Naturally I felt that same emotion welling in me. There was no hiding from it. My eyes teared up, and I lifted my hands from the keys.
“Thank God,” I heard, and jumped in my seat.
“Hello?” I called out. “Who’s here?”
“Reverend Morris.” His voice boomed from the balcony. “No need to worry.”
“I thought I was alone.”
“That last passage was quite moving.” Loud as ever, even in an empty church.
“Thank you. It’s so difficult, I have to play it slowly.”
At first he did not respond. I saw him moving from one side of the balcony to the other, before he came to the railing. “You witnessed my tantrum this morning.”
“It wasn’t my intention, sir.”
“You could have held pillows over your ears and still heard it.”
It felt strange to have so personal a conversation shouted back and forth between the ends of a church. “It’s between you and Mrs. Morris and none of my business.”
Again he did not answer right away.
“Whatever it is, I hope the pain lessens for you over time.”
“No,” he barked. “I do not hope that. It would mean that my love for my son had diminished. It would mean that his sacrifice had lost its power to scour the soul.”
This time I was the one who didn’t answer. His son? His sacrifice?
“I cannot promise that I will never lose my temper again,” he continued, the volume a trifle lower. “But your presence here has given my wife a break and me a bit of solace. I do not want you to leave. So I can promise you that at least I will try.”
“It had never occurred to me to leave.”
Well. He let that one echo around for a bit. He sat down, in the last row of the balcony, and then he knelt.
I closed the sheet music and made my way back outside. That church was full to the brim of things I did not understand. Oh, Charlie, it was April, where were you? I found a bench, watching the pigeons strut and coo, and waited for my life to begin.
When Charlie stepped off I was standing there, in people’s way I suppose, but I did not care. I did not want him to spend one second searching for me. Before he had come all the way down the steps, I was moving—arms around his neck, kisses on his face.
“Brenda,” he chuckled. “I’m blocking everyone.”
I pulled back, still holding one of his arms, drawing him away from the crowd and down the sidewalk. Then I kissed him on the mouth.
Now I had smooched my fair share over the years, I make no apology for it. The boys were heading to war, or home on leave, and desperate for a little female touch. Nor did I mind, thank you. I knew tall, short, fat, and thin, good kissers and bad. You never knew how it would be with someone, no predicting till you were actually lips to lips.
But kissing Charlie was of a different order. I knew it then, I marvel at it now. The chemistry, the way he defied my ideas of manliness right up to the second our lips touched. Then he was the full ticket, and a ride in a jalopy too. When Charlie kissed me, I felt like I was falling, and the only answer was to hold on tight and keep kissing.
My letter had melted Charlie, and now he was giving me another chance. There in his embrace I promised myself, the world, the sky: I will not hurt this man again. I will not hurt this man again.
Here is the thing you learn when you don’t interrupt, when you’re not perpetually barging in on someone’s ideas and speech: they finish their sentences just fine, and their thoughts are not weaker for reaching completion. I spent those hours with Charlie genuinely listening for what felt like the first time in my life. When I answered him, I was as opinionated as ever, but not so brash, not quite so certain. He did not have to play defense. I think I could feel him begin to relax.
Also I could not take my hands off him. Touching was like being fed. We spoke in low voices, almost whispers, and we ambled for hours, keeping to the shady sides of the street. We saw marigolds, and paintbrushes, and a kind of daisy that grew in clumps low to the ground. Had the people of Santa Fe planted a path for us? It felt that way.
And as long as I kept my restraint, Charlie opened.
“It’s a kind of weapon we’re building,” he confided. “A new kind.”
“Why is it difficult for you to participate?”
“Imagine a gun that you can shoot, but not aim. Maybe its bullets knock out an entire foreign battalion. Or maybe it will kill all the babies in an orphanage.”
“But you’re not the one firing it, are you?”
He shook his head. “I make a minor component. Which is also a crucial one.”
“Well.” I stayed close with him, thinking about what I was going to say before I said it. “The people shooting it are on our side, right?”
He nodded. “Very much so.”
“Then we have to trust them, Charlie. You can do your part, and know that you are helping the war effort in a way that you know best. Then you can be done with it, and let them do their part in a way that they know best.”
“Quite a few people on The Hill feel as you do.”
“But you don’t.”
We kept walking, in a city that seemed strangely deserted. Where was everyone? At one point we turned onto a lane bordered with forsythia, one whole flank of the road a riot of flowers. Charlie paused by one of the bushes, the yellow sprays dangling toward us as if wanting to be touched. He brushed his hand against a branch, making it swing. “That Bach piece you’ve been working on. Imagine if you had a chance to play it on the organ Bach himself used, the one he composed it on. You’re outside the cathedral, and you can hear it playing. Not much would stop you from getting inside and having a try, right?”
“It would be the dream of a lifetime.”
“That’s where the fellows are with this weapon. They are dying to get inside the church. In fact, they want to be the first ones in.”
“But not you.”
He smiled. “But not me.”
I reached into the bush and pulled at a stem of forsythia. It didn’t give easily, but I worked it back and forth until it snapped free, and then I gave it to him.
“Brenda. We shouldn’t take—”
“Don’t worry,” I reassured him. “I planted this whole street here, last fall, so that we could walk here today. No one will mind.”
We had a late-afternoon meal, enchiladas sharp with spice. While I’d grown accustomed to the local food, it was obvious Charlie had not been eating it. After an especially hot bite, his face reddened and he glugged down water. Afterward we meandered, wasting minutes like a millionaire dropping pennies. We kept time by the church bells tolling the hour, no more exact than that. Still, I felt a knot in my belly when they rang seven, his bus leaving at quarter after. As we rounded a corner onto East Palace, it was already idling in place. Boys with suitcases climbed aboard.
“More arrivals for The Hill?” I asked.
“They never stop coming.”
There was a calm between us, a mending of our affections. Until I saw something out of place: Lizzie, her hair unkempt, running up the street. I grabbed Charlie’s arm, as if to brace myself.
“There you are,” Lizzie said. She was panting.
“What is it?” Charlie asked. “What’s the matter?”