Page 25 of Symphony of Salvation

Was he… Had he just…

No!I’d specifically explained to Dr. McCaine that the staff were to encourage Constance to use her voice. Depending on crutches was unnecessary. She could speak perfectly well but chose not to. Was Niles blatantly ignoring this request?

Without pausing to regulate my emotions, I marched across the room, tugging my suit jacket in place, fighting the urge to loosen my tie so it would stop choking the life out of me.

At Niles’s desk, I startled them both. Their matching smiles turned to matching frowns as I pivoted between them, unsure who to address first. My daughter’s indignance was familiar and hit a nerve, so I aimed my animosity at Niles.

“In my meeting with Dr. McCaine, I made it abundantly clear that faculty were to encourage Constance to use her voice when communicating. Under no circumstance should you be facilitating any other option.”

Constance smacked my arm and stamped a foot. Her face said all she wouldn’t.

“Enough. Take your stand and violin and practice elsewhere. I’m having a word with Mr. Edwidge.”

Her hands flew in a yelling manner. Whatever she signed went over my head. Before I could further reprimand her, she did as she was told, but she did it with all the indignance of a scorned teenager.

The instant she was out of range, I lowered my voice and hissed, “You will not—”

Niles spoke over top of me, and he did not whisper. “No,youwill not come in here and tell me how to run my classroom. If you want to be a parent, do it at home. As far as I’m concerned, it’s more important that Constance is comfortable among her peers. Speaking aloud clearly makes her uncomfortable, so if she needs to find another way to communicate, she’s welcome to do that. My classroom, my rules. You don’t like it,Maestro, get out.”

My ears rang with the abruptness of Niles’s speech. The room had gone silent. Not a single instrument sounded. I knew without turning that all the teenagers were watching. My daughter was watching.

I could have stood my ground and fought. I was the parent. I had a right to decide how my daughter was treated, but not a single soul would back me up. Chloé would have agreed withNiles’s sentiment. My parents had told me a dozen times that Constance would outgrow the shame of her prosthesis, and I should let her walk her own path and support her.

Instead of rebuking or taking Constance by the arm—she would have caused a further scene—I departed with what little dignity I had left. In the hallway, I unbuttoned my jacket and loosened my tie only to discover when I reached the main doors of the academy that I’d left my wool overcoat in Niles’s classroom. Freezing rain fell in sheets and the paltry cottage was a five-minute walk through the forest. I’d be soaked and numb with cold before I got home. Maybe I’d catch pneumonia. It would be fitting.

I set off into the weather, chin down, shoulders hunched. The rain pelted my cheeks like razor blades.

I wanted to go back to Chicago. I wanted to drive to the city, find Chloé, and tell her I couldn’t do this anymore. But then what would happen to Constance?

***

I didn’t change out of my wet clothes when I got home. Sodden and with my teeth chattering, I poured a stiff drink, sat at the piano, and played. Parts of my commissioned work came first, then other unfinished projects. I played popular classical pieces, unpopular arrangements, and tinkered with the strange few bars of music that had become like an earworm, aggravating me all day.

Constance stormed to her room the minute she came home from school, slamming the door in case I didn’t know she was angry.

At dinner, she refused to join me, so I ate alone. Ham, cheese, and mustard sandwiches on gummy white bread that stuck to the roof of my mouth. It punctuated the unpleasantness of thesituation. In an effort to be the affable father, I always allowed Constance to pick the groceries. It meant there was rarely anything in the fridge that appealed to me.

Where had affable gotten me? Nowhere.

I added a second stiff drink to wash the gluey mess down, wanting nothing more than to cushion the horrible day and make it more tolerable.

At nine, I knocked on Constance’s bedroom door. No response. I knocked again, offered a warning, and poked my head inside, only to deflate. There would be no conversation that evening. She’d fallen asleep reading a book in bed. I crossed the room, removed the novel from her hands—Charlotte Brontë’sJane Eyre—and pulled the covers to her shoulders. She was still dressed in her school uniform, but I didn’t have the heart or courage to wake her and see if she wanted to change. Besides, our argument was best left unresolved. I would inevitably say something I shouldn’t and make it worse.

In the main room of the cottage, I peered out the window. The rain had turned to snow at sundown, and it danced and swirled in the air like fairy dust, gathering on tree branches and carpeting the ground.

I’d lived in North America for the past four years. Chicago saw plenty of snow in the winter months, and I was led to believe this part of Ontario was the same, but it seemed soon for such ongoing storms and accumulation.

Mesmerized by the snowfall, my thoughts drifted to the conflict with Niles that afternoon. His words had played on repeat since I left in the middle of class. More than once, I considered breaking the rules and calling Chloé, but unless she had allocated phone time, I wouldn’t get through. Perhaps if I was stubborn and demanding enough, I could…

Could what? It was out of my hands. Nothing could be done at this stage.

Lacking a proper coat, I found a heavy woolen sweater, traded my wrinkled and weather-stained suit for jeans and a long-sleeve turtleneck, layered up, and ventured out into the night. My shoes retained the dampness from earlier, and my socks grew instantly wet.

I followed the path to the school but found the main building locked for the night. Timber Creek campus consisted of several historic buildings. I hadn’t spent much time familiarizing myself, but I recognized the separate dormitories and identified the monolithic structure between them as the dining hall and shared living space where students could spend their recreational time.

Lights shone from a few windows on the main level. When I tried the door, I found it unlocked. Locating a supervisor—in an entertainment room where a dozen or more teens were piled together on three couches watching a movie—I introduced myself as a guest teacher and asked if they knew how I might contact Niles Edwidge.

“His number is on the staff phone list.”

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