THE CAVERN OF DEEP HARMONY

PART TEN:

Immediately following breakfast, Eden went up to her room and called Connie. "You're not coming back already?" were the first words out of Connie's mouth when she heard Eden's voice on the phone.

"No, no.  In fact, I'm calling to say I've decided to extend my stay. I've got a lot of vacation time piled up at the paper. You know how I've not used any in ages. So I'm going to call there next and tell them I'm taking it now...all of it."

"All of it? Eden, that's quite a lot. What in heaven's name have you found up there that's so interesting?"

"I'll tell you more about that later, Con. Right now I just know it's something I need to do, want to do. Just wanted to let you know, ok?"

"Sure. I'm just a bit puzzled. Hadda twist your arm to get you up there and now you don't want to come back. Sounds a bit strange, I hope you know."

Eden laughed. "I know. But everything's all right. Really it is."

When Eden finished her second phone call and walked down the hall toward the stairs, she heard piano music. Curious, she came into the parlor and found Marshall seated at Martha's

old upright, the fingers of his right hand picking out notes.  "It sounds like raindrops," she commented.

"Close," he grinned. "It's called 'The Wisdom of Snow'.  Has a definite 'falling' quality to it, doesn't it?"  He played a bit more. "There are no words, just the music. Sounds better with

the left hand, too."

"Marshall Sinclair, is there anything you can't do?" she chuckled.

He turned on the bench. "I'm actually not all that good at portrait painting," he answered, trying to look serious.

"But he sings quite nicely," Martha added, coming into the room. "We've had our own little songfest going here in the evenings. Here, Darlin', move over."

Marshall slid to the side and Martha took a seat on the piano bench and started playing

"Stout-hearted Men".

Marshall groaned dramatically. "Martha! Nelson Eddy?"

"Come on, mister," she said determinedly, "you can do it."

And so he did, a deep, full-bodied  baritone filling the  room as  Martha  played, a rather

satisfied smile lurking around the corners of her mouth. Eden stood there listening, absolutely transfixed.  Miles had sung, but his voice was an Irish tenor. Marshall's was so different, rich and full and strong. She sat in an easy chair to one side of the room and when they'd finished, urged them to continue. Martha began "You'll Never Walk Alone" and Marshall briefly touched his hand to his face, rubbing lightly across his lips, then began singing.  When he sang the words, "hold your head up high and don't be afraid of the dark," Eden's eyes stung with quick tears, watching him. He was simply...grand. And he was not at all afraid of the dark.

And then she realized that this was the first time she'd cried for anybody since Miles and she

was crying because Marshall was so beautiful and he was unafraid in his dark but she didn't understand his dark and how he could be so unafraid.  There was no way...ever...even if she

lost her sight tomorrow that she could really grasp his darkness yet she found herself desperately wanting to.  He was right there...just a few feet away... and yet somehow so

separate from where she was. It was like they were each encased in their own distinct

bubbles. As she got the mental image of that, though, she also remembered how when two bubbles came into contact, they often merged. Could that happen? Could she get beyond the walls of his bubble, of hers, and find some space that they shared? She didn't know why it mattered, but it did. She had held his life in her hands, quite literally, not knowing about

the bubbles. Now he was himself again, now she knew, but what she wanted was the way it

had been when she had wiped his face, his eyes, and he had not dwelt in some different land

she could never visit.

Martha looked over, saw the tears in Eden's eyes, but said nothing.  She merely turned to Marshall and asked, "Need some hot apple cider after that?"

"Sounds good.  You, too, Eden?"

"Most definitely," she said brightly, wiping quickly at her eyes. "Thank you both. I really enjoyed that."

He stood up from the piano bench and walked straight to the chair near hers, taking a seat. Wadsworth was napping under the window. "You know where the chair is so easily."  She

was becoming less hesitant about saying what she was thinking. He seemed not to mind her questions.

"I've been here a month. After a little while, you learn the locations of things. So long as they're not moved," he added. "Martha watches over me like the proverbial hawk. If a guest so much

as moves a footstool, she's right there putting it back in place."

He sighed then and leaned his right temple against the curve of the wing-backed chair. "You look tired," she said.

"I am," he admitted. "I think not sleeping much last night is catching up with me."

"Why don't you rest a little then? I have some more phone calls to make in my room. I'll see...uh...I'll come back later and maybe we can talk about your book some."

"It's ok, Eden, to use the word 'see'.  I use it all the time myself."

After she left, Marshall closed his eyes. Wadsworth got up, moved over to one side of the chair and flopped back down again. Half-asleep, Marshall reached up, took off his glasses, and let his hand fall with them onto his lap.

Half an hour later Eden returned to the parlor. Wadsworth lifted his head to see who was coming, saw it was her and lay it back down again. Walking quietly, she crossed the room and sat down on the footstool in front of Marshall. His eyes were closed but the darn black glasses
were off and she could see his whole face for the first time since the hospital. Then he was still

a stranger, but now she was getting some grasp of who he was. With his glasses off, the bruise along his cheekbone showed clearly.  The bruise, his face in such repose, eyes closed brought
clearly back to her their time in the rain and she felt connected again to him as that person

and somehow was able to begin reconciling the two Marshalls who had seemed so different

to her. Harold was outside raking leaves, Martha was bustling about in her kitchen, and no

one else was in the house, so she got to her knees right beside his legs and just watched him

for a long time.

Always she had thought she knew herself, understood what made herself tick, knew her own motivations. But right now she wasn't so sure anymore. She had just met this man yet was so extraordinarily drawn to him.  She'd not even felt this...this...what was it? This sense of...of...
going toward. Yes, that was it. Not even when she'd met Miles.  Miles was laughter and ballgames in the midst of large crowds of his buddies. Always there'd been buddies. She liked them, got along with them fine, enjoyed being part of a larger group. Most of them were cops like Miles and very close with one another.  Wherever they went, there were always several others along, watching each other's back. Except... except for that night in the snow when

he'd been alone. They hung around for a while in the days after the funeral, knowing he'd

want them to make sure she was all right. After a while, they began to drift away and her

main companion was her cousin, Connie. There'd been no more evenings in Irish pubs with

beer and back slapping and ballads. She hadn't really wanted it, not after Miles was gone. It

was because of Miles that she'd ever been a part of it in the first place.

She hadn't wanted to date, not for a long time after Miles. Then last year she'd ventured into

a relationship with Collier, the architect. He was 8 years older, had lived alone all his adult

life, and had a splendid condo in the Trimont tower overlooking the city. Everything there

was perfectly arranged, absolutely clean, and totally uncomfortable. Just like him. It was how

he was, how he needed things to be, and how she was not. It wasn't that she was a slob, not at

all, but that comfort was important to her. She liked to go into a room and live in it. His rooms
were works of art with invisible "Do Not Touch" signs posted everywhere. It would never have worked.

Now here she was kneeling beside the sleeping Marshall and he seemed to her like some beckoning roadway that she wanted to travel. Something lay just around the bend of him, something she felt this rising desire to find. And, strangely, she felt that if she found whatever
it was, it would somehow explain her to herself and something that was lacking would be filled. Not that she put all this into words in thought clear and reasoning as she watched him sleep.

She just knew it without consciousness of the knowing.

Three men. Miles and his world of police blue and golden hair and the foam of beer on laughing lips. Collier, all in minimalist black and white, with clean, straight lines and a horror of lace. And Marshall, whom she'd found in autumn, in a place of  crisply-colored leaves and wild
geese and the lappings of lake water. Marshall, tweed and suede and rust-toned leather, warm cider and apple pie, plaid afghans and... books. Fireplaces and quiet grace and walking without fear in places all unseen.

Martha poked her head in the room to make sure he was all right and paused, riveted by the expression on the young widow's face as she knelt beside his chair. She had saved him and now, though sound asleep, he'd begun something quite akin to saving her.  The older woman
smiled and then hurried to shush Harold who was coming a bit too noisily in the front door.

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