The Stars Are Fire

  “Music won’t pay the bills,” her mother says. “And what kind of a man just squats in the house without trying to find out who the owners are?”

  “Oh, come on, Mother, you know it’s been happening all up and down the coast of Maine.” She taps her ash into the saucer. Gladys and Evelyn don’t smoke.

  “If he has no credentials, we can’t trust him.”

  “I’m sure he does have credentials. I just didn’t ask. But I talked to him. I liked him. I think he’s trustworthy.”

  Her mother seems about to remind her of instances when her instincts didn’t pay off, but she holds her tongue.

  “I want to go back with you and the children tomorrow, just to see the place,” says Grace.

  “It might be good to have a man close by,” her mother suggests. “To fix things, I mean.”

  “There may be one slight hitch. The piano is in the turret on the second floor. It’s part of Merle’s bedroom. I can only let him stay if he arranges to move the instrument down to the turreted parlor.”

  “How can he do that?”

  “The stairs are wide, but my guess is that they’ll take out one of the long windows and use a crane to get it down. They’ll have to take out a window in the parlor, too, to get it back in.”

  “Is all that necessary?”

  “I think so. The children and I will take over Merle’s bedroom. I want them near me for now. And you have your choice of rooms on the third floor. One of them is a turret room, too.”

  “I already have my own room,” her mother sniffs, doubtless thinking of the house that burned down.

  “You don’t anymore,” Grace gently reminds her.

  “But what about the man? Where’s he going to sleep?”

  “There’s a library on the first floor, just off the kitchen. It’s a good-size room, and we can move a bed down there. Then he’ll have everything he needs, a bed, a bathroom, his piano, and access to the kitchen. Not a bad little apartment.”

  “You’ve thought this all out.”

  “I have,” says Grace.

  —

  As they climb the stairs, Claire, whose eyes dart from side to side, seems to remember the house. Marjorie holds Tom while Grace opens the front door. Aidan has raised all the shades to let light in, and Grace can’t find a mote of obvious dust. They didn’t talk about whether or not he should be present, but he seems to have made a decision not to be. The light coming in the windows both enhances and detracts from the rooms. She notes a water stain on an expensive antique table, claw marks from a dog at the side of one of the sofas, a bit of threadbare carpet. It’s all fine, even better that way; Grace needn’t worry about the children hurting the furnishings.

  Grace leads her mother, Tom, and Claire into the dining room and then into the yellow and white kitchen. Perhaps remembering the last time she visited this house, Claire tries to open drawers, looking for the wooden utensils her mother got out for her.

  “I like this,” her mother says, gazing at the large windows.

  Grace shows them the library she means to use as Aidan’s bedroom if he agrees. She leads the entourage up the carpeted curved staircase. They enter the room that once was Merle’s. Claire runs to the dressing table and wants to touch the jewelry there. “Not now,” Grace admonishes. Her mother has wandered into the turret, where the piano is.

  “My goodness,” her mother says, “how are they ever going to get this thing out?”

  “We’ll see how badly Aidan wants to stay, won’t we,” says Grace.

  “Aidan?”

  “Aidan Berne.”

  “Where’s he from?”

  Grace doesn’t know. “You can ask him when you meet him. Now to the third floor.”

  Grace’s memories of a nursery are correct. There’s a crib and a wall of wooden toys, all neatly lined up. A rocking chair. Childlike paintings on the walls. A small lamp decorated with rabbits. Claire runs toward the toys, and even Tom strains to be put down. “You go explore the rooms,” Grace says to her mother. “I’ll watch the children.”

  —

  Grace has them seated around the enameled kitchen table as she pours tea for her mother and her, milk for the children. She finds the bag of Lorna Doones and is glad there are still several left.

  “I like this room,” her mother repeats.

  “So do I,” Grace adds.

  “Me too!” Claire says.

  “Which room did you pick out?” Grace asks her mother.

  “I think I liked the turret bedroom,” her mother confesses shyly. “The views are very special.”

  “I’m glad,” says Grace. She doesn’t mention that it was Gene’s bedroom when he was a boy. The doorbell rings in the kitchen as well as in the parlor. Brushing crumbs off her hands, Grace walks to the front door. She thinks, Good timing. She says, “Hello.”

  “I thought it would be better this way,” replies Aidan. “Didn’t want to seem like I lived here.”

  “Smart. Come into the sitting room with me, and then I’ll take you out to the kitchen to meet my family.”

  Aidan has on a good suit, an even better pair of black shoes. His concert clothes, she guesses. He’s trimmed his hair.

  “I’d like you to stay,” she says, “but there’s one hitch.”

  “And what’s that?” he asks.

  “I want to take over the second floor. My children and I will sleep there. So the piano will have to be moved downstairs.”

  Aidan raises an eyebrow, and she can see him pondering that reality. Is he thinking of the size of the windows, the expense to move it, or the possible loss of quality of sound?

  “Big undertaking,” he says, sitting back.

  “Yes. I hate to ask, but can you afford such an operation?”

  “I can,” he says without hesitation. “Traveling soloists sometimes have good spells.”

  “You’ll agree then?”

  “Yes, I’ll agree, but you risk harming the piano. And I can’t say if the quality of the sound comes from being situated where it is. I guess we’ll just have to find out.”

  “I’d like to leave it where it is,” Grace admits, “but I have to have a place for me and my children. I think my mother would find it awkward if we all slept on the third floor with you on the second.”

  “I’m sure the instrument will survive. Where would I sleep?”

  “Have you wandered into the library?” Grace crosses her ankles. Because she couldn’t wear the blue suit again, she has on a red sweater and a gray wool skirt. The skirt was Gladys’s and doesn’t fit her well. “We’ll make up a bedroom for you in there.”

  Aidan nods.

  “And there’s one more thing.” Grace hesitates. “We’ll have to sort out some kind of rent.” The music ought to be enough, she thinks. More than enough. Grace names a price she thinks is fair. Aidan agrees without further comment. “I should warn you, my mother will want references. She won’t say it to you, but I’ll have to produce something.”

  “That’s not a problem,” he says.

  —

  Grace’s family stares at the stranger she brings into the kitchen. He walks straight to her mother and says, “I’m pleased to meet you. Aidan Berne.”

  Bold Claire stands on the table, as if wanting to make sure the stranger notices her.

  “And who are you, little girl?” he asks, gently shaking her hand.

  “I’m Claire. I’m two. I’m bigger than two.”

  “Are you now?”

  “Claire, please don’t stand on the table,” Grace warns. Claire complies by sitting on the table.

  “And this little one?” Aidan asks, chucking Tom under his chin.

  “This is Tom,” Grace explains and gestures for Aidan to sit in the extra chair.

  “Aidan and I have worked out arrangements,” she announces to her mother, who is too polite to ask what they are in front of the stranger.

  “Claire, you like this house, don’t you?” asks Grace.

  Claire, thoughtful,
surveys the kitchen, as if assessing it. She gives an exaggerated nod.

  “So I think we’ll move in tomorrow,” Grace says to Aidan. “You needn’t move the piano just yet, but I do wonder if you could manage to get a bed into the library.”

  “I can take a bed apart and bring it down in pieces and then put it back together again,” he offers.

  “Before we go today, my mother and I will sort out the linens to make sure you have everything you need. And while I have the car, I’ll go to the grocery store. When we move, I won’t have an automobile. It belongs to the woman whose house we’re currently staying in.”

  “The market isn’t even a mile away. I can help you with that when you no longer have the car.”

  “You’re very kind.”

  “You’re very generous,” he says.

  “I’m not that generous,” Grace says. “Would you mind playing something for my mother?”

  —

  The adults rearrange the chairs in Merle’s bedroom turret so that the seats are to one side of Aidan. Grace wants to see his hands, which she was only able to imagine when she first heard him. With Tom on her lap, her mother to one side, and Claire to the other, she watches Aidan remove his jacket and take his place on the bench. He rolls his sleeves. She has no idea what to ask him to play since she doesn’t know the names of classical pieces, but he seems to sense that, or he simply wants to play what pleases him, because he starts in straightaway with his right hand only, and then after a minute, allows the left to crash in. Claire comes alert with a start. Tom claps.

  And then Grace can hear the melody, the notes that will repeat themselves during the piece. With her mother beside her, she’s careful not to betray, except with a smile, the sensations she experiences. She has a nearly overwhelming desire to bend her head, bare her neck, and let the tensions of the day leave her.

  She examines Aidan’s fingers—stretching, reaching, confident, fast. She studies his face, a visage of perfect concentration. She doesn’t think she has that ability—to focus so acutely on a task that nothing else matters. To be able to do this any time one wants—what a perfect gift. She has often wished she could sing. How heavenly to be able to entertain herself in that way. But the playing is something different. When the piece comes to a close, she thinks it ridiculous that she even mentioned rent.

  —

  “He seems a nice young man,” her mother says as they leave Merle’s driveway. Both children are asleep on the backseat.

  “Indeed,” says Grace.

  “I thought he was very polite. Good manners.”

  “Yes.”

  “And very well spoken,” adds her mother.

  “He is.”

  “And I liked the way he played children’s songs for Claire at the end.”

  “Nice.”

  “And the music, really. I’m not sure I’ve ever…”

  “Nor I.”

  “I wonder where he went to school. He must have gone to music school.”

  “Mmm.”

  “He’s Irish I think. His name.”

  “Maybe.”

  “The Rooneys are Irish,” her mother points out. “Very nice people.”

  “They are.”

  “And I have to admit, he’s handsome.”

  “Mother.”

  “It’s amazing good luck that you found him when you did.”

  —

  At Gladys’s house that evening, as her mother attempts, in an awkward way, to explain why it is they will have to leave, all Grace can think about is Aidan’s hands. She imagines them muscular and flexible, the skin soft, the reach long. For how many years has he been playing? Since he was a small child? And how did he come upon such a gift? One doesn’t learn talent. And why is he not playing in New York or Boston, with the orchestras they have there?

  Gladys, strangely, has tears in her eyes, which immediately produces a teary Marjorie. “You’ve been so kind to us,” her mother says. “I hope you know how grateful we are.”

  “Gladys is softhearted, if you haven’t noticed yet,” says Evelyn, sniffing and giving no sign of sadness at the prospect of their four guests leaving imminently.

  “And you’ll come visit us,” Grace adds. “Just as soon as we have the place fixed up. You must come for a meal.”

  One meal as payback for dozens? Absurd. Somehow Grace will find a way to recompense them for all the provisions. Or would they mind that? She wonders if her mother will stay close friends with the two women, if she’s unhappy to be going.

  In the morning, they pack, making the beds with fresh linen, leaving the room spotless.

  —

  To move from one attic room for the four of them to a house more than a dozen times larger is dizzying. Aidan seems to have had no trouble rounding up a crew of out-of-work men who agree to move the piano. Though the thermometer reads only forty-three degrees outside, the upper window has to be taken out while the piano is attached to a crane that has made deep grooves on the front lawn. Grace’s mother can’t bear to look and spends most of the day in the kitchen, rearranging the dishes and pots and pans to her liking. She then makes all the beds, including Aidan’s. For his part, Aidan is meticulous in his instructions, not wanting to harm the piano in any way, and especially not wanting to leave the piano in the cold for a second longer than necessary. Grace and Aidan move all the furniture out of the way and agree that some of it will have to go down to the basement. Grace, with her arms wrapped tight around her chest, hardly dares to watch the piano come back into the house. Aidan is calm, but quick with an instruction if he thinks something about to go awry. He has on the blue sweater and gray pants he wore the day she met him. Grace has on the same thing she wore yesterday. Claire and Tom haven’t been let out of Grace’s mother’s sight, everyone fearful for their safety.

  “My God,” Aidan says when the piano finally comes to rest and is correctly positioned. Even the crew seems chuffed at their success. The first-floor window is in place, the lights turned on. Aidan, before he has even paid his men, sits down at the bench, plays some runs, listens, plays them again, listens again, reaches for the bass, repeats that, plays the upper keys and the lower together, produces a small smile, and then launches into “Yankee Doodle Dandy,” which causes the men to laugh and then to sing. Grace’s mother emerges with the children. Claire, having an audience, begins to dance in her herky-jerky way, making sure everyone notices. Grace’s mother produces cider and cookies, which the men accept eagerly. If she didn’t know better, Grace might think there was a party at Merle Holland’s house.

  Her house now.

  —

  Sometimes Grace imagines Gene coming to the old Victorian, his surprise and unhappiness at seeing the piano in the front room, Grace and their children and her mother installed in various beds upstairs. Her old way of life seems lonely to her now. She fears it the way one might a recurring nightmare. She knows she must hope for Gene’s return, but she’s afraid to open the door to him.

  —

  Grace’s mother, who seems both exhausted and happy, retires with the children shortly after eight o’clock. Grace, with a cup of cocoa, walks into the sitting room across from the turreted parlor and finds Aidan in a chair, reading a book. He stands.

  Grace shakes her head. “You needn’t stand for me.” She sets her cup down on a wobbly side table. “Please use every room. We want you to be comfortable.”

  “That’s very kind,” he says, “but you must be tired.”

  “If I need to be by myself, I can always go upstairs. To my suite. You have no idea how small the house my husband and I lived in was.”

  “I think I can imagine,” he says.

  “Are you happy with the piano?”

  Does he hesitate just a second? “It’s good. I am.”

  “I’m not sure I believe you,” she says.

  “Well, there are one or two notes that are slightly…off. I’m not sure the average person would notice, and I’m confident that a piano tuner can fi
x them.”

  Grace is silent.

  “It’s one of the best pianos I’ve ever played.”

  “Can’t be. It hasn’t been used in years.”

  “I love it.”

  “It’s an odd make. I’ve never heard of it.”

  “German. Very rare.”

  “The moving changed the notes?”

  “It’s impossible to move a piano and not do something to it. I’m happy with the tone, though.”

  Grace feels vaguely guilty. If she hadn’t insisted on Merle’s room, the damage would not have happened. But having a man upstairs with all of them would have been untenable. She refuses to feel guilty. She can’t afford guilt now.

  After a time, Aidan picks up his book and continues to read. Grace removes a slip of paper and a pencil from her skirt pocket and makes a list of all the items she must take care of in the morning.

  —

  How quiet the house is. How awkward she feels. In another woman’s sitting room with a man she doesn’t know. Did the fire do all of this? She remembers Dr. Lighthart speaking of the diaspora. Aidan is part of that as well. Where does he belong?

  Gene must have died, she realizes with an inner jolt. He would not have walked away from this house. He would not have walked away from his children. A chill settles around her shoulders as she thinks of him dead, his flesh burned away, his white bones in a cornfield or on a forest floor, perhaps disturbed by animals. She imagines the agony of such a death. And to have no resting place, no grave where his wife and children can go to pay their respects, to remember him. It’s not right.

  She shifts in her chair. She wonders how long it will take to replace all her painful memories with fond ones.

  A hundred years, she thinks. At least a hundred years.

  Aidan

  The sitting room, with all the lights lit, seems a friendly place. Grace has taken to migrating toward the room after the children are in bed because Aidan is often there. She has asked her mother to join her, but the older woman always begs off and goes upstairs.

  “Are you Irish?” Grace asks him one evening.