A Harmony for Steve

Chapter 1-2

The elevator opened directly onto Franklin’s living room. Glass walls offered a breathtaking view of downtown Nashville from twenty stories up. A giant sitting area with a circle of black leather couches took over one end of the room while a long table that seated ten sat under a crystal chandelier on the other end. Near the base of the spiral staircase, which led up to the four bedrooms on the floor above, sat a grand piano.

A uniformed maid greeted her at the elevator and relieved her of her suitcase. Chandra had graying red hair, deep wrinkles on her face, and a thick waist. “Good evening Miss Harmony, the family is out on the roof terrace.”

“Oh. Thanks, Chandra,” Harmony returned.

“I’ll put your bags in Mr. Franklin’s room,” she said. “He said to tell you he’d be sleeping on the couch instead of you.”

“Don’t you dare,” Harmony replied with a smile as she stepped back into the elevator. “I’ll stay on the couch like I always do. I prefer it to his bedroom.”

“Yes ma’am,” Chandra agreed with a smile dimpling the wrinkles on her cheeks. “I’ll just put your bag in there and let y’all fight that fight then make the beds whenever you figure it out.”

The ride to the roof took mere seconds. She stepped out and automatically took a deep breath of the fragrant garden. Franklin had spent the better part of ten years transforming the roof of the building into a paradise retreat. A vegetable garden he faithfully tended flourished on one half of the roof. Potted trees and plants lined a large koi pond that ran down the center of the roof with beautiful fountains on either end. The remainder of the roof he left for business and pleasure. Harmony found her family near the large gazebo next to a smoking barbecue grill. Her aunt Dee, her father’s sister, and award-winning screenwriter, stood at a table in the shade of the gazebo, pouring lemonade into frosty glasses.

“There she is,” her mother, Alice, said, coming toward her. Harmony had overheard people remarking on just how much she and her mother looked alike her entire life. Her mother had gifted Harmony with golden blonde hair, though she kept hers cut in an attractive bob to her chin. The blue top she wore with white capris made her blue eyes shine.

“Here I am,” Harmony said with a smile, hugging her mom tightly. “I was at the hospital this afternoon.”

“Franklin told us.” Her mom gestured toward her brother, who stood next to the grill in perfectly pressed khaki pants, a white long-sleeved shirt, and a blue and red striped tie. Over his clothes, he wore a black and white pin-striped apron. “Your grandfather had the grill delivered last week. He thought we might enjoy meeting outside if the weather was nice.”

Harmony pulled a hair band out of her pocket and wrapped her long hair into a sloppy bun. “It’s July, mom, in Tennessee. Why would he think the weather would be nice?”

Her grandfather approached, also wearing a shirt and tie like her brother. “I can hear you, little girl,” he said with a smile. “I’m old, not deaf.” Stuart Harper had pioneered Christian talk radio and carried his mantle as Harper Enterprises’ patriarch very seriously.

“We’re just cooking the meal up here,” her grandmother, Liz, interjected, slipping her arm into her husband’s. “I don’t think you can beat grilled chicken on Fourth of July weekend, can you?”

“Even if we do have to work,” her father, Grayson, added from his station next to the grill. “I’ve tried for forty years to get dad to change the meeting in July, but he never has.”

His sister, Dee, set the pitcher down and brought Harmony a glass. “I remember one year when you went off to some picnic with friends instead of attending the meeting.”

“You only did that once, as I recall,” Stuart murmured.

Her father cringed. “Some lessons you only need to learn once.”

Harmony laughed and took a sip of her lemonade, feeling the stress from Sheri Mercer’s decline in health gradually fade away amidst the love of her family. She walked over to where her brother manned the grill. “Smells good,” she said with a smile.

From behind her, Grayson agreed. “It does. It almost makes me want to give up being a vegetarian.” Grayson had become a vegetarian when he started dating Alice. While Franklin and Harmony had grown up that way, no one else in the family ever embraced their food lifestyle.

Using tongs, Franklin picked up a chicken leg and set it on a platter next to the grill. “I balked at the idea of grilling at first, but now I’m glad I caved. Chandra’s organizing the caterer inside with all the sides that go with the meat.”

“It’s hotter over here by the grill,” Harmony observed, fanning herself. “How can you stand having your shirt sleeves down?”

Franklin smiled. “When I thought to roll them up, I had sauce on my hands and figured I’d just soldier on. Don’t want to get stains all around my cufflinks.” He set the tongs down and wiped his hands on the apron. “Besides, I think it would ruin my stuffy reputation if I were seen with rolled up sleeves.”

Harmony giggled and thought about the anchor tattoo Franklin had gotten in a much, much more wild and rebellious youth. “You just don’t want grandpa to see your tattoo,” she whispered as she snatched a Brussels sprout out of the pan sitting on the corner of the grill.

“I’m not ashamed of my tattoo,” Franklin objected, though he kept his voice very low.

Harmony grinned and said, “I have it on very good authority that little girls think they’re gross.”

Grayson piped up. “What’s gross? Brussels sprouts?”

Harmony hoped he hadn’t heard the tattoo remarks. “No, daddy. No one thinks Brussels sprouts are gross.”

“Speak for yourself,” Stuart chuffed.

Harmony turned back to Franklin. “I don’t think a stuffy reputation has anything to do with it.”

“It takes many good deeds to build a good reputation, and only one bad one to lose it.”

Before Franklin could source the quote, Harmony said, “Benjamin Franklin. I know, Franklin.” She patted his shoulder. “Trust me, brother, your reputation as a stuffed shirt is under no threat.”

At his mock shock, she laughed and turned toward her aunt, launching into a conversation about the travel arrangements for Sunday’s concert. Dee planned to go with her to give her some company and help provide the courage it would take for her to do that concert. Thirty minutes later, the family sat around the dining room table, heads bowed, as Stuart blessed the meal. As soon as he said, “Amen,” platters of chicken, grilled vegetables, salad, and bread started getting passed around the table.

She listened to the chatter of family talk as everyone ate. Dee’s youngest daughter had just started college, and she told a funny anecdote about the new roommate. Harmony felt herself slipping more and more into her head until her grandmother pulled her out of her thoughts with a hand on her wrist.

“How is your little girl at the hospital?” Liz asked.

Harmony looked at her grandmother and thought about the frail body she’d left languishing in a hospital bed just an hour before. She didn’t really want to discuss it at the dinner table, so she tried to keep her answer short. “She’s a fighter, but without divine healing, she won’t make it through the month.”

“It’s good, what you do,” Grayson said. “Your mother and I are proud of your heart.”

Without warning, tears burned her eyes as she thought of the years she had spent volunteering on that wing of the hospital. “I appreciate that. Every time I lose one of them, I tell myself I won’t go back. But then I go back, so I tell myself I won’t get attached. But then I get attached. And then they depart from this world, and my heart gets ripped apart, and I start all over again.”

Dee, who sat to her left, reached over and took her hand. “Not everyone can walk into a children’s hospital and give such joy as you do. It’s a gift from God. Don’t feel like it’s something you shouldn’t do. Just pray for strength to endure it.”

She took a deep shaking breath and prayed she could make it through the next few seconds without bursting into tears. She tried to think of the joy Sheri had shown when she met her for the very first time. Focusing on the beautiful smiling face of the then ten-year-old rather than the gray and sunken face of the now eleven-year-old, she felt her control slip back into place. With Franklin’s next words, she stopped thinking of the sick little girl altogether. “Have you told the family about the details of the concert you’re doing this weekend?”

Her teeth clenched in frustration. She had argued with him about this concert for two months and felt weary of the subject. She intentionally kept her face blank and looked at him. “I wasn’t aware that at twenty-six I still needed their permission to sing in a concert. Or that after hundreds of concerts in my life, they’d be interested in any specific one.”

Franklin set his fork down. “A secular concert. You’ll be sharing the stage with rappers and heavy metal and—”

“And!” she interrupted, “I’ll be singing about God to a captive audience, Franklin. What don’t you get about that?” This aspect of Franklin’s personality truly baffled her. Performing on stage was just as much her mission on earth as visiting dying children in the hospital.

“This is why I didn’t agree with your decision to cross your albums over to pop. I knew it would come to this.”

She unceremoniously dropped her fork and crossed her arms as she sat back against the chair. “That it would come to this? I’ve been crossing over for five years. You’re acting like you just walked into the room and caught me summoning a demon.”

“Harmony!” Her mother cautioned, then superfluously dabbed at her lips with her napkin and set it on top of her plate. She did not need to elaborate for Harmony to understand the silent message to quit having a temper tantrum at the dinner table. Alice stood and gestured toward the sitting area. “Let’s take five minutes and let Chandra clear the table. We’ll go ahead and start the business meeting at the couches.”

Neither Franklin nor Harmony would dare to continue the argument their mother had very intentionally ended. Instead, they both walked to the circle of couches and chairs and chose seats well away from each other. As the rest of the family made their way over, Dee slipped on a pair of reading glasses and retrieved a stack of papers from the coffee table. “Here is the agenda for the weekend,” she announced, handing each person a stapled packet. “We have quite a bit of business to discuss, and you all know that Harmony and I have a flight out tomorrow night, so let’s go ahead and get started.”

Franklin spoke to Chandra, who cleared dishes from the dining room table. “Whenever you’re free, can you bring in the coffee?”

“Sure thing,” Chandra confirmed as one of the catering staff joined her in her chore.

Harmony settled into the chair, glad she’d made it to a comfortable armchair before anyone else. She knew business would occupy the next several hours. Glancing through the agenda, she inwardly cringed when she saw a planned discussion about her new album topping the pop charts.

Charles Richard Galton tried to lie very still in his twin-size bed with his earbuds firmly in place. He had to lie perfectly still because his parents had expressly forbidden him to ever play this music. Should they discover his choice of music, it could lead to further revelations and possibly even uncover his very serious and very dark secret.