“I guess it makes you an honest one,” I whispered, finally finding my voice, unsure of what to say beyond that. He stared at me intently, and I met his gaze without blinking. “I never would have guessed you would have reacted like that…that you even thought of me after you left. I didn’t know you…you cared.” I finished ineptly, unable to communicate the awe I was feeling at his confession.

“I did, and I do,” Samuel responded flatly. His mouth was drawn into a tight line, his eyes on mine. I exhaled slowly, feeling faint. The water from my dripping hair found its way down my back, and I shivered violently. Samuel reached down and took my hand, and we walked back towards the truck, the blanket trailing behind me. He stooped and picked up the cooler and set it in the back as he opened my door and helped me in.

With the heater on full blast, we drove back towards Levan. Music tinkled softly from the speakers, and I heard a hint of Rachmaninoff’s Elegie. I had always loved this piece. Rachmaninoff was considered one of the finest pianists of his day. Sonja had a live recording of him playing Elegie, and it had brought me to tears when I had first heard it. It had been many years since I had enjoyed the expressive breadth and the rich lyricism in his piece. Hesitantly, I reached up and slid the volume louder, allowing the music to fill the cab and reverberate off the glass.

“This is my favorite piece of music, by my favorite composer.” Samuel’s voice broke through as the music slowed and sighed.

“You always did love Rachmaninoff.” I remembered the first time he had heard Rachmaninoff on the bus and his reaction to the power and the intensity of Prelude in C Sharp Minor. “Rachmaninoff was the last of the great Romanticists in classical music. He was often discouraged by the modernist music that was becoming popular. Once, in an interview, he said that the modern music of the new composers was written more in the head than the heart. Their music contained too much thought and no feeling. He said the modern composers ‘think and reason and analyze and brood, but they do not exalt.’” I held up two fingers on each hand and wiggled them to indicate quotation marks. “I looked up the word ‘exalt’ in the dictionary when Sonja made me memorize his quote. The meaning I liked best was to “make sublime’, to magnify, to praise, to extol. Rachmaninoff’s music raises us up, it elevates.”

“I love Elegie because it is what yearning sounds like.” Samuel stared ahead as he spoke.

I stared at Samuel for a moment, moved by the simplicity of his description. “I think Elegie actually means lament. Some say Rachmaninoff was depressed when he wrote it, but there’s such pronounced hope woven throughout the piece that I tend to think, in spite of his suggested moroseness, Elegie wasn’t an expression of defeat - he was just.....yearning.” I smiled at him slightly as I echoed his simple synopsis. “He considered quitting early on in his career. His philosophy was one rooted in spiritualism - he wanted to create beauty and truth in his music, and he felt like his music didn’t belong. It’s ironic that he gave his last major interview in 1941, when the world was at war. The world needed truth and beauty then more than ever.”

We drove through Nephi and out on to the long ridge connecting the small towns. Soon, the lights of Levan twinkled before us, and we pulled into the sleepy little town, turning on to a pot-holed side street, driving past the bar and the old church before heading up the dimly-lit street towards home.

We crunched over the gravel in front of my house. It was dark and empty, my dad long gone on his way to Moab and the beckoning Book Cliffs.

“Would you like to come in for a minute? You could check the house for bad guys, and I could make us something yummy to eat. I think I have ice cream in the freezer and I could make us some hot fudge topping to put on top?” I waggled my eyebrows at him in the dim interior of the truck, and he smiled a little.

“Bad guys?”

“Oh you know, I’m here all alone, the house is dark. Just look under the beds and make sure no one is hiding in my closet.”

“Are you afraid to be alone at night?” His brows were lowered with concern over his black eyes.

“Nope. I just wanted to give you a reason to come inside.”

His expression cleared, and his voice lowered even further. “Aren’t you reason enough?”

I felt the heat rise in my face. “Hmmm,” was all I said.

“Josie.”

“Yes?”

“I would love to come in.”

We climbed out and walked inside. I flipped on the lights and excused myself for a minute. I ran upstairs to my little attic room and pulled off my wet clothes. I ran around looking for something to wear – sweats? No. Pajamas? No! I settled on a loose pink sundress and ran my fingers through my damp ringlets - my hair smelled a little like pond water . . . ugh! I spritzed myself with lavender and pulled my hair up into a clip, not wanting to look like I was trying too hard. I left my feet bare and ran back downstairs. My feet got a little tangled up, and I came hurtling off the last stair into the washroom like a bat out of hell. I steadied myself on the dryer and took a deep breath. “Geez! Calm down, woman!” I told myself sternly. When Samuel was around I seemed to be one frazzled bundle of gooseflesh and hormones. “That’s just what we need, fall down the stairs and spend the rest of the time Samuel has in Levan on crutches,” I muttered.

I walked into the kitchen where I’d left Samuel a few minutes before. I gathered the butter, evaporated milk, sugar, vanilla, and cocoa powder as we chatted about this and that. Soon the smell of hot fudge sauce wafted through the kitchen, and I sighed in contentment. Grabbing a couple bowls, I scooped up two large servings of cookie dough ice cream and drizzled generous amounts of hot chocolate over the top.