And sometimes he would ask her what she was thinking about when she was staring off into space.
She never told him much about Carissimi, only that he was a down-time music teacher who needed to learn about the up-time music. She didn't think he would understand.
When Fred started spending more and more time out of town, it was actually a bit of relief.
March 1635
Giacomo looked up at her from where he knelt talking to Leah. That was one of the things Leah adored about him, that he would always put himself on her level to talk to her.
October/November 1633
And then the commission came for Giacomo to write the music commemorating the death of Hans Richter. She was bound and determined that this would be the first great piece credited to his name after the Ring of Fire.
Zenti came to her, and said that Giacomo was having trouble focusing on the music he was trying to write, because of the piano workshop next door. "Bring him here," she told him. "Fred is out of town for a week."
So Giacomo moved into her house that night. The kids were there, but Fred wasn't. And she didn't care.
The next two days were like heaven to Elizabeth, working with a talent of Giacomo's level. He was a man on fire, and she caught fire from him. Her passion for this work, this Lament for a Fallen Eagle, was the equal of his. As he described the arc and flow of it, she grasped it intuitively. And God, the music that he dictated to her!
At the end, Giacomo held a wonder, a joy, in his hands. And she had helped him create it.
March 1635
"Giacomo," she said, hands behind her back. Nothing more.
December 1633
The performance of the lament had been beautiful. Giacomo had wanted Elizabeth to sing the solo at first, but she had convinced him to ask Marla Linder instead. Elizabeth could have sung the solo, and sung it well. Part of her really wanted to do exactly that, but. Marla's voice was better than hers, and what mattered was giving Giacomo the best performance he could get. And at the performance, Marla had justified Elizabeth's belief in her.
Afterwards they were both on cloud nine, Giacomo because the performance had gone so well, and Elizabeth because his reputation was increasing.
They spent a lot of time together; singing, playing, laughing.
Some days she forgot to miss Fred.
March 1635
He looked up at her, and stood.
"Elizabeth."
January 1634
And then came the letter from Italy, telling Giacomo his father had died. Zenti came and got her. Fred was gone again, so Elizabeth made arrangements for the kids to sleep over at friends, and went with Zenti to the house the two Italians shared.
She had never seen a man in so much pain before. The lines on Giacomo's face looked like they had been graven deeply with chisels, and his eyes were so dark they looked like someone had put black holes in his eye-sockets. She gave him wine, and he choked on it and sprayed it across the room. Then he began to weep. She was so tempted to take him in her arms like one of her own children, and cradle his head against her breast, but she just sat and held his hand while the storm of tears took its course.
Elizabeth asked him about his father. He told her, story after story after story, all filled with love and affection for a man she'd never see.
That touched her, in an unexpected way. Giacomo had always been a gentle and caring man. Now she saw that he was, in his own way, a deeply loving man.
March 1635
"Kids, go finish your homework. I need to talk to Mr. Carissimi for a minute."
Spring 1634
Giacomo decided to write a Passion in honor of his father, one based on St. Matthew's Gospel. Elizabeth began to spend more and more time at their house, watching him write, taking musical dictation, singing parts with him when he would play new pieces of the passion for Zenti and his journeyman and apprentices.
He took such joy in writing the work, so much love for his father flowed from him, that at times Elizabeth felt like a fly trapped in honey. Other times she wondered if she were a moth, circling a candle flame, dazzled by the light but drawing closer and closer to the fire.
The passion was finished in March, and scheduled for performance over Easter weekend. Giacomo went into whirlwind rehearsal mode with instrumentalists and the choir of St. Mary's Church. Elizabeth watched, waiting for Giacomo's greatness to be publicly displayed again, hungering for the display of his talent in the service of love.
March 1635
She got unhappy looks from Daniel and Leah, but they knew not to make a fuss in front of others, and trailed off into the back of the house.
April 1634
The performance of the passion went extremely well. Afterward, elated, she let the children run free while she waited for a chance to speak to Giacomo without crowds of people around him. When the opportunity came, she praised him, and they laughed, and she called him her pet nickname for him, Jude. Whenever she saw him, "Hey, Jude" came to mind.
Then something changed. She didn't understand what, or how, or why, but something changed. Giacomo's gaze sharpened somehow, and locked on hers, seeming to flow into her soul. He raised a hand, and brushed her cheek with one finger; just barely touching her.
It wasn't the first time Giacomo had touched Elizabeth. Many times they had touched hands during piano lessons, or marathon music writing sessions. Often he had patted her shoulder. Or they would brush against each other walking down hallways or sidewalks. But those had all been contacts between fellow workers, fellow musicians, fellow seekers after the holy grail of music.
This was different. Now Giacomo saw Elizabeth as a woman, and had given her the lightest of caresses. No mistaking it for a simple touch; it was a caress.
At that moment, Elizabeth leaned toward him, wanting to feel the touch of his hand again, always. She would have gone with Giacomo anywhere.
"Mommy!"
The genuine alarm in Leah's voice acted like a plunge of ice water. Elizabeth whirled to rescue her daughter from the chance of a serious fall from the organ loft. The moment that Leah was safe, her mind inexorably showed her what would happen if she turned to Giacomo.
In that moment of clarity-in that very precise instant of time-Elizabeth saw the hurt she would cause Fred, and her children, and her friends and family if she went with Giacomo. And even the hurt she would cause him if she did so.
It was the hardest thing Elizabeth had ever done to reject Giacomo then.
But she gathered her children's hands in hers and left him standing in the nave of St. Mary's Church. Alone.
March 1635
"So why are you here?" Elizabeth asked after a long moment of silence.