Playing by Heart by Anne Mateer

most.”

7
    L ULA
    The shadows under Jewel’s eyes bothered me. I sent her to the front room to put up her feet while I warmed the dinner I’d cooked the night before. A scrawny chicken with potatoes mashed into a fluffy mound. At least I was helping—but Jewel needed so much more than my limited skills in the kitchen. For one, she needed me to help her family keep their home. In order to do that, I needed a job. Now. Accepting the position of church pianist might help out, but it wouldn’t supply all our needs.
    After Sunday dinner, we enjoyed the crisp afternoon air, sunlight falling like bright jewels through the baring branches of the large oak tree. All of us except JC. He asked permission to visit the horses at the livery. Jewel wanted to say no; I could read it in her eyes. But with a heavy sigh, she consented.
    JC raced away. I didn’t comment. Jewel didn’t, either. Instead, we listened to the clop-clop of a horse walking over the hard-packed dirt road in front of the house. The squeals of neighborhood children nearby. The chirp of squirrels gathering their winter store of acorns and pecans.
    Trula plopped down in Jewel’s lap, where we were lounging beneath the oak in the backyard. “Sing me a song, Mama.”
    Jewel laughed, though I thought I heard her gulp down a sob at the end. “That was your daddy’s talent, not mine.”
    I cocked my head and stared at my sister. She had a nice singing voice. I’d heard her hundreds of times, usually in tandem with—
    Davy.
    I closed my eyes, willed Trula to accept her mother’s answer. But the child’s bottom lip jutted out and the corners of her mouth trembled. “Please?”
    Jewel’s gaze met mine, her eyes liquid and anguished. “I’m sure Aunt Lula wouldn’t mind.”
    â€œMe?”
    Trula bounced into my lap and clapped her hands. “Please, Aunt Lula!”
    Jewel cleared her throat. “She can sing and play the piano, Trula. Much better than your mama can.”
    Trula’s eager eyes found mine. I knew I ought to smile, but couldn’t. Jewel understood that I’d left behind things like music when I’d settled into academic pursuits. But for the second time in a matter of hours, she’d pushed me in the old direction. Mama had encouraged things like music and art—things Fruity Lu dabbled at. Things that had no place in the scholarly world Daddy encouraged.
    Jewel rose from her place on the grass beside me. “Trula can show you where we keep the sheet music. I’ll bring Inez and Russell inside.”
    I mashed my lips together and glared at Jewel’s back. I hadn’t made a fuss at church this morning, playing in public when I hadn’t touched a piano in years, but now . . .
    Trula pulled at my arm, forced me to my feet. Before I could protest, I was on the stool at the piano, Inez jumping up and down, arms flapping like a bird taking flight. “Sing, Auntie Lula! Play and sing!”
    Jewel certainly knew how to make it so I couldn’t refuse.
    I snatched a hymnal from atop the stack of music, hoping it would keep my focus on God, not on my playing. The book opened easily. I set it in place and squinted at the notes, my heart fluttering the same as it had this morning in church. One tentative finger pressed a treble key—slowly, so that it made no sound—then harder, the hammer striking the taut strings beneath it. The tone sounded off, as if they hadn’t had the instrument tuned in some time.
    Inez plopped down near my feet and popped her thumb in her mouth, eyes wide.
    I took a deep breath, let my fingers find their way once more. And as they had that morning, they remembered more than I’d imagined they would. Tremors of fear skittered from my fingers to my toes, but the enraptured looks on the faces of those listening terrified me even more.
    I jerked my hands to my lap and clamped my lips shut, leaving