Helen's Concerto

By Kay Hemlock Brown

Helen Nordstrom was a gifted all-round musician. She was also an athlete, an actress, and a wonderful teacher. Unfortunately, she was also bisexual, and utterly passionate and romantic, and found it difficult to resist any pretty girl. After numerous amorous adventures, Helen was struck by a sequence of tragedies: her reputation was destroyed by homophobic elements, her adopted girls were taken away, she was shunned by the religious right, she had a terrible accident that killed the baby she was carrying, and she retired from the stage in acute depression. And as she was beginning to recover, a large brain tumor was removed, and Helen lost her memory.

Much of the Helen saga is concerned with her episodic love affairs with a sequence of women. But on one occasion, Helen decided to masquerade as an actress called Sharon Vuehl, and acted in a movie, just as a prank; then she returned to her life as a college professor. But the movie was a hit, and Helen slipped out to make a second movie, which was also a hit. Then she decided to make an epic movie in which the theme was a lesbian romance set in the bronze age, where Helen played the heroine, Merit, who was a fighting, love machine of a woman, who falls in love with the princess, and runs off with her. The problem was, the actress who plays the role of the princess actually falls in love with Sharon. Of course, Sharon disappears into thin air between movies, but the actress, Sita, who plays the princess can't forget her.

Then, Sharon and Sita are both nominated for Oscars, and Helen can't resist attending the ceremony. The actresses meet at the home of a friend, and have an intense encounter, and both women are left feeling hopeless and guilt-ridden, respectively.

Meanwhile, as described above, Helen has her reversals, but a core of staunch friends keep Helen on an even keel, not least of whom are Lalitha, and Sita, her sister, two wonderful Indian women. Sita does not initially know that Helen is in fact Sharon. But after Sharon's accident and the miscarriage, inevitably, Sita finds out. Then, to top everything, Helen is diagnosed with yet another massive tumor, and loses her memory.

This story is the record of whether, and to what extent, Helen regains her memory, and how Helen relates to her various friends as they anxiously watch the process.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kay Hemlock Brown
• Release date: Jun 21, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463715529

Kay Hemlock Brown

Kay Hemlock Brown grew up in Western Pennsylvania, and was a part-time instructor at a small university in the northeast. She has been writing since she was in high school, and loves classical music, ballet, gymnastics, figure skating, the martial arts, tennis, and science fiction. (To be honest, she is an indifferent performer in any of these areas.) Presently she is a freelance writer.She also likes dogs, cats and birds, and hates spiders. Kay has been adopted by several pets (who belong to a friend), and she has become a slave to them! Okay, that's enough information for the present.

Book preview

Helen is about twelve, when a horrible accident takes place. Her mother, Sylvia, their beloved Airedale, Martha, and Helen had driven out on a Sunday to run some errands, when a violent thunderstorm blows up, and lightning strikes a tree on the side of the road, a huge branch falls on the car, and kills Helen’s mother and her dog. Blood is everywhere, Helen screams, the storm rages on, and Helen has to walk home all by herself, bawling in fear and misery, and sticky with the dog’s blood on her dress. Her dad John can hardly believe it. He goes out to see, and takes care of the destroyed car, and the remains of his wife, and when he comes back, he sinks into a deep depression, which lasts for years.

Annie

Helen is a sweet child, does moderately well in school without much effort, but has few friends. One of them is her special friend, Annie, a flaming redhead, with big blue eyes. One day, Helen goes to Annie’s home, and goes up the stairs silently, just as she always does, and . . . embarrasses poor Annie, who was engaged in something very private. Annie is shocked and furious, but Helen doesn’t really notice anything. Annie screams at Helen, and chases her out of the house, and refuses to speak to Helen in school again. No matter how Helen tries, Annie refuses to let Helen back into her heart. Helen is about thirteen, and Annie is a couple of years older. Annie is from a very poor home. Helen’s folks are not rich, but they have a medium-sized farm, and cows and horses, and so on. But Helen’s dad is still in depression, and is neglecting the farm. Helen helps with the horses, but begins to focus on her schoolwork.

Helen can sing like an angel, and her musicianship is amazing. But apart from singing, Helen has no other musical skills. Her schoolwork becomes really excellent, and her teachers help her to apply for a choir scholarship at one of the best four-year colleges in the country.

As Helen’s fifteenth year comes around, she learns that she has won a place at that school; now she needs to get help from her Dad. But Dad is utterly apathetic.

Helen changes subtly. She gives away all the frilly clothes that her mother liked to dress her in, and wears only denim skirts, matching denim jackets, and T-shirts. She finds a pink denim skirt and jacket set, and loves it, and wears it everywhere. She finds a guitar put away in a corner, and learns to play it in secret. (This material is not published anywhere, but some of it is summarized in the prologues to a couple of other Helen stories.)

On the Road with Jason and Janet

In the summer of Helen’s fifteenth year, having graduated from high school a few weeks earlier, she packs a large backpack with the few belongings she has: basically a lot of basic cotton underwear, a denim skirt or two, and their matching vests or jackets; a knitted woolen cap, a few white tops, some sneakers, her racket—she’s learned tennis—her soprano recorder, some pieces of sheet music, some sanitary pads, and her toothbrush. Her mother’s guitar is in its cloth case. Having failed to get her Dad to help her get to college, she’s going to hitchhike.

She sets out just after lunch for the US highway that’s about a mile from home. At around two in the afternoon, a white Cherokee slows down for her. It is a young couple, and they take Helen with them. The girl’s name is Janet, and she’s tall and dark and lovely, like a woman warrior of old, with smooth dark hair pulled back and braided. Helen can hardly take her eyes off her, but she sits quietly in the front seat with Janet, while her stuff is squeezed into the back with all of the couple’s things. The guy is Jason Kolb. They’d just got married, and gone West on their honeymoon, and now they’re on their way back East, to where he’s going to teach. Janet is unemployed, but has a double degree in music and chemistry.

They camp each night, to save money. Over the first few days, both girls are fiercely attracted to each other, but keep it secret from Jason. Little Helen tells Janet that she loves her, and poor bewildered Janet, though she ought to be able to handle the situation, is unable to deal with it, mainly because she loves their little hitch-hiker, and is beginning to fantasize being intimate with her.

Janet and Helen sing together, because Janet has a lovely alto voice, that blends well with Helen’s high soprano. Jason loves the newcomer too, not suspecting what is going on.

They stop by the home of Janet’s parents, and meet them: Elly—short for Eleanor, and Tom Krebs.

In Illinois with Tom and Elly

Elly looks at Helen funny, and says that the girl’s face looks familiar. After supper, they ask Helen to sing, and the folksong she sings makes Elly sure that she knows Helen’s mother. A little questioning reveals that Elly and Sylvia went to college together. Elly recognizes Helen’s guitar, which her mother had brought with her to college.

The actual story is more complicated, but Elly calls up John Nordstrom when she hears that Sylvia had died. John reluctantly brings Elly up to date with the facts, and Elly offers to visit, and go through Sylvia’s things with him. It turns out that Helen’s name is actually Eleanor, after Elly. Sylvia and Elly had been best buddies in college, and Elly and Sylvia had kept up a regular correspondence until just before she died. Sylvia and Elly had even pledged to each other that, if either of them died, the survivor would help support and see to the welfare of the other’s children.

Janet is an amazing tennis player, and as they play together, Helen’s game improves greatly. Helen is also a capable swimmer, but Janet is a lifeguard, and teaches Helen lots of water skills. Janet runs, and gets Helen running. Janet is an excellent pianist, piano being her instrument, and encourages Helen to learn piano. They play recorder together, and through Elly’s generosity, they buy Helen a few selected dresses for special occasions, all at a used-clothing store.

Most interestingly, the school at which Jason had gotten a teaching position is in the same town as the college to which Helen was headed, and very soon they were packing all of the couple’s belongings into a large used van, which they had bought for the move.

The College, the Little House, and The Workshop

Jason and Janet find a lovely little house in the town in which Helen’s college stands. It is a little cottage, and Helen loves it. It is the right price for them, and with Janet’s and Jason’s savings put down as a deposit, they are able to move in. Helen goes into the college and reports in to the admissions office, to find that they know all about her, and have been expecting her. Presently she is registered as a freshman music major for the Fall Semester. There are two more weeks until the semester begins.

In the Music Department, Helen meets an elderly gentleman, who asks her for a little help with setting up a workshop. It happens that he is going to start a workshop on campus to make copies of old musical instruments; in particular, Baroque woodwind and stringed instruments: lutes, viols, violins, cellos, and so on. Helen’s father’s hobby was cabinet-making and fine woodwork, and she had a little experience in that area. Helen is hired as his assistant to set up the workshop.

Helen and the man, Bill Knowlden of Oregon, and Knowlden’s wife, become good friends. Helen builds a lute at the workshop, as soon as the equipment is acquired and set up, and then a little box violin; just a violin shaped like a box, and the bow to go with it.

As the beginning of the semester rolls round, Helen is hired as the student manager of the instrument workshop, a job that she keeps for several semesters. Her academic advisor is a lovely British lady called Norma Major, who will figure in our story quite a bit.

Juliana Hoffman

Helen has a successful semester, taking a variety of courses, including, of course, instrument construction. She thoroughly enjoys her first semester, making many friends in Choir. She also meets a sophomore from Thailand, who is a capable keyboardist, and they become close friends.

Jason, Janet and Helen travel back to Illinois, to spend Christmas with Janet’s large family, and Elly sends for Helen’s dad to join them. John Nordstrom and Janet meet for the first time, and remain good friends thereafter.

After Christmas, when Helen, Janet and Jason return to Ohio, the College calls up Helen up to ask whether she would be interested in a job in Florida, just during the break. It appears that a rich German woman in Florida wants a girl who was good at tennis to be her companion over the break, and was willing to pay generously. If things work out well, Helen was given to understand, the job could be continued over other school breaks as well.

Helen makes the call, and manages to persuade the German lady, Juliana Hoffman, to invite all three of them: Helen, Janet and Jason, out to Florida.

The German Lady loves Helen, and by the end of the Winter Break, Helen had earned more money than she has handled in her life. Helen brings it to Janet, and gives her all of it, saying that she loves Janet.

The next semester, Helen hears an early music ensemble for the first time, and is utterly enchanted with it. (Early Music refers to music written before the sixteenth century: medieval and Renaissance music, principally. It is usually soft-toned music, played on instruments of that period, which are typically quiet and delicate-sounding.) It is a group based locally, whose members include Mr. Knowlden—whom Helen has nick-named Geppetto—and his wife, and also Patricia Wallace, the wife of the President of the College.

Meanwhile, the college choir learns several choral pieces of the British Renaissance, and Helen is in seventh heaven. Helen begins to make a Viola da Gamba, a stringed instrument that was played held between the legs, a little like a cello; her plan is to give it as a gift to Tom Krebs, Janet’s father, who is a very lovely and generous man, and with whom Helen has begun a strong friendship.

Spring Break comes along, and Juliana flies Helen out to Florida again, and also arranges for Janet to be signed up at a certain institute that trains tennis instructors. Janet goes, and has a wonderful time. (Helen is too young, being just sixteen.) After the course is completed, Janet coaches Juliana and Helen, and with Helen practicing with Juliana, both of them improve phenomenally.

Juliana is extremely generous, and is very fond of both Helen and Janet, and she buys Helen a fabulous, state-of-the-art computer. At that time, the state of the art was far less powerful than it is now, but it enables Helen to get skilled at computer management, and to practice her programming, which is one course she is taking. It so happens that Juliana is a French speaker, and Janet is fluent in French, so Helen is also learning French. (Juliana is German, but is from a region in which French is spoken heavily.)

Geppetto has given Helen a little treble viol, which has a number of minor flaws, and he is teaching Helen to play it, while she is finishing up the larger Viola da Gamba.

Meanwhile, Elly has visited Helen’s Dad in his Kansas farm, and as it will be discovered later, inadvertently becomes pregnant by him.

By the end of the semester, Helen has become good enough on her treble viol that she is promised a place on an expanded Student Early Music Ensemble, which they are planning to create in the Summer.

The Early Music Festival

(These events are hinted at in other Helen stories, but are being described in detail here, for the first time.)

Quite by accident, several things came together.

Typically, when the school semesters are over, most colleges and universities make use of their buildings to host camps and summer events on their grounds, to make use of their buildings, which would otherwise lie empty, and to make some additional income for the school. This year, when graduation was over, the College took stock of their summer commitments, and found that the number of organizations that had asked to use the College buildings was smaller than it had been in typical years.

Meanwhile, they also discovered that a large number of members of the Choir were staying over the Summer Break to work on instruments they were making in Geppetto’s workshop. Of course, the Early Instrument Ensemble had begun rehearsing, and Helen was loving every minute of that. Naturally, the choir members organized themselves into a vocal ensemble, and began to learn songs from early times.

To top it all, someone from the local public television station decided that they would like to interview a student from the new Instrument Workshop, to find out what the whole thing was like from a student’s point of view, and the natural choice was Helen!

One day, a team from the TV station visited the school, and filmed being taken round the Workshop by Helen, showing the instruments in various stages of completion, and the students working on them. Soon afterward, Helen was in a small studio of the TV station, describing what went on in the workshop on a typical day. Then Helen described how she was learning the little viol, and how the Early music ensemble rehearsals were coming along. We’re making a small choir of the choir kids who’re going to be here over the summer, and we’re teaching ourselves music from Byrd, and Farnaby, and Gibbons! It’s so lovely!

Some of it is accompanied, probably?

Yes; but the Ensemble is just getting started; and the choir didn’t want to be a nuisance, and ask the Ensemble to accompany us, too!

The segment was aired, and letters arrived at the College from other schools near and far, which just happened to be getting interested in the British Renaissance, or which had been rehearsing similar songs, and were looking for an audience, because the music was new to many ears, and until people heard it, nobody was likely to attend concerts to find out.

Gradually the idea of a festival emerged. The man who had interviewed Helen jumped at the chance, and got Helen to report regularly on how the plans for the festival were coming along. Some groups wanted to come and perform, other groups wanted to come and rehearse with the Ohio group as well.

Helen was on PBS for several weeks that summer, describing the preparations, and presenting short clips of the rehearsals, both instrumental and choral. The rehearsals were actually fascinating, both to watch, and to listen to.

Helen had cut her hair very short just before the Summer, and she became famous around the country with her head of short, curly hair that summer.

The Early Music Ensemble was established as a student organization by the time the Fall rolled round, with the Knowldens, and Mrs. Wallace occasionally joining them.

Operas

Early in the Fall, with encouragement from Norma Major, Helen auditioned for a part in a production of Mozart’s The Magic Flute that was being presented by an opera company in the closest big city, and Helen won the part of Papagena, a minor role. It was a lyric role (that is, not a dramatic role), and Helen did very well indeed, and became close friends with Papageno, the bird man, who she discovered was gay. She became very fond of him.

1 Papageno and Papagena

Meanwhile, Helen visits Juliana Hoffman in Florida regularly.

Juliana once took everyone to a remote nightclub. It was an unusual place, where the floor show was centered on Ballet, and ballroom dancing, but involved all sorts of acts which performed either in the nude, or dressed only in feathers or paint. The acts were all very tasteful, and the audience was not permitted close to the stage. Each night, at the end of the program, a woman—the owner of the nightclub—would sing a melancholy song, dressed only in a translucent robe; when that was over she would select a member of the audience with whom she would dance a slow dance, completely nude. As it happened, the woman’s daughter, Leila, noticed the blonde girl with the head of short curly hair seated in the audience, and before her mother went out for her number, asked her to select that girl with whom to do her slow dance.

Helen got selected, and everyone loved the dancing. To cut a long story short, after the show, Helen was invited backstage, and was asked to perform with them later that visit, and got a job with them dancing nude with Leila, or very scantily dressed, or wearing only body paint, and the two young women were a big hit. Helen was invited to dance for them whenever she was in town, and was paid a lot of money, which she brought back to Janet. Unfortunately, a film of Helen and Leila dancing was made, and played on certain TV channels, and caused all sorts of trouble some ten years later.

In future weekends, Helen visits Florida often, and begins to spend a lot of time with Leila, and they become lovers.

Back in school, Helen began to work part-time as a janitor, doing four-hour shifts several times a week, which paid good money.

Janet, meanwhile, unbeknownst to Helen, sent almost all the money Helen was giving her to Juliana, and requested that Juliana should invest it. The only money Janet kept was to pay off that old van that they had bought for the move, which Helen had begged to be given, and which was Helen’s transportation when she needed it.

One week in the summer, Helen had headed home to Kansas, to visit with her Dad. He was now much improved; Elly’s attention had worked a miracle, and he was amiable and vigorous again, and received Helen with much love, and showed her how he had rearranged the house, with a pile of Helen’s mother’s belongings set aside for her, and a large room for his workshop.

Helen decided to look for her friend Annie, who had treated Helen so harshly when they had been in school together. To Helen’s amazement, Annie received Helen with great pleasure, and after she had verified that Helen held no grudges, declared that Helen was an angel, and that she loved no one more than she did Helen. The latter learned what the problem had been, which should have been obvious to anyone except Helen; Annie had matured very early. Helen blushed bright red, and Annie laughed.

Annie had a little boy, Bo, from a brief marriage to a loser. Now she needed a job, and Helen’s father needed an assistant. Annie began to work for John Nordstrom, and by the end of the year, ended up marrying him. So Helen’s former classmate became her stepmother.

Jason is Called Up, and Elly and Tommy Are Born

Helen returned to The Little House, and the three of them lived harmoniously, with Jason teaching English at the high school, and Janet coaching tennis in both the high school and the college.

Things went on this way, until Jason was called up for service in the armed services, deployed at that time in Kosovo. As the cold season approached, Jason flew off to Athens, but word came that his plane had crashed on landing.

The girl received the news with shock. Janet had become pregnant earlier in the year, and news of Jason’s death almost destroyed her. But Helen never left her side for a moment, and somehow pulled Janet through that bad period. Elly came to visit, to support her daughter, and by this time, Elly too was ready to deliver.

On Christmas Eve, both women delivered. Janet gave birth to a lovely baby with dark hair and pretty hazel eyes, and Janet called her Eleanor, after Helen, whose real name was Eleanor, as you would recall. Elly gave birth to an angelic-looking little girl, too, and named her Tomasina, after her husband, because though the baby had been conceived with John Nordstrom, Elly still dearly loved her husband, Thomas, who in fact was loved by all who knew him. So there are three Eleanors in this story: old Elly, Helen herself, and little Elly, who was Janet’s daughter, and old Elly’s granddaughter. Old Elly was occasionally called ‘Grelly’, for Grandma Elly. Elly had several other grandchildren, who do not enter the story in an essential way.

The next semester continued in much the same way; Helen still worked at the Instrument Workshop; worked as a janitor in the nights; helped to babysit little Elly; joined the tennis team, did moderately well, and then dropped out; spent the weekends and the breaks in Florida, sharing her time between Juliana, and Leila, the beautiful daughter of the owner of the nightclub. At school, she was learning computer science, in addition to music, Art, and math. She was also learning ballet, under the famous Andrew White. The Thai music student she had befriended was called Sirikul, and became Helen’s accompanist, when Helen had to give her recital every semester. There was also a beautiful boy called David, who was in her dance class, and was also a nude model for Helen’s Art class.

Cindy, Lisa, and The Johnson Cousins

The next semester marked Helen’s second foray into opera, where she sang Cherubino, a page, a part always played by a woman. Helen was brilliant in the part, and was praised by all the regional newspapers.

Helen also met Cindy, the nun, who had been kidnapped by a prostitution ring. Helen helped Cindy to escape, and presently Cindy, who had amnesia, recalled her identity, and they learned that Cindy was a brilliant violin instructor. Helen had been lent a beautiful, unconverted Italian violin by Pat Wallace, and gradually Helen became known as a marvelous Baroque violinist. This segment of the story is related in Helen Backstory: Cindy, Lisa, Pat, & the Violin. By the end of this school year, Helen had met the Johnson family, the family of Helen’s mother, Sylvia Johnson, whose Finnish mother had been a Kuikkonen, something Helen had discovered only because of the fact that Cindy had known them well, and had suspected that Helen was a member of that clan!

The two youngest Johnson cousins were Marika, who was just about sixteen, and Heikki, who was a year younger. Both of them looked very much like Helen when she was in her teens.

Sandy Brown, Sylvia, and Tennis Camp

At this point, Helen had a reputation as a budding violinist, and was invited to give concerts and recitals everywhere. Helen’s Junior year was filled with concertizing, which was demanding in energy and time. She had many girlfriends, and it took great effort to keep them from feeling neglected. She was acquiring new girlfriends all the time; singing in a number of operas, working under the pen name Freya as a photographer for a girlie magazine, and going around having adventures, which occasionally involved fighting. Helen had learned martial arts most recently from Leila. Clearly, Helen was spread far too thin.

Despite being smarter than average, by the summer, Helen is heartily sick of her life of constantly juggling all her interests and her romantic partners. Helen is unable to make a go of her College classes. She decides to take a year off from school, and go live with Leila in Florida, at that nightclub. She had numerous friends in Florida, and naturally Helen thought that hanging out with Leila would be fun, instead of spending all her time in classrooms.

While she was waiting at the bus stop, she was approached by a strange woman, who introduced herself as Sandy Brown. Evidently Sandy was aware of Helen’s skill at tennis, and tennis instruction. Sandy interested Helen in being a leader at a nudist tennis camp for girls, to be held in Western Canada. Helen’s hair was dyed pink, and Helen called herself Pink Orchid, and was a camp leader for four weeks that summer.

But Helen had fallen under the spell of the camp Nurse, whose name was the same as that of Helen’s mother: Sylvia. The property on which the annual tennis camp was conducted belonged to Sylvia. Sylvia Tedesco was an all-year nudist, and lived in her large tract of undeveloped land, hunting for food, and shunning civilization. Every camp, one or two girl got a crush on the handsome nurse, and begged to be her lover, but Sylvia always scorned them. But begged to stay with Sylvia, and for the first time ever, Sylvia agreed.

They lived a primitive life, eating off the land, hunting for food with bows and arrows. Helen even persuaded Sylvia to introduce her to her family, from which Sylvia had become estranged, and Helen began to think that she and Sylvia would never part.

[Helen had been briefly married to Kurt Neumann, the opera singer who had played Papageno, but they had separated after a couple of months.]

Helen lived with Sylvia for a year. Helen was discovered to be pregnant with twins; Sandy reappeared, and hauled Helen off to California, where Helen learned that Sandy was a certain actress, Marsha Moore. The twins were stillborn.

Helen was broken-hearted. Sylvia told Helen that Helen’s destiny was to be a teacher, and a violinist, and to engage with people, unlike Sylvia, who was a hermit, a recluse. Helen was persuaded to assist at a Ballet camp in Europe. When she returned, Marsha urged Helen to return to school for her senior year. (Helen at Ballet Camp.) With Marsha’s help, Helen applies for re-admission, and is registered for the Fall Semester, having missed one whole year.

Lalitha

When Helen returns to college, she meets a freshman from India, Lalitha. It is love at first sight for both girls, and with Lalitha encouraging her, Helen turns in a fabulously good school record, and is chosen as the Student Speaker for Graduation. Lalitha’s father peremptorily summons her home to India, and Helen gets help from Juliana Hoffman to buy an air ticket, and follow Sita to India.

Things go horribly wrong. When Helen finds Lalitha, she is shooed off by Lalitha’s father, and after wandering around for a while, working for some months in a school as essentially a custodian, Helen visits Lalitha and her new husband in their home, and is sent away again, this time by Lalitha herself. Helen wanders around aimlessly, and eventually finds her way into a Roman Catholic ashram, a sort of commune. This is detailed in The Lost Years: Helen & Lalitha.

One day, Helen awakes in unbearable pain, and her Ashram friends medicate her as well as they know how. She has gradually forgotten her identity, and is called Sister Mary, and has immersed herself in menial housekeeping tasks and farming. The pain goes away for several months. When Helen complains of the pain again, they take Helen, with the few of her belongings they can find, to the US Embassy in Bombay, where they are unable to identify her. There is sufficient evidence to believe that she is an American citizen, and the embassy repatriates her for medical treatment in the US.

Once she is in the US, the tumor is removed, and Helen is found to have lost her memory completely. Luckily, Amy Salvatori is on hand, recognizes her, and arranges for Helen to be brought back to her family; actually, to Illinois (the home of Janet and old Elly, who are living with the Twins Little Elly and Tommy), which is where they feel they can deal with Helen’s problem best. Helen is about 30 years old.

A family friend, Cindy (the former nun, whom Helen had saved from her abusive pimp) first tries to see whether Helen’s memory would be triggered by visiting familiar scenes. But that fails, and she takes Helen around the Midwest, trying to find something for Helen to do. Finally, Helen agrees to join a Catholic farming commune in California, which seems comfortable to Helen. Helen helps with a building project for the nuns, and few months later, the sisters encourage Helen to apply to work at a construction company.

Helen does well at the construction company, and is soon promoted to work at specialized tasks, including electrical systems. Helen discovers that she’s athletic, and can play tennis very well. She makes friends with a little girl, Gena, eleven, who has fractured her wrist. Helen takes her to hospital and has the break set. She takes Gena home, and meets her family, and newborn little sister Alison. The parents are very ill, and Helen helps them as much as she is able.

Meanwhile, Lalitha has found her way to the US, and lives with the missionary couple who had first encouraged her to take up music, and had got her into college. With Lalitha is her little boy, now twelve years old. Finding out that Helen has come back and is living in California, Lalitha and the little boy, Suresh, go looking for her, find her, and Lalitha succeeds in triggering the recovery of Helen’s memory. This is all recounted in Helen & Lalitha.

Grad School in Philadelphia

The two little girls are orphaned, and adopted by Helen. Presently, the four of them settle down in Philadelphia, where Helen is admitted to graduate school. While there, Helen meets an interesting redheaded sales clerk called Lorna, at a drugstore, who strikes up a friendship with Helen. Lorna is a high-school student, who also attends a ballet school. When Helen’s university friends encourage Lalitha to take courses at the university, Lorna steps in as a babysitter.

Tax time approaches; Helen’s financial affairs have become complicated, and Helen hires Becky Singer to create a corporation for Helen, with Becky as the chief financial officer.

But Helen and Lalitha have disagreements about Lorna, and Lalitha asks for a separation.

Lalitha moves to Baltimore, where she meets another young woman, Trish; and Lalitha, Suresh and Trish set up house together. Presently, little Megan Grace is born to the 21-year-old Trish, and fifteen-year-old Suresh, who is highly embarrassed.

Helen, and Gena go looking for them, find them in dire straits, bring them back to Philadelphia, and with Becky’s help, set up a small instrument factory in an empty lot next to Helen’s apartment, and arrange for Lalitha to work at the factory, thus providing them with an income.

On the Run

As recounted in Helen on the Run, a judge orders that Helen is an unfit mother, and Gena and Alison are taken from her. Helen is broken-hearted and suicidal. After Helen and her girlfriend of the time, Michelle, set out from the house thinking to go somewhere and take poison together, they see the girls having run away from their foster home, waiting to cross the street. Helen and the girls escape to California, meet a mother and daughter, Penny and Erin, join up with them, and live in hiding for a year. Most importantly, Helen discovers that she is pregnant, and early the following year, gives birth to a little boy, James John Jeffrey Nordstrom Gibson. (Jeffrey Gibson is the young man with whom Helen got pregnant, a music graduate student. In what follows, you will meet Jeffrey’s mother, Olive.)

To the great grief of Helen and the girls, Penny dies of cancer, a condition she had kept secret for many months. It appeared that this had been partly Penny’s plan: to leave Erin in the hands of the one most likely to encourage the little girl in her musical aspirations.

Helen and the girls are eventually captured when Helen is recognized while hiding in Ferguson, Minnesota, at a boarding school where Helen had been teaching. Helen is brought before a judge, who declares that it had been an error to separate Helen and the two girls Gena and Alison, but imposes a suspended sentence nevertheless.

When Helen is released, Ferguson Minnesota continues to be a sort of Nordstrom family headquarters for a while. Helen had been acting principal at the private boarding school, a measure of how much the school teachers and students had gotten to love Helen, more than of how qualified she was for the job. She wanted to get back to playing concerts, and the research she had been doing with her mentor, Nadia Van der Wert, so she needed to find someone to take over as Principal of the little school. To Helen’s joy and relief, Janet Kolb decides to apply for the job. She is given the appointment, by a very satisfied school board. Elly Kolb, Janet’s daughter; Tommy Krebs (Grandma Elly’s daughter and Helen’s half-sister, and Elly’s best friend); Gena, Helen’s oldest adopted daughter; and Erin O’Brien Nordstrom, Penny’s little girl, now Helen’s adopted daughter, are all given partial scholarships to the school.

Westfield

Dr. Nadia Van der Wert, and Helen (who had satisfied requirements for her doctorate) apply to a little school in Pennsylvania, in the village of Westfield, and are accepted. They begin teaching in the Fall. Initially, only little James is with them; Alison was left behind in Ferguson, with Janet and her mother Grandma Elly, to be company for her older sister, Gena. Halfway through the semester, Allie begs to go to Helen, since those two are very close, and are miserable when kept apart.

In Westfield, there is a wonderful British woman who is a language instructor: Evelyn Woodford. This interesting person is a sort of goth girl, and calls herself Rain, or more exactly, Fräuhlein Rain, or Mam’selle Rain. The students insist on introducing Helen to Miss Rain, and before long, Helen and Rain are spending a lot of time together.

Marsha Moore, the actress (who had first met Helen disguised as Sandy Brown), has asked a friend, Sophie Cocteau, who was a highly-ranked tennis player, to meet Helen, and sort of keep an eye on her, and steer her away from predatory females. Helen and Sophie meet at a concert one weekend, introduce themselves, and exchange e-mail addresses and phone numbers, and begin keeping in touch, because Sophie was cute and unassuming, and they play Tennis later that weekend, and they hit it off well.

Sophie had taken a liking to Helen, and took the responsibility that Marsha Moore had laid on her seriously. When Sophie learned about Rain, she had to come down to Westfield and give Rain the once-over. Rain passed inspection, and Sophie went back to North Carolina, which was her home base.

Miss Rain, Woodford, and Lorna

Rain loved Helen, but loved the two little kids even more.

Rain wanted Helen to meet her parents, who lived in the village of Woodford, in England. At first, her parents were unhappy about Rain taking up with a woman, but they eventually extended an invitation, and once Helen’s kids arrived in Woodford and met Aunty Rain’s family, they won over the old couple.

Lorna and Becky had settled down together as a couple for a little more than a year. Even while they were together, Lorna had been inappropriately affectionate towards Helen, until Helen had met Michelle, who moved in with Helen. While Helen was with Rain in Woodford, news came that Lorna wanted a ‘divorce’ from Becky, and that she loved Helen. She was threatening to kill herself if she could not be with Helen.

Helen was angry with Lorna, and frustrated and upset. She had been attracted to Lorna but had stayed away from her, since Lorna had been too young in the first place, and Lorna and Becky were a couple. It was awkward to have to deal with Lorna trying to slice her wrists, while Helen was trying to win over Rain’s (Evelyn’s) parents.

Another call came, saying Lorna had gotten a knife, and actually done it.

Helen was shocked. She made her apologies to the Woodfords, and taking Gena and James with her, flew back to Philadelphia. She found Lorna heavily sedated, and alternately hostile to everyone, and pathetically begging everyone to be allowed to go to Helen, in turn. While Helen was conferring with Becky and the family, Lorna had managed to rip out her bandages with her teeth, and bite her own veins, while Gena was watching in horror, and when Gena had screamed for help, they ran in, to find Lorna with torn wrists, and blood all over her sheets and her face.

To cut a long story short, Helen decided to add her pleas to those of Lorna, to be allowed to bring Lorna to live with Nadia, Rain, Helen and the kids in Westfield, and so they had begun a three-way lifestyle, with Helen, Rain and Lorna sharing the second-floor apartment, with Nadia (Dr. van der Wert) settled comfortably on the first floor.

Let us take a break, to allow me time to apologize profusely for this enormous, extended Prologue, which sets the stage for another set of events that have a large impact on Helen.

Helen, the two women, and the little kids, of course joined by Gena and Erin during school holidays (and occasionally by Sophie, who liked to come stay with them after she had competed in some tournament, such as the French Open, for instance) had a wonderful time for a couple of years. Helen’s reputation as a violinist, a soprano, and a conductor, increased all the time. Because of her non-profit corporation, she was able to donate instruments to the school, and by the second year, the school had two orchestras of which any school could have been proud. Nadia and Helen wrote and published two books, and Helen’s work relating to Bach and his music was widely recognized and admired.

Gena had become a good violinist, but young Erin was turning out to be phenomenal. Cindy O’Shaughnessy, the woman Helen had taken under her wing while she was in college, had joined Janet in Ferguson, and had taken over the violin instruction for the four girls, Tommy, Elly, Gena and Erin, and several students at Ferguson School. During vacations, Gena, Erin, Elly and Tommy often gathered at Grandma Elly’s house in Illinois (where the late Tom Krebs had accumulated a large library of sheet music). In addition, there were the younger ones, as well as Little John, who was Helen’s half-brother, the child of John Nordstrom and Annie. These summer gatherings were a strong influence on the youngest Nordstroms.

England Again

The next holiday season, Lorna, Rain, Helen and the children were visiting Rain’s parents in Woodford, in the UK. By now, Rain’s parents were comfortable with Helen and the children, and in fact Helen’s mother Polly adored the two littlest ones.

Helen had been once again invited to be the soprano soloist for the annual Messiah performance in London attended by the Queen, and that had gone beautifully, and the Nordstroms, the Woodfords, Helen’s middle daughter, Erin O’Brien, and little James, who was technically a Gibson, and Lorna Shapiro, the lovely ballet student, had all returned to Rain’s home in Woodford, to get ready for Christmas. Earlier, the whole company had visited London for shopping, and gone into the enormous music store on Oxford Street (of which Helen’s corporation owned controlling shares), and effortlessly charmed the store manager and sales staff; especially Alison and James!

Isolde Wells

The next big event was a big one indeed. Shortly after Christmas, Helen was invited to join an up-and-coming young classical music star, Isolde Wells, on her weekly program on the BBC. Isolde was an Early Music performer Helen had long wanted to meet, a sort of modern-day Renaissance woman, who played numerous instruments, including the Baroque viol family of instruments, all kinds of violins, violas and cello, also flute, recorder, oboe and harpsichord. In addition, she was young, a mere seventeen, and quite pretty.

For the first time Robin (Robin Friend, a Brit living in the US, who maintained Helen’s performance schedule) had asked if Helen was comfortable with the assignment, because he thought Helen might feel upstaged by the young woman. Helen had said that she had to become accustomed to other women being younger and prettier than she. I’ll be forty in two years, Robin. Time moves on. (This was about five years before the scene in the Seattle hospital.)

Robin was silent for a few seconds. Are you serious?

About time moving on?

That you’re thirty-eight?

Yes!

To me, you’re always eighteen, he said.

Oh, Robin, she scolded. Anyway, I’d love to do it. I wish this girl nothing but the very best. I hope she’s the biggest thing that ever happened to music.

Well, she doesn’t sing, he said, consolingly.

The format of Isolde Wells’s show, which aired on Sunday afternoon on the BBC, was that of an informal visit. There was a guest or two, and instruments, and they would play, the guest playing whatever, and Isolde playing everything else. There was no studio audience except whomever the guest happened to bring along, and they would all be seated round in a circle, very much like an after-dinner concert at Helen’s father’s family farm, or out at the Krebses (Janet’s mother’s home).

While Isolde was a popular young musician, the show was not watched very much unless there was a really big guest star to appear. But Isolde refused to spend any time or money or energy on publicity. The BBC faithfully aired her show at the unpopular time of Sunday afternoon at two, and again on sundry weekdays around midnight. It was quite by accident that Helen had seen her on Sunday afternoon while the others were busy wrapping presents. Isolde had a very unassuming air, and Helen had liked her at once. She dressed in a Renaissance style, with a lace-up bodice and long brown skirt, and long glossy brown hair worn loose, or with an Alice-band.

The day before the program, Helen called her. She had to call the BBC and have them page her.

I’m so happy you said you’d come! Isolde exclaimed in her low, husky voice with just a hint of a lisp.

Well, said Helen, mischievously, I’m going to ask you a favor.

Oh certainly! What is it?

You have to wear what I bring you!

Oh goodness, she said, appalled, I have my favorite clothes …