Beyond Ivy Walls by Rachel Fordham

Author:Rachel Fordham
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Published: 2024-08-13T00:00:00+00:00

Her mother’s approval sent her soul singing with happiness. The rest of the letter talked of their hard work on the farm and their father’s attempts to regain his strength. At the end she read,

We had a bit of blue cloth left from the dress and decided to make it into a tie for your generous employer. Tell him we are indebted to him for his kindness. We do hope to meet him one day so we might thank him in person.

She opened the second, smaller parcel containing the tie and held it next to her blue dress. It was a perfect match. Her mother’s sweet gesture deserved applause, and yet it seemed presumptuous to give a man a gift that matched her new dress. She tucked the tie into her pocket, unsure what to do with it. Then rule number five popped in her head and she knew, on her honor, that she had to give the tie to Otis.

Just outside of the music room door she stopped and listened to the enchanting melody. Hopeful. Promising. Like an embrace, the sound encircled her, filling her heart with eagerness and an unexplainable feeling that only good things lay ahead. When the last note faded, she stepped inside.

“That was not a sad song,” she said, standing at his side. “What were you feeling when you wrote that one?”

“I wrote that very early one morning.” He shifted on the bench and looked at her. “The sun was rising brighter than I ever remembered seeing it. It illuminated everything, and for that moment my life did not seem so worthless. I felt remembered. Which makes little sense, but I felt it all the same.”

“It makes sense to me. There were mornings on the farm when the sky looked like a painting. I felt especially close to God in those moments. Perhaps that morning he was telling you that he remembered you.” She looked at the room with its closed drapes. His fear of passersby spotting him caused him to hide from the sun on a beautiful day, but people rarely came this way. “If you opened the drapes, you could see the sun today.” He sat very quiet, and she feared she’d spoken out of turn. “Why did you choose to play that song today?”

“I don’t know . . . I suppose I wanted to feel that same feeling again.”

She left his side and stepped near a window, peering out through the crack. “Shall I toss them open and let the sun in? It might help you relive that moment.”

“No,” he said with laughter in his tone. “Not yet, but maybe someday.”

She smiled toward the window, keeping her back to him. “Halfway?”

“No.”

“Just a crack?”

“Not even a crack.” When he laughed this time, it was louder, less reserved. He played a few notes to a rousing ditty. “Do you play?”

“No,” she said, facing him again. “We didn’t have a piano, but my father plays the fiddle, so we did have music in our home.”

“The fiddle is an instrument I have not heard in a very long time.

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