A Timely Concerto by Lee Ann Sontheimer Murphy Page A

His wide brimmed hat covered most of his face but beneath the brim, she saw a smile.
    “You came back.” Howard said his voice hushed and quiet. “I wasn’t sure if you would or not.”
    Lillian nodded, swallowing around the lump that filled her throat.
    “Hello.” Sylvia repeated for the third time, voice thick with exasperation. “Lillian, is that you?”
    “Hi, Mom.” Good humor returned and she grinned as she waved at Howard ... “I’m back at Seven Oaks, safe and sound.”
    “You made good time.” Sylvia said. “I’m glad you had a safe trip.”
    After a few more moments of chitchat, Lillian ended the call and stood up.
    “Hi, Howard.”
    “Good afternoon, Miss Lillian.” Although he bowed in formal fashion, his voice was light and a smile flirted with the corners of his mouth. He did not look like a faded portrait but a young, virile man. “You have returned from your journey.”
    “Yes, I’m back and I’m here to stay.”
    His smile broadened. “So you’ve decided to make your home at Seven Oaks? I am delighted. I can recommend the place highly.”
    Lillian laughed. “I guess you could at that. Will you tell me all about it, how you built it and everything?”
    “If you like. What else do I have to do besides haunt the place?”
    He was lonely, she realized, had been lonely while she was away and for decades. That touched her and on impulse she blurted out,
    “I missed you, Howard, while I was gone. And I researched hauntings so that maybe we can figure out what happened and why you’re here.”
    He stood as still and firm as one of the oak trees that ringed the house and for a moment, she thought she had made a mistake. Then he removed his hat and tossed it past her to land on the bed. His smile vanished and with a serious mien – where did she keep coming up with these old-fashioned words anyway, she wondered – he sat down in the rocker.
    “Although we’ve not been acquainted long, Miss Lillian, I must admit that I missed you too. I am not sure what to make of you for you are more forward and forthright than most young ladies that I once knew. That is not a bad thing, mind you, but it is different. In my day, young ladies were much less open with men they knew so little and I was often shy myself but with you, I feel quite confident.”
    His blue eyes gleamed with emotion as he spoke and she realized that he was as smitten as she was. A familiar delight she had experienced whenever interest was mutual with a man made her want to giggle but realization that their situation offered little outlet for such emotions shadowed her joy.
    “I thought about you while I was gone,” Lillian said the words awkward with the new emotions. “I want to help you if I can, to at least understand why you’re still here and how that can be possible.”
    “That you believe it means a great deal to me. No one has before, not really,” Howard said. “I have longed to be able to discuss my strange experience with someone but the few who saw me were frightened. I tried to speak with my mother but she shut me out. Her grief was so heavy that she could not bear to think some part of me could be here and she feared she was mad when she saw me so I let her be in the end.”
    “That’s so sad.”
    He tilted his head and scrutinized her. Apparently satisfied that she spoke with compassion, he nodded. “Yes, it is. It will be a relief to tell someone what happened to me. Although I’ve gone over it in my mind a thousand times or more, I’ve not told a soul what happened.”
    “ Then tell me.”
    Howard nodded. “I will but not here; I died in this room. Meet me downstairs in the second parlor.”
    He died in the room where she slept. That was disconcerting and she fumbled for words until she could process that information.
    “The room with the piano?”
    “Yes, Lillian.”
    He was there, and then he was gone as if he had never been. Lillian stared at the antique bed with the high headboard and wondered