ski trip with some hypothetical friends. To those back home, the friends were assumed to be classmates. To her classmates, and to Penny, they were old chums from her childhood. She never actually said where she was going, just that she’d been invited, and that wasn’t quite a lie. She had been invited, by a boy who persisted in showing an interest in her, a boy with a huge ego and an overabundance of confidence in his own charms, a boy she wouldn’t have considered walking across the street with. But it had been an invitation. She hadn’t lied about that.

She knew once she armed herself with enough arguments to go to Jack with her plan, she would have to confess her deception. And she would also eventually have to tell Penny the truth. But for now, it was enough to know her dishonesty had been justified. The idea planted by her father led her back to her home, her past, and back to herself. This night’s epiphany had brought her into her future, and she could only hope the people who loved her would understand why she’d chosen to make the journey on her own.

The actual miracle occurred—and she had no doubt it was a miracle—when she’d stood beneath the stars and whispered her own name into the darkness. In the cold night wind, the fog that had for so long bound her mind began to clear, and she looked up to the sky, a broad black bowl over the valley filled with stars she hadn’t seen in years. The wind rustling in the branches above her seemed to whisper words of calm and comfort, as if to say don’t rush, take time to be very certain of each step.

She thought then of her father’s words. You, touching her hand with a trembling caress; farm, shaking his head sadly. And finally, after what seemed a herculean struggle, home. There had been tears in his eyes, as though it grieved him to have to remind her.

Looking up to the sky again, she felt the surge of her reviving spirit. Overhead, familiar constellations winked in place. A sliver of a moon hung low over the trees, too pale to compete with the brilliance of the stars. This would have been the perfect cinematic moment for a star to arc from its orbit and trail to the horizon, she mused. But nothing moved, save the gentle twinkling and one small cloud sailing just below the moon. This, she believed, was the sign she’d prayed for. The sky she’d gazed up at as a child was unchanged. The hills had not shifted their positions. The winter cold had arrived in the proper season. Some things, the most essential of things, remained constant. In her short life, so much had changed. So much that she’d almost been uprooted and lost herself. In this familiar place was the direction she’d been seeking, the peace and stability she craved. Had her parents been standing with her there, she could not have felt more confident of the path she saw opening before her.

What remained was accepting that with this decision came a binding commitment. This was more than merely taking possession of what was already hers. Any plan to return to this place, to make it her home and build her future here, would not only include the promise to care for the house and the land. She must also submit herself to be further shaped by what was here. Just as it belonged to her, she knew she belonged to the farm. She would not be free to go elsewhere. It would always need her care, her companionship. It would be her family, her responsibility. Maybe this was why Pop had been so sad. What if she hadn’t wanted this?

There beneath the infinite expanse of the winter sky, mindful of all that had gone before, she made her commitment. She would come home, build on what her parents had established, dedicate herself to a life they would have wanted for her. She would work through the practical problems of her decision in the days ahead, holding firm to the belief that things meant to be could be made to happen. The failure of her plan would be in the hesitation to take this first step into her future. Her father had taught her better, and she intended to make him proud.

****

On her pallet next to the hearth, Emily slept more peacefully that night than she had in years. She dreamed of the house as it was when there had been the three of them together. In her dream, she heard the sound of music, the piano and the violin speaking as surely as the voices calling from room to room. She smelled freshly polished wood, sun-warmed roses and the alluring scent of baking bread. In every room, as she passed slowly through the house, surfaces gleamed in the sunlight and a sweet breeze stirred the curtains at the open windows. In the oak trees outside, birds sang and the fields beyond the barn were green with the summer’s abundant crop. The house seemed to glow, renewed, reborn.

****

Daybreak brought the full force of harsh reality to bear. The first of those practical problems she’d been so sure could be worked through met her waking glance. The house was cold, her fire now barely glowing ashes, and from her vantage point by the hearth, she had a view of the dust coating every surface and the delicate webs laced across light fixtures and clinging in corners. The musty smell of neglect filled her nostrils with each breath. With a resolute groan, she threw off the covers and scurried to the kitchen. Soon the copper kettle was heating water for tea, and slices of buttered bread were toasting under the broiler. She’d never been afraid of hard work; in fact it always helped her think. There was enough work here to last for days, plenty of time to formulate her strategies and test her arguments. By the time the house was clean, she should be prepared to march into Jack’s office and present her plan.

Jack. The image of his wise, weathered face brought a lump to her throat. More than her godfather, Jack had been her third parent. For another two years, he was also her legal guardian, the one person whose support was essential for her to move forward with her plans. Just convincing Jack she was no longer a child would take some doing. Persuading him she could actually come home, take over running the farm and live here on her own would take much more. Better to get busy doing something constructive than waste energy quaking at the thought of the moment when he realized she’d lied to him and sneaked up here practically under his nose. If hard work could help her think, then the more hard work the better.

She made a mental list of the chores to be done, but first, she wanted to take a walk. When she had arrived, just before dusk, she’d rushed to prepare for the night, carrying in her supplies and enough firewood to last until morning. Now she walked deliberately to the gate, opening it wide enough to let herself out into the drive. Slowly, in order to enjoy the full impact, she turned back to gaze across the lawn. It was an image she carried in her mind, as clear as any photograph; the solid frame house guarded by two ancient oaks, flanked by the big red barn to the east and the little timbered smokehouse to the west. A large, graceful house, with a deep porch and big dormers lined in perfect symmetry across the front, it sat close to the ground, as if rooted there over time. Seeing it now after so many months away, she thought it seemed a little sad, but not at all unwelcoming.

Mounted on the rail fence by the gate was the hand-painted sign first put in place by the farm’s original owner, her father’s uncle. He had christened his home Valley Rise Farm, a name carried on when her father inherited the property. Repainted numerous times over the years, the sign was again in need of refreshing, the paint now faded and chipping. Beneath the title, the name of J. D. Haynes had almost disappeared. She would make the sign a priority, she decided. As soon as she could get to the hardware store, she would buy paint and brushes and carefully restore it. It would announce to all comers that Haynes intended to carry on here.

Reentering the gate, she followed the drive to the back of the house. To the east, beyond the barn, the land dropped away steeply to a wooded hillside. Below the woods, she could just make out the tall brick chimneys of what was locally known simply as the springs. A hundred years earlier, Charlotte Springs had been an elegant resort, the destination of wealthy vacationers who came for the cool summers and the waters of the deep sulfur springs. Now all that remained were crumbling foundations and the sentinel chimneys, and the road to the springs was closed to all but local traffic.

The barn and the rail-fenced paddock seemed unchanged, but beyond, to the west, the overgrown furrows were a forlorn reminder of how long it had been since the lush rows of the garden flourished. Five years now, since that final planting; her father had lost interest after that, allowing the land to go fallow.

As she strolled across the yard, a fat gray squirrel paused in his brisk rummaging among the leaves and stood watching suspiciously for a moment, before scurrying up the huge oak at the back of the house. From his perch, he chattered furiously down to her. The invitation was irresistible.

Not used to sharing the place, are you? Emily called up to him. Well, I won’t be here long this time, but you’d better be prepared for company, come summer. And by the way, how about keeping this yard a little neater? Anybody would think no one lived here! The squirrel gave her the benefit of his bright, inquisitive gaze, finally turning to race up to the nest high above, bidding her farewell with a grand flourish of his tail.

Turning to survey the yard, with its mounds of windblown leaves and remnants of long-ago flower beds, she shook her head. Her mother would be horrified that things had been so neglected after the years of careful cultivation. The rose bushes she’d so prized, now gnarled and overgrown; the beds of azaleas and rhododendrons in dire need of pruning, and the brick-lined borders where in summers past bright annuals had bloomed, all now cluttered with several seasons’ worth of weeds and debris. In and out of the tangled beds, wrens, sparrows and chickadees darted for their breakfast, and a pair of cardinals dove gracefully into the dark green haven of a juniper. Not deserted, she thought, just in need of a loving hand to bring back its former beauty.

After walking a full circle around the house, checking for broken windows or loose shutters, she decided the house had fared amazingly well. A good cleaning and it would be almost as good as new. Of course it hadn’t been new in almost seventy years, but it had been gently used, and in her lifetime, at least, much loved. A little of the same kind of attention should bring it back to life. With one last sweeping view of her surroundings, she drew a deep breath of the cold, clean air and squared her shoulders. Time now for some real work.

First checking the level of the fuel oil tank, she was satisfied she could safely raise the thermostat above the fifty-degree chill that greeted her last night. With the furnace humming along, her next chore would be getting water to the house. The pipes had been drained for winter two years ago. She would have to forego the luxury of running water. Her only hope, short of crawling into the root cellar to locate the proper valve in the maze of plumbing, would be to haul water from the pump by the barn. Bucket in hand, she approached the rusted relic braced for a fight. After several minutes of slowly forcing the handle, screwing up her face at the screeching protest, she was rewarded with a gasp of air, followed by a gurgle of dirty sludge spewing into the trough below. A few more strokes and she let out a triumphant howl as clear water began to flow. Filling the bucket, she carried it with careful steps to the house, repeating the procedure a half-dozen times, until satisfied the supply would last the day.

Pleased with her accomplishments so far, she turned her attention to digging for any cleaning supplies left behind. Crawling under the kitchen sink, she pulled out a plastic bucket filled with carefully organized brushes, sponges and rags. A box of baking soda, a jug of bleach and a somewhat cloudy bottle of pine-scented cleaner completed the kit she’d always carried from room to room. Digging deeper, she located a can of lemon oil, the only acceptable substance for polishing her mother’s prized antiques. In the pantry she found the mop and broom, propped in their usual corner beside the ancient vacuum cleaner.

For the next two hours, Emily cleaned her house. It was an amazingly celebratory experience. As she worked her way across the long front room, she was convinced that with every pass of the vacuum wand, with every stroke of her dust cloth, the colors in the room came to life. The warm brick red of the drapes, the mossy green of the velvet couch, even the cabbage roses on the wing chairs glowed, once relieved of the layer of dust that had settled on every surface. Each small treasure she held in her hand to polish was returned to its place with a renewed presence, as if in response to her touch. By the time she stopped for lunch, the mustiness of neglect was banished, replaced by the warm scent of burning wood and the faintest hints of lavender and lemon.

From the hearth, flanked by glass-fronted bookshelves, to the west end of the room that was home to her mother’s piano, the room seemed restored. As in her dream, the wood floors gleamed and the tabletops shone from a fresh coat of oil. Going to the piano, she carefully removed the dust cover. The ebony surface, smooth and cold, reflected the sunlight from the nearby window. Hesitantly, she opened the cover and touched a key with one finger. It might well have suffered from the cold and damp of the closed house, but she would contact the tuner who’d come regularly when her mother was alive. Emily herself could play only the most elementary of tunes, but the beloved instrument deserved to be maintained. With one more timid note, she closed the cover over the keyboard, passing her hand across the satiny wood in a tender caress.

Lined on the shelves along one wall, the extensive collection of recordings and the stereo purchased not long before her mother’s death caught her attention. Hesitating for only an instant, she approached and after running her finger along the rows of jackets, drew one from its slot. Vivaldi’s Four Seasons was precisely the sound she wanted filling the house today. Soon the chiming strings shattered the silence, invading every corner with glorious music. Collecting her rags and broom, she marched off to the kitchen to prepare her lunch.

****

After a quick sandwich and the promise of something hot for supper, Emily stood in the center of the room, surveying her handiwork. It would be all too easy, she knew, to sit down and enjoy the afternoon, listen to music, browse the bookshelves for old friends. Coward, she prodded. What are you afraid of? Turning herself firmly toward the half-open door of the guestroom, she forced her steps in that direction. Last night she’d gone in just long enough to pick out the quilts for her pallet, choosing the least precious from her mother’s collection stored on the shelves of the wardrobe. Certain she wasn’t ready to sleep in this room, she’d chosen instead to make her bed on the floor by the hearth, arguing that she needed to stay near the warmth of the fire.

Now she opened the door wide, and going in, drew back the drapes to let in the streaming sunlight. It was a beautiful room, with pale yellow walls and blue and white toile draperies. The mahogany sleigh bed was another of her mother’s antique treasures, as was the imposing walnut wardrobe. This elegant room had been reserved for those rare occasions when friends or relatives from far away visited the farm. In this room, her mother had slowly died that long summer five years ago. If there were ghosts in the house, Emily thought they would surely be here. Not only the ghost of her mother, but that of her father as well, keeping his hopeless vigil at her side. But she didn’t believe in ghosts. Memories were haunting enough, she knew.

In the light of day, as she slowly turned to take in the entire room, she told herself it was really just four walls, filled with fine furnishings and nothing more. Try as she might, she could no longer honestly picture her mother in this room. She might be out there at the piano, an intensely focused expression on her lovely face, or perhaps sitting in the porch swing, her eyes closed as she listened to music through the open window on a warm afternoon. In this room, there was nothing but quiet calm, a welcoming sense of comfort. Going to the bed, she tenderly smoothed the white matelasse coverlet. Maybe, in another day or so, she could sleep in this bed. But today, she could open the windows and let the cold fresh air blow away the lingering scent of old sachets. Today she could sweep aside the last of the memories, move a chair, rearrange the pictures on the wall. One day at a time, living in this room would push back the past, making space for the future. With a squaring of her shoulders, she went to gather her supplies.

To complete the final chore on her list, she rolled up her sleeves and heated water in a stockpot. Throwing open the windows, armed with hot water and bleach, she attacked the two bathrooms, scouring tile and fixtures, wiping down walls and mopping floors upstairs and down. Her father had remodeled the rooms during her childhood, but the old claw-foot tubs remained, lending their charm to the bright spaces. When porcelain and chrome gleamed from her efforts, and the black and white tiles shone like new, she was convinced the house was glad to have her back.

At the end of the day, she longed for a hot soak in the depth of one of the tubs; her arms and back ached from unaccustomed labor. But the best she could do was a quick sponge bath at the kitchen sink, punctuated with cries of brr and ugh as lukewarm water met bare skin. She brushed out her hair and shampooed away the dust. As she dressed in her nightclothes, glad of her heavy flannel robe, she congratulated herself on having been truly content all day. No fog, no depression, even when confronted by the past at every turn.

For her supper, she’d opened a variety of cans from her stock of provisions—beans, tomatoes and corn, pouring the contents into a pot and adding a handful of rice. Now she lifted the lid to savor the aroma of her stew. Ladling a generous bowlful, she carried it into the front room. Seated at the table by the window, she ate, watching as the final red glimmer of daylight faded from the wintry sky. When the last drop was consumed, she took a notepad from the table’s drawer. She would make a list, map out her strategy and plan her maneuvers. All day, shreds of argument and logic had been darting through her brain. It was time to get serious, before she was caught off guard and found herself tongue-tied and defenseless.

While she knew Jack’s support was essential to her success, she would need other allies, Mike and Sara McConnell in particular. They were the ones who made it possible for her to stay on through her senior year of high school, who guided her during the confusing months following her father’s stroke. When J.D. was admitted to a nursing home in Charlottesville, Mike and Sara had taken Emily into their home in the parsonage. With two sons, one a classmate of Emily’s, the other four years older and just entering the Army, they provided a family environment, which Jack, as a bachelor, could not have done.

Sara had been so kind, so watchful, when Emily suddenly became part of her household, making every effort to see she had the privacy a girl her age needed. She understood and encouraged Emily’s wish to visit the farm, to put things in order after her father’s abrupt departure, helping her pack and clear the house, preparing it for an uncertain future. Mike offered Emily a sounding board, guiding her toward acceptance of the changes in her life in the context of her already well-developed faith. As her father’s long-time friend, he shared her grief and understood her frustration at facing a future where the man they’d known was now so cruelly disabled.

Mike and Sara would understand her need to come home. Whether they would agree she was mature enough to take on so much responsibility, she couldn’t be sure. But their support could serve as added ammunition against whatever doubts Jack might have about her readiness to live on her own.

Then there was Angela to consider. Where Jack would debate the wisdom of her plan with rock solid logic, her godmother would most like respond emotionally, with the sort of fiercely intense approach she took to everything in her life, from her music to her family. It seemed if her heart told her to do a thing, no matter how illogical, Angela did it. While her instincts usually proved to be wise in the end, there were often heated arguments or torrents of tears along the way. With her Italian husband, Sal, she frequently engaged in furious debates, before the predictably passionate reconciliation. Even with her teenaged daughter, Lil, the similarities between the two led to endless wrangling over the most trivial issues, generally concluding with Angela’s taking the day.

The thought of seeking Angela’s approval set Emily’s stomach quivering and effectively cleared her mind of any and all coherent arguments. She might be able to stand up to Jack’s reason, but she knew she was no match for Angela. The vision of Angela’s dark eyes flashing as she bluntly spelled out the obvious made her cringe and retreat. No, she would go to Angela only if and when she knew she’d won over Jack. Emily believed Angela would likely accept a fait accompli with good grace. She was a loving godmother and a caring ally. But she would much prefer informing Angela of her plans, rather than attempting to enlist her help.

She knew she’d been blessed initially by her parents’ choice of Jack and Angela as her godparents, and further by her father’s appointment of Jack as her guardian. They’d been closely involved in her upbringing, and remained faithful to her through all the changes. They were the only family she had now. The challenge would be convincing them she was ready to at least try life on her own terms.

She looked down the list of fragmented ideas on her notepad and shook her head sadly. There was nothing here that would stand up to the loving objections she could anticipate from the very people she needed most on her side. It would take clear thinking and firm resolve to face arguments which might make perfect sense to her mind, but were in complete opposition to what her heart told her was right.

Fighting the specter of inevitable defeat, Emily went through the house turning off lights, ending up before the hearth with only the firelight illuminating the room. Brushing her still damp hair, she tried to lull herself into a state of calm. Prayer, she knew, would order her mind and still her fears. But to pray, she needed to quiet her racing thoughts and banish the rising anxiety fueling them. She’d always found strength in her confidence that God was somehow involved in her day-to-day living, watching over her every step. Through all the challenges and the changes, her faith had held her fears in check. There was no reason this time would be any different. This assurance she felt, that she was making the right choice, that in fact God had guided her toward it, should be proof she would find the strength and courage she needed to go forward.

There by the fireside, in the absolute stillness of the night, the simple words of wisdom came stealing into her thoughts. Have faith, be still and let God be God.

Chapter Two

Crawling into the back of the limo, Stani huddled in a corner, closing his eyes behind the lenses of his sunglasses. If he could only be still for a bit, he told himself firmly, he might yet avoid being sick. His head was exploding now and waves of nausea threatened to ultimately humiliate him. Robert, his dark face devoid of expression, gently closed the car door and slid in behind the wheel. Turning back to his passenger, he offered a bottle of mineral water and a hairbrush. Young sir, he said softly, you’ll be needing these I think.

Stani opened one eye to accept them, pressing the cool bottle against his burning cheek. Thank you, Robert. And thank you for waiting. He was relieved it had been Robert, and not one of the car service drivers, who’d been asked to wait. Officially Milo’s chauffeur, Robert had been with them since their arrival in New York. He was by now a member of their already irregular family, although Stani knew the idea would have been resisted by both Milo and Robert. But just as he relied on Milo and Jana to keep his days and nights from running to chaos, he also depended on Robert, who’d gone far beyond his assigned duties on more occasions than Stani liked to recall. Laying the hairbrush aside, he mused that Robert would never permit him to exit his car looking like something picked out of the gutter. As soon as his head stopped pounding, he would try to bring some order to his damp hair.

The car began to gain speed on the freeway and he tried to relax, hoping to fall asleep. Five hours to DC should be long enough to see him back on his feet. If only he could get Milo’s voice out of his head. Never in all their years together had he shouted like that. Oh, Milo might get very angry with him at times, but his voice tended to be ominously soft on those occasions.

When the phone had rung, Stani was sprawled on the floor, having apparently fallen just short of the bed on his return home. He had no idea what time that might have been, but he was sure he’d only been asleep for a few minutes. He stared at the phone, unable to convince his body to respond. But it had gone on ringing until the pain in his head prompted him to at least attempt to make it stop.

He tried to force a normal greeting; one never knew who might be calling. But Milo had known, as he always knew, the nature of Stani’s condition. He’d gone off immediately, demanding to know if Stani realized the car was waiting downstairs. Of course he didn’t know! How was he to know what his day’s schedule might be? That was what Milo saw to every day of his life. It was then he remembered. Milo wasn’t there. He was in Aspen. He and Jana had taken their first vacation together in ten years, leaving Stani to go to Washington alone.

Milo was still shouting over the phone, Stani, you must pull yourself together! Do you understand me? As always when upset, his accent seemed more pronounced, clipped and authoritative.

All right! I understand! Can you call the driver back, ask him to give me ten minutes? Ask him to wait. Please! Suddenly afraid he might start to cry, he bit his lip, hard.

Dropping the receiver, Stani ran his hands through his hair, twisting his fingers into the curls and pulling. The pain brought tears to his eyes, but it might help him to focus. He took a deep breath, smelled the stench of cigarette smoke—and maybe vomit?—in his sweater, and bile rose in his throat. Struggling to his feet, he stripped off his clothes, stumbling toward the bathroom. Somehow, in the next few minutes, he managed to shower, brush his teeth and dress. Grabbing his bag, packed by the ever-thoughtful Jana before her own departure yesterday, he’d nearly reached the door when, out of the corner of his eye, he spotted the violin case. With a muttered oath, he snatched it up, slinging the strap over his shoulder, and jerked open the door, coming face to face with Mamie, her key in hand, a look of supreme disapproval in her knowing brown eyes.

With a sputtered apology, he pushed past her. So sorry, Mamie. I’m late, of course!

You’re right about that, Young Stani. Robert is standing at the curb. He was aware of the slow shake of the housekeeper’s head as she watched him race toward the closing elevator doors. As he stood impatiently waiting for the next car, he turned back with what he hoped was a winning grin. Don’t worry about the mess I left. I’ll take care of it when I get back. The effort of the words and of bending his face into a smile had been too much. He tasted bile again as he got on the elevator, thankful it was unoccupied. Mamie would clean his room, he knew, but at least he’d made the gesture. Like Robert, Mamie could be counted on to cover his tracks, although she rarely let him off without a mild scolding.

When the elevator doors opened on the lobby, he was blinded by the blaze of sunlight, and groped for the sunglasses he could only hope were in his pocket. They might be considered part of his celebrity disguise, but they were essential protection after the kind of indulgence he’d enjoyed last night. The banging in his head escalating with every step, he sped past the waiting doorman and dashed gratefully for the car, aware of Robert’s solicitous nod.

****

Stani shifted his position, stretching his legs across the seat and trying to find a more stable resting place for his head. No longer panicked and angry with himself, now he was overwhelmed with shame. He was sure Jana would have been standing there by the phone, would have heard their conversation. His pathetic idiocy had spoiled their much anticipated vacation. It seemed he always understood, after the fact, how destructive his behavior had become. He just couldn’t seem to remember by the next time he’d had a drink or two.

He’d fallen in love in recent months. Fine Scotch whisky had become his passion, the object of his obsession. He adored everything about it, from its amber glow in the glass, to the slow warmth spreading through his body as it went down. And of course, he loved the release of tension which followed soon after. Whisky made the clubs and parties he frequented seem so much friendlier; made him friendlier, more at ease around people with whom he had nothing in common. The only drawback to this relationship was the fact he never felt completely comfortable until he’d had too much to drink. He was dedicated to finding just the right balance between having a pleasant time and falling down drunk, but in the process, he seemed to always go too far.

Stani knew he’d inherited this love of whisky from his father. It was probably the only thing they had in common. He seemed to recall his father also having been some sort of musician, but that might just be something he’d made up as a child. He’d at various times invented stories about his father and mother, which he kept mostly to himself. Since he had so few memories of his early life, he filled in the details as best he could. His parents had been real at some point he knew, but he suspected the people he invented were much more interesting. A schoolmaster’s secretary and an absent drunkard hardly measured up to the fantasy parents he’d given himself.

Again, Stani made a conscious effort to relax. He should feel right at home sleeping in the back of a car. He did it often enough. His life was one long line of endless cars, trains and airplanes, all going to or from equally endless concert halls. But somehow he never felt at home anywhere anymore. Only when he was standing before the lights, sensing if not seeing the faces turned up in anticipation, did he feel anything like his old self, the shy little boy who could make people like him just by playing his violin.

It was legend now, the discovery of that little boy’s talent. He suspected that just as he had made up stories about his first few years of life, some of the details now printed in liner notes had been embellished over time. But he remembered, or thought he remembered, that day clearly. It had, after all, been a day of many firsts for him. The first time he held a violin, the first time his teachers seemed to take notice of him, and most of all the first time his mother seemed pleased with something he had done.

When he was five years old, his mother had enrolled him at the school where she worked as secretary to the headmaster. It was one of those elite schools popping up all over England, designed to attract upwardly mobile young parents in search of a more modern sort of education for their children. Eileen Moss could never have hoped to enroll little Stanley in such a school, had her position not allowed for a sizable break in the tuition.

A quiet, obedient child, Stanley received little attention or encouragement from his various teachers. In such an unstructured environment, it was the more lively students who commanded the most attention. Naturally shy, and well aware he was only there because his mother was just down the hall working, Stanley felt much of the time as if he were invisible. And he preferred it that way. He knew very well how to avoid drawing attention to himself. He had learned that trick early on, literally at his mother’s feet.

Then one morning his class had been taken to the orchestra room. Too young to begin that type of instruction, they were merely on a field trip to see what they could look forward to in years to come. As the teachers fought to maintain order, protecting the instruments and music stands from their eager charges, Stanley caught sight of a violin. He knew its name because he’d seen a man playing one on a television screen in the furniture shop window near their flat. When he’d asked his mother what the man was doing, she had explained pointedly that he was a very smart man who had studied hard and now made a great deal of money playing his violin.

He remembered clearly the lightness of the instrument when he’d picked it up, the coolness of the wood as he’d tucked it under his chin. He had drawn the bow over the strings several times, then handed the violin to the nearest instructor, saying in his shy, soft voice, It’s wrong.

That’s only because you don’t know how it works. The teacher had smiled, he recalled, and he’d been afraid she might laugh at him. Instead, she tuned the violin and handed it back to him. Try again. See if you like it better.

He had indeed tried again, proceeding, after a few peremptory notes, to play several measures of a song he’d heard over the radio. When he finished, he looked up timidly to see if the teacher had been listening. There was an astonished look on her face; he wondered for a moment if she’d been struck by one of the children racing about among the music stands. Stanley, can you do that again? She was motioning to the other teachers in the room, urging them to come over. Always eager to please, he’d repeated the song note for note, inspired to add a little flourish at the end.

Suddenly, it seemed, although it must have been at least a few minutes, for his mother and the Master had been called to the room, he found himself in the center of a circle of smiling adults, all talking in hushed voices. Never mind that the other children were tearing about, yelling and screaming, sending music stands and chairs crashing to the floor. Everyone who mattered was hovering over him and talking, if not exactly to him, at least about him. His mother had a peculiar look on her face, almost as if she might cry. For the first time in his life, he sensed he’d done something to make her proud of him.

From that day on, his young life was centered on the violin. He was taken from one instructor to another, never staying with one for very long. It seemed after a few months, each one admitted to his mother that he’d learned all they had to teach him. Finally, his mother plucked up the courage to make an appointment with a prominent concertmaster. When he saw that she’d brought her little boy and his violin, he seemed about to leave the room without even talking to her. But after some pleading, he agreed to hear the boy play. After that day, Stanley began to study with a lady who had, his mother explained, taught many of the great violinists he heard playing over the radio. He learned quickly that she was not so easily impressed as the others. He had to work hard for even the faintest praise. And he did work, learning and practicing more and more music, until he could play for hours without playing the same piece twice.

At some point during this time, Stanley changed his name. He’d really done it himself, with his childish inability to pronounce his name properly. His mother often called him Stanny, like Danny, because that was what he called himself. When she read about a concert featuring a pianist named Stanislav, she was inspired to change the spelling in an uncharacteristic moment of imagination. Little Stanley Moss from East London became Stani Moss, a violin prodigy who might have been from anywhere, she said.

When he was eight years old, his mother took him to meet a man recommended by his teacher. An agent, she explained, would help him learn how to make money playing his violin. Milo Scheider, by that time, had already built a modest reputation in London. He’d assembled a small stable of artists, including his wife Jana, an accomplished pianist. Several of his flock had achieved notice with a recording