Lady Madonna's Arc

Chapter 1 of 2

Lady Madonna pinned the audition flyer to the inside of the cupboard door, where the children would not see it. The cupboard held one tin of beans, a heel of bread, and a jar with three coins. She had found the flyer nailed to a tree at the edge of the wood a week ago. Swirling paint, bold letters: AUDITION: COMING SOON. Coming soon meant tomorrow. Tomorrow meant a singer's wage, if she was chosen, and food that lasted past Sunday. She had practiced every night after the children were asleep, humming low at the sink so the floorboards would not carry. Her husband had left months ago. Before that, the only kind thing he had ever said about her voice was that she sounded pretty, and then he had gone back to his newspaper. Now she sang for a wage instead of a compliment. The problem was simple and unsolvable: she had many children and no one to watch them. She knocked on three doors that morning. A neighbor said she was sorry. Another did not open. The third only looked at the children behind Lady Madonna's skirt and shook her head. Lady Madonna walked back along the path with the twins skipping ahead in matching brown jackets. The audition was in the morning. She had until dark to find an answer or feed her children boiled water and pride. A woman was waiting on the wooden bench outside her gate. Dark hair, white dress, a small daisy pinned above one ear. The woman watched the twins climb up beside her and settle on either side of her without being asked. "You're the one who hums at the sink," the woman said. Lady Madonna stopped on the path. The woman went still in a way that did not look like stillness so much as listening. "I'm Lucy. I read people. I came because I felt you deciding something." She nodded at the twins on the bench. "I can sit with them tomorrow. All of them. I won't take money." Lady Madonna opened her mouth to ask why. Lucy said, "Because you're going to say yes, and you already know it." That night Lady Madonna laid out her cleanest dress and the white apron. She counted the children in their beds twice. Her oldest daughter watched her from the doorway without speaking, the way she always did, and then nodded once and went to sleep. In the morning Lucy arrived before sunrise. Lady Madonna kissed each child, set the twins on the bench in the yard with the others gathered around, and walked toward the wood with the flyer folded in her apron pocket. The cupboard was still nearly empty. But for the first time, the door was open behind her, and she was walking through it.