A paper cup plunked down on top of the piano, a red straw sticking out of its lid.
“I hear you need a place to write some music.”
Miriam looked up. The man was tall and fortyish, with a hint of gray at his temples. “Uh … hi?” she said.
“That’s for you,” he said, gesturing at the cup.
Miriam eyed the cup with suspicion. “What is it?”
“Chocolate shake.”
She eyed it, her mouth watering, but shook her head. She could hear Jo, walking down the street with her when she was in kindergarten, murmuring, Never accept anything from a stranger. “Um, thanks, but …”
“Oh, come on. It’s only a little spiked. How can you experience Colorado without a little hash in your shake?” Then, seeing her eyes widen, he laughed. “All right, I’ll quit teasing. My name’s Hadley Merrick. John’s my big brother.”
Out of context, it took a minute for the name to register. John Merrick, who’d figured out how to load Talia’s app to Miriam’s phone. “John … from my choir in Atlanta?”
“Uh-huh. I’m not really sure of the backstory—I got it secondhand—but I gather that someone called Becky remembered that John had a black sheep brother in Colorado Springs. John called me a few minutes ago. I was told to get my butt down here and look after you while you’re in town.”
Miriam laughed. “Leave it to Becky.”
“Yeah, she sounds like a person I’m not entirely sure I want to know any better.”
“Oh, she’s the salt of the earth.”
“I’ll bet.” Hadley had a quirky sort of Harrison Ford-Danny Kaye vibe going on. She could already feel her insides warming to his smile. He must be quite the lady-killer. And so easygoing. A far cry from his brother, who would move heaven and earth to help a person in need, but was wound as tight as a garage door spring. Holidays in that family must be something else.
Hadley picked up the cup and held it out. “Nothing but ice cream, I promise.”
Miriam smiled and took it, savoring the sweetness.
“Listen,” he said. “I own a dance hall down the street. It’s called the Gathering Haus. I have a piano. Seems to me like you could use a quieter place to work, considering what you’re trying to do.”
Miriam was getting tired of being handled, even by people she loved. She thought of Dicey, pushing back against Miriam’s concern, and felt more sympathetic than she had a while ago.
“I’ve got a couple staff members around too, if that makes you feel better,” Hadley added, misinterpreting her silence. “They’re prepping the bar for tonight.”
Miriam gathered her notebook. “Let me text my friend and tell her where I’m going. What’s the address?”
He gave it to her, and she punched it in as they started walking down the street.
The Gathering Haus had a baby grand with an easy touch. A handful of employees chatted and laughed as they set up tables and chairs. They paid no attention to her, so they were not a distraction.
Yet still, the music pushed back against her. The voice of grief was like a stubborn child; denied expression on its own timeline, it refused to cooperate at all.
Miriam blacked out yet another forced transition and laid her head on her forearms, themselves crossed on the music stand. Her melody didn’t want to be classical. It wanted to be sung, full-throated, by a group of people gathered for worship.
She sat up and punched the “Record” button on her voice memo, then started playing the music the way she’d first heard it in her head. Instantly, the melody relaxed, found a fresh chord progression, and took off. She hummed along, hoping to catch words she couldn’t quite hear. She paused to write: a few notes, then a few more. The harmony, freed from ostentation, washed away awareness of all else—the clanking and screeching of metal table legs against the floor, glasses banging on trays, voices calling to each other. She wrote and played, erased and wrote again: a clever rhythmic pattern in the bass, a descant, spicing up trite harmonic progressions with adventuresome accidentals. She experimented with a few words from Psalm 46, Teo’s favorite Scripture passage. Be still and know, indeed. Yes, that felt right. It felt right.
“Miriam!”
The voice had an insistent edge that spoke of several repetitions. It also sounded totally out of context because it wasn’t Hadley. She emerged, bleary-eyed, from the music, blinking a few times to get her eyes to stop playing tricks on her, because she couldn’t possibly be looking at Gus von Rickenbach.
But no matter how many times she blinked, the image didn’t change. Gus von Rickenbach was standing on the dance floor of the Gathering Haus. In the flesh.
Miriam gaped at him. “What are you doing here?”
“I told you I wanted to talk face to face,” he said, grinning at her befuddlement. “I realized if you wouldn’t come to me, I’d have to come to you.”
Of course he’d come. Of course he thought gratifying his own whim more important than respecting her wishes. She should have been prepared for this.
Gus shook his head. “It’s totally bizarre, how familiar you look to me. Are you sure we’ve never met?”
All these years preoccupied with him, and the best he could do was you look familiar? Well, Miriam wasn’t going to spoon-feed it to him. She stared him down, waiting for the dots to connect, for the tumblers to click into place. Surely it was inevitable now. “How did you find me?”
“Well, I knew you were headed for Colorado Springs, so I took a risk that you’d share your location at some point. You didn’t, but”—he twirled a finger above his head—“the owner here did. He tagged you on Facebook.” Gus hopped up onto the stage,
