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lessons can think of old. He had smile- "Jack!" Her eyes were wide open but her
wrinkles around his eyes, but his face was voice did not sound surprised. She his her
young. That day, it occurred to me that maybe hands in the folds of her coat when she stood.
his cane was something like my mother's fin- "What are you doing here?"
"Listening to you," he said smiling, and
gers: something not age but magic.
He leaned over to me and whispered (as ~winked at me. I laughed at his name, laughed
~uch as anything can be a whisper when there that he'd included me in the joke. Jack Frost
IS an organ playing in the building) "I'm glad walked up and met my mother on the ,dais,
you never stopped listening, even after you and she looked as fresh and red as if a winter
wind had touched her face. I watched him
gave up lessons." smile at her, saw him help her into her coat,
I smiled and put a finger to my lips. I re-
member being impressed when he under- then take her hands in his gloved ones.
stood. After all, he was a grown-up, and all They walked down to me half-dancing: his
cane bouncing on the dais stairs, her feet re-
grown-ups were dense sometimes. membering their organ-pedal steps. I was
Together we listened to my mother and
glad my father wasn't there, to see such a smile
didn't say another word. on my mother's face. How many months she
When she stopped, her hands coming to rest made music alone, just waiting for someone

on the organ keys like the end of a wonderful
dream, we clapped furiously. It echoed to hold her hands.

strangely in the little church; my mother

started.

St. Paul's

Ben Johnson

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