Legacy of Silence

Miranda sighed. “My only lingering question is ‘what on earth did I ever see in him beyond good looks, charm and smarts and the theater mania we had in common?’”

Her refined and genteel father produced a distinct snort. “Well, having met the man, I’d add charisma to that list. I thought he was great for you and I’m generally a decent judge of character. I guess we were both deceived.”

“Well, I’ll just be more careful next time I’m attracted to someone and try to curb my impulsive heart. But I have to admit I’m really ticked Grant’s directing Topaz—there was a great part in it for me. Ah, well. Nothing to be gained by angsting over it all. I’ll hang out here for a while, play Virginia’s lovely piano and have a marvelous time sifting through her things. Maybe get some answers as to why she hid in this place for those seventy years.”

“Now that would be a great mystery to solve. I remember hearing that she worked at one of the old department stores downtown back when they had their own tailors, but by the time we moved here she was taking in clothing at home and wouldn’t leave the house. You practically lived at Virginia’s 24/7, especially around Halloween.”

Miranda sat straight up. “Halloween. Yes. Talk about memories.” She closed her eyes, seeing herself as a little girl, dressed in a pink tutu and ballet slippers, ringing the doorbell of this very house and receiving a warm greeting from a tall, elderly woman with exquisitely refined features. Miranda could almost smell the scent of cinnamon-flaked cocoa and the chocolate cupcakes decorated in orange icing that had been sitting on a table in the living room. She could see Miss Virginia, dressed all in black, smiling, as she ushered the ballerina, the superhero and the astronaut inside for what had been Miranda’s first Halloween mini-party.

“I was seven at the time. I remember you let the Shapiro twins be my escorts. That’s how Miss Virginia and I first met.” Miranda glanced at the corner of the room where Virginia’s tea table still stood. She could almost see the starched doilies under the plates of goodies and Virginia’s steady hand pouring homemade hot chocolate into cups for her Halloween guests. “Dad? Do you remember anything else about her life? Maybe some tidbit a neighbor let slip? I honestly don’t recall her talking about her past—she probably knew I was too young to care and most of the time I was rattling on about my dance recitals or school plays or...” Miranda swallowed hard. “What a selfish little brat I was.”

“Honey, you were young. No kid wants to hear the life story of anyone over the age of eighteen. Give yourself a break. She understood. Believe me.” He paused for a moment then continued, “I heard that she bought the house in the mid-forties—she might’ve been a war widow. Then again I never heard anyone call her anything but Miss Virginia. And she definitely wasn’t from Birmingham.”

“That much I knew. She was Czech. I found out the first time she made kolaches for me and I became instantly addicted.” Miranda could almost taste the fruit-filled pastries Virginia had baked on a weekly basis. “She was a great cook but I think she also dabbled in art. Or maybe she told me she’d been an artist’s model? I’m not sure. She said she had a portrait of a child my age who had my ‘impish expression.’ But she never got around to showing it to me. I wonder if I’ll finally get to see it.”

“She also loved music and theater,” Tim said.

“She did. I used to perform all my dance routines for her. I have this very clear memory of reciting and acting out the poem The Highwayman when I was in sixth grade. She thought it was a Tony-winning performance.”

Miranda blinked back tears as the memories flooded in. She had often played piano and sung while Miss Virginia sat in a rocking chair, quietly listening; then the elderly lady and the small child would sit down to formal tea. Miranda inhaled. She needed to end the conversation before the strong emotions finished it for her.

“Dad, I just noticed the time. I’d better get a few boxes moved before the delivery guys show up with the new bed. If they can’t inch it back into the bedroom past the clutter they might pitch the frame and mattresses into the yard in disgust. Which reminds me—do I pay them today or did you already take care of the bill?”

“It’s paid in full and you don’t need to reimburse me. I’ll let you go, but remember you’re coming over to the house next week. Farrah’s invited some folks to meet you. And before you say anything, yes, I’m well aware that you’re not up for any matchmaking dinners right now, but Farrah really wants to do this. And I’ve been asked to remind you that the Trussville Fair is in ten days. As far as I know it’s still set up like it was back when we used to go. Lots of artwork and crafts and I think some local bands are playing.”

Miranda had winced after hearing Farrah and dinner in the same sentence but tried not to let her feelings about the get-together leak into her tone as she thanked her father and said goodbye.

She quickly began to move boxes away from the piano, muttering “labels” to herself. She needed a system for cataloguing so she wouldn’t end up going over the same box twice as she did inventory for the estate sale. Miranda peeked inside a box that was partially open and found Virginia’s sewing basket. Her smile warring with tears, Miranda reverently lifted it out and opened it, eyeing the ancient thimbles and the twenty-odd spools of thread in various colors. She gently unwrapped a pair of perfectly preserved scissors from their bed of fine linen and just as carefully put them back.

“No way am I selling Miss Virginia’s sewing supplies,” she said. These things had been a huge part of her friend’s life. They’d been her livelihood. Miranda remembered Virginia carefully searching to find the perfect color of thread to hem one of Miranda’s dance costumes. Even as a child, she had recognized the older woman’s pleasure in stitching that costume with expertise and love.

Miranda set the box with the sewing goods back on top of the piano and in doing so, she upset another opened box. The contents spilled out onto the floor—more than a dozen bound notebooks.

“Journals?” Miranda hesitated for a few moments, not sure whether she had the right to pry into Virginia’s private thoughts. When a sheet fell out of the book she was holding, she skimmed it and began to laugh. Recipes. Farrah would love this. Miranda opened the notebook at random, hoping to find ingredients and directions for tea cookies and kolaches.

Instead, she discovered a discourse regarding the fun side of politics in the 1990s including Miss Virginia’s opinion that Bill Clinton played one mean saxophone. Miranda grinned, dropped that notebook back into the box and picked up a journal that was obviously far older.

She sank to the floor after reading the first paragraph.

Miss Virginia hadn’t really been a miss. She’d been the missus to a gentleman named Benjamin Auttenberg.

May 15, 1960

I ran into Marta Rosenberg tonight at temple. We cried when we saw one another. I did not know she had moved to Birmingham, too. She said she has been attending the temple in the Mountain Brook area. It was so good yet so painful to see her. We were last together in Terezin on that day the Russian soldiers freed us all in 1945. Marta talked of our husbands’ deaths and we cried again. She wanted to know if I had remarried and I told her that Radinski was my maiden name. I don’t want anyone to know I was Benjamin Auttenberg’s widow because I don’t want to be hounded by art dealers trying to buy his paintings. I had enough of those vultures right after the war. I told Marta I simply want peace.

Miranda heard the sound of the delivery truck pulling up out front. She quickly grabbed a tissue from her purse and dabbed her eyes, then replaced the journal in its box.

“I miss you, Virginia. And I’m so very sorry—for everything.”

CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_cba8d012-2c96-569d-8743-9a5308dc1d36)

MIRANDA PAUSED IN the doorway of what would be her bedroom for the next month. She eyed the deliveryman who was currently kneeling on the floor with his back to her, putting the side slots of the bed frame into the footrest.

“Excuse me? Before you get the frame done and the box springs on, would you mind moving the frame a bit to the right? I need just a little more room to vacuum what passes for a rug on that side.”

Nothing. He ignored her and continued to click the side railing into place.

Miranda waited for a second, unsure if he was being rude or simply didn’t feel like responding. When he moved toward the left side of the footrest without shifting the bed an inch, she coughed, and then repeated her request with a bit more volume.

Nothing. Maybe he was listening to loud music on headphones and simply hadn’t heard her?

She was about to lean down and tap him on the shoulder when Henry—the head deliveryman from Rocky Ridge Furniture—did the same to her. She whirled around.

“He can’t hear you, Ms. Nolan.”

“Music lover with super teeny headphones set on serious blast mode?” she asked.

Henry shook his head. “Yes and no. He actually is a music lover—or I should say ‘was.’ He lost his hearing about two years ago when he was in Afghanistan.”

Miranda was stunned. She tried to imagine what life would be without music and began feeling hemmed in by the room itself. Would complete silence mean a world walled off from the rest of humanity? She shivered. “What happened?”

As if the man knew he was being discussed, he turned and stared—or glared—at Miranda. His shaggy brown hair fell over hazel eyes. His nose appeared to have seen a football, basketball or soccer ball bounce off it at some point in the past. The right side of his face bore numerous small scars, but they didn’t detract from the kind of quiet attractiveness worn so well by some of the movie stars of the forties and fifties—like Gregory Peck or Gary Cooper. Miranda could have sworn she’d seen him before... She was also aware of a tightening in her stomach. The same tension she always got just before going onstage. Excitement and anticipation and a touch of fear of the unknown.

Henry started to answer Miranda’s question but was interrupted by a voice that had a strange mix of richness and a volume that seemed slightly unsure. “Before Henry gets a chance to become melodramatic or bore you with a ten-minute monologue, let me simply state that a bomb went off in Kabul where I was working as an interpreter. I made it out with limbs intact. My eardrums were not so lucky. Nor were the numerous soldiers who never made it out at all. Satisfied?”

Miranda blinked, then calmly and slowly responded, “I suppose you read lips?”

He shook his head. “Not with any great skill. I’m much better with signing. Most deaf folks only read about fifty percent anyway. But your curious ‘what happened’ is easy to understand. It’s an obvious question—and you have fairly decent mouth action.” He paused, then continued with a sarcastic edge to his tone, “Most people slur and mumble, which leaves me without a clue as to what they’re yammering about. In all honesty, I don’t particularly care to know what the majority of the universe has to say. Life is better without the noise of ignorant people.”

Miranda flinched, unsure how to respond. “I’m really sorry.”

Apparently her mouth action was still “active” because he immediately snapped, “For what? You didn’t set the bomb.”

Miranda bit her lower lip then tilted her chin up. “‘I’m sorry’ wasn’t meant as a personal apology. Perhaps I should have said, ‘you have my sympathy for your trouble.’ Would that suit you better?”

He looked at her with some confusion. Apparently his lipreading skills weren’t up for snapping out a speedy response—or perhaps he simply wasn’t able to understand lengthier sentences.

Henry grinned at Miranda. “Get him, girl! He needs someone to stand up to him. Normally, people duck their heads and leave the room when Russ tries to shame them. Of course, it may help that he probably got about four words out of what you said. He’s right. His signing is far better than his lip reading.”

“Russ?” Images flickered through Miranda’s mind. She suddenly remembered seeing this man on a stage sitting at an electric keyboard.

Russ was still staring at her.

“It just hit me. You’re Russ Gerik—right? You were with a really cool band. Very eclectic musically. Columbiana Patchwork. I saw y’all at a festival over in Gadsden about ten years ago. You were on keyboards and vocal backup and you were amazing.” She turned to Henry. “Do you sign?”

“Since the cradle. Both my parents were deaf.” He translated her question and subsequent comments.

Russ’s puzzled stare shifted to a look of anger oddly mixed with apathy. “Yes. Russ Gerik. Columbiana Patchwork. It’s over. So is this—conversation.”