Playing by Heart by Anne Mateer Page A

the strains of the piano to die in the silence.
    â€œSee? You’d be a perfect music teacher!” Jewel’s smile brightened.
    â€œMusic teacher?”
    â€œI told you. The high school needs a music teacher because the other one”—she cut her eyes to her little girls—“E-L-O-P-E-D. As far as I know the position is still available.”
    I bit my lip, knowing how much Jewel wanted me to take up music again. But teaching it? That went far beyond accompanying hymns at one Sunday morning service. To teach music meantembracing it altogether. I could teach a far more important subject than music—I was meant to teach more than music. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. I’ll just look—”
    â€œNonsense. You’ll go right on down there tomorrow morning and apply. Tell Principal Gray you’re my sister.”
    My frown grew deeper. I’d committed to keeping Jewel and her children in this house, the house Davy had constructed with his own hands, even if he did buy the kit from Aladdin. If I abandoned that goal now, Don and Janice would roll their eyes and mutter about the unreliability of Fruity Lu.
    Teaching was by far my most profitable skill. So I’d present myself at the high school tomorrow. Talk with the principal. Ask for a job.
    As anything but the music teacher.

    Darkness fell, and JC still hadn’t returned. I picked up a ball of yarn and a crochet hook.
    â€œGo on to bed, Jewel. I’ll wait up.”
    â€œHe ought to be home by now.” She stared out the window, arms folded across her chest as if to barricade her heart. “You’ll come get me if he isn’t back soon?”
    â€œI promise.” The hook missed the loop. I let the short string unravel as Jewel plodded up the stairs.
    Oh, JC. Can’t you make things a mite easier on your mama?
    Only crickets answered my unspoken plea. Or was it a prayer?
    I hadn’t prayed much lately. I’d sat in church every Sunday, heard the words. But very little had penetrated to my heart. Why was that? In my younger years, I’d often felt close to God. Even when Mama passed, I could sense Him there with me. Then something changed. I changed.
    My gaze wandered to the piano, and my fingers twitched. I slipped them beneath my thighs and searched for something else to do.
    Clear the supper dishes. Tidy up the kitchen. Turn out the lights. By the time I finished, JC would be home again. Or I’d slip out to find him. I shivered at the thought of the chill in the air and the blackness of the streets.
    As I set the last dish in the cupboard, a bump sounded from the living room. I held my breath, tiptoed across the wide hall. Caught JC with one leg over the window sill, half his body inside, half outside. His head jerked in my direction, and he gasped. Then relief coursed through his brown eyes as he considered me in the half-light.
    I decided it best not to scold. “Glad you’re finally back. We missed you.”
    He shrugged, swung his other leg into the house, eased the window shut, then studied the floor. I wanted to sweep him into my arms and tell him to cry on my shoulder as I had the night we buried his father. But I sensed a difference in him now. A manly pride in place of little-boy grief. Was that why he didn’t want to be at home? Did he not want to appear weak?
    My insides crumpled like a sheet of paper in a fist. I had no idea how to inspire him to work out his sorrow in tandem with his family. Jewel had Davy when Mama died. Don and Janice had growing children to grant some reprieve from grieving their mother. And Ben, he’d spent only a day at home before returning to Texas. Daddy couldn’t handle his own loss, let alone mine.
    For a few months, I’d hidden my pain under a frenzy of laughter and music, of flirting and silliness, as if nothing had happened to my mother. Then one day Daddy noticed my math test. A perfect score.
    â€œI was