

Helen Back Story:  
LISA, CINDY, and the VIOLIN

Kay Hemlock Brown

Copyright © by Kay Hemlock Brown,

Published at Smashwords

Contents

Prologue

The Accident

Cindy

Escape!

The_Violin

Dinner_at_the_Wallaces

Auditions

Clues_to_Cindy's_Identity

Skating

Figaro

St_Paul

The_Convent

The_Cousins

Grandmother

Helen_on_the_Road

Modern_Violin

Epilogue

Author's Note:

In this story, there's an important, but strange, girl, called Cindy, who at first writes to Helen only in verse (poetry). This story was written more than twenty years ago, so I don't remember my reasoning for having Cindy write that way; it was over the Internet, and that's what she did. There's also a lot of messages going back and forth. The _poetry_ is shown in this font, and the messages in this font. _Smashwords_ might not let them remain like that, but here's hoping!
Prologue

The President of the College which Helen attended was Dr. Robert Wallace. Helen had seldom met the President, but she had attended a concert of a Baroque original instruments consort, a group in which Mrs. Wallace had performed, and absolutely loved the music. Helen had begged Mr. Knowlden, a well-known instrument-maker who was establishing an instrument workshop at the college, to help her build a _Viola da Gamba_ (the bass instrument of a family of _viols_ , instruments that were just going out of fashion in Baroque times). Mr. Knowlden was an experienced performer, and Helen had been learning from him. At this point, all Helen knew about Pat Wallace was from having seen her with the consort, and having been briefly introduced to her as Knowlden's assistant in the instrument workshop. Helen, a voice major, and a choir scholar, had already gotten interested in Baroque vocal music.

The Accident

One evening in late winter, one of Janet's students was waiting outside the classroom in which Helen had just finished a final exam.

"Hi, Sarah!" exclaimed Helen. "What're you doing here?"

"Oh . . . I just wanted to see you!"

Janet taught at the local high school, and this was a twelfth-grader. They had gotten to know each other when Janet and some of her students had caught Chickenpox, which had caused a sensation in the Fall, but Helen had nursed them to health, and everyone was fine. For various reasons, Janet had been encouraged to stay at home rather than at the hospital, and Helen and Janet had accommodated two of the infected students as well, at the request of their parents. Sarah was not one of them; she had begun to visit once the invalids had been certified virus-free, and now it was beginning to appear that Sarah was finding Helen attractive.

At this time, early in Helen's Junior year, Helen's relationship with Janet was beginning to deteriorate. Janet was getting tired of Helen's affairs with several other girls, some from as far away as Argentina and Florida, others from the college itself, and they alternated between white-hot passion some weeks, and almost indifference in other weeks. Janet was studying for her M.A. in mathematics, and mathematics secondary certification, and she was very busy finishing up her degrees, which left Helen looking after the baby. Sarah's infatuation with Helen was not unwelcome, but it would have been crude to conduct it right under Janet's nose.

They walked to the cottage where Helen lived with Janet, unofficially called The Little House, just about a mile from the college, while Sarah gradually made it clear that she wanted to be intimate with Helen.

For the entire week, Sarah sneaked out of school and into the college at times at which Helen would be just out of classes, or finishing up a review session, and they gradually began to become more intensely involved.

"Are you and Mrs. Kolb still . . . ?"

Helen's face burned. She couldn't still adjust to the fact that she had promised to be a second parent to Janet's baby daughter, Elly, when they had heard that the baby's father had died while on military service in Europe, and Helen and Janet had been fully committed lovers. (They had been lovers even before Janet's husband Jason had been deployed, and Jason had unhappily accepted their relationship. It had been due to Helen's amazing power of persuasion that Jason didn't throw Helen out of the house, or do something even more extreme.) "Yes . . . actually, yes. Sarah . . . we can't get too involved, OK? I have responsibilities."

"I know, I know; Baby Elly, huh?"

"Yes. I can't play around too much." They were walking home along a seldom-used alley, and Sarah was trying not to stare at Helen's legs. Helen was tall, now, and her tiny skirts weren't covering her very well. She still wore the denim skirts she wore when she was in high-school and just about five foot and a half tall. She was taller now, and her legs were longer. She tugged her skirt down.

"Can we get together on the weekend, one last time? I'll leave you alone after that! Please?"

"Just get together?" Helen asked. Sarah nodded. Helen was unhappy. "You should get back. What about your folks?"

Sarah said that she had told them she would be very late. (In fact, she had told them that Helen was helping her with extra tutoring.)

Helen stopped walking, and said that they should sneak off right then; things would get complicated on the weekend. "Right now?"

Helen nodded. It was getting cold.

They approached the Little House, and in the alley at the back, Helen's ancient van was parked carefully, as far off the alley as possible. She opened it up, and pulled on a coat. Sarah had only a sweatshirt on over her T-shirt. She was built like a rock, about Helen's height, but a lot heavier, and Helen fantasized having Sarah's weight pressed against Helen. She moistened her lips. She checked her wallet, and saw a couple of twenty-dollar bills. "Get in, quick," she said, and pulled out, looking apprehensively at the second-floor windows, to see if she had been noticed.

There was a sleazy motel located on a remote mountain road just outside the town. Sarah walked boldly up to the desk, and asked for a room. The clerk did not even look at them. She slapped a key down on the counter, pushed the form at them, and went back to her TV.

Presently they were in their room. Sarah stripped completely, and in seconds they were at each other. But Helen could not get up the enthusiasm she had felt before; there was Janet, there was Leila, a sweet girl she loved to bits, but who was becoming disillusioned with Helen. Leila had started as a freshman the previous Spring, but transferred to a community college in Florida just so she wouldn't be in Helen's face. There were others, and the very fact that Helen was getting turned on by Sarah was making Helen slightly sick. But Helen quickly got herself together; she couldn't blame Sarah; after all, it takes two, she said to herself. She took over, turned Sarah on her back, and inserting a couple of fingers into her, got her off satisfactorily. Sarah wanted to kiss her, and Helen allowed a few minutes of that, after which they lay side by side, looking at the ceiling, and began to realize that a huge storm had blown up.

Dressing hurriedly, they looked out the window, and gasped.

"Forget it; I can't get the van up that hill in this weather," Helen said. Sarah shook her head, agreeing. The van had rear wheel drive, and bald tires.

Helen heaved a big sigh, and turned to Sarah, and touched her face tenderly. "I'm sorry; I was kind of a jerk just now," she said softly. "It's not your fault; I mean . . . I shouldn't have encouraged you."

Sarah kept her lips tightly closed. Helen looked into her eyes, and could see the words waiting to come out, but they never did. After a while, Sarah said, "I could make out with you forever. You're the queen of love!" She blushed bright red, and then was quiet.

Suddenly there was an enormous crash outside, and the girls jerked in shock, and stared at each other.

When Helen and Sarah looked out of their room, they saw that a station wagon had hit a tree on the road across from their window. Helen wanted to ignore the accident, but Sarah insisted that Helen should go out and investigate. Helen dressed, and having quickly pulled on her heavy parka, struggled to climb up the embankment to the street.

It was a scene of horror. The car was upright, but had been completely smashed, the windscreen was shattered, and the doors blown open. There was a young girl in the driver's seat, her face cut everywhere from the glass, and bleeding profusely; Helen was not sure she was alive. The temperature was dropping very fast.

The girl briefly became conscious, and said, "It's freezing in here . . ." and after she saw Helen, she lost consciousness again. Helen quickly removed her heavy coat and used it to cover the girl, and then her brain seemed to freeze. She gathered her wits just enough to realize she needed to call for help, but she didn't want to leave the girl all alone. (Cell phones were very rare indeed.) But others from the motel had called already, and were coming out to help.

Presently the girl was loaded into an ambulance and taken to hospital, while the police came looking for Helen, to ask her what she had seen. She got her blood-stained coat back, and had to give her name and address as a witness. She begged to be left out of the report, and the policeman nodded. A few hours later, as soon as the weather permitted, Helen and her friend got home.

In the beginning of the Fall semester, the local opera company had called for auditions for Mozart's _The Magic Flute,_ ( _Die Zauberflote_ ) and Helen's advisor, a tall, dignified British lady, Norma Major, had signed her up. Miss Major had advised Helen to sign up for mostly music courses that semester, to take a break from the highly demanding science and computer courses she had kept up with her last two years. Helen had won the minor role of _Papagena,_ so she had opera rehearsals to attend, in addition to the twice-a-week choir practices, and the once-a-week Chamber Ensemble practices, which went on for an hour.

A few days later, the phone rang in the Little House, and Janet picked it up. It was the Dean of the College, and he wanted to speak to Helen. "This is Helen," she said, when Janet had handed her the receiver.

"Helen, do you have a few minutes? There's a—project I want to propose to you, if you're interested."

_Oh Lord,_ thought Helen, _that's all I need._ Already, her classes were taking a huge amount of time, and the opera rehearsals for _Magic Flute_ were time-consuming as well, and finally, looking after Little Elly did take a lot of her energy. The Dean kept talking, and wanted to see her face to face. Helen reluctantly said he could come right over, and hung up. Janet asked what it was all about, and Helen shrugged and mumbled, some project.

Shortly there was knocking at the door, and to Helen's surprise there was, in addition to the Dean, the President as well. Janet left them to Helen with a smile, and went upstairs.

After they had all got seated, the Dean explained that the President's daughter had been in a terrible accident, had lost her sight, and gone into depression. "We talked it over, and decided that she needed a positive relationship, a friend who would keep her in contact with the world, someone with lots of interests, who would help Lisa to re-connect with life! I couldn't think of anyone better suited to the job than you, Helen."

Helen's pulse was racing, realizing who the girl in the wrecked car had been. She thought hard whether to reveal that she, Helen, had been the first one to see Lisa after the crash. She decided not to mention that; it seemed the best thing to do. The President seemed to like the look of Helen, who was wearing a sweat suit that morning. He added his pleas to those of the Dean, and Helen consented to go see the girl with them. The girl was blind, after all, and unlikely to recognize Helen.

Soon the President and Helen were at his official Presidential residence. They went up an outside stair, and into a hallway, and knocked on a door, and an indistinct voice asked who it was, and asked them in.

"Lisa, this is Helen, a junior at the College! Helen, tell Lisa about yourself, and take as long as you want; I'll drop you off back home once you're ready."

"Hi, I'm Lisa," said the girl, not too enthusiastically. Helen's first impression of her was that she was pretty; not least because of the pretty, bright blue eyes, that were quite sightless, of course, but which kept trying to look at Helen, at the spot where her voice seemed to come from. It was certainly the girl in the wreck, as far as Helen could judge, except that her face was no longer covered in blood, a sight which had made Helen almost gag with nausea that night.

"Hi! I'm Helen!"

"Is the door open?" Helen said it was. "Go close and lock it. I think they spy on me. I want it closed, but they don't let me. With you here, they won't make a fuss . . ."

Helen locked the door, and came back, and Lisa offered her a chair.

"Do I look horrible?"

"No! Actually, you look really nice; the eyes, especially: you have really pretty eyes!"

Lisa blushed, and Helen realized that there was a network of white scar tissue that was most noticeable when she blushed. Then she paled, and now the scars were a pink network over her paleness. Helen tried to describe that, quite awkwardly.

"Tell me about yourself," invited Lisa, her voice becoming less abrasive, as Helen's voice disarmed her suspicions. "What do you look like?"

Helen described herself reluctantly: "A blonde braid, green eyes . . . I guess my ears stick out just a little . . ."

"Oh my god—you're her! You're her!" Miraculously, she had identified Helen just from her description. "I knew I'd seen her somewhere . . . You're the girl from the Early Music show! You're Helen!"

[In the Summer before her Sophomore Year, Helen had got the idea of organizing a sort of festival of Early Music, since the small Renaissance group based at the College was rehearsing for a performance anyhow, and groups from colleges nearby were interested in performing with them. Soon it escalated into a major event, and by offering to keep the local PBS station informed about the progress of the plans for the event, Helen was seen all over the country on public TV stations.]

It was too late to obfuscate. Helen admitted that she was the one who had lent her coat to Lisa after the accident.

Once they had learned that Helen had been instrumental in saving their daughter's life, the Wallaces were utterly grateful. Pat Wallace hugged Helen and cried, and kissed her. Dr. Wallace asked Helen how they could reward her for going out of her way to look after Lisa, and Helen initially refused everything. But later, as she was being driven home he continued to press her, and she consented to have him help her get an Internet connection, something that was just beginning to be a part of everyday life, and in fact he set Helen up with a very fast connection and an e-mail account, at a time when few people had those services.

Helen visited Lisa the following day. Lisa was paranoid about her privacy, since she felt uncomfortable not knowing whether she was alone. After a while, Helen could see that Lisa showed signs of being almost painfully tense. She was at the point when privacy was important to her, and the urgency with which she insisted that the door should be closed and locked confirmed Helen's suspicion. Lisa had been so tight, Helen had offered to give her a massage. (Helen had learned massage from an expert.) It gave Lisa such great relief that she immediately had an intense orgasm, her very first. Naturally, she began to relate to Helen sexually. Helen was reluctant to become romantically involved with the teenager, but the patient told Helen that it was Helen's face that had been the last thing she had seen before she had to have surgery, and the bandages had covered her eyes.

Helen and Lisa were also given a pair of matched cellular phones, a new technology to both of them. The very next day, Lisa called to tell Helen that her sight was coming back. However, whenever she had a relapse of her depression, her sight also went dim. Over the next several weeks, despite Helen's anxiety about a new relationship, Lisa and Helen did find themselves in a—from Helen's point of view, unwelcome—intense new relationship. In addition to the fact of Lisa being just fifteen, and an emotionally troubled young woman, Helen already had two lovers, and could not bring herself to give up either of them. Still, Lisa's case seemed so desperate that Helen simply could not refuse to give comfort to the girl, just a couple of years younger than Helen herself. Meanwhile, Lisa's suddenly improved condition was ascribed by her parents to Helen.

Cindy

Helen got on the Internet, and by some stroke of fortune, stumbled on a Chat Room, a phenomenon of the 1990's and earlier, where members could chat to each other via computer.

Helen had set up an e-mail account under the name of Tiffany. Under that name, she began to correspond with a female called Cindy. Cindy, interestingly, mostly communicated in verse. Cindy had decided to call Helen by the name Erda, because, she said, Helen was an Earth Goddess to her. One day, Lisa had discovered Helen's communication with Cindy, and asked to be introduced as Audrey. (This may be confusing, but at that time, net names were common, especially in Chat rooms, where the members wanted to preserve their anonymity.)

Our story begins with "Tiffany" replying to a verse of Cindy's. Cindy had just written a tense message that was a little more fearful than her messages usually were.

Half in jest, Helen replied:

"Cindy,

Your words burn me like fire

They cut me like knives,

They soak me like tears

Why do you show me your soul?

I am helpless, and no help to you,

But I accept your heart.

Erda"

The reply was immediate

"Erda,

Tender spirit, guardian

my spirit soars

It is enough that you hear,

You do not need to understand

It is easy to love the broken-hearted,

for they are satisfied with very little.

Rest now, sweet one,

Cindy is at peace."

Helen replied:

"What are you?

Why are you so unhappy?

Why are you so afraid?

How can I help?"

The startling reply was

"A prostitute.

Because I am a prisoner,

separated from love, and the things I love.

I am not afraid of you,

You do not frighten me

by being yourself."

Helen was becoming alarmed.

"Let me bring you here. You can escape! I helped spring a woman from her abusive husband. I could spring you, too! Help me!"

"You sing sweet songs, but I fear them!

I have destroyed them; I am safe now.

While I work, I live,

While I write, I live,

Between, I die.

A miserable death, not a sweet release."

"What are you like? What color is your hair? What color are your eyes?"

"Brown, long and straight and brown.

The other, I don't remember; there is no mirror here.

Were they gray once?"

Helen shared a little cottage (the Little House, as they called it) with her friend Janet, a woman of about 28, and her daughter, Little Elly, a bright little girl of one year. Janet was certifying to teach mathematics, and was at classes a lot of the time, and Helen and Janet took turns watching the baby. In the evenings, Lisa Wallace visited, and kept up her pressure to make Helen more than just a friend, but Helen was stubborn.

One day, after Janet had been fetched from classes, Helen went to visit Lisa. But Lisa tugged Helen into her bedroom, initially to show her that all her scars had healed. But then she completely undressed herself, and undressed Helen, and pushed her onto her bed, and lay on top of her.

"Please don't, darling."

"I must!"

"I don't want to do it!"

"You will!"

Lisa was what we call a goth chick. She was tattooed in several places, and had multiple piercings on her body, and all this was difficult for Helen to resist; in addition, Helen had also got into the habit of letting Lisa call the shots in her own house, since Helen felt a little intimidated by the family. So Helen, already aroused by Lisa's nudity and her body jewelry and lascivious behavior, gradually succumbed to the seduction, and soon Helen begged Lisa to give her release. Lisa was only too ready to help Helen out, and Helen was soon suppressing crying out aloud with great difficulty, her heart beating as if it was about to burst. Afterwards, Helen picked up her clothes and put them on silently. Then she looked at Lisa reproachfully.

"What?"

"You raped me."

Lisa stared. "Are you nuts? How do you figure that was rape?"

"I said no, and I resisted, but you went ahead and had your way."

"But . . . I'm a girl; Helen, we're both girls!"

"Makes no difference." Helen was beginning to cry silently.

"But you asked me to get you off!"

"I wouldn't have, if you hadn't started it. Think about it!"

"But Helen, . . . I'm your friend, I love you desperately, and you love me! We've had sex before! You can't turn around now and cry rape?"

Helen opened her arms, and Lisa reluctantly went into Helen's embrace. "I love you still. I'm not saying I'm going to do anything. But you need to know. You mustn't force sex on people. I felt really hurt. I know you needed sex, but . . . that's no excuse. We could have masturbated, or something."

Lisa was angry. "You should have fought me off! Great, now I'm a rapist."

"All right. You're not. I withdraw the accusation. I didn't think before I spoke. Forgive me; I don't think I helped at all by saying that. Perhaps you're right, a rapist has to be a guy." Helen sighed and looked at Lisa contritely. "You've been so good to me, I don't have a right to complain. I love you, ok? All right." She sat down. "What do we do? Let's read our e-mail."

Lisa was even angrier now. "Just like that?"

Helen nodded slowly, her eyes downcast.

"I can't. The day is shot. Call me. Or I'll call you. I need to think."

Helen nodded, got up, and slunk away. Had she done wrong? What harm would have come of it if she had just submitted to Lisa's demands? After all, Helen had been gang-raped by a bunch of boys (a story that is a little too bizarre to publish); this was a pleasure in comparison. I'm playing with fire, she thought, as she slowly drove home.

Helen checked her e-mail. Cindy had written some more, but Lisa had written most recently.

"Nothing has ever hurt me as much as your words tonight. My heart is bleeding. And I deserved them. I don't know whether you did right to say them, but they were true.

"I know we still love each other, but I despise myself, and I am angry at you for making me feel that way. You are clever and wise. Help me to stop seeing myself as a monster.

Lisa, who loves only you."

This brought Helen to tears. (Bear in mind that Helen was young at this time, barely seventeen.) Hearing Helen's sobbing, Janet came downstairs with Baby Elly to find out what was wrong. Helen wrenched out a halting account of what had happened in Lisa's room, thinking all the while that she had been too harsh, far too harsh. But Janet thought she could understand Helen's feelings. They agreed that Helen had to write something back. "What about something like, I love you, I forgave you the minute it happened, you can have your way with me anytime, but everyone else, you must ask first."

Helen smiled and nodded. It had just the right tone; acceptance, but not endorsement. The idea was to share the consequences, but not the responsibility. Helen paraphrased that, and sent it off.

The phone rang; it was Lisa. Her voice was rough with emotion. "Did Janet say to write that?"

"Yes! I thought that explained it well."

"It still hurts, Helen, but you were right."

"Yes." Helen cleared her throat. "I want you to be perfect."

"Why me? What did I do to be put on your high-achievement list? I'm comfortable being an asshole."

"I don't know; it's like . . . someday you'll be great and wise. I think I got it from your parents, it sort of rubs off!"

There was a long silence, and then, unexpectedly, Lisa said, "You've made me love my parents!"

This was a big step; Lisa had come a long way. Her relationship with her parents had been awkward and uncomfortable.

"I'm glad. They're really neat."

"Already used, I follow him to some obscure destination

I run my fingers over my lips—

are they clean?

Kind brown eyes look me over

I refuse a drink; there's time later for that

It is soon over, my brief pleasure; my daily death

Is at hand

Oh to run!

Swiftly, like a deer!

Erda, you give me strength!

But not enough

O escape, My spirit longs for you!

But my body is weak."

[Helen / 'Erda':]

"How I long to find you

To gather you in my arms,

To sing soft songs to you,

and make you my child

For I have planned great things for you.

This circle of pain is not your destiny!

I can wait forever

If you can survive, I can wait

How I long for that reunion with you

Whom I have never met!"

Helen waited, hardly breathing.

"You give me new life, my friend!

My eyes are wet with tears

My knees are hurt

There will be no pleasure tonight

But I long for you, gentle Earth Mother

I must watch for you

If you are close, but I do not see you

I could not bear that knowledge."

"Where do you live, silly girl?" asked Helen.

"I don't know, and I don't know why."

"Tell me some streets you pass by . . ."

"St. Mary's, St. Catherine's, Bernard, Oakes, Dalton . . . ?

"Don't sound familiar . . . I'll look them up; it's a good clue, anyway. I love you!"

"Oh God, you make me so happy! Truly you are blest, that you can love without seeing. It's easy for me, since I'm a prisoner."

"Why prose today?"

"I hurt too much. I hurt my knees when I tripped and fell."

"What do you look like?"

"Short; long straight brown hair, short gray dress, showing a lot of leg, or a red dress, showing even more leg; thin, and probably spacey-looking. Pills; it's the only way I can sleep."

"Where are you from?"

"Great Falls, Montana. I think that's right. I have a memory problem."

"Why don't you write like this on other days?"

"I'm too spaced out. Then I can only think in . . . images. Someone's coming."

Helen was writing to a friend.

"I've made friends with a poetry-writing prostitute over the Internet. She's got amnesia, and she doesn't know where she is, in what city. It's heartbreaking. I'll keep you informed."

The days crawled by, as Helen attended classes, looked after baby Elly and Janet, and kept in touch with her friends by e-mail. At this time Helen was addicted to e-mail, which was the only thing that was exciting on the Internet, as far as she knew, and the Chat Rooms, of course.

When Helen had set up the Chat Room account, she had provided an altered photograph of herself, courtesy of the girlie magazine for which Helen had worked briefly the previous fall. Lisa, too, had got on the Chat Room, as Audrey, and Helen had created a picture based on Lisa, but a flaming redhead.

One day, after Helen had been downtown with Sara (who was, you will remember, a student of Janet's) who had visited the Little House, Cindy wrote:

"Erda:

I saw you! Unaware of me, you walked right by my window with the pretty brown-haired woman!

Oh God, tell me it was you! You are even more beautiful than your image on which I feast my eyes. No image can compare to the breathtaking reality!

Your motion—so fluid, your eyes, so bright,

So clean,

So confident!

So far away.

Have pity on me, love."

"Yes, yes; I was out with a friend this morning! We went out for lunch near the hospital. You must live near the hospital, then!"

"Yes, every night the

siren's wail greets me

as I stumble to bed

for my last labor.

It is a duty

masquerading

as a privilege.

I would rather

clean toilets

in a million hospitals.

There is no pleasure

in this duty,

it symbolizes

my captivity.

Kill me swiftly,

and release me."

"OK, so you're near a hospital. I'm going to retrace my steps, to see if you can spot me again! I must get help."

"He suspects something. But he's in some kind of trouble . . . Bye."

Nothing more ever came from Cindy, to Helen's great regret and worry.

Janet's classes came to an end, and Janet decided to take Baby Elly to stay with friends in North Carolina; she had met a pastor of a church while vacationing in the Carolinas, and Janet's relationship with this wonderful man was getting more intense. Janet and Helen had been partners ever since they had met, but Janet was finding the complex undercurrents between Helen and her numerous girlfriends too much for her. However, as soon as she arrived in North Carolina, she immediately wanted to turn around and come back, but Helen, with unusual good sense, insisted that Janet stay where she was for at least a while.

Escape!

Helen was desperately lonely and utterly miserable for a few days. Once Lisa learned that Helen was alone, her visits, too, became a nuisance, and it took all of Helen's ingenuity and self-control to keep Lisa at a safe distance.

Suddenly, one very lonely day an idea came to Helen. She would find Cindy! She thought long about it, and the idea became an obsession. She put on warm clothing, a heavy parka, a heavy scarf, and set out on foot.

She walked downtown to the hospital quarter, and plodded up and down, peering at street signs, until she saw St. Mary's Street. She walked up and down St. Mary's, looking up at second floor windows, until she came to Catherine Street. But nobody looked out of the windows. Then she exclaimed "Dalton!" There it was, and she walked up and down, and along the main streets, looking at the second floor windows for a face that might be Cindy.

It was almost six in the evening, and very dark. Helen was quite cold.

Helen walked up to a big black man, and asked "Sir, where could I find a hooker?"

"A bit young, aren't you?"

"No, I'm looking for someone."

"Try over there," he gestured with his chin towards the bus station.

A distant gunshot rang out, and Helen's blood froze. But she plodded on. She began to pass couples, girls dressed provocatively, with fishnet stockings and platform shoes, and the guys looking sly and scowling at her. She made eye contact with as many girls as she could. Then suddenly, time stood still.

A girl in a red dress was running towards her. The red dress was a flimsy, brief thing. She wore high platform shoes, and ran with difficulty. Far behind her, a crowd gathered round a figure lying on the street, and a police cruiser screamed past Helen towards the body, and someone pointed further up the road, and the squad car took off.

The girl in red was tiny, just about five feet tall. Suddenly she stopped, and looked at Helen and said, "You came! Oh God, Erda, I'm going to die!"

It was Cindy. She came towards Helen, slowed down and stopped, and began to shiver.

"You came!" There was such incredible triumph on Cindy's face, for indeed it was she.

"You're freezing," Helen observed. The girl was quite blue with cold.

Apparently, a car had pulled up across their path, and a single shot had killed the man, and Cindy had hurried away. She had not taken the tranquillizer he gave her that morning, and had already devised a complicated plan to drag out the time she spent on the street, hoping against hope that Helen would happen along, and create some disturbance to enable Cindy to hide. But here, the obstruction to her freedom was shot and probably dead, and Cindy was totally off-balance, and freezing in the cold.

Helen pulled off her parka coat—Helen had a sweater on, but Cindy was in a flimsy red dress—and put it on Cindy, despite her protests. You came, you came, she kept saying, as if it were some miracle! Her voice was gentle and light, with a slight lilt that was very attractive.

"What happened?"

"They shot him!"

"Whom?"

Cindy shrugged. Evidently she didn't know his name.

"He made you walk out like that, in this cold?"

Cindy raised her face to look at Helen and nodded. She had beautiful grey eyes, large and luminous but at present a little red.

"You have a warm voice!" she said, smiling.

Helen urged her into the emergency room of the hospital, and they sat down in the waiting room.

"Are you feeling sick?" she asked Helen in a puzzled whisper, while she sat and shivered.

"No, I'm trying to get warm! Pretend we're waiting for someone," Helen replied, impatiently. Then she hauled Cindy into the ladies' room, and held her hands under the warm water faucet to warm them up.

They headed out once more, first to a coffee shop, where Helen said they ought to get something to warm themselves up inside.

"Oh, I'm so useless," said Cindy, looking upset. "I don't have any money." She looked at Helen, as if to say, _This is going to be the pattern; I have nothing. I hope you realize what you're getting into._

"I've got money. What do you want?"

"No, something warm for _you._ "

"Maybe a hot chocolate? Share?"

"OK."

Cindy was a very affectionate girl, and it clearly meant a lot to her to share Helen's hot chocolate.

Fortified with the sugar, they walked along until they came to a large discount store, and Helen bought a lightweight winter coat for Cindy, and a pair of pink-and-purple leg-warmers at which Cindy looked longingly. Cindy put her platform shoes in a bag, and wore the boots Helen had just bought her, and delightedly put on her new clothes, giving Helen a look of gratitude. An full hour later, they were at the Little House, shaking off the snow.

Cindy's eyes glowed as she looked around the house from just inside the front door. "Whose house is this?" she asked softly.

"It belongs to my friend Janet. She's away for a month," Helen said.

"Shall I be staying with you for a while?"

"As long as you want. You're free now, Cindy! You can go wherever you want!"

Cindy looked blankly at Helen.

"Where can I go? I don't know who I am!"

"Of course you do! You're Cindy!"

Cindy shook her head. "I can't remember anything except my name. And even that, he might have just told me that my name was Cindy. I don't know."

"Well, stay here, then! I'm happy to have you. I'm all alone by myself now."

"OK." Cindy smiled at Helen, then she looked about, and began to look uncomfortable.

"Would you like to wash up and change?"

"Maybe you could lend me something to wear?"

Helen got her a simple shift and a towel, and sent her in.

She took a while, and Helen figured that she was washing carefully after a long time, judging from the state of her hair. Cindy shortly emerged wearing the towel around her waist, her hair dripping water, and Helen hurried to give her a second towel for the long hair.

Helen told her to make herself at home, and she said that she already felt at home.

She spoke very precisely, with a slight lisp; her eyes widened a bit when she wanted to emphasize a word every once in a while.

"Come on, I'll fix us some dinner," Helen said, leading the way downstairs. She threw together a simple meal, while Cindy watched anxiously. Her whole manner said that she would like to help, but was baffled by Helen's cooking. A little questioning revealed that she had eaten for two years out of cans, principally, and fast food that her 'friend' had brought. Even slicing an onion was a new idea.

What was Helen to do with her? She was very sweet, but so helpless, that she would be a prisoner in the house once Helen had to resume classes, as much a prisoner as she had been for two years. Helen watched her eat ravenously, exclaiming "This is delicious!" from time to time. She finished her meal and drank a glass of milk, and then turned her eyes on Helen, clearly wanting to help.

She helped wash the dishes, and to tidy up. She seemed very simple, almost as if she were from another planet.

Helen led the way to the living room, they sat on opposite ends of the couch, and bundled up in two blankets that were usually left there. The big grey eyes did not leave Helen's face for long; they always came back, and she studied Helen's face with intense interest.

"What would you like to do, Cindy?" Helen asked gently.

Cindy's face glowed with a gentle smile, and she asked softly, "What would _you_ like to do, Tiffany?"

"My name is really Helen," she said. "And I meant, would you like to call your family or friends? Anyone you know?"

Cindy's smile died, and her eyes filled with sorrow. "I don't know anybody." There was a silence, and then Cindy said:

"I know no one but you,

you waited for me when I fled the violence,

your arms opened, and sheltered me,

To whom shall I go?

For I have no one but you.

My past, my life, all is gone,

I know nothing but my routine, and now that too is gone.

But I have clothes, and heat, and food,

and a kind face, and gentle hands.

I am all gratitude. I am yours. What shall I do?"

Helen was taken aback. "No one?"

"Only you!"

"What's your real name? Try and remember!"

Cindy closed her eyes in concentration. "Cindy . . . Cynthia . . . Jennifer, Alice, Jane, Penelope, Susan, Chloë, Margaret, Elizabeth . . . no. I don't know. Susan . . . Ann . . . Joan . . . No. Nothing like that. It was something long and elaborate . . ."

Helen watched her in amazement. Her eyebrows were arched beautifully, her forehead was both broad and high, her nose delicate and well-formed, her lashes long, her teeth tiny and perfect. She would be perfect for a long, elaborate name.

"I don't know. I'm sure it wasn't Cindy."

"How about your last name?"

She shook her head, and Helen could see that this was making her upset.

"And you're not sure what town, or city, or state? You said Great Falls, Montana."

"I don't think that was true; I think he made that up. There's nothing. There's a blank. I can't remember. I'm sorry!" She wiped her nose on her sleeve. "I can't even remember being young, or how old I am!"

"It's all right; we'll find out; the police may know."

Cindy's eyes brightened. "Yes." Helen reached out to pat Cindy's arm gently. Cindy blotted her face, and composed herself.

"Tiffany . . ."

"Helen."

"Oh, yes, I mean Helen . . . do you live here all alone?"

"Uh-huh. For the moment."

"You sure I won't be a nuisance? I feel so useless, I can't cook, but I could clean . . ."

"Don't worry; we'll be fine. School will start soon for me, and you'll be bored. We must keep you occupied."

"Yes . . ."

"What kinds of things do you like to do?"

"Things I like to do . . ."

And then, to Helen's embarrassment, Cindy said what she liked most was sex, with men, and she went on to elaborate all the various sex acts that she enjoyed, which were pretty much everything. "It is all I know. For two years, these were my joys. All men were good to me, except one. I hated him."

Helen listened in amazement. "Don't you like art, or music or dance, or movies, or reading?"

"Poetry! I love poetry. I love to read poetry, and to write it. And to have someone read my poetry. It's almost like sex!" She was rocking herself in excitement, and it made an intensely erotic sight for Helen. Afraid that she would find herself unable to resist this woman who called to Helen so strongly, Helen began to say over and over in her own mind that she would not, under any circumstances, make a move on her. _I didn't rescue her,_ she thought to herself, _only to get her into bed with me._

"Tell me about yourself," asked Cindy, softly.

Helen began to recount the more ordinary aspects of her life, hoping to trigger some memory. Cindy was an excellent listener, her face showing intent, relaxed attention, only occasionally prompting Helen with a gentle question. Helen ended with Janet's departure.

"Don't feel lonely; I am here," said Cindy.

"Oh, I have friends," Helen added quickly. She mentioned a few of them. "And when school starts . . ."

"Of course; but tonight, I am here," she said.

"And it's good to have you here," Helen said.

"Helen?"

"Yes?"

"What if I never recover my memory, and . . . I can't find my folks?"

Helen said, with more confidence than she felt: "You can stay with me."

"For a _long_ time?"

"Yes. Forever."

"Will you take me for a lover?"

Helen held her breath. Cindy knew of Helen's preference for girls, and the question was not an idle one. She carefully thought out her answer.

"That wasn't the reason why I took you in, Cindy. You know I have . . . other friends. I couldn't live with myself if we took up together; I'd be no better than _him._ "

Cindy smiled, and it was like the sun coming out. They argued about how Cindy could be useful, and whether she needed to be useful at all. Cindy was certain there was information locked in her head, which she simply could not get at.

"You can do anything. I believed that you would save me, and you did."

"No dear. Someone shot your man, and you walked free."

"You're wrong! When you set out to look for me, it all came together. We left the room, got in the car, they blocked our way, he got out, and they shot him. By some magic you made it happen."

"It was a coincidence!"

"Fate has given you to me, and me to you."

"Oh lord, Cindy, you mean you want to stay with me?"

"No; I mean that if you want me, I could never escape!"

"I want you to be free! To be happy! _Free,_ do you understand?"

"Yes, a thousand times yes!" Cindy looked at Helen intently. Quietly she whispered: "What you see is the happiest girl on the earth. You can never understand happiness until you experience imprisonment. I'm happy! Only one thing could make me happier . . ."

"To get back your memory!"

"No! To repay you for your kindness."

Helen was exasperated. "I didn't _do_ anything!"

Cindy shook her head firmly. "It's hard to explain. The moment I saw your picture, things began to . . . work out. I know. I sense things. I can sense _rightness._ You have the . . . feel of someone who can _put things right."_ Cindy came to Helen, and gave her a gentle embrace. She smelled of flowers, and soap, and a subtle fragrance all her own, and then she stood back, smiling.

"Come," said Helen, leading the way to the room she had given Cindy. "I'll give you some stuff for your own." There were some clothes—Helen had been a lot shorter when she had fallen in with Janet and her husband Jason, but she had also been very thin; Cindy had a mature figure, and most of Helen's clothes would not fit her, but some would. She also gave her several books, a clock radio, and a vase for flowers, and a few trinkets, for fun. Cindy was touched and cried, and kissed Helen, and Helen smiled, and fearfully hurried out.

The Violin

Early the next morning, Lisa called, and was told that Cindy had been found, and was now settled in the Little House. "I'm on my way, Helen! Dad's dropping me off. I'm dying to see you and Cindy! Is she nice?"

"Very nice," said Helen.

"Well, get decent. Dad will probably want to visit a bit."

Hearing the noise, Cindy came over, decently dressed. "That was Audrey . . . you know?"

"Oh, yes. Did you say she was really Lisa, or something?"

"Yup, that's her. She's on her way, with her Dad. He doesn't know anything. You can hide, or just be a friend of mine, visiting. Where are you visiting from?"

"I don't know!"

"Well, just pretend!"

"I can't even pretend, Helen! I'll just stay upstairs . . . pretend I'm not here!"

"OK. I'd better get decent."

Cindy had something on her mind. "If you hadn't got there last evening . . . I don't know what I would be doing . . ."

"You'd have gone home, and e-mailed me!"

"He took away my computer. He found out I was writing to somebody."

"Oh heavens!"

"He punished me." Cindy went on to describe a particularly painful but invisible way she had been punished, and Helen paled at the description. She comforted Cindy, whose face was ashen at the memory.

"You're going to get a lot of tender, loving care for a long, long time! And then we're going shopping for you!" Cindy protested strongly that no one was to spend money on her, but Helen refused to listen. Then the doorbell rang, and Cindy disappeared upstairs.

Dr. Wallace and Lisa were at the door, looking very bright.

"Hello! Come in; you look very happy today!" said Helen.

"I don't know; your friend here seems in a good mood, and she's got me all cheered up! So how is everything, Helen? Are you here all by yourself?"

"Yes, Janet graduated last week, and has gone down to North Carolina. She's looking for work teaching, and her friend Scott Forrester is looking for a job in Social Work."

"I'm happy for her. She deserves a nice break like that."

They talked about many things, and Dr. Wallace wanted to know whether Helen needed help finding a used car for herself? Helen said no. Could she manage the rent by herself? Yes, she'd look for a part-time job soon. What did she used to do? Work at the Institute Workshop, and as a part-time custodian for the school. A custodian! Dr. Wallace couldn't believe it. Oh sure, Helen said, she worked an 8-hour shift four nights a week! Even Lisa looked a trifle pale at the thought that Helen had worked as a janitor.

They were organizing a professional orchestra from the Chamber Orchestra; why didn't Helen audition? Helen was interested. I don't have an instrument, she said, or I'd definitely do it. It pays quite well, he said; a number of alumni from the conservatory were endowing it, and there was even a recording contract with a small label. Helen said that only the fact that she had no instrument would hold her back.

"Would you let Lisa, and Pat and me give you a gift of a violin? You have been so good to Lisa, and so kind, so helpful. You refuse money; that's fine, but we do have a lovely 18th century violin. Let me ask Pat; I know she'll want you to have it. Someday, it will go to Lisa, our only child! But I'm sure Lisa would want you to have the use of it!"

Helen couldn't believe her ears!

"An authentic instrument? You have one?"

"Yes!"

"Oh, Dr. Wallace, I'd love to just _look_ at it!"

" _Take_ it! I'll go and get it right now, you can start playing it today!"

"No, no. It must be worth thousands. I refuse. Tell you what, though; if you could help me get the materials to have one made at the Workshop, that would be fantastic! I couldn't afford it all this time. I spent all my extra money on a _viola da gamba_ for Janet's father."

"Just the materials? That's nothing. Is that what you want?"

"Yes!"

"Done! You'll have your violin by Easter. Until then, will you borrow our violin?"

"Sure! Is that what Mrs. Wallace plays?"

"No, she has two; she plays the older one. She has a _Guanerius,_ and that's what she plays. This is another one."

[You may have heard of violins made by _Stradivarius;_ _Guanerius_ was another fabulous violin maker, of about the same period.]

"Oh Lord; I never knew she had a _Guanerius!"_

"We don't tell everyone; it's an unmodified _Guanerius,_ very rare. Come over and see them tonight. Come to dinner!"

Dr. Wallace left in good spirits. Like Lisa, the Wallaces ascribed to Helen the amazing recovery of Lisa from her terrible crash. Helen had, of course, only been there by accident, and in her mind, barely done what had been needed. Most of what she had done was help Lisa out of her almost fatal depression.

Lisa sighed relief. "I thought he'd talk forever!" she said. "Where's our guest?"

"Cindy! Come on down, the coast is clear!"

Cindy and Lisa looked at each other with great interest. Helen had altered the photographs of both Lisa and herself, to disguise themselves a little, and they had to explain that Lisa was not as red, nor Helen as dark, as the photos showed them. Unfortunately they got into a discussion of how beautiful Lisa was, a subject that Lisa was touchy about. After the crash, Lisa had had to have extensive surgery, and for a long time there had been a network of fine scars all criss-crossing her face.

"I'm a foolish girl, don't listen to me. I think you're beautiful. I shall make a poem for you. I'll try to make it so that it doesn't hurt your feelings . . . but it probably will! Oh well."

"That would be neat! Go ahead, I'm not as sensitive as I seem."

"Its title is _Words."_

"Words.

You are beautiful.

I offer you flowers, but they wither.

I offer you love, but you do not know me.

I offer you thanks, but you refuse them.

I offer you apology, but you have forgiven already.

But my words, spoken carelessly

cut your face again.

But you're still beautiful,

despite my words."

Lisa stared at Cindy in amazement, full of emotion. They were hearing Cindy recite her poems for the first time, and it sounded strange, but strangely appropriate. "Did you make that up just now?"

Cindy nodded solemnly.

Lisa walked slowly to the half-bath under the stairs, and stared at herself in the mirror. She turned to Cindy. "I don't really look ugly, but I look pretty plain."

Cindy smiled and shrugged. Helen's blouse hung a little loose on her, and Lisa's eye was drawn to the white skin of Cindy's breast, so delicate and blue-veined. Cindy blushed and said, touching her hand to her breast in a graceful gesture, "I don't have any proper clothes; I just came as I was. That's my dress, near the door!"

"Oh yeah? Let's go shopping! Well get you a complete wardrobe!"

Cindy's smile vanished. "Oh no; I can't afford anything."

"I'll lend you $100 interest-free for a year! $200!"

"Okay!"

Cindy had barely enough clothes to wear on the shopping trip. The clothes were too hopelessly big for her, but her winter coat covered her up. Cindy bought some basic clothes and underwear, and then they took her to a used clothing store, and after shopping some more, they headed back home in a taxi.

Lisa hauled Helen off to Helen's room, and shut the door. Cindy had been told that Lisa and Helen were in a relationship, but Helen insisted that it had just been a cover. Lisa was upset, and claimed that they had had sex, and Helen had to reluctantly admit it. No more could be explained without embarrassing one or the other of them.

Cindy went into her room to put away her new clothes, trying to firmly ignore the noises coming out of Helen's room. But they got so noisy, Cindy just had to check in on them, and luckily the younger girls were not too upset. "Cindy! Are you all right?" Helen asked, when she noticed her.

Cindy nodded.

"I've never seen two girls . . . together!"

"Well . . . there's not a lot to see! We were just kissing."

Helen and Lisa were quite naked, But Cindy was still dressed from the shopping expedition. Normally they would have been embarrassed, but Cindy had such charm that they could forgive her anything.

Covering themselves with sheets, they proceeded to the ever-fascinating topic of Cindy's life in captivity. They had tickled Cindy mercilessly for a minute or so, and she had just said that she had never been in a tickle-fight before.

"How would you know? You can't remember!"

"I think I would, though; I remember having sex before. I remember never having eaten a hot dog."

"What, someone bought you a hot dog, and it was, like, your first one ever?"

Cindy nodded. "I liked it, but it was definitely my first one. I eat them all the time, now."

"Oh god, you know what? You're probably Jewish!"

"What's 'Jewish'?"

"It's a religion!"

"Well, what's a religion?"

"Have you ever been to church?"

"I don't know, not in the last two years, anyway."

"Let's take you, and you'll know if you've been in one before."

Before long, they had taken Cindy the rounds of churches of various denominations, and a synagogue, and none of them struck a chord in Cindy. It was very puzzling.

Right after lunch, Mrs. Pat Wallace called. She wanted Helen to come early for dinner, and then they were to take Helen to the audition for the new orchestra that was being formed, with a nucleus of players from the Early Music Ensemble. Helen meekly agreed, and hung up.

"Where shall we stash Cindy?" Helen did not want to leave her alone for too long.

Lisa said, "Oh, bring her! Mom would love her!"

"But how do we explain? Where's she supposed to live? What's her name?"

Cindy looked very frightened. "I'll stay put right here . . . I'll eat a hot dog, and I'll hide out."

"No darling, you never have to hide again. I won't have you skulking here like some . . ."

"Fugitive," supplied Cindy.

"Yes!"

In the end, Cindy stayed home with her hot dog, and they planned to pick Cindy up after dinner at the Wallaces', and go to the auditions, which were being conducted at a large recital hall in the music department of the College.

"What did you do when you were by yourself?"

"I would get on my computer, and send poems to people."

It was then that Helen realized that there were two perfectly good computers in the house, and before long Lisa had set them up so that Cindy could get on the Internet without any trouble.

Dinner at the Wallaces

Dr. and Mrs. Wallace had dressed for dinner, and Helen was treated as guest of honor. It was a wonderful meal, and afterwards, Mrs. Wallace led the way to the music room, and after Helen was made comfortable, she brought out two violins.

Helen recognized the violin that Pat Wallace usually played; a dark, nondescript violin, from which she drew wonderful sounds. Now she asked Helen to try it out.

It had a sound like thin butter. The Baroque bow was beautiful, and Helen played some unaccompanied Bach; she had never sounded so good. Mrs. Wallace looked at her husband, and then at her daughter. Lisa smiled at her mother, and said, "Say it, Mom!"

"What do you mean, dear?"

After much talk among themselves that made Helen acutely embarrassed, they clarified that Pat Wallace had wanted a child who would carry on the family's musical tradition. Lisa had fought against this expectation all through her younger years, but now she was getting a little more interested in music because of Helen's influence. But she was not anywhere close to being a performer as good as Helen.

Despite Helen's protestations, Dr. and Mrs. Wallace had made up their minds that their daughter, Lisa, and Helen were lovers. Helen stubbornly denied it, but Mrs. Wallace wanted to think that, the next best thing to having a musical child, was to have that child choose a lover who was a musical talent. Helen was red with embarrassment; she could easily see that Lisa was too young, at just about 15, for them to speak of her having a lover. (Helen and Janet had become lovers when Helen was that old, but Helen had come to realize that she had narrowly escaped ruining her life permanently; in fact her very promiscuousness was a result, Helen thought, of having become sexually active in her mid-teens. She did not want this for Lisa, even if she and Lisa did not settle into anything even approaching a committed relationship.)

"If I were you," Helen had just said to Pat Wallace, "I'd never give this away!" when handing the violin back.

Mrs. Wallace had taken it back carefully and twinkled at Helen. "I don't have a choice; I sound awful playing anything else!"

Then Mrs. Wallace brought out the other violin.

"I want you to have this," she said to Helen. It looked even older than the first one, but they assured her that it was newer, but just as good. The bow was a baroque style, and Helen adjusted everything, and played a few notes. (At this time, Helen was just a beginner.)

It had a sound like dark cream, a rich, quiet sound. Helen couldn't stop, the violin played itself! Helen tried things she had never tried to play before, Bach, Mozart, Kreisler, even Mendelssohn, and Beethoven.

"Oh, I love it! Oh! It's just the sweetest thing that I've ever touched! I can't stop playing it!"

Mrs. Wallace looked at Helen, and no one else existed for her but Helen, herself, and the violin. Lisa and her father watched the two women, with an amused smile on the daughter's face, and an indulgent smile on her father's.

Lisa had said that Helen had become Mrs. Wallace's musical daughter. If Pat had not gotten to know Helen well enough for that to happen yet, very soon it would have become true. If fate had decreed that Lisa's life would have this cruel twist, that Lisa would always look upon music as an outsider, then let her heart be given to Helen, and not some soulless woman, was the thought in Pat Wallace's mind.

"I can't take it," said Helen in a strangled voice. "But I can't give it back! Oh Mrs. Wallace, I feel like a fabulous musician! Oh God, help me to do the right thing!"

"It's yours, darling! Keep it!"

"I want you to have it. Bob wants you to have it, Lisa wants you to have it!"

"I can't. This is all because of me and Lisa. Who knows what will happen? Suppose we have a huge fight, and, sort of, break up? You know what I mean . . . not that we've, you know . . ."

Then Lisa said, "Helen, keep it. If we split up, you must still keep it. It belongs with you. You've already given me more than I could ever expect. And having heard you play it, it seems to want to stay with you!"

They laughed, and with great reluctance, with awkwardness, Helen said she would accept it.

The violin was carefully put away, in its original wooden case, and the three women hugged and kissed each other.

Mrs. Wallace drew Helen away to a quiet corner of the living room, and asked her whether she and Lisa were lovers. Helen said that they were not, but that they had had just a couple of intimate moments. Obviously very upset, Mrs. Wallace asked Helen to explain why the accident had involved Lisa's sexuality, and Helen tried to explain as well as she understood the problem. Helen loved Lisa, but she was already committed to someone else, someone that they knew, and whose identity Helen did not want to disclose.

Mrs. Wallace sighed, a long, heavy sigh. "All my dreams for Lisa are fading. I dreamed she would be a musician. I dreamed she would marry and have children. Then I dreamed that you both would settle down together. Now I have no dreams left."

"Oh, Mrs. Wallace, don't say that!" Helen wept. "I know how you love your daughter! If I have children, I hope I'll love them like you love Lisa! She is so lucky. I swear that I'll be there for her. She'll just have to share me. I will make her happy, I promise! But this is me; I can't promise what I can't do."

Finally, Mrs. Wallace said that Lisa could have died of depression, or blood loss, or hypothermia, except for Helen's help. She said she was just glad that both Helen and Lisa were alive.

"I should give you the violin back," said Helen, feeling like a thief.

"No. Some day you will have both violins."

"Both? My god, they're worth thousands!"

"I was offered a million for the one I'm keeping!"

Helen gasped.

"We're not really a couple, you know," Lisa had told her father in a low voice while Helen and Mrs. Wallace were talking.

"Oh?"

"No; she's just humoring me. But God knows I love her, Dad. I've never loved anyone so much." This was much further than she had ever discussed anything with her father.

He loved his daughter, but was not confident he could continue the discussion without creating a disaster. He asked Lisa to explain more: Why was Helen not responding to Lisa's feelings? He thought to himself, how could Lisa allow her heart to be sliced up like this?

"She was the last thing I saw before I went blind. I think it was love at first sight. Then I went blind, and you brought her here. I love you so much for doing that, Dad!

"Anyway, we made friends, and I sort of opened myself to her. She was wonderful; she was kind, and loving, and entertaining . . . she gave, but she never took. I swear. I gave her a thousand chances to . . . do what she wanted. But she refused. Finally, the last time I visited them, it happened. She was in an emotional crisis, and I somehow managed to get her to . . . you know. Then everything went downhill."

"Why? What do you mean?"

"Until then, you know, she had been this angel to me, this untouchable, pure lover of the spirit. And I was the same to her, I didn't realize. I was some precious thing that she had to adore and protect. I was different from her other, steady relationships."

"Relationships, plural?"

"Well, it's complicated. She was breaking up with one . . . I shouldn't tell you the details."

He nodded, feeling horrible.

"Suddenly, we made love, and now I wanted more, and to her I became just one more girl who wanted her body."

"Oh, Lisa; I'm beginning to understand. I had no idea. I'm glad; you've grown emotionally, and it never would have happened if not for this . . . accident, all that. But I don't know . . ."

"I'm realizing how complicated all this is. Dad, I still prefer boys, you know. But I'll never find a boy who's as sweet as Helen. That just makes me sick with anger."

Before Dr. Wallace could protest, the other two women had come in, still talking.

"I can't take it in, Mrs. Wallace. That kind of money is too much of a burden. It will come between Lisa and me."

"Darling, you're oversimplifying things. There are some things between you and Lisa that will never change. Then there's one thing that's more important than sex."

"I wish to heaven I'd learn that. Love, I suppose."

"I meant art. You're the quintessential artist, child; you'll find you can do without sex, but . . . art has its own needs!"

Helen nodded slowly. "I feel it when that thing is in my hands! Oh God; it's sheer beauty!"

Then Pat stood up, as Helen smiled. "And your love for Lisa isn't all you have to worry about." Helen looked at her, confused. Pat pulled her close. "I love you too! Very much."

Auditions

The elder Wallaces wanted the girls to go with them to the auditions, but Lisa had other plans.

From Lisa's room they called Cindy, who replied on the fifth ring, as they had arranged. "Hello?"

"We're on our way! You ready?"

"No, but I will be. Did you have a good dinner?"

"Oh god, there's do much to tell you! See you soon! We're coming in Lisa's Dad's car."

Cindy's hair was pulled back in a barrette, and she had just a touch of makeup on. She wore the full-length winter coat she had got that morning, and the warm boots.

"I hope you won't be too bored with all the music!" Helen said.

"Of course not, I _like_ music!" insisted Cindy.

The parking lot was full to capacity. Geppetto (Helen's nickname for Mr. Knowlden) was the organizer, and an unfamiliar woman seemed to have a lot of authority. Helen went up with Lisa, leaving the precious violin with Cindy, who slid unnoticed into a seat at the back of the packed room. Helen was welcomed with a big smile by Geppetto, who introduced Helen to Mrs. Wallace once again. Helen shyly said that they had met. "In fact, that's my daughter she's with, Geppetto!"

"Oh, hello! What's your name?"

"Lisa!"

"And are you auditioning too?"

"Oh no; I just came for fun!"

Helen completed the signing-in procedure, and went to sit at the back. She was to play something of her own choice, and then something that they gave her. She was number 25, and more people were coming in even now. Almost 40 minutes later, the woman Helen had seen got on stage, and introduced herself as Jane Dove, the musical director of the new orchestra. She said she understood that some of those auditioning were "regulars," but she wanted all of them to audition, just so everyone knew what everyone else could do.

Jane stepped down, and a gentleman sat at the harpsichord that was on stage, and introduced himself as Bill McPherson. He played a brief movement with lots of bravura passages, and got a lot of applause. Then the numbers were called, and the auditions began. Mrs. Wallace was the first, and she played beautifully; smooth and flawless. There was terrific applause, and Jane remarked, "We'll have to think about that!" There was laughter all around, including Pat Wallace herself. There wasn't really a bad musician among the lot; they were all good to excellent. Helen began to get nervous. Around No. 20, there was a call for Helen to come to the desk. Helen hurried over, leaving her friends behind.

Geppetto was looking for her.

"Helen, you're auditioning for violin?"

"Yes; is something wrong?"

"What about the _gamba?"_

"Oh. Does it matter?"

"Would you like to audition for both?"

"Can I do that?"

"Sure; it's useful to have someone who can double on another instrument. Where is the _gamba?"_

"At home!"

"Go get it," was his instruction. Helen ran to the back and as she passed Pat Wallace, she stopped and explained, and Pat said, of course; go get it.

"You were fantastic!" Helen stopped to say to her, and Pat nodded and said Helen had inspired her. Helen gently kissed her on the forehead, and ran off. Pat leaned on her husband, full of a strange warm feeling. She had truly gotten another daughter!

The three girls slid out of the room and into the car, and raced home.

"Your parents are the best," said Helen to Lisa.

"Yes, they are," said she, "I'm learning that now. They love you, Helen, they'd do anything for you." They quickly got the _gamba_ into its cloth case and put it in the back of the car, bolstered with cushions, and hurried back.

"Number 24: Rachael Henderson. Rachael?"

Rachel played the flute and the recorder. She was sensational. The flute sounded very different from a modern flute, and then she played the recorder with such crystal clarity Helen was rapt in the music. There was a brief interview of Rachael, and it turned out that she also played the oboe.

"Number 25: Helen Nordstrom. Is Helen back?"

"Yes, she's here," called out Lisa, who was quite fearless; after all, her father was the president of the college! Helen walked up with the _gamba_ and the violin, got on stage, and faced the audience. Things looked very different from in front!

"Let's hear the _gamba_ first. What will you play?" Helen conferred with the harpsichordist, and said she'd play a short movement. The harpsichord sounded wonderful, tinkly and comforting near Helen. Helen stopped him, and quickly adjusted her tuning, and they began again. He was wonderful, his eye on Helen, his ear on the music, and the first piece went flawlessly. Helen was now relaxed. The second piece happened to be familiar, and she played that, too, with little trouble. The _gamba_ sounded quiet, but there was a pin-drop silence, and the nuances of her phrasing were clearly heard. The applause was enthusiastic, and Helen saw her friends clapping at the back, and the elder Wallaces clapping in front!

"That was good. Now let's hear the violin. Oh, that's a lovely one; may I see it?" Helen carefully handed down the violin to the director. "This is an original. Where did you get it?" Helen said it was a gift. The director gave her a sardonic smile, and asked for the bow, examined it and assessed it favorably, and handed it back.

Helen handed the music she had prepared to the harpsichordist, and played. The ancient violin spoke, and the result was magic. Lost in each other, the violin, the bow, and Helen played together. Helen's quite rudimentary technique combined with her natural innate musicianship, and the wonderful violin and bow, to make her sound superb. When she stopped, there was pure silence. At the back, Cindy was standing with a strange expression on her face! Then the applause broke. They loved it.

"Helen, you play a mean _gamba_!" Helen smiled. "But that violin was playing you! Don't deny it!" There was laughter, and Helen nodded, smiling. Pat's face was like the sun. Helen curtsied, picked up her stuff, and walked back, followed by admiring looks and warm smiles, that said that they'd like her on their team. Helen had never felt more proud.

Cindy looked a picture when she got back. Lisa hugged and kissed Helen as she sat between them, and Cindy's little hand tugged at Helen. "Cindy, you look upset!"

Cindy's eyes were wide, and she was excited. "I have played one of those! I'm sure. I'm trained as a violinist, or something."

"You're a musician?"

" _Yes!"_

"A string player?"

"A string player, yes! A—A . . . _look!!! That's_ what I play!" Number 26, a cellist, a young man of about 20, was just walking up. "What's _that?"_

"A cello?"

" _Yes! A cello._ Oh God, I play a cello! Helen, when you played, it was as if I was waking from a dream . . . oh, let's listen to him . . ."

He played moderately well, better than Helen, but was a little too restrained. "I can play better than that," said Cindy confidently.

There were about 50 auditions. Some of them were fantastic. Geppetto auditioned last, on the cello, the _gamba,_ and the treble viol. He wasn't the best, but he was good, and it was a good note to end on. There had been trumpets, natural horns, bassoons, violas, trombones, _cornetts,_ lutes, _theorbos,_ and oboes. The director said the quality of the instruments and the players was amazing, and that she hoped that they could organize a second orchestra, so that everyone could play! And the auditions were closed.

Jane Dove hunted Helen down, and said that she had wanted to meet Helen. "I saw your early music festival on TV, and that's what interested me to move to this area! You're a remarkable young woman!"

"It's good to have you here, Miss Dove!"

"You sing, too, don't you?"

"Yes, I'm a voice major."

"I would really like to have you with us. I like people who can do several things, and you also have good organizing skills, obviously!"

"Oh no, I got all my friends to help!"

"That's what organizing skills means, dear! And that violin is worth a lot. I'm guessing several hundred thousand."

"Oh god, that really makes me nervous! It should be in a museum!"

"Absolutely not. It should be in the hands of an artist and a craftsman, and that's what you are. Mr. Knowlden tells me that you're quite an expert in the music workshop! It's good to finally meet you!"

Cindy had quietly hidden until Helen finished talking to Pat and Bob Wallace. Pat hugged Helen, and said she felt confident that Helen would make it. "It was the violin," Helen said, acknowledging the feebleness of her technique.

"Let's get together and practice. I'll help you with your technique. I'm a trained teacher. Actually, it's the _gamba_ that will get you in; you and Geppetto are the only ones."

"That's true!"

They walked out to their car, and Cindy reappeared, smiling, saying that they seemed very nice. Helen nodded, and they got their stuff to the car and drove home.

Lisa tore herself away from them reluctantly, casting unhappy looks at Helen and Cindy, and Helen could tell that Lisa imagined that Cindy would supplant Lisa in Helen's heart.

Helen sat on the sofa smiling at Cindy, and presently Cindy came up to Helen and held Helen's face in her hands. She seated herself on Helen's lap, facing her, and Helen looked at her in confusion. Cindy said, "I play the cello! I'm a musician! A former musician, now a prostitute. I'm beginning to remember . . ." Helen put her arms round her, to support her. "All those pretty boys there, I wanted to..." she said describing exactly what she wanted to do to them.

It took some time to leave the subject of sex, because Cindy had been obviously accustomed to a lot of physical sex, and Helen was reluctantly obliged to help her calm down. Helen did not mind sex of any kind, but she had promised Lisa for various reasons that she would not be intimate with Cindy. It was one more promise she had made in the last few months that she had to break almost as soon as she had made it. Helen put on a bright face once she had left Cindy, and gone into the bath, for a shower, where she could let her face relax, and show her misery. On one hand, Cindy was the most logical source of intimacy for Helen just then; Lisa was a kid, and an explosion waiting to happen. On the other hand, Cindy was too vulnerable, and Helen felt as if she was taking advantage of her.

All this was driven from her mind when Cindy came into Helen's room, brushing out her hair, getting ready for bed. Helen's hair had now grown down to her waist, and she told herself that she should follow Cindy's example, and get her hair in order before she fell asleep. Cindy's expression became gradually more thoughtful. She had looked thoughtful from the time Helen had auditioned, saying farewell to Lisa absent-mindedly. The intense physical explosion of sex had interrupted Cindy's thoughts, and was probably part of the working of her mind, and, Helen thought later, the agonizingly slow return of memory. "Come on in, Cindy," Helen said, "sit down." Cindy sat gracefully, very feminine.

"I wonder, do you have a violin—other than that new one, I mean?"

Helen blinked, and said, well, yes, a sort of violin-like thing. It was just a box-violin, of which Helen had made several, when she was learning to make string instruments a year ago. It was beautifully made, but without any bent-wood work.

"Could I play it? I think I first learned the violin!"

"Of course, you must have! Sure; I only have Baroque bows, though . . . let's go down, and you can play!"

Cindy smiled an eager smile, and followed Helen, tripping down the stairs light-footed. "Did I hurt you?" Helen asked softly, still worrying. Cindy smiled, "Oh no, not at all! Uh-uh."

Helen took the little box-fiddle out of its case, and its bow, and handed them to Cindy, who took them with a little "Oh!" of surprise. "Where did you get this? It's so different!"

"I made it!"

"You did? Really? Let me try it!" With sure fingers Cindy played a scale, and it was absolutely clear that she was no stranger to violins. She played rapid scales up to a high C and down again, and then several Middle-C's, and then rested her bow arm on her lap in the characteristic resting position of a violinist. Looking confused, she played another note, and put down the bow again, and looked at Helen. "I can play, can't I? I don't know what to play!"

"Yes, certainly; would you like music?"

"Music?"

"To read!"

"Oh, yes! You have any?"

Helen longed to kiss her; she was so cute and confused! But Helen merely smiled, and dug around for music, and found none. They simply didn't have the standard violin beginner's repertoire. Helen did have some Bach unaccompanied violin sonatas, and she pulled out those; Helen had not yet started learning them. She put them on a stand for Cindy, and she played it, double-stops and all!

Helen was stunned. "You're better than I am!"

"Oh no; you were just . . . wonderful! You were great! I can never forget that moment, Helen, when I . . . when you . . . played the first few notes! You have a special gift."

"Play some more! Let me get the good violin—you deserve to play a good instrument. I can tell that you're a super violinist."

"No, I play cello. I know it; oh I wish had a cello!"

Helen got out the old violin and bow, gave them to Cindy, who took them reverently. Helen sat close to her and put her arm around her. "I wish I had a cello, too! Play anyway!"

Spontaneously, Cindy played the Londonderry Air. It was sheer poetry. Helen listened in amazement, enthralled by Cindy's artistry. Her eyes were closed, but she opened them and saw Helen's face, and quickly ending the piece, gave the violin back to Helen. "You play!" she said.

Helen tried. It was lovely, but Helen just didn't have the breadth of phrase that Cindy commanded. Cindy suggested a few changes, and Helen tried again, with immediately better results. Technique could be learned! And clearly, Cindy knew how to show Helen what she needed to know.

Helen was a fair hand at the piano, and they tried playing duets, with Cindy at the violin, and they played until late in the night. And then Cindy sat at the piano, and they played some more, and Cindy was revealed as a fair pianist, too. She was not as comfortable at the piano as Helen, and she was clearly a string specialist.

Helen invited Cindy to join her in bed, as Helen was in the habit of doing with any girl. It never implied anything more than the enjoyment of company, but Cindy accepted without much enthusiasm. "You don't have to, if you'd rather not," Helen made clear, but Cindy said she wanted to.

"I rest in the warmth of your body,

In your arms I am protected.

On your breast, I am comforted."

Helen smiled in the darkness. Cindy was such a delight in so many ways! Helen just loved the way she broke into verse whenever she felt any strong emotion. The poem needed another line, and Helen felt that instinctively.

"You're not breathing, love!"

Helen let out her breath, gently caressing Cindy's back.

"What's the rest of it?" Helen asked gently.

"That's all there is," whispered Cindy.

Helen pressed her lips to Cindy's head. She was really getting to like the girl; it was far more than simple protectiveness now. She just loved the way Cindy's mind worked.

"I lied," said Cindy after a while; "there's another line."

"Okay . . . ?"

Cindy pressed her face into Helen's chest for a moment, flushing in the dark.

". . . In your bed, I am cherished!"

The room was quite dark, and Helen could only see the glow of her eyes, and could feel the warmth of her breath on Helen's face. _Cherish._ What a wonderful word. _Tonight,_ Cindy had said, _I need to be held by someone._

Clues to Cindy's Identity

Lisa came over to visit, as she had done all through the break thus far, and borrowing the computer Cindy had been using, began to look for clues to Cindy's identity. She looked for persons missing from around two years ago, as Helen and Cindy looked over her shoulder, fascinated. The photos available were of low quality, but quickly they found out where to look, and whom to ask. They mailed off a couple of inquiries, and then settle down to wait. Lisa had rigged up a sound alarm if a reply were to arrive. Nothing came, and a little before noon, Lisa walked home, and Helen and Cindy decided to practice violin.

It was soon clear that Cindy was not only an experienced violinist and all-round string player, but an experienced string teacher as well. She could tell what Helen was doing even with her eyes closed, purely by ear. Cindy had an amazing ear, and could pick up the slightest lapse in intonation (the ability to play a note accurately, even though a violin had few built-in notes, unlike a piano) and correct it. Helen watched her own technique imperceptibly evolve, so much that by mid-afternoon she was playing pieces that she had recently learned with Geppetto far better than she had been able to! Cindy was not only an experienced teacher, but an incredibly gifted one.

If not wise, Helen was intelligent, and Cindy's genius became clear to her simply from her ability to apply logic. But Cindy, too, was seeing the speed at which Helen was learning, and she gradually became aware of the sheer musicality of the teenager, as she absorbed violin technique like a sponge. A lot of the violin technique resided in the bow, and the bowing technique, and Cindy watched and listened as Helen's playing and phrasing became clearer and clearer, and breathed more naturally. (For those not familiar with the notion of phrasing: a good string player introduces tiny silences at the end of a group of notes, which allows the melody to "breathe". In addition, several notes may be played with a single bow-stroke, and they would sound different if played with individual bow-strokes. All this is phrasing.)

"Cindy, you're marvelous! I'm sure we can use your violin connections to find who you are."

Cindy's eyes brightened up, but then dulled. She was upset.

"How old do you think I am, Helen?"

"I don't know . . . twenty?"

Cindy shook her head slowly; Helen realized that she was probably older, she just had to be. No ordinary twenty-year-old could have a violin technique like Cindy did. They should look for a woman in her thirties.

"I might even have a child, and a husband. I don't . . . I'm scared that I might have to go back to them."

"Why?"

"He might not like it that I've been a hooker. And a child? I don't know . . ." Cindy looked anguished. The desire to know fought with the fear of knowing.

Helen said gently, "I don't think you have children; your body is too . . . you know? You've never been pregnant."

A few minutes later, Helen looked back at the missing persons website. "Beween 30 and 35 years old, grey eyes, brown hair, 5' tall, 95 lbs . . ."

Helen's heart stopped. There she was; her picture looked solemnly out at Helen just as Helen heard her moving about in her room. "Sister Mary Catherine O'Shaughnessy, abducted May 21st 1987." It continued to say that the woman had been a well-known musician.

Weeping, Helen ran up the stairs and burst into Cindy's room. She lay on her bedcovers, looking agonizingly beautiful. Helen leaned close and kissed Cindy tenderly on the lips. "I found out who you are," she whispered, emotionally, her heart beating fast.

Cindy sat up at once, all attention.

"OK, tell me!"

"Sister Mary-Catherine O'Shaughnessy. You're a nun, darling!"

"A nun? What's that?"

Helen felt slightly impatient; surely Cindy had seen them walking about on the streets? "You take vows of obedience and chastity, and join an order. It's a religious—thing."

"Oh, yes, those nuns." Her eyes brightened with understanding. Then the fact sank in, and she said, "Oh, no!"

Several long minutes later, they were still holding each other tight. "I'm not going back," she said.

Helen sighed. She didn't want her to go, not into a convent. There was so much life and vitality in her! What could possibly have made her join an order? Disappointment in love? Poverty? Strong religious beliefs? Then Cindy slipped out of Helen's arms and went and stood at the window, looking out over the backyard. She looked just sixteen. Then she turned around, and looked at Helen, and her heart stood still. Those eyes! Half the nuns in the convent must have been in love with her!

"Show me! Maybe it'll trigger a memory. I must know whether there's something important I must go back to."

Cindy looked through all the information, and shook her head. "I know I'm a cellist, but . . . there's nothing else. I'm not going back there." She had been in a convent in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Helen sent a message saying that she may have seen Sister Mary Catherine, and asking for more information. There was a bulletin-board format discussion, and Helen could leave a message and get a reply anonymously.

Helen had sent Lisa the news, and presently came to pick Helen up to go to the first rehearsal of the new orchestra. Helen was one of six violinists, and her desk mate was Mrs. Patricia Wallace. It was a fairly standard early-music orchestra, with eight first and second violins altogether, two violas, two cellos and a double-bass; two flutes, an oboe, a bassoon, and the keyboardist, and a pair of kettledrums borrowed from the college.

Helen was startled out of a daydream, hearing her name mentioned. Pat was saying, "That's wonderful! Of course she can do it!"

"What?"

"Helen, I want you to take the solo violin in the concerto! Can you do it?"

"A—a solo?"

There was laughter. One of the pieces was to be a violin and oboe double-concerto, and Helen and their oboist were to be the soloists. Before Helen could think, she was marched to the center next to the oboist, and they were rehearsing a concerto. By some miracle, Helen did not make a single mistake, and they were able to play the entire work through, with just the oboist struggling a little here and there.

The conductor, Jane, was all smiles as they finished, and full of praise for everyone, especially Helen. Pat was soloist in a violin-only concerto, which went like silk, and the rehearsal was over. Helen could hardly recall what Pat and Lisa had been saying to her, and Helen had given all the credit to the miraculous instrument and the bow. But Pat disagreed. Helen had simply never had the opportunity to play a good violin, which were simply much easier to play. "As players get better, they can eventually get beautiful sound out of almost any violin, but even I haven't got that far!" Helen laughed and said that Pat was just being modest.

"Now, Lisa," said Pat, "don't you wish you could play an instrument?"

"I really do," said Lisa, "maybe I can learn something fast!" They laughed.

"The recorder! I can teach you in a few hours!!"

"Of course! You should, Lisa! I'd take her up on it!"

"You're on, then, Helen; I'll go get one from somewhere."

"Let me get you one! Your family is doing so much for me . . ."

"I have all the recorders she needs, Helen; we have a full consort."

[Instruments of that time, such as viols and recorders, were often owned in complete sets, called _Chests,_ and were actually kept in a large elaborate chest which had places for each instrument. Even today, a set can be acquired with its own carrying-case (chest).]

"You do? We should get together and play!"

Pat quickly agreed that they should. Recorders usually came in a set of five of different sizes and ranges, and most recorder players could play any one of them.

Then it was time for Choir practice, and Helen hurried off.

Within three weeks the newly formed Chamber Orchestra performed at a sold-out series of performances in nearby towns, and Helen, and Pat, and Mark (the oboist) were sensational, and gradually Helen's reputation grew.

Skating

Some weeks later, Lisa and a few friends: Sarah, Jennifer and Jill, were visiting, and Lisa persuaded them to go skating. Helen had taken Lisa skating back when she was still blind, but Lisa had been a figure skater, and had been coming home from a skating lesson when the accident had taken place. Lisa had since mostly recovered her sight.) Lisa paid for all the skate rentals, though she owned her own skates, and soon they were on the ice of the outdoor rink, all heavily bundled. Some of them insisted on whizzing round the rink at top speed, and tumbling all over themselves. But the most interesting discovery was that Cindy could skate! She was excellent. She did all kinds of moves, from sheer habit.

Then suddenly Cindy clutched the fence, and began to stagger out of the rink. "Are you all right?" asked Lisa, seeing tears pouring down her cheeks. A few kids noticed Cindy's distress, and gathered round, sympathetically, and a little one offered her a Kleenex. She took it and wiped her tears, but they wouldn't stop. Seeing all this, Helen skated over, and Cindy grabbed her tight and clung to her.

"What's wrong?"

"Oh Helen . . ." Helen held her close. They walked Cindy to a bench, and made her sit.

"I remember everything," said Cindy in a trembling voice, throwing the gathered girls into a mood of tense excitement. Her memories were flooding back, Cindy said, and it was too much; it was emotional overload.

Seeing that Cindy was all right, the younger girls went back on the ice, urged by Helen. Helen sat down on the cold bench with Cindy.

"I used to be a figure-skater, and a cellist, but I got the call, and I took the vows. I gave up the skating . . . I work with teenagers in a suburb of St. Paul, and I play cello in a chamber orchestra . . . it's all clear, like yesterday! I flew to Columbus, for some convention, but I was drugged, and raped . . . oh god, it was horrible. I don't even know why. Then there's a gap, and the next thing I remember is waking up to find myself—Oh god, . . . I'm Cindy, and I'm having sex with him. Then . . . you sort of know the rest."

"There's no gap?"

"Well, from after I was unconscious, to when I woke up . . . I guess he had sex with me while I was unconscious. Disgusting man. He said we were lovers, and I was a whore, and I had fallen and lost consciousness. He kidnapped me at the airport, and brought me here. Why? Why me? What did I do to him?"

"Cindy . . . do you remember your family?"

"I'm Catherine—Mary Catherine O'Shaughnessy—they used to call me Cassie. Yes; I have a brother Rob, and a niece, little Erin, and . . . I taught violin for a while . . . I remember so much. I must call Rob. And Mom, and Dad . . . they're in their sixties . . ." Cindy went into Helen's arms and wept.

Seeing the weeping, Sarah and the gang skated over and stood, looking anxious.

"We'll be all right for a while," Helen told them. "Skate some more, and we'll wait for you here."

"Oh," said Cindy—or Cassie, anyway—"I'll be fine; go and join them."

"No, love; I want to stay. You belong to me, with all your problems and everything. Until you're safe with your folks, I want to spend as much time with you as I can. Soon you'll be gone . . ."

Cindy took Helen's hand in hers. There was a subtle difference in her manner—in her personality. There was a quietness and a resignation. Sister Mary Catherine was a quiet, resigned person. The liveliness, the joy of life, the innocence of Cindy was gone. There was a suppressed bitterness, and Helen hated to see it. She still cared about her family, and her life, but there was some deep sadness.

"Can you remember life in the Convent?"

"Yes; only too well." The voice was lower, and had a slight edge to it, and the lilt was gone. It must have been something she had gotten rid of in her youth. "It's hard to . . . incorporate you into my life, Helen; my vows, my recent life . . . it's such a mess. I must thank you for rescuing me. I can't believe I was so helpless. A simple phone call could have brought help."

"Don't blame yourself, Cindy—Cassie; you were victim for a short time, a very short time."

Cindy wiped her eyes and looked at Helen. Her head was reeling with thoughts and memories. Her grey eyes searched Helen's face, grasping for the trend of thought that had been lost.

"You said 'Soon you will be gone . . .' "

"I assumed . . ."

"Will you miss me?"

"Incredibly," Helen said, with feeling.

"But you have so many friends and . . . lovers; all these," she nodded towards the ice.

"But I rescued you." She had forgotten declaring that she took no thought of owning Cindy in any way. "There's something different about you. Now you look sad again! There are more questions than answers!"

"Not for me. I remember every detail." She studied Helen for a long while, holding her hand lightly in hers. "I remember why I joined the order; I remember my life there . . . I don't know how much I should tell you, dear."

"Not now. When you're ready, if you think it will help. Something is hurting you, and you must settle it. I think you've been used to being sad, or bitter, and you've been a prisoner, without hope. I think you were happier as a prisoner without hope."

Cindy stared at Helen, wide-eyed. The rink employees nearby looked at Helen suspiciously, but Helen ignored them. Then Cindy heaved a huge sigh, and a single tear rolled down her cheek.

She looked about, and bent to take off her skates, and Helen did the same. They walked over to return them, and Cindy led Helen away to a secluded area for some privacy. Suddenly Cassie turned to Helen.

"Do you believe in God?"

Helen shrugged. "Only sometimes," she said.

"You have shown me so much! You're right. My childhood didn't prepare me for the accidents of life. We were strict Catholics, and then . . . I fell in love with my brother's wife." The grey eyes looked directly and Helen. "She looked so like you, it is amazing."

Helen smiled. All tall long-haired blondes looked the same to most people.

"No. Exactly. You could be her!"

"But Cassie, you're such a homophobe!" Cindy had allowed Helen to soothe her occasionally in the last several weeks, but she had cringed, and Helen had felt that it was only her gratitude for Helen that had made it tolerable for Cindy.

"I'm not, don't say that."

"Yes, you are; I don't hold it against you, but you were so unhappy . . . you know?"

Cassie looked away and shrugged; it was so hard to explain. But Helen's resemblance to Cindy's sister-in-law Ingrid was uncanny.

"Do you have any family, other than your Dad?" asked Cindy.

"Not that I know of; he's an orphan, but my mother might have had family . . ."

"Her name was Ingrid!"

"Ingrid? What was the family name?"

"Johnson; but her mother's name was some Finnish thing, with lots of 'k's . . ."

"Tell me! My Mom was half Finnish!"

"Ingrid could be a cousin, then; her grandmother was something like . . . Kuikkonen . . . something like that."

"Oh God, yes! I have to find out . . . I'll call Dad as soon as we get home! Did you love her a lot?"

Cassie blushed, and then raised troubled eyes to Helen's face. "Just from afar, at first; then one night . . . we were naked together. It was beautiful," she whispered. "I never forgave myself. She wanted me, and pestered me, and I was disgusted."

"Oh God, and here I am . . ."

"Please, Helen; the person I am now will not find the experience upsetting; I would return the love. But my religion interfered. So I went to the convent. But here's the worst part: I had an affair with another nun." Cassie was very emotional now, and her breast heaved. Helen put her arm round her, to comfort her. "Was she very upset?"

"We were both upset. It was completely innocent, but it ate at our guts. She must be still there; I must speak to her. The one thing that has changed is that . . ."

Helen waited in vain for the rest of the sentence. Cassie's lips were tightly closed.

"Whatever you want to be, I'll support you. I only ask one thing." The glorious eyes turned back to Helen, solemnly. Her lips were still tightly closed. "Don't forget me; that's all I ask! Write me a poem every once in a while!"

Cindy nodded, as tears poured down her face. Helen wiped them away.

They were on a slight rise, and they could see the skaters doing their stuff. About thirty skaters whizzed round and round the outside, while about a dozen more skaters skated figures in the center, among them Lisa and Jennifer. Sarah and Gillian watched them, while skating around them. Sarah saw Helen watching them, and waved.

It was Zamboni time, and the skaters were sent off the ice, and the friends walked towards Helen and Cindy. They observed, with sorrow, that Cindy had cried herself a river, noticing the tears still on her eyelashes, and wanted to know what she was sad about. Helen replied that basically Cindy was going home to some unpleasant problems. Cindy could stay with Helen forever, but she essentially had some important responsibilities.

"You know, we never checked back on that bulletin board!"

"Jeeze, yes; we should check right away!" They decided to get some lunch and head home, but once the Zamboni had smoothed the ice, Lisa had been allowed back on, and she was doing some spectacular jumps and spins, and they gasped in admiration. As Lisa came off the ice, Cindy gave her her approval; evidently Cindy was more than a competent skater, and could give a professional assessment.

As soon as they got home, Helen and Lisa checked the bulleting board with Cindy standing nearby.

To the person who has information about Sister Mary Catherine: Please tell us more! Where are you? Where was she seen? IN what shape is she? Tell her that she's needed badly. We miss her. Please reply!

Then there was:

Please send any information about Mary Catherine to:

and an e-mail address followed, as well as a postal address in St. Paul. There were a few more urgent pleas after that one, and then they stopped.

After much discussion, Cindy wrote:

This is Mary Catherine. I'm well. I had a spell of amnesia, but I've regained my memory. Write to me at the following address,

and supplied an e-mail address, as well as Helen's street address. There was no immediate response, so they shut down.

Once they were alone, Helen asked Cindy about her friend at the convent.

"Her name was Sister Jean Marcus."

"Do you miss her?"

Cassie shrugged. "I feel such a pig, but . . . there's nothing there."

"I've loved lots of girls. But there's something there for every one. How can you give up even one?"

"I'm a one-girl woman, Helen."

Helen was not sure how to take that. Cindy's eyes were boring into her, waiting.

"Who is it, now?" Even as she said the words, her heart knew the answer. "No. It's not true. You never felt that way!"

"Yes, I did. This morning."

"You're thinking of Ingrid."

"Perhaps; I don't know. But she's married. You're . . . here."

"Oh, Cindy!"

"I'm your Cindy, Helen. Nothing needs to change; except in my heart. I remember the look in your eyes; it was desire for me. Now I can satisfy it, if you still want me. But I'm not asking for anything, except to stay a little longer."

"Forever, if you want!"

Cindy covered her face to hide her joy, and nodded. This was Cindy. Cassie seemed to have gone away for the moment. They could hear Sarah and Lisa talking animatedly just outside, and Jennifer and Gillian rooting around in the basement. Suddenly Cindy was in Helen's arms, and they were hugging each other. Helen kissed her on the cheeks, and Cindy kissed Helen on the mouth. "A kiss from Sister Mary Catherine, the lesbian nun," she joked.

"Will you rejoin the order?" asked Helen.

Cindy shook her head, no. "I think I believe in God now, more than ever before. But I can't remain in the order."

"Yes, you can! They'll forgive you, Cindy; you didn't know!"

"No; I don't need the order anymore. And Jean needs the order. This way she'll have a chance."

"So you were the one who got the most out of . . . your little . . . thing?"

"I don't know. We began looking at each other's eyes . . . then we met together for Bible study every night, then we went out to a park one Saturday, and held hands, then we kissed, and then one afternoon we took off our clothes, and saw each other. Then we lay down together, and kissed and hugged. That's all. It's so innocent, now that I think about it, but I felt so dirty."

"Oh, Cindy!"

"What's so dirty about it? We just comforted each other! We kissed, we lay together . . . that was all! How I tortured myself, all those years!"

"But you can't do that in a convent. The place would be a shambles."

Cindy hung her head. "You're right. I should have left the order then."

"But Jean would have been left alone."

"She'd have been OK. She could leave, or she could abstain, or find other ways to keep sane. Now I hate myself for abandoning Jean. No matter what I do, there's guilt."

Helen held her by the shoulders. "I think you're a decent, moral woman. You've played the cards you were dealt with honesty, grace and dignity. You have absolutely nothing to be ashamed of. Whatever is causing your guilt is wrong. You never harmed anybody. This is crazy! Hold your head up, and be proud!"

Lisa and came over, hearing an argument, and remarked that Cindy was looking as though she had done something horrible.

"Nothing! Nothing worth bothering about, but she's a nun, so that complicates things," said Helen.

"Oh!" said Lisa, beginning to understand.

"Give up the order. Stay here, and give cello lessons! We'd love to have you!"

"There you go!"

Cindy's face was radiant with joy. "I'd love to do that! But that means I have to find a place here . . ."

"Stay right here! I hate the thought of you moving!" Cindy was overwhelmed, and sat down to think for a while. Presently she said, "Please let me do a little private e-mail. I want to settle some personal matters. Maybe you can stay, Helen . . ." So Sarah and Lisa went out again, chuckling to themselves.

Cassie,

I heard that you wrote! It is good to read your words. Please come back; I will not try to get in touch with you. For one year I longed to have you again, but the Lord has shown me another path. There is much work for you to do. I've been looking after your kids, they're really not happy with me. The program has declined. Your music students have all found new teachers, but none of them seem to be happy either.

Everyone assumed you had run away, just because you couldn't stand it anymore. If that's the case, just disappear; we'll manage. Or come back, and they'll change anything you don't like. Whatever it is, if it's you and me that's the problem, come back. I won't interfere in your life. I still love you,

Thelma

"She always signed herself that way," said Cindy. Then she sighed, and just as she was about to sign off, another message arrived.

Cindy, please come back. Even if you don't go to the convent, write to me! Please, your niece and nephew need you, your parents need you; your brother needs you, and I need you.

Your loving

Ingrid

Helen smiled. Cindy blushed furiously. "Nephew! Must have been after I was kidnapped. Oh, I'd love to see him! I must call my Dad!"

She dialed; she still remembered the number perfectly. "Dad? It's Cassie! I'm fine! I can't tell you a lot because . . . I'm still sorting things out and the people here don't need to be pestered with phone calls, but . . . I'll call once a week, and you can write to me with e-mail!" Helen kissed her head, and left her, smiling.

"What excitement!"

"What's she doing?"

"Calling her Dad!"

"Aww! Is she going back?"

"I don't think she wants to, but she has to go back to tie up some loose ends, I guess, and she has a nephew she's never seen!"

"Aww, how cute!"

Cindy's father had begged for the phone number, but she had refused, and said she would call often. She had explained that she was staying with a girl who was anxious about her privacy.

Her dad had said that her brother and Ingrid were dying to talk to her, and would be frustrated at having missed her call. She promised to call later in the afternoon, which would be midday in Minnesota.

Helen found herself being dragged into Cindy's room when the other girls were occupied, and Cindy said that they would not be missed for a little while. They undressed each other, and Cindy gazed at Helen wide-eyed.

"Oh God, you're beautiful!"

"You've seen me naked dozens of times! It's like you're a different person!"

"I feel different! Suddenly . . . you're so . . . desirable!"

"So what did you and Ingrid do?"

"It was the first time for both of us, we just explored . . . and kissed, and . . . oh, I can't talk about it! Come here, let me touch you . . ."

Cindy and Helen held each other, and it was the same, gentle, considerate Cindy, but it was a Cindy who was completely turned on by Helen, not one who let Helen have her way with her.

Soon afterwards, Cindy insisted that they should get dressed, in case the kids came looking for them.

They got talking about Ingrid, and Cindy swore that Ingrid was the very image of Helen. And her little girl looked just like Tomasina, she said. (Tomasina was Helen's half-sister, a fair-haired fairy child.)

Still talking about Ingrid, Cindy (or Cassie) said that she was devoted to Cassie's brother. "But we can't bear to . . . you know? Whenever we saw each other, we'd want to sneak off and . . . like that."

"Yeah . . . I've been there . . ."

"And she's a dancer; she has her own studio!"

"Really? Cool!"

"Yeah. Well, Rob got her first. I can't believe I'm talking like this. I can't believe I'm with a woman who . . . Oh Helen, I don't know what to do."

"Go back, visit your family, see the kids, meet Ingrid, make love to her, visit your convent, get your stuff, say goodbye, sign the papers, give Jean a hug and kiss, return you habit, get your cello and come back here!"

"Come with me?"

"To Minnesota? You want me to accompany you?"

"Yes?"

"Sure."

"You will? Oh Helen! God is truly good!"

"Of course, woman, . . . I'll buy your ticket, too; I'm getting paid for Figaro!"

"Oh no; I have money. I'll begin to help with the expenses. I have savings, and my family will give you a reward for helping me escape."

"Absolutely not. You can help with the expenses, but no rewards. You saved yourself. I just gave you a home."

"But you gave me the courage to do it."

"Do what? Get out of the car?"

Cindy was silent. Helen had really not affected the escape, except by taking her in, but in Cindy's mind, Helen had masterminded the whole thing. She said so, but Helen explained that it did not matter; she loved to see Cindy happy, and hated to see her sad or worried.

"Let me call Ingrid," she said, and picked up the phone and dialed. At this time, everyone still used wired phones for calling. Helen rose to leave, but Cindy pulled her back.

"Rob! It's me, Cindy! I mean, Cassie!"

Rob was clearly excited, and talked animatedly for several minutes.

"I'm fine!"

It appeared that Rob was accustomed to bullying his sister. He was pressuring her for the number. Cindy looked at Helen, and Helen, tongue in cheek, firmly shook her head. Cindy said she couldn't reveal it, and Rob went ballistic. Then a new voice came on the line.

"Oh Ingrid, it's so good to hear your voice!" Helen listened to Cindy's part of the conversation. ". . . is he listening? Don't say anything, but I miss you, and yes, I miss everything . . . is he like Rob? . . . Like me? What's his name? Mark! . . . Yes, I'll visit soon . . . I'm leaving the order . . . I'll tell you later. I was kidnapped . . . yes. Drugs. . . . No, just Chloroform, I guess . . . Oh, afterwards, something to help me sleep . . . well, I'll tell you; it's an ugly story. A girl over here helped me; she looks exactly like you, and her mother's half Finnish! . . . I'll ask her. Helen, was your mother Kuikkonen?"

Helen said no, it was Johnson, but her mother's name was Kuikkonen.

"Yes, Nordstrom! Yes, uh-huh! . . . Yeah! It could be! I'm bringing her with me! Ok, love you too! Beat up Rob for me, he's being mean! OK, bye!"

"There, you've got your Ingrid back!" said Helen, with a smile.

Cindy's eyes went wide with exasperation.

"Oh, stop fishing for compliments! You know how it is!" She was so cute that Helen had to grin. She sighed; one more girl.

"Why are you sighing like that?"

"I feel guilty at how bad I am at keeping in touch with my girlfriends . . ."

"I'll be your secretary, and remind you!"

"That's mighty big of you!"

"Well, we small people have to find ways . . ."

Figaro

That night was one of the last few rehearsals before opening night.

It was a rather rocky rehearsal. The orchestra was fine, and so were the arias and choruses, but the witty repartee was pretty bad. By about the third run-through, the maestro was losing his mind. He dismissed the orchestra, and said he'd keep the singers until they got it right, with just a piano.

A glum cast began the 4th run through, but Helen was so comic in the first scene that the cast began to laugh, and things lightened up, and it went passably well. The maestro called Helen forward and smiled and thanked her, and the pianist added his own thanks. Backstage all the principals hugged and kissed Helen, especially Anne Price, who was playing Susanna, who was the central character, though the opera was named for her fiancé, Figaro.

Helen had been nursing a crush on this lovely woman from the beginning of rehearsals, and when she invited Helen into her dressing room, telling Helen she had something for her, it quickly appeared that the feelings were mutual.

"It's me, Helen," she said, knocking on her door.

"Come in!" Helen went in, looking around with interest. "Oh Helen, I think I'm going to hold out until closing night! Okay? You're a lovely girl, and I enjoy working with you! Come over on closing night, and be nice to me until then!"

Helen's buddies had been allowed to watch the rehearsals by special permission, and they said it had been awesome.

"Are you nuts? It was a disaster!"

"On opening night it'll be perfect, you watch!" Sarah was an actress herself, and she gave the opinion that the cast had been a little too tight, and the clowning of Helen had loosened them up, which was nothing Helen didn't know.

"I just exaggerated my lines a little!"

"That's all you need to do. Even less than tonight; it'll be an inside joke and bingo!"

Helen thought that was a good idea, and resolved to do exactly that.

For weeks, Helen had been working on a cello for Cindy without her knowledge, with Mr. Knowlden's help. A few days after the events of the previous scene, Helen turned up at the workshop and noticed at once that someone had been working on the almost completed cello. It stood strung and ready, and on checking, it had even been tuned. When she looked up, there was Geppetto grinning in the doorway. "Let's get her down here, and see the look on her face!!" he said. Helen had introduced them some weeks ago, and Geppetto was a fan of Cindy. Helen called home.

"Hello?"

"Cindy, it's me, Helen. Can you come down to the workshop? There's something neat I want to show you!"

"Now?"

"Sure! In a few minutes, I'm off to the rehearsals, so this is a good time."

"Okay, I'll be right there," said Cindy, and hung up.

Helen had also made a bow, and Geppetto had haired it and it was ready. This was a modern bow and cello, of the kind that would have been played in the late 18th and early 19th century. Cindy's favorite drink, root beer, was obtained, glasses, ice, potato chips, napkins, and music, in case she was in the mood to play, and some flowers to decorate the workshop!

Suddenly Cindy came in through the door, and was about to make a hurried exit, when a student grabbed her, and Geppetto hurried up to greet her. She looked distinctly alarmed when the gang converged on her. "Surprise!" they yelled.

"What's going on?" Cindy asked, confused and worried. Helen led her to the beautiful, dark-colored cello, and said, "This is yours!"

Cindy gasped. She stood perfectly still for a long time, staring at the instrument just as Helen realized that she must have an excellent cello of her own. Helen's smile froze on her face. A girl can never have too many cellos, she told herself desperately.

Cindy bent close and stroked the woodwork, plucked the strings reverently, and, her eyes shining, asked whether she might try it out.

"Of course! It's yours, dear; play it all you want!"

A chair was brought, and with practiced fingers she adjusted the bow, and the height of the peg. She closed her eyes, and began to play. After just a few notes, Helen realized that this was a major talent, and she glanced at Geppetto, who was looking amazed. Cindy was playing a movement from a Bach suite for unaccompanied cello. It was beautiful. Cindy really understood the piece, and was able to communicate its meaning.

And gradually, Helen began to realize what a good instrument she had built. It was superb. It spoke well, its sound was mellow, but had character. Helen remembered how she had poured into it all her frustrated love for Cindy.

Cindy stopped playing, looked at Helen, and said: " _You_ built this instrument!" Helen nodded. "For me!" Helen nodded again. Cindy carefully got up, laid the bow on the chair, and went into the bathroom. Seconds later, Helen followed her there, and she was crying her eyes out.

"How long have you been working on this?" she bawled.

"About a month! The wood was all seasoned and ready."

"I'm not worth it, Helen; your time is so precious! It's beautiful . . . so beautiful! Thank you so much." She put her arms around Helen, and hugged her long and hard.

"Come on out," the others called from the doorway, "We have root beer for you!"

"Root beer!" she laughed, through her tears. "And potato chips?" They said yes. She came out, and hugged a long line of students and friends she had gotten to know.

Helen finally broached the subject of how the new cello compared with her old instrument. She put down her root beer, and said, "First of all, this is a fantastic cello, Helen . . . you're really a fantastic craftsman. It takes a lifetime to learn to make these, but you're learned in just two years! The sound is wonderful; it's light, but it feels strong, and flawless. And best of all, you made it. I'll talk to you about it later, OK?"

"Something you want done to it? Sure!"

"No . . . something I want done to you!"

Helen flushed, and looked around, to see if they had been overheard, but the onlookers had made themselves scarce. Two students had asked whether they could try out the new instrument, and there was a crowd watching them play.

It was a full morning dress-rehearsal, and Helen hurried to her dressing-room, and found a single pink rose on her table. A single pink rose! Helen spent a few minutes, wondering who had left it there, and gave up and began to dress. The clothes went on quickly, the hairdresser braided her hair so that it looked like a boy's short braid. She was ready.

The famous overture began, and they were on. The Press was there, taking photographs, and the drama went into motion. Helen toned down her entrance, but got as good a reaction as before. It was truly comic, and Helen was the lovestruck teenage boy. But she didn't have to fake attraction for Susanna; it was true. And suddenly Susanna was making eyes right back at her.

The story barreled on, as Helen's part finished off, and they were taking their curtain calls—even those had to be rehearsed.

The maestro addressed them. He had a special word for _Cherubino,_ Helen's role. Keep it up, he said, I like the way you varied your delivery today. It is true genius, miss; we're depending on you.

Back in her dressing room, Anne Preston was waiting. She gave Helen a few words of congratulations, and said that she had needed just that bit of excitement from Helen to relax and do her part.

It was noon. Helen hurried to the Little House, and there were Cindy, and Sarah, and the new cello, looking grand, right in the middle of the living room. Cindy who had been making lunch, turned off the stove, hurried forward, and grabbed Sarah.

"I have to tell someone, and it has to be you, Sarah. I know how you two feel about each other. But you must forgive me, but I love this girl like crazy. How many women have instruments crafted for them personally, by someone who cares for them? I'm so emotional, I don't know what to do. I . . ." Her tone became barely audible. ". . . I thought I was in love, but now I know."

"Cindy, I didn't do it to make you love me; I just felt you deserved your own cello!" Helen was embarrassed. "At that time, I thought the amnesia would be permanent!"

"But it was a labor of love. I'd offer you money for it, but that would cheapen it."

"It's okay. No money. I love you. I'm glad you came into my life, whatever happens to us!"

Cindy had made Chili, because both girls loved it. It was good.

_Figaro_ ( _The Marriage of Figaro,_ by W. A. Mozart) was a triumph. Helen had a minor role, but Anne Preston, who was a world-famous lyric soprano, who just happened to live in their little town, was a fabulous singer and actress. She expressed enormous gratitude to Helen, though Helen had only helped her over a minor difficulty, which it so happened that Helen herself had caused. Anne's marriage was coming apart, and without realizing it, Anne had begun to become emotionally attached to Helen. Sometime later, Anne and her husband separated, and for a while Helen's was the shoulder that Anne cried on. That was long after Figaro had run for the scheduled three days, and been performed in the big city on the weekend. Anne was accustomed to being brilliant, but Helen was a great new talent, and the public and the press loved her equally.

Meanwhile, Cindy had taken Helen's violin studies seriously. Pat Wallace had offered to coach Helen on behalf of the music department, but it was difficult for Helen to get lessons from her, simply because of who she was. But Cindy was different; Cindy loved to teach, and just as Helen began to get featured more often as violin soloist with the new orchestra, Cindy began to coach her more carefully. Helen was playing baroque violin, where the phrasing was just a little different from the modern violin. Cindy, by watching the orchestra string players very closely, began to understand the technique, and between her and Pat Wallace, who also coached her, especially before performances, Helen began to play beautifully. They could not travel very far, because of Helen and a few other students who were in the orchestra, but they often played at the closest big city, and they soon came to the attention of the national Press. By the end of the semester, Helen was nationally known as a Baroque specialist, as well as a wonderful new talent in lyric opera. The two Helens, the soprano and the violinist, had come to the attention of rather separate audiences, and at that time not everyone realized that it was the same person.

Helen began to get busier as the semester wore on. After an hour at the workshop, Helen went to music class, where they were beginning to compose pieces of moderate length. When she got home for lunch, Cindy greeted her with a smile, and suddenly gave her a hug, and kissed her gently.

"Thank you for everything!"

"No need to do that, Cindy; this is your home, and you put a lot of work into keeping me going. Let me fix you lunch."

"I made a few sandwiches; egg salad. I remembered how to!"

Helen suddenly realized that this was a different Cindy, Cindy who remembered how things were done. As they ate, Helen quizzed her about how it felt at the skating rink, when her memory came back.

"My head hurt . . . and then I just started remembering things. Lots and lots of stuff that I had forgotten that I knew, you know? They . . . just kept appearing, everywhere in my mind that I looked. It's like the lights were on again!"

"Are you happy?"

"Yes. Yes, I am; I think I know what to do."

"What's that?"

"I must first tell the convent that I'm here. . . That will be a miserable job, and then next weekend, I'm thinking, of flying back home. Will you come with me?"

"Sure. What will we do with Gillian?"

[Gillian was a teenager from a troubled home, where her mother had been in an abusive marriage. This was the woman Helen had helped escape from her husband, with her daughter, and whom Helen had helped settle in a tiny apartment especially for abused women and their children.]

They thought of various options, and finally decided to ask Lisa to house-sit for them. Lisa was reliable, and loved to spend time in the Little House. While Cindy washed the dishes at the kitchen sink, Helen watched her, thinking how hard it was to believe that Cindy had spent two years under such horrible conditions. Cindy asked what she was getting upset about, and Helen told her.

Cindy put away the dishcloth, and took a deep breath. She told Helen how the man was going at her like a madman when she regained consciousness, and how she hated him so much. The other men had been good to her, but the man who had abducted her—now dead—had been the one person who had made her life hell. She began to tremble violently.

"Nobody will understand except you, Helen. My life is really screwed up, my head is all messed up. I'm going to hold onto you for this whole trip."

Helen said that was OK.

"You look so like Ingrid . . ."

"I guess she's the one, huh?" Helen couldn't stop herself from harping on that thought, though Cindy had made it clear that she loved Helen so much, and she hated to be forced to compare them.

"Yeah, in some ways. The one who got away. But that was long ago, you know; back then, all this . . . acceptance wasn't there." She meant that same-sex relationships were far more frowned upon at that time. Helen could not stop herself from asking how Ingrid approached Cindy, and she began to describe their various encounters, and Helen quickly told her that there was no need to go into details. What Ingrid had done to her had seemed perverted at that time, but now Cindy realized that that was how Ingrid was able to get satisfaction.

The tickets were reserved, and Cindy's order contacted. The tickets were far easier than talking to the head of Cindy's order.

"They don't quite understand or believe me," Cindy said, after a long phone call. "I'm wasting your money, making these long phone calls. I should pay you for them."

"No. As long as you live here, I pay the bills. Anyway, what do they think? You ran off with a guy?"

"I think so. Maybe when we're face to face, she might believe me. I'm done; I'm never going back into it. I'm just Cassie O'Shaughnessy now. Sister Mary Catherine is dead."

Helen looked at Cindy solemnly. "Take your time. Think about what you want to do. You're a musician, a teacher, a poet, a social worker. There could be lots of jobs for you. Don't worry about sex and drugs, and Ingrid, and a place to stay. Gillian and I love you, and we appreciate you, and you're part of our family now."

When Gillian came in from school, she remarked that there were flowers outside the door. Helen gasped. They were a small bouquet of cut roses near the door, in a tall glass vase. It had to be Anne; it had that unmistakable stamp of flirtatiousness, and seriousness. There was also a rolled up newspaper clipping.

"What's this?" asked Gillian. 'A new star rises at _Figaro!_ Last night, at the dazzling opening of _The Marriage of Figaro,_ two characters rose above the outstanding performances of the entire cast. One was the inimitable Anne Preston singing _Susanna._ Never has there been such a gorgeous, mischievous, naughty, exciting _Susanna,_ and in such flawlessly good voice! Take a bow, Diva Anne!

'The other was Helen Nordstrom, a relative newcomer, who made her opera debut as _Papagena_ in last month's _Magic Flute,_ and who sang _Cherubino_ last night. Citizens, we have a winner! The lovely Helen not only sang flawlessly in the all too short 30 minutes she was on stage, but acted brilliantly.' It went on to praise Helen's portrayal of infatuation.

Cindy and Gillian grinned as Helen blushed. She handed the paper over to Cindy. The girls asked who Anne Preston was, and Helen described the role. "That wasn't acting," commented Gillian. "You liked her an awful lot Helen; I could tell that from where I was sitting!"

"She's really nice, and cute," agreed Helen.

"Who sent the flowers?" asked Gillian.

"I don't know!" lied Helen. It really could have been anyone!

Right after closing night, when Helen learned some interesting things about Anne Preston, with whom she was getting very close, Helen and Cindy caught the plane to St. Paul.

St. Paul

They were met by Cindy's brother Rob, who gasped when he saw Helen. Cindy introduced them, and gave Rob a big hug.

"You look _exactly_ like my wife did, ten years ago!" He told Helen.

"Yes, Cindy tells me I look like her!"

"Cindy?"

"Yes, Rob; I called myself Cindy until the amnesia wore off. She still calls me that!"

"Sis, you look really different!"

"How?"

"I don't know . . . sort of younger!"

"It's your imagination!"

Rob drove them in his caravan to their parent's home, there were Cindy's father and mother, the niece; the nephew, a little baby; and of course, Ingrid. They all watched as Helen and Ingrid shook hands. It was truly a shock; Ingrid was Helen's twin, only older. And when she said "Hi, I'm Ingrid! I guess we look alike!" it could have been Helen.

"Helen Nordstrom!"

"Your mother was Finnish?"

"Mostly, yes; and a little Swedish too, I think."

"Her name was? . . ."

"Sylvia; Sylvia Johnson!"

The little two-year-old girl was watching Helen closely. She had platinum-blonde hair, and big green eyes, just as old photos of Helen had shown. The little boy was just a bundle in his grandmother's arms. Helen smiled at the little girl, but she was too busy studying Helen to notice.

"Dad, Ma, this is Helen who helped me . . ." Her voice failed, and her eyes went from face to face, looking for inspiration, and finally lit on Helen's. "She helped me. I'll tell you later."

"Welcome, Helen! I'm Pat O'Shaughnessy, and this is Cassie's mother, Peggy."

"Welcome! I've got my arms full," said Peggy in a warm voice, "we know bits and pieces of the sad tale, but I'm sure the both of you will fill us in in good time!" She smiled, but it was not a happy smile.

"There's plenty of time for that! I must go to the sister-house and straighten things out."

"Now?" asked Rob,

"What better time?"

"Shall I drive you?"

"We're going to rent a car for the weekend. That might be fun!"

"Ok, let's go to the bank first, and then I'll leave you at the rental place."

A quick visit to the bank got Cindy a checkbook and some cash, and she sent Rob away, saying that they'd be fine. Rob grinned at Helen and waved goodbye, telling them not to be too long.

"He's much nicer than I remember," said Cindy. "I guess that happens when you're away for any length of time!"

Helen marveled at the self-possession of the little nun. Cindy looked at her sharply. "What're you wondering?"

"I'm trying to imagine what you're feeling!"

"Just . . . strange; like I'm impersonating myself!"

Helen laughed softly at that. They walked to the rental agency, and rented a large car for the weekend. "Why large?"

"I've only driven big cars," said Helen; "my van, and then the Cherokee, and tractors and trucks at the farm."

"You lived in a farm?"

"Yup."

"I can't imagine you on a farm; you're so . . ."

"Cityfied?"

"Yeah!"

Helen shook her head. "I'm not."

The Convent

They drove to the convent, parked in the visitor area, and Cindy's face went wooden as they walked to the rooms of the head of their chapter, and knocked. A young sister appeared, and showed shocked surprise when she saw Cindy. "Good heavens, Sister Mary Catherine! Oh God, I thought . . . I thought . . ." and she burst into tears. Cindy was immediately the nun. "Rita . . . you're so grown up! No . . . I'm fine. How are you?"

"I'm Sister Fritchie's secretary; Sister Susan died . . . cancer."

"I'm so sorry to hear that. Is the sister in?"

Presently they were in the office of Sister Fritchie, a serious looking nun of about sixty. She welcomed Cindy warmly, and shook hands with Helen, had them sit, and called for some tea to be brought, and crackers.

"I'll have your room make ready right away, Mary Catherine! We have missed you. I have missed you. What happened? Where have you been? Why haven't you called?"

Cindy looked down and murmured, "I don't know if you want to celebrate, Sister; I was kidnapped at the airport. I can't remember a thing how it happened . . . I remember getting of the plane . . . looking for my luggage, and then . . . nothing. The next thing I remember . . ." Cindy stopped and breathed in and out slowly, and looked up at the older woman. Fritchie's face registered shock and dismay on Cindy's behalf. Taking courage, Cindy continued. "My mind was a total blank, and . . . a large man was having sex with me."

Cindy's breathing continued to be labored. She was revisiting these memories for the first time after that afternoon at the skating rink.

"He spoke to me as his lover, and cursed me, and told me I was a prostitute. For two years I earned money for him through prostitution. I know only that my name began with the letter C. He convinced me that I was wanted by the Police." Helen reached for Cindy's hand, her own eyes filled with tears. Sister Fritchie said, "Oh God . . . it must have been awful!"

"No, it wasn't. It was dull in the daytime, but the men were mostly kind, except my so-called boyfriend, who was a cruel, mean man. He let me use the computer, and I made contact with Helen, here."

And all the time, you didn't know who you were?"

Cindy shook her head. I didn't feel badly used, sister; the work was not hard, I was fed enough—mostly junk food—but he bought me clothes, and I had the Internet. But I realize the value of freedom. I was a prisoner, and that is what made me miserable. Helen encouraged me, and then one day there was a shooting. My boyfriend got shot, and I just walked away, and unbelievably, there was Helen waiting for me!"

Sister Fritchie stared at Helen, looking stunned. In a whisper she said, "I cannot believe it! You arranged to have this man killed?"

"Me?" Helen did not immediately understand why Sister Fritchie would jump to that conclusion, but they hastened to establish that Helen was there entirely coincidentally.

Sr. Fritchie looked a picture of compassion. "I simply cannot _imagine_ what must be going through your mind, dear; you were not brought up for this kind of life, but you have come out of miraculously! We must have you checked out by a doctor, and take your confession, and put it all behind us. Nobody, _nobody_ can . . ."

"Sister, let me talk. I can't come back. I just can't."

Sr. Fritchie sighed. "You can't leave just like that, Mary Catherine. To leave it all in a time of adversity . . . that's not what we expect, and that's not like you."

"I'm sorry. My mind is made up. I was hoping to take my things and leave, but . . . I'll just leave if there's a problem."

"Catherine, wait. This is an important decision. Let us meet halfway. Take a year's leave. Do what you want. Then decide. We need you. Your work is not finished.

Cindy had anticipated much of this discussion, and so could give an answer fairly quickly. She agreed reluctantly, and they were taken to the store room in which Cindy's belongings had been kept. It was a tiny room, 5'×10', and contained everything she owned: a few clothes, a number of books: Shakespeare, a few Bibles, psychology, music, calligraphy,, a novel or two, travelogues; gifts, stationery, musical instruments: a violin, a viola, a cello, a harmonica; a pair of skates, a badminton set, a box tied up in a ribbon, linen, and a teddy bear. Cindy's eyes glowed as she looked over her possessions, and Helen's heart understood the meaning of the phrase, a life of poverty. Her whole life had been behind her decision to make Lisa shop for clothes for Cindy at the used-clothes store. "Cool, huh!" Cindy said, with a smile.

They turned around, and a number of faces grinned at them from the doorway. It appeared that many of Cindy's students had joined the order. They were anxious to know what had happened to Cindy, and she was determinedly closed-mouthed about the details, but she said she was fine, and that she would visit later when she could. The bell rang for lunch, and they hurried off. Cindy turned to Helen with a smile. "It's been two years, but they still remember me!" Helen nodded. She could hardly imagine anyone being ever able to forget Cindy. Helen could see the writing on the wall; here Cindy was admired and useful to so many; in Ohio she was just a housekeeper.

They ferried the things in storage into the car, and after a few formalities, drove back to Cindy's parents' home.

Rob and Ingrid had gone, but had left word that they'd be back for dinner. Cindy told her parents her story. Her mother cried, and her father, too, wept silently.

"But I'm happy," said Peggy, Cindy's mother, hugging her daughter. "You seem, if anything, sweeter than you were before, child!"

Helen smiled, teary-eyed. Cindy blushed. "I hated that man, but now he's dead. So." She shrugged. "There's no one for me to hunt down and make an example of!" They laughed heartily.

Talk turned to Rob and Ingrid, and the kids. There had been no children for many years; it had been a troubled marriage. But now there were two, and the grandparents doted on them.

They asked Helen about her family, and she replied as well as she knew. It was clear that Ingrid could provide a path to a part of her family that Helen had lost touch with. "My father is reluctant to talk about my Mom's folks; maybe she had broken ties with them, I don't know," Helen admitted. "Your little niece looks like my baby photos," she told Cindy.

"I can imagine!" smiled Peggy.

The house had a piano in it, and once Cindy had revealed that Helen was an all-round musician, they had to hear her play, and Peggy played, and Cindy, played, and Pat wanted to hear 'O Danny Boy' played and sung, and they gazed at Helen in admiration. Has she played the Franck sonata? Helen said she hadn't, with great embarrassment, confessing that she had been asked to listen to it. They had the music, and Helen was asked to play it from sight, and she managed, not without difficulty! But it was lovely, and Helen was glad to be introduced to it.

"But she's an opera singer! Ask her to sing," said Cindy, her eyes glowing, pleased to be able to show Helen what a musical family she came from. After much argument, they settled on a Bach aria from Cantata 68: Mein glaubiges Herze, usually translated as "My heart ever faithful," which Helen was familiar with, and they played it from beginning to end, with everyone present contributing to accompaniment, including Helen herself, and Cindy on her cello! Helen began to realize even more what an amazing cellist Cindy was.

"Where is Ingrid's family from?" asked Helen, burning with curiosity.

"Right here, in St. Paul! She and Cindy were in school together from Middle School, St. Boniface. She was a wild one! But Rob got her! So, how many boyfriends do you have, Helen?" Pat asked, slyly.

"Now, Dad, treat her like a lady; no intrusive questions!"

"I'm sort of engaged to a German boy, an opera singer," Helen said quickly.

"Helen sang in Magic Flute, and Figaro, Dad!"

"I can believe it," said Pat, who had been delighted with Helen's singing.

"Now, I wish that Ingrid, there, would sing like you! She isn't the least bit shy about anything, but when it comes to singin', why only in Church. Only in Church! What's the use of that, I say?"

"Is she musical?"

"She's very talented, but she's not interested. She used to play trumpet in the band, and then horn, but she's never touched an instrument since she got married. Rob loves music, but she doesn't care."

"You should ask her, Cass; she listens to you. Ingrid likes our Cass! Was awful possessive of her when they were teenagers. Now she owns our Rob." Peggy sighed. Helen thought: so the older folks have noticed. She saw Cindy watching her, and look away when Helen caught her eye.

Just then there were little footsteps, and the little girl came running from the front, closely followed by her mother and baby brother, and her father. "We couldn't get ready any quicker; Junior had decided to nap!"

After they had been given something to eat and drink, Helen was introduced to the little girl whose name was Abigail. Helen got on the floor regardless of her short dress, and they played with Abbie's latest toy, a little glockenspiel, while Cindy recited the story yet again. Ingrid was the most affected; she wept quietly but was upset enough that the baby woke up and began to cry. Ingrid went to Cindy, and hugged her fiercely. "I'll never, ever be mean to you again! Oh when I think of the times . . ."

"It's okay, Ingrid, it's all over . . . be calm."

"How can you say that?" She spoke just like Helen. "If I had been the one, I 'd have hated every second of it, and I'd be nothing right now. I'd be a whimpering wreck! But just stay calm, and just take all the pain . . ." Ingrid was distraught, and Cindy had to take her to the bathroom to calm her down and clean her up.

Helen got lots of stories about how Cassie had been able to control Ingrid when everyone else had failed. She had planned to do something nasty to the football coach, but Cindy had talked her out of it, and so on and so forth.

With some difficulty, Helen was able to change the topic towards Ingrid's family.

Rob said, oh yes, Ingrid had called her folks and they were all excited about Helen. Excited? Yes, they wanted Helen to visit! When? They were ready anytime.

"Would you like to go? Ask Cass if she'd like that, if so she can go along. She's a popular visitor with Ingrid's folks!"

Helen used the excuse to see what was going on in the bathroom. Ingrid was talking earnestly, and stopped when Helen came in.

"I was wondering if you both are okay!"

"Oh yes, we're done here," said Ingrid quickly.

"I was told that your family lives close by!"

"Oh, yes, I almost forgot; would you like to go over and meet them? They're dying to see you, and my parents think they might know your parents!"

"Oh, really? Cindy, would you come?"

"Sure! We can drive our limousine."

"I'll see if Ma is OK keeping the kids. I'm usually a much better mother, Helen!"

"Oh, let's take the little girl; she's darling!"

"Certainly! Poor Rob; I'll tell him we'll be right back." So the four girls set off to visit the elder Johnsons.

It was a large but unpretentious house in a neighborhood with lots of children riding bikes and roller-blades and playing frisbee. It was still cold, in the 40's but it was spring to these folks. A horde of kids descended on the car, most noticeably a beautiful hazel-eyed blonde girl called Heikki, whom Ingrid introduced as her youngest sister, just fifteen. It could have been Helen that fateful summer before her freshman year in College, except that this girl was more friendly, relaxed, and not as highly strung as Helen had been. She instantly attached herself to Helen, following her everywhere. Ingrid's was a huge family of 10 kids, Ingrid the eldest, Heikki the youngest, and four boys and four girls in between. The girls seemed all to be very light blonde, and the boys generally darker-haired, and quite handsome.

Helen was introduced to Ingrid's father and mother, Rolf and Eunice Johnson, and plied with hot chocolate, and made comfortable with a bunch of Johnson girls seated around her and Cindy.

Rolf explained what he thought he knew.

"Now, who's your mother?"

"Well, my Dad's name is John Nordstrom, and my mother was Sylvia Johnson. I believe her mother's name was Kuikkonen. I'm not quite sure, and Dad doesn't talk about it much."

( _Oo, she's so cute,_ said the girls to each other quietly. Helen looked at them and grinned. _She grinned at me,_ said one, and giggled. That set the whole room off.)

"Okay, that's enough of that giggling! See, Eunice, you know about Sylvia. Tell her!"

Mrs. Johnson was a lovely blonde, with classic features, very much like Helen's mother. "Sylvia was . . . my half-sister. Her father wasn't my father; actually we believe that . . . Rolf?"

"Oh, it's all right, everybody knew! Her father was _my_ Dad! So we're sort of both of us your mother's half-siblings! I'm your half-uncle, and she's your half-aunt! So you're a full cousin of all these gigglers!"

That unleashed a veritable storm of giggles, and Helen got kissed by five female cousins, and four boy cousins got chased off by their sisters.

"I wonder why she didn't keep in touch with you all?"

( _Ooh, I love how she talks,_ whispered one. _She talks like you,_ said another, shoving her slightly. _Hey, quit shoving_ said the first one.)

"My Dad was very unkind to Sylvia," said Eunice. "When she was little, she looked a lot like Rolf's folks, and Dad was angry. He didn't let us marry; we only married after he died. What dear?" Heikki had whispered something in Eunice's ear. "Oh, I forgot, Helen your grandmother is right here!"

Helen was dumbfounded. She had never thought that she had living grandparents. The color drained from her face.

She's about seventy, but very weak. She's quite sharp, though. We haven't told her that maybe Cassie has stumbled on her grandchild, though we suspected when we heard about you. Come on, if you'd like to meet her!"

Grandmother

Helen stood up unsteadily, and Cassie took her arm, and Ingrid held onto her other arm, because Helen was feeling a little dizzy with all the new information. They led her ceremoniously to a back room where an elderly lady sat knitting away at some nondescript item of clothing. She was white-haired, and was listening to a talk show on the radio.

"Mama, Cassie is here with a friend!"

"Cassie's back? Let me see! Cassie! Where have you been all this time?"

"I was kidnapped, grandma! But I'm fine!"

"Are you sure? You've been gone for, what, almost a year?"

"Two years and seven months, Ma. It was August three years ago, so . . . two and a half years!"

"That long! Our Ingrid missed you, Cassie, and we had a time of it with her! Let me see you close! You look so pretty, Cassie! Doesn't she?" she asked Eunice, and Eunice said yes, she did.

"Mama?"

"Yes dear."

"We think this is Sylvia's daughter."

"Who? My Sylvia?"

"Yes! This is John Nordstrom's daughter!"

Helen stood in front of the old woman, and her life suddenly changed. She had to believe that this was blood of her blood. The old lady's eyes searched Helen's face, and found much that she liked.

"Is it true child? Is your mother Sylvia?"

"Yes; I'm pretty sure it's the same Sylvia!"

"It has to be; you have her hair, and her voice . . . and your father is John Nordstrom?"

"Uh-huh!"

"Yes, you carry yourself like him, very straight! My daughter tended to slouch, except when she was interested in something! Do you play the guitar?"

"Yes!"

"Then you sing, too, I suppose!"

"Yes!"

"Grandma, she's already an opera singer, and she's only eighteen!"

"Let's hear her then! Eunice, there's a guitar here someplace, I know . . ."

Suddenly Heikki appeared with a guitar, a new nylon-strung folk guitar. They brought a stool, and Helen sat down, tuned the guitar, and sang a folk song her mother had taught her.

The knitting had stopped a while back. The old lady's eyes were full of tears. "Yes, you are Sylvia's daughter!" She gazed at Helen, and then held out her arms, and Helen kneeled down in front of her and they embraced and kissed. Suddenly Helen was no longer afraid of growing old. Here was a model for her. She could be seventy and happy! Both women, the seventy-year-old matriarch and the eighteen-year-old youngster studied each other eagerly.

"Tell your father that I long to see him, and tell your mother to come here and visit me. There is no need to be angry, the past is dead. The past is completely dead. This is a new life, and there are no enemies, dear. What's your name?

"Helen."

"Helen! Well, that's a good name. Helen, I long to see your parents, girl!"

"Grandmother, Sylvia died four years ago."

The old lady's face drained of color. "Oh no! You didn't tell me!" exclaimed Eunice, shocked. "John never told us!"

"It was terrible; I was there."

"Dead?"

"Yes, Grandmother . . . only John and I are left."

"Well, that is something . . . but she's gone?"

"Don't get upset, Mama, if you live long enough, everybody dies." Eunice was crying freely, and Helen bent once again to hold her grandmother. All her cousins were sniffling, Heikki weeping while gazing at Helen.

"It is a sad thing to see one's children die," said Grandma Kuikkonen. "I wish she had brought you to me when she was alive; it would have meant that she had forgiven me."

"Why was she upset with you?"

"Because . . . my husband—her father—was unkind to her, and I did not defend her. I should have."

"She was a happy woman before she died, not someone who had . . ."

"I understand. Maybe she lives, and maybe she it was who brought you here."

Helen looked at Cindy. Could it be? Cindy smiled; it was a lovely thought.

After they had discussed every possible thing, and after Helen had told her grandmother all that she was doing, which the old lady filed carefully away, Helen and Cindy took their leave, promising to visit frequently.

"Does your father have a phone?"

"Yes."

"Let me talk to him, then; I must be the one."

Helen pulled out her phone, and dialed her father. "So you have one of these phones! Turn down that radio, children . . ."

"Hello?"

"John . . . This is Sylvia's mother!"

"Oh hello, this is a surprise!"

"I just heard about Sylvia. My grief is great . . . but yours must have been greater. You don't know me very well, but . . . I want you to know, I feel for you."

"I'm sorry; in some ways I was a bad husband, I guess."

"No; that's the way we were taught: whatever your spouse says is right. But Sylvia's father died twenty-eight years ago! She must have destroyed our letters unread."

"No, it was me. I was so stupid! Twenty-eight years! Well, I'll be darned. I feel sorry for my daughter Helen. You have a granddaughter, you know."

"Well, this is the miracle! She found us! She's right here!"

"Where are you calling from?"

"St. Paul, Minnesota; she's visiting a friend, another granddaughter's friend as well! It's a small world!"

"It certainly is! May I talk to her?"

"Helen, your father!"

"Dad?"

"So you're gallivanting all over the US, and don't have time to visit home, huh?"

"I'm sorry, Dad; I'll try and make it soon!"

"Don't come round Easter . . ."

"Oh Dad, don't be silly, control yourself!"

"So how's your grandmother? What's she like?"

Helen had to describe her grandmother, with the old lady listening in with a big smile.

"So you don't call your Dad either, eh?" There was a lot of laughter. "I guess it runs in the family!"

The Cousins

Helen had never met any relatives outside her immediate family! She had expected, when thinking about this trip to St. Paul, that it would all be red tape relating to Cindy (or Cassie; but Helen never got the hang of calling her by that name, and she was fine with being called Cindy) and her convent folks, but that got settled quickly. From the time she went to visit the Johnsons, they completely took over the visit, and couldn't have enough of Helen.

Things got worse when they discovered that Helen had been the same Helen who had been sort of the anchor girl for the Early Music festival the previous summer!

You're that Helen! But you had short hair! That was always the way it started out, and Helen would retort that it grew, and whoever it was would tell her it was the most wonderful special ever, and so on and so forth. It had all begun the previous summer, when Helen had arranged for some rehearsals of their Early Music Ensemble to be filmed (or videotaped, anyway) by the local Public TV station, when other Public TV stations had asked whether they could feature the film in their seasonal fundraisers. Helen had explained that what had been shown was just the rehearsals, and that Early Music groups from neighboring colleges and universities had asked if they could sing and play with the group that Helen was with, and of course they had said, yes. About a third of it had been how they planned for the event, and the rest had been the event itself, and Helen talking to the camera. Helen had sung with the madrigal chorus, and played the treble viol, and all the rest had been her commentary.

Marika, the next youngest after Heikki, was a wonderful, blue-eyed blonde who also looked very much like Helen, but was a little more sturdily built. She started out very shy and quiet, but became quite jolly the more she got to know Helen. Marika was Heikki's favorite sister, and the feeling was reciprocated. When Helen found out that Marika was looking for schools for the Fall Semester, she urged her to come to the college in Ohio.

"Wow, I'll never get in there!" said Marika, a little awed by the prestige of the school, which Helen was beginning to realize had a national reputation. But try, Helen encouraged her, and Marika said she would. She, too, was a musical all-rounder, but she preferred not to sing, much to Helen's disappointment. Cindy also liked Marika a lot, and the two youngest Johnson girls and Helen and Cindy spent a lot of time together.

Helen and Cindy tore themselves away with great reluctance, and many tears from Heikki, but Marika had begun to believe that she might make the cut to be a freshman at the college in the fall. Rob and Ingrid dropped them off, and they were on their way back home. Helen tried to see whether Cindy was returning reluctantly; after all, their town was the scene of the horrible years of her captivity. But Cindy seemed to associate the place with happiness and freedom, and she was eager to get started organizing the inmates of The Little House, both the regular ones, like Helen and herself, and the visitors, such as Lisa, Sarah, Gillian, and occasionally Jennifer. With some effort, Helen was able to persuade Cindy to accept a little payment for being Helen's violin tutor, but she refused payment for anything else.

It was almost a forgone conclusion, but once Cindy was introduced to the orchestra, and auditioned for Cello with a Baroque bow, she was invited into the group, being one of the most experienced players among them. Cindy eventually became one of Helen's greatest resources, and a close friend of the family.

Modern Violin

The semester wound on; Helen began working on a Baroque violin at the Instrument Workshop, and began an affair with a wonderful man, Kurt Neumann, a bass, who had sung _Papageno_ (not to be mistaken with _Papagena_ , which had been Helen's role). Kurt was gay, and all Helen's friends felt that it was sheer madness for Helen to try to make a go of it with Kurt.

Meanwhile, after the semester was over, the orchestra had conceived a plan to tour the Midwest in a couple of buses, to bring Baroque music to rural places. They leased the buses, and Helen, and a young surgeon, Dr. Amy Salvatori, who had auditioned for the orchestra as a flutist and violist, managed the tour between them.

The tour was a major success, and the Chamber Orchestra of Ohio began to earn a huge reputation. Helen and some of her friends got the idea that, rather than distributing printed programs, they would have each piece described in more than usual detail by an announcer, for the sake of musical education. Helen was selected to make the announcements, because she was very good at it, and for occasional relief, Amy would substitute.

Soon, hearing of Helen's popularity as a violin soloist, and seeing the clips of performances by the touring group, Helen got invited to play with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. When Helen showed up in Chicago, they suddenly realized that Helen played Baroque violin, which was gut-strung. They hurriedly arranged for a small group from the orchestra to play with Helen, instead of the entire orchestra, and while they played their steel-strung violins, Helen played her gut-strung violin, and it was not a complete success. But Helen still charmed both the orchestra and the audience, despite being handicapped by her inability to play the modern violin.

Helen on the Road

Meanwhile, soprano Helen also got invitations to sing, one of which was to Germany. Kurt urged Helen to accept the invitation, not least because his mother wanted to meet Helen.

To be brief, Helen was to sing several recitals in Germany of Bach solo soprano works. Until the day of departure, Helen tried to play Cindy's modern violin. It was not easy; the strings cut her fingers cruelly, but she kept at it. But of course, the invitations were all for Helen the soprano.

The next few paragraphs are an abbreviated account of Helen's German visit.

Helen and Kurt's mother got along beautifully, not least because Helen spoke German haltingly. Frau Neumann was persistent, and Helen began to pick up the language quickly. Then it was revealed that Frau Neumann was fighting cancer, something she had successfully hidden from her son. Speaking to Helen in private, she begged Helen to marry Kurt. You are my only hope for a grandchild, she pleaded.

Helen and Kurt were married at the American consulate in Frankfurt.

Epilogue

On the way back, Helen visited London, and was persuaded to play violin with a well-known chamber orchestra. Trying the steel-strung violin once again, Helen found that it was a lot easier than she remembered. It was a Bach concerto, which she knew forwards and backwards, and it went off without a hitch. Kurt and Helen had a disagreement about something, and Helen returned to the Little House by herself.

Cindy wanted a full report of Helen's modern violin adventures, after which Cindy was on surer ground. With Cindy's help Helen had developed her Baroque violin technique until she was confident she could play any Baroque piece perfectly, but Cindy was not a Baroque musician; at least, she knew the Baroque repertoire, but she had only played with modern, steel-strung instruments.

Once Helen said that she was eager to try her hand at modern violin, Cindy wanted to know why. It turned out that Helen had been listening to the Tchaikovsky concerto, and wanted to play it!

An intense period of practice and drill began, and by the end of August, Helen was able to play the Beethoven concerto without any difficulty. The Cleveland Orchestra heard that Helen had taken up the modern violin, and invited her for a special matinee concert specially intended for young people. It was a wonderful performance, and earned rave reviews.

Shortly afterwards, she learned the Brahms concerto, and performed that with the Philadelphia, and those two concertos became staples for Helen, in addition to all the Bach _concerti_. In the middle of the Fall semester, Helen was invited to London to sing Euridice in a production of Orpheus and Euridice. Once that was successfully concluded, she was approached to play the Tchaikovsky.

By this time, she was able to afford to send for Cindy to come to London. A friend offered the use of a cottage for several days, and Helen learned the piece. Cindy was nervous, but all the playing on steel strings had got Helen ready for this concerto, which was difficult to play convincingly.

The performance went off well, but by the end of it, Helen's fingers had gotten cut, and were bleeding. She managed to hide that fact from the orchestra, and wear a smile while she took her curtain-calls, but she decided she would take a rest from steel strings for a while, to give her fingers a chance to recover!

In time for the Fall Semester, her cousin Marika had won a partial scholarship to Helen's college, and Lisa, unhappy with the high school she was attending, had also decided to take some classes at Helen's college, and Helen had obtained a divorce from Kurt, which had thrown her into a depression.

A notable event of that Christmas holiday was that Helen was approached by the PBS station in St. Paul to make a Christmas Special. This special was so successful that there are references to it in many of the Helen stories, because it was featured in PBS broadcasts around the country, as Helen's very first Christmas Special, which were followed by a couple more.

Helen's junior year at college was fraught with emotional complications and lots of suffering, as well as a number of triumphs on the opera stage both in the US and in Europe.

By the Summer, Helen is so unhappy that she plans to take a year off, and ends up taking two years away from college. Some of this story is recounted in Helen at Ballet Camp. Her return to college is described in _The Lost Years: Helen & Lalitha._

The End

The END.
