The Piano Teacher

Chapter 4

She dropped her line into the river, not expecting to catch anything substantial since there were mostly small fish. But she didn't care. Samuel set up his own pole from another stick and fished beside her on the log silently for a while.

Everything was quiet except for the rustling of the trees, which covered them in a most wonderful shade. She spotted a few black slugs along the river and some toads hopping along the damp rocks.

For that moment, she was entirely calm. She could forget everything that bothered her. It was just her and her uncle fishing in the stream. She didn't even care that the hem of her dress had become muddy.

But it didn't last.

Samuel eventually broke the silence. "I figure you should write to your Pa once we get back. He was mighty worried about you when we left, and I'm sure he'd like to know how you're doin' now that you're startin' to settle."

"Yes, I suppose so," she replied. "But I'm not sure what I could say. He sent me out here to get well, but I'll never be as well as he wants me to be. You know that, uncle."

Samuel glanced at her, his coffee-toned eyes sad for a flash. "Well, Charlie. Your father's expectations aren't up in the clouds. But he loves you a good bit. You frightened him half to death, and me for that matter, when you took ill that last time. He knew the doctor wasn't doin' much, and he figured this place was the next best thing. Fresh air, fewer stresses in your life."

"Yes," she sighed. She loved her father, but sometimes, he was so austere that it was impossible to get close to him. Especially as she got older and she had the family's reputation to maintain. He was a lawyer, a good one, and he had always been good at his job. He never made mistakes.

She had disappointed him many times, inadvertently, and she hated seeing him disappointed. Her fainting at her last concert in front of so many people seemed to be the final straw. She didn't know what to say to him now.

Maybe he just wanted to be alone, or maybe he didn't want to look at her anymore. Though she was enjoying the prairie, she couldn't help but feel exiled from her home.

"Well, in any case," Samuel continued. "You write that letter, I'll deliver it to the post office. Then, for the next few days, you can relax. Sleep a lot, wander about the prairie, go fishin'.... I bet you'll feel mighty good by the end of the week. And then, we ought to go and get some proper dinner. I spotted a restaurant in town called Nellie's, I think. Seemed like a new establishment and the only place to get a real dinner. I reckon we should try it to give you a break of my cookin'."

Charlotte smiled, but it was more like a grimace. She intensely disliked the idea of sitting in a crowded place for so long. "Well, I could start cooking by then," she recommended. "That way, we wouldn't have to waste Pa's money."

Samuel raised a silver eyebrow. "Gettin' a couple of dinners in a small-town establishment ain't gonna put a hole in your Pa's pocket. Besides, I know you just want to get out of it because you're nervous. Well, there ain't no use in arguin' about it right now anyway. We'll think about it come Saturday."

She was glad to stop talking about it so she could push it from her mind. She wished her whole life could be simple, like fishing in a stream. But fishing wasn't her whole life.

She still thought of the piano every day. Her father had discovered at a young age that she had a gift for the instrument. She was clumsy in just about everything else but not the piano.

And she loved it.

She loved it so dearly that it felt sometimes as if she were married to it. She had beaux before, only a couple, but she always ended up paying more attention to the piano than she did to them. They seemed shallow compared to the instrument and its infinite musical combinations... and she found that many of them grew quick to anger toward her.