From The Storytellers" Collection
Multnomah Publishers
Copyright © 2000
Liz Curtis Higgs

Heartstrings
by Liz Curtis Higgs

No time to break jests when the heartstrings are about to be broken.
     -Thomas Fuller

Her father had already broken her heart twice this week. Could he manage to keep from doing so tonight?

Not a chance.

Nellie MacDonald sighed in resignation, staring out her bedroom window at the bright blue Canadian sky. A sunlit breeze, fragrant with pine and salt water, teased a dozen fine tendrils of hair loose from the ponytail that tickled the back of her bare neck. Distracted, she hummed a slow air she'd been trying to master, then picked up the bow of her fiddle to keep her hands busy and her mind off the hours ahead.

It wasn't that her father didn't love her. Benjamin MacDonald loved her with a fierce and dogged loyalty that would do his Highland ancestors proud.

No, love wasn't the problem. It was his ability to say the worst possible thing at the worst possible time--that was what did her in. As if he didn't care that he hurt her. As if the desires of her heart didn't matter to him in the least.

She skimmed a paper-thin coat of fresh rosin along her bow with a practiced hand, remembering their unhappy parting last Friday when she was heading out to play for a step-dance competition in Port Hood.

It had been about seven o'clock, the evening air freshly windswept by a late June rainstorm. She'd already pushed open the rough-planked back door when her father lowered his newspaper and raised his eyebrows, clearing his throat in obvious disapproval.

"Another night thrown away for a song, I suppose?"

She shrugged, not wanting to have another lengthy discussion of her plans for the future. Especially since those plans were more or less nonexistent at the moment.

"You realize, young lady"--how she hated when he said that-- "instead of fiddling away your weekends with Robbie and Doug, you could be earning serious money for college up at Glenora Inn."

"Waiting tables, then?" She fought the sarcastic note that threatened to creep into her voice, holding back the tears that waited in the wings whenever confronted by her father. "Would you have me cleaning rooms, Papa? Ringing up gifts for the tourists?"

His slate blue eyes narrowed. "It's honest work."

"Yes, it is," she agreed, pressing the door open further. "Hard work, too. So is playing five sets of hornpipes and jigs."

Her father's harrumph! followed her down the walk.

She'd driven south to Port Hood bearing the weight of his disappointment. But her spirits were buoyed by the sanguine company she kept that evening--two classmates newly graduated as she was and equally enamored with Cape Breton fiddle music. Unlike her, neither young man carried an ounce of regret on his handsome shoulders.

Robbie Beaton's parents were pleased beyond measure that their son was so proficient at piano. And Doug MacNeil never played his guitar in public that one of his family members didn't drop by to add his applause.

But Ben MacDonald praising his daughter's skills on the fiddle?

Never.

Not from her first go at "Johnny Cope" on a poorly-tuned fiddle borrowed from her cousin Danny, to her fine showing at Broad Cove last July.

He cared for her health, her father often said, but not for her "hobbies." And not for my happiness, Papa.

Saturday evening when she'd been bound for a ceilidh in Creignish, it was more of the same. "Mind the traffic on Route 19," he'd cautioned. "Tourists are everywhere, flying toward the causeway like bats set loose from a belfry."

She'd frowned as she closed the door behind her. His words had reminded her of something Grandpa Neil might have said--archaic and highly picturesque. But the tone wasn't Grandpa's. No, the tone belonged to her father, gruff and scolding, warning of imminent danger as she'd embarked on another night of doing what he hated most and she loved best.

Tonight would no doubt be a repeat performance for both of them.

Opening her fiddle case, Nellie lifted the worn instrument to her left shoulder and caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror, now brightly lit by the midsummer sun. In spite of it all, she grinned as she tucked the fiddle beneath her cheek. The instrument was an old beauty, handmade by a man in Glace Bay, a more-than-welcome friend at any hour. With a steadying breath and a wink at her reflection, she drew the bow lightly across the strings.

The tuning would do, she decided. What song might chase away her melancholy mood? Grandpa MacDonald's favorite reel, of course: "Captain Keeler."

Nellie struck the first note like a match, certain she heard Robbie's spirited keyboard keeping time in the background and Doug's melodic guitar spilling all around her. Fueled by her undeniable frustration with her father, she attacked the strings until the fiddle was on fire, heating the already warm air with a furious, cut- time rhythm.

On and on the tune burned, picking up speed until the very last note. Finishing with a full-bow flourish, she curtsied to herself in the mirror and laughed out loud. "Young lady, you are making a spectacle of yourself!" She waved her bow playfully at the blue-eyed image, wrinkling her freckled nose in a fair imitation of her Grandpa Neil's larger version. "Is that any way for a good Christian girl to behave?"

"My thoughts exactly."

Nellie whirled around. "Papa!"

Three words and she was reduced to an ill-behaved child, her cheeks warm from the condemnation etched in her father's tightly drawn face.

After an awkward moment, he took a deliberate step inside her room. "So. Is there any way I might convince you not to play again tonight?"

"No," she murmured, knowing what it would cost her. "I have to play, Papa. I was..." She swallowed a lump that threatened to pinch off her air supply. "I was hoping...you might be there. This time."

His expression softened. Not much, but some. "At the church, you mean?"

She nodded, surprised she'd gotten that far with him, that he hadn't shot her down at the mere mention of the ecumenical service that kicked off the annual Mabou Ceilidh.

He looked at her for what seemed like ages, then lifted his shoulders slightly. "I might be able to come. What are you playing?"

"Two hymns." She offered a shaky smile and added quickly, "'Faith of Our Fathers' and--"

"Let me guess." His features were hardening again.

He would guess correctly. It was the first hymn her grandfather had taught her note-for-note more than a decade ago.

Her father grimaced. "'Lord Jesus, of You I Will Sing,' isn't it?" He practically spat out the words, as if they left a bitter taste in his mouth. "No surprise there." He took another step toward her. This one scared her a little. "If you had your way, Nellie, it'd be your Grandfather MacDonald there tonight to hear you and not your own father. Am I right?"

Her mouth dropped open. "No, Papa!" But the words came one beat late. Her too honest face had already given her away.

It was true. Painfully, shamefully true. Her grandfather had only been gone a year, every day of which she'd spent wishing he were still with her in Mabou. And secretly--oh, so secretly--wishing that her father were the one buried at the Hillsborough United Church Cemetery.

Ben MacDonald's stomach clenched in a tight knot. There was no denying it; her emotions were scattered all over her wide-eyed face.

You deserve this.

He fought the truth, nearly grinding his teeth to keep from telling her how much she'd hurt him. No father deserved such shoddy treatment from his only child. Now that Grandpa was gone, he was all she had. Didn't she know that?

And she is all you have, Ben.

Another truth, more painful than the last. Except it wasn't Nellie that was the problem, it was her blasted fiddle! Most fathers were worried about chasing off beaus. For him, there was only one bow he wanted to snap in two.

Judging by the expression on Nellie's face, it was her heart he'd succeeded in breaking. Again.

Say something, Ben.

"Nellie, I'm sorry that I said...what I said." It wasn't much of an apology, but it was a start. He held up his hands. "Listen, I'll do my best to be there this evening, but I can't promise, d'you hear?"

"I hear." Her sigh was practically a song itself.

"See you at supper. I'm cooking, so it won't be much." He hurried his words, turning away to escape her silent plea for his approval. How well he knew that look. Hadn't his own face worn a similar one the first twenty years of his life?

Only twenty, was it? He shook his head as his feet carried him down the wooden staircase. No, it was every one of his forty-four years, right up until he'd buried his father last May. Even then...even then he'd stared down into the yawning grave, aching to hear the much-needed words, "I'm proud of you, son."

Neil MacDonald had that effect on people.

The senior MacDonald's high expectations and low tolerance for mediocrity had driven away both of Ben's sisters. Soon after college, Ginny and Pat gave up trying to please the old man and left the island for good. Many a MacDonald appeared in the Inverness County phone book, but this particular branch of the tree had been whittled down to a mere stub.

And that was the heart of the problem. Grandpa Neil had wanted a quiver full of grandchildren. Ben and his ex-wife, Sandy, had produced one. A fine one, to be sure, but only one.

"My namesake, Miss Nell MacDonald, will be the finest fiddler on the island," the old man had announced from the time she could walk. Although by age four her hands were still barely big enough to stretch around the fingerboard, Nellie took to music like a sail embracing the wind off St. Georges Bay.

Her Grandfather Neil, beaming with pride, took full credit for every note.

Ben wandered into the kitchen, hoping to find something to drink, and discovered a fresh pitcher of lemonade waiting for him in the fridge. Nellie. Feeling more than a bit guilty, he filled an icy glassful and gulped down the drink in one turn, then went back for a second.

Above the sink their kitchen clock--notoriously slow--inched toward three. "Cape Breton time," Nellie called it. Ben smiled at that, putting his glass aside to stroll out onto the wooden porch that stretched across the front of the clapboard house.

The western highlands, covered with white spruce and carpeted with moss and ferns, rose behind him and fell with a sharp, craggy drop into the Mabou River and the harbor beyond it. Ben shaded his eyes and scanned the bright skies, full of seabirds but nary an eagle at the moment.

Unlike Sandy, he could never leave this place. The ancient granite hills were woven into the fiber of his soul. Two centuries ago the MacDonalds had come over the sea from Lochaber and settled in "new Scotland"--Nova Scotia. This was home.

But will it be home for Nellie?

Pulled forward by the perfect weather, he walked across the lawn edged with the wildflowers of summer, then stopped to gaze up at his daughter's bedroom window. She was playing again, the notes flowing from her fiddle like the water over Glenora Falls.

Ben dragged a hand across his rough jaw, reminding himself that a shave would be in order if he intended to go anywhere this evening.

If. He shook his head, disgusted with himself.

What bothered him the most? That her talent would take her beyond Cape Breton's shores, beyond his reach? Or was the problem that she'd taken to the fiddle so easily from the start, shaming his own meager childhood efforts?

Nellie couldn't know--no one did--the pure agony he'd felt when his father had stood behind him nearly forty years ago, one hand helping him finger the notes, the other hand resting on his bow.

"Like this, Benjamin." They would play a few tortured notes together, his father's foot tapping out the rhythm. "Come along, son, you can do it," the older MacDonald urged, as if he could will it so. "You're not applying yourself. Now try again."

Ben had tried again. And again. The gift simply wasn't there, not in his hands and not in his heart, no matter how many kitchen sessions he sat through. The informal gatherings started after supper and lasted until Lyra's harp hung high in the Maritimes sky. His mother played piano accompaniment while her husband enthralled the neighbors with one fiddle tune after another.

There would be stories swapped as well, tales from a bygone day, kept alive with the telling. And serious discussions about bowing styles and fingering techniques, the history of certain tunes, where so-and-so had first heard it played and by whom.

When the timing was right, a dancer might take to the floor, his upper body relaxed, arms by his side, with all the movement below the knees, the feet barely lifting off the floor, so swift and silent was the footwork.

Step dancing appealed to Ben, though he never had the nerve to move forward when the floor was open. If he couldn't fiddle like his dad, he'd just sit and listen, he decided.

His father always brought their house sessions to a close. "Here's a fine strathspey from the Old Country," he'd say with a deep measure of respect. Like all Cape Bretoners of Scottish descent, Neil MacDonald held a fond regard for his ancestors and their music. The greatest compliment anyone ever gave his father after a set was: "He's full of the Gaelic."

And he, Ben, was not. The musical genes had skipped a generation, leaving him the odd man out.

"Aren't you the lucky one, Ben?"

Startled, he spun around to find a neighbor, Janet Beaton, standing close behind him. Her arms were filled with groceries, her sunburned face with a generous grin.

"That girl of yours has a rare talent." Nodding in the direction of Nellie's window, Janet added, "She's better than her grandfather, and that's saying something."

No, it's saying everything.

Ben smiled faintly and listened as she chattered on about the four-day ceilidh events in town that week. "You're coming to the salmon dinner, I suppose?"

"I suppose." Atta boy. Another hedged commitment. The afternoon was thick with them. "I'll tell Nellie you stopped by."

"See you over at the church, eh?" Janet didn't wait for an answer but hefted her groceries higher with a slight grunt then hurried toward her one-story house half a block down the road.

"I'll be there, I guess," he called after her.

Had he answered Janet's question...or his own?

Nellie's hands were trembling.

Not enough to affect her playing, but enough to be noticed. She tightened her grip on the bow and pressed her chin into the fiddle with a fresh dose of determination. So her father wasn't coming, so what? She would not let it dampen the joy of playing one tiny bit.

The pews were full. Locals, mostly, along with a spotty mix of tourists. The Mabou-Hillsborough United Church sanctuary was more than a century old, its octagonal spire pointing heavenward, the rolled mouldings around the doors reminiscent of a ship's keel. And why not, with Mabou Harbour down the way?

Long, slanting rays poured through three narrow windows facing west, basking the worshipers with a luminous sort of glow. Clergy from three Mabou congregations hovered in the back of the church, waiting their turn. She was to begin playing the first hymn as they came forward for the official welcome and the opening prayer. A simple enough service on this relaxed summer evening.

Scanning the crowd for friends, she soon spied Robbie and Doug in the last pew, already making faces at her. Grow up! she wanted to say, quickly followed by the truth: Please don't.

Adulthood was upon them all, and a heavy burden it was. Come fall, all three would go to UCCB in Sydney. Not too far away--one hundred- fifty kilometers by car, a good deal less for seabirds--but far enough to be her own person. A new life apart from the father who didn't understand her, yet knew how to wound her deeply, not sacrificing one hour away from his sacred newspaper and television to come and hear her play.

Her grandfather was sure to be there--in spirit and in her heart.

She would make do with that, then.

From the back, Father Angus pointed a finger her direction. Nellie lifted her bow above the strings, poised to strike the first note. When she looked up for her cue, she drew in a sharp breath instead.

A familiar set of shoulders darkened the vestibule doors.

Papa.

He had come after all.

She swallowed an unexpected lump in her throat and slowly dragged her bow across the strings. Her eyes focused on her instrument, even as a part of her followed the notes to the back of the church, keeping track of the man who settled quietly into a wooden pew.

The assembled crowd sang loudly, if not on pitch nor in unison. "Lord Jesus, of You I will sing as I journey. I'll tell everybody about You wherever I go."

Yes, I will.

As the words of the old hymn washed over her afresh like living water, they infused her playing with renewed passion. "May all of my joy be a faithful reflection of You."

Yes, Lord!

Leaning into the notes with a keen sort of yearning, she filled the four verses with every bit of herself. Her love for God, for her homeland, for the grandfather who'd been proud of her, for the father who had not been so proud, yet loved her nonetheless.

And finally showed up to prove it.

When the last note resounded against the wooden walls, she lowered her bow, spent but satisfied, and quickly found a seat in the nearly empty front pew. Father Angus patted her arm and offered whispered praise while Father Bernie stepped forward to welcome one and all to another year of the Mabou Ceilidh.

The service was short, but blessedly sweet. From time to time she found a reason to gaze over her shoulder toward the back of the room. Still there. He hadn't moved when she rose and turned toward the congregation for the closing hymn. He sat a bit straighter, in fact, as if to see her better. The three verses marched quickly by, followed by a solemn recessional to a piper's tune.

While her classmate played, the congregation stood, almost drowning out the bagpipes with their chatter. Nellie slipped out the side door of the church, wanting to collect her thoughts before she saw her father. What would she say to him? "Thanks for coming," sounded lame, but "Did you like my playing?" was just plain dangerous.

From her perch on the side stoop she watched the crowd disperse along the narrow country lane, their cars parked everywhere. Closer to the front door, Janet Beaton's voice carried above the din. "Tell me, Ben MacDonald, are you proud of your little girl now, playing so fine for us this evening?"

Nellie leaned forward, straining to hear his response.

"She played as well as any of a hundred Cape Bretoners, Janet." His tone was flat, hard, and full of bitterness. "It's about time somebody around here realized there's more to life than playing a fiddle."

"Well!" Janet's voice rose an octave on that. "Peddle that rot somewhere else this week, Ben, or you'll chase the tourists away. No wonder your wife left you. Poor Nellie, having you for a father!"

Poor Nellie.

The words cut to the quick.

Through a fine sheen of tears, she watched their irate neighbor stomp off across the grass, clearly no longer interested in the lemonade and cake being served in the annex. Neither, for that matter, was she. Waving a half-hearted goodbye to Robbie and Doug who shrugged and moved toward their cars, Nellie collected her things and ducked around and then back behind the church, grateful for the quiet company of gravestones old and new, nestled among a copse of trees dressed in their leafy summer attire.

Her feet carried her exactly where she needed to go. "Grandpa Neil," she whispered, stopping at his granite marker, choking on her tears. "I miss you...so much."

Sobs shook her body as she leaned on the cold stone, trying to contain her grief and failing miserably. Only a year and already the soil around the headstone was filled in with grass as though it had been decades instead of months.

If her grandfather had been there tonight, if he'd seen her playing with her whole heart, he would have known what she needed to hear; he would have understood what her music meant to her. God gave her this gift, did He not? How could her father dismiss it so easily, as if it meant nothing, as if it was a worthless thing to be tossed aside without a care?

Grateful to be alone with her tears, she felt a tide of righteous anger swell in her. So her father was disappointed in her, was he? Well, she was disappointed in him.

In case he hadn't noticed, she was all he had.

And he's all you have, Nell.

The thought sobered her. With Grandpa gone, her father was her only family on the island. Still, he might have at least smiled when their eyes met in the sanctuary. He could have sought her out at the end, said a kind word, agreed with Janet Beaton, something.

She appraised her silent, stone-faced audience. Well, if her father wouldn't applaud her playing, she knew someone who would. Brushing away a last stubborn tear, Nellie pulled out her fiddle once more and tucked the instrument in place. "For you, Grandpa." Because I know you'll listen.

Ben heard the first notes floating over the treetops.

Go to her.

The plaintive hymn wrapped itself around his heart and pulled, hard. "Lord Jesus, of You I will sing..." He groaned at the words that echoed in his heart, torn between wanting to leave and wanting to make things right.

Go to her.

But how could he face her now? Bad enough he'd said such a cruel and cutting thing to Janet, not meaning a word of it, but to say nothing to his own daughter after she played so beautifully...

Go to her.

There was no ignoring it, that was certain. He slammed the car door shut and headed for the graveyard knowing right where he'd find her.

She was kneeling by her grandfather's grave, her fiddle lifted up like an offering. Her slim shoulders swayed to the gentle cadence of the hymn as her cinnamon-colored ponytail swung a quarter note behind.

Oh, Nellie...

The sight broke his chastened heart in two.

He quietly made his way around the old, flat stones, not wanting to frighten her, but needing to be closer. Needing to apologize. Needing to tell her she...she was...

"Papa!" Nellie looked up and the music stopped.

He stopped as well. The air between them was thick with unspoken words.

Gazing up at him, her blue eyes transparent with tears, her cheeks stained with a faint blush, her heart in her hands, she waited for him to speak.

His daughter. His Nellie. My own.

"Child, I'm...." He struggled to keep his voice even. His heart slammed against his chest. "I'm...you..." Like the fool that he was, he broke down. "Please, Nellie...please..."

She was on her feet in an instant, placing a slender hand on his shoulder. "Papa? What is it?"

"I'm...sorry." He meant it, too. Why was it so hard to say? "I'm sorry I haven't been..." His thoughts escaped him again.

She tugged at his sleeve. "Been what?"

He ground out the words. "The father you needed." There, he'd said it, the awful truth of it.

"But Papa, you're the only father I have."

Ben stared hard at the ground, undone by her tender words. "So I am." He shifted his gaze to the carved headstone. "Still, I never gave you what your grandfather gave you." Clearing his throat, he read the inscription. "Neil MacDonald: May you always be full of the Gaelic."

He looked at his daughter and for an instant, she was her grandfather. The proud set of his chin, the piercing eyes, the long, narrow nose. "That's what you are, Nellie MacDonald," Ben said, his voice low, weighed down with a lifetime of guilt. "You are full of the Gaelic, just like my father."

In the evening light, her eyes began to shimmer. "Thank you, Papa."

He watched her for a moment; she seemed wise beyond her years, as if she understood what it cost him to admit that. Then he stuffed his hands in his pockets and stared at the gravestone again. "I never pleased him, you know."

Nellie gasped at that, incredulous. "And I've never pleased you!"

It was his turn to be shocked. "Of course you...well, I'm very proud of you."

"And...?" She looked unconvinced.

"And I'm proud of your musical talents as well. You're a natural, Nellie." His chest tightened. "You're...everything I wasn't."

"Grandfather loved you, Papa." She stretched up on her toes and kissed his cheek. "Me too."

"That's good." Except it was more than good. It was a miracle, this love from a daughter he didn't deserve.

Ask her. Go on. "Will you play, then?"

"Play my fiddle?" She acted more than a little surprised.

He nodded to assure her. "Please play something...for me."

"For you?" She almost laughed, then caught herself. "All right, if you like." She waved her bow at their surroundings. "In such a somber place, better make it a tune like 'Gaelic Lament.'"

Nellie managed three notes before Ben coughed loudly and interrupted her. "I was thinking of something livelier."

"Oh?"

He grinned, feeling weights like boulders roll off his shoulders. "That tune you were playing earlier today at home."

"The reel, you mean? 'Captain Keeler?'" Giggling, she peeked over her shoulder. "Are you sure we should, here of all places?"

He glanced at his father's grave. "Here. Of all places."

She needed no more coaxing. Tossing her ponytail back, Nellie tore into the tune with youthful abandon, hardly noticing Ben sliding his hands out of his pockets to let them hang loosely at his side. His body felt the familiar rhythm almost before his feet did. As the music swelled, he lifted one heel, then the other, barely touching the ground as his feet sprouted wings and began to move in a never quite forgotten dance.

About the Author

A storyteller on the platform and in print, Liz Curtis Higgs is the author of over twenty books, including the best-selling novel, Bookends. Her love for the lively fiddle music and rich cultural heritage of Cape Breton increased exponentially after a family vacation to Nova Scotia. One trip around the breathtaking Cabot Trail, and the island staked a claim on her heart forever.

from The Storytellers Collection
Copyright © 2000 Liz Curtis Higgs