just keep standing. This marks the twentieth year Dorothy has been on our board.” Much more applause. “I can’t even begin to tell how much she has done for the Foundation in all those years.
“And of course, she is herself a graduate of the FitzRobert Home.”
She sat, and Charles found her hand and held it while the rest of the names were called, and while the remarks began and plodded their slow path.
“With our new wing, which has now been open for three years, we have one hundred and forty children in the Home. As you see in your annual reports, there are still many needs that have arisen from our expansion. We will be presenting plans this evening for our new dining commons and kitchen. We also have many successes to share with you. And a special surprise.”
A treasurer’s report followed, and then an architect’s presentation, all of it just short of being overlong. The director reclaimed the podium.
“Next is our surprise! Usually at this point in the evening we have a video presentation and we invite several of our older students to tell you how much they appreciate the support we receive from our donors. Tonight we have something different.
“This past year we have increased the faculty of our school by several instructors, especially in our arts and music department. The results have been extraordinary! And now for you, our donors and supporters, we will unveil our most closely held secret. For their inaugural concert, please allow me to introduce the FitzRobert Singers.”
A door opened in a far corner of the ballroom. A small head appeared. It was nearly hidden between the tables, but its progress toward the front was obvious from the audience craning to see. It was followed by more small heads, and then heads with shoulders, and then tall, straight young men and women; they were all in white and black, shirts and blouses, pants and skirts, and they came and came, a dozen and another dozen and another, and then another.
When the final teen had taken her place, the whole array of them was spread across the front stage, forty- eight strong, each as dignified as his or her stature allowed.
An austere young woman, not apparently much older than her oldest students, severely in black including her long, very straight hair, stepped to the podium and turned it to face the faces.
She quietly hummed a pitch, but the whole room heard it. The silence was absolute and fiercely expectant.
She raised her hand. She waved it in four slow beats, and then the downbeat.
“Amazing grace…”
A single child’s voice split the stratosphere, as thin and wafting as air but as piercing as a sword.
“how sweet the sound…”
The others joined him in harmony from the octaves below, their voices clean-scrubbed and as pure delight to hear as they were to see. Verse after verse the music poured, flawless to the last and to the music director’s obvious relief.
The applause was thunderous.
Mrs. Elizabeth Roper, Director of the FitzRobert Home and Foundation, wasted not a moment afterwards.
“As you all know,” she said, “our Foundation relies entirely on our donors. It costs one thousand dollars per month for each child, to provide food, clothing, a bed, and a quality education. We have always provided our services at no cost to our children, who of course, as orphans, do not have families to provide for them. Inside your annual reports, in the back cover, you will find an envelope for your donation this evening. After you’ve put your donation in and filled out the information on the front, the children will be coming to your tables to collect them.”
As the words went on, Charles took a check from his wallet, already made out, and put it in the envelope. On the front of the envelope he filled in his name and checked the box for one time gift and wrote in the amount of the check, $12,000. Then he added, William Beale Memorial Annual Scholarship.
“What are you thinking?” he asked as they drove the dark streets back home.
“I know how those children felt,” she said. “I was one of them there tonight.”
“Do you remember the banquets they had when you lived there?”
“I think they had just a few donors, and they were very rich. They gave them tours. We would be so dressed up! They’d come walking through and we had to be just perfect. I didn’t understand what it meant, just that they were so important and we should be so very grateful. It was frightening. I was sure I would do something wrong and these people would have me thrown out, or the whole Home would be shut down and it would be my fault.”
“That was when you were very little.”
“It was not my most positive memory,” Dorothy said. “I don’t remember as much about the donors and the fundraising from the later years.”
“The children looked very nice this evening. I expect they aren’t always so well behaved.”
“Not unless they are much better than children were in my day. You would know that just from driving the bus.”
“There were some very challenging episodes,” he chuckled. “But I was still very glad for the job. I don’t think an eighteen-year-old today would be trusted with a busload of children.”
“They have adult drivers and chaperones now.”
“Do they wear uniforms?”
“Not anymore. You were so handsome in yours, dear. And of course, you still are.”
“Why are some men so much less governable than others, Charles?”
“We all are, Derek, to some degree.”
“The degree varies so widely. It seems to be a critical property of any individual. I’ve been reading that it might be due to structure of the brain.”
“When in doubt, blame it on chemistry.”
“But, Charles, if some part of the brain that controls judgment and empathy isn’t developed, then wouldn’t that person be more apt toward crime?”
“But then all behavior is only neurons and synapses. Personality becomes just an equation of brain cells. I don’t want to believe that.”
“It’s a natural progression from Newton. The physical world is just an expression of mathematic laws, and we are complex biological objects.”
“Now you’re blaming heredity, Derek. I think we’re more than objects.”
“Show me anything else.”
“I think I am, just by having this conversation.”
“Touche, Charles! All right, I admit, it is a stretch to explain human reason by chemistry.”
“Human reason might be more reasonable if it could be explained that way.”
“But I don’t think we should leave heredity off the hook completely. We’ve touched on this before.”
“Yes, with William.”
“I’d value your opinions, Charles. You’ve paid dearly for them.”
“Yes, they’re dearly bought, Derek. But I don’t know if that makes them valuable to anyone else.”
“You said he was seventeen?”
“He was always troubled. We thought we could bring him through it, but in his last two years it became so much worse.”
“Did you have any real warning, though? At the end?”
“No. Looking back, there were probably things we should have seen. But there was no real warning.”
“Where did it all come from, Charles?”
“I wish I knew. It would help us so much, even now, to know why. Was it his upbringing or was it something he inherited? There is so much family history we don’t know. Obviously it tortures Dorothy, especially. But we just don’t know.”
SUNDAY MORNING
