The Christmas Violin (7 page)

She made her way outside, and hid in the bushes near the teddy bear grave like she always did. She crouched amid the greens, waiting for the young woman with the violin to come. The old woman could not remember a time when the young woman had not visited the grave in the early morning. Except for that one time when she came at night. But that was only once.

The old lady scratched her dirty head. She figured whatever had kept the young woman with the violin from coming to the cemetery must have been important. She hoped nothing had happened to her. She deserved to be happy. Like the young man always dressed in a suit that brought fresh flowers to his wife’s grave. He deserved to be happy, too.

When it was clear Willow wasn’t coming, the old woman headed toward the soup kitchen. She smiled thinking about Big Feet. She had to work extra hard to be mean to him. He was so damn goofy and nice that she wondered what his story was. Everyone at the soup kitchen had a story. Some sadder than others, but all pretty sad. It was the hand they had been dealt. No sense complaining about it, she thought. It was what it was. Would always be this way.

When she was younger, she had dreams. She wanted to be a hairdresser. They always had pretty hair and she wanted to have pretty hair, too. But she stopped dreaming long ago. They never came true anyway. The voices telling her she was dumb and worthless always saw to that. Dreams were for other people. Regular people. Not people with demons in their heads.

Peter

Several days after seeing Willow at the airport, Peter read her father’s obituary online. He felt terrible for Willow. When he ran into her at the airport, she said she was visiting her parents. Her father must have died during her visit.

“Thomas Morgan Channing,” he read. He checked the survivors and saw her name, “daughter Willow Elizabeth Channing.” When he read “He was preceded in death by a grandson, Luke Thomas Channing,” he felt a lump form in his throat. He couldn’t imagine what it felt like to lose a child.

He decided that he would pick up a sympathy card and mail it to her. He wondered how long she would stay in Florida. He wanted to see her again. Maybe he would even get up enough courage to ask her out.

Peter had switched to visiting Camilla in the early morning, hoping that when Willow returned, he would run into her. He felt a little creepy hoping to see Willow when he visited Camilla, but it also made him smile because he knew that Camilla would approve. She’d probably laugh and take credit for introducing them, insisting that she played a vital role. She had a great sense of humor and a way of making him laugh at himself when he felt like crying.

He figured she’d be gone maybe a week, but when one week became two, he wondered if she had decided to stay in Florida for good. He hoped not.

Willow

“Are you sure you don’t want to move back home with me?” Willow asked.

Her mom, sitting across the table from Willow, sipped her coffee. “I’m sure. This is my home now. And besides, this is where your father wanted buried. I’m not leaving him.”

Willow understood how her mother felt. That’s how she felt about Luke, the reason she continued to live in a small town when she could live in any big city anywhere in the world. She liked being near him, close enough that she could visit his grave every day. She felt guilty for being away for so long. Up until now, she’d never missed a day.

The first few days of missing the cemetery were pure hell. She sobbed when her mother wasn’t around. She didn’t want her mother to feel guilty. It got easier as time went on. But Willow knew she had to get back. She had a concert to prepare for. She had to remove the Halloween stuff on Luke’s grave and put the Christmas tree up.

Thinking about the Christmas tree filled Willow with warmth. Luke had loved Christmas. She remembered the Christmas before he died. Santa had brought Spider-Man pajamas and Luke put them on as soon as he opened them. He wore them the entire day. Willow had to practically peel them off him to be able to wash them the next day.

She had so many wonderful memories. She began to notice that remembering didn’t hurt as much as it used to. She knew that getting back home to Luke and to a routine would be good for her. As much as she loved her mother, being away from her music and Luke was killing her.

Her father’s death prompted her to start writing music again. She had toyed with it from time to time, but never had anything serious. But this time, she knew she had something special. The music spilled from her head, coming so quickly at times that she couldn’t write down the notes fast enough.

It was a concerto and she had titled the movements: Despair, Journey and Hope.

She longed to play the music she heard in her head, longed to feel her fingertips tightrope up and down the violin strings.

“So what do you want to do on your last day here?” Willow’s mother asked.

“Be with you,” Willow said. “Just be with you.”

The Old Woman

The old woman was worried. She hadn’t seen the young woman at the teddy bear grave in weeks. Halloween was over, thank God. She had spent that night inside the shed and thought she was going to have a heart attack. Some kids, looking for a place to drink, had jiggled the doorknob. She shivered, remembering how frightened she had been.

“We can break a window,” one of the kids had said. “Get in that way.”

The old woman’s heart had pounded in her chest. Up until then, she hadn’t considered the possibility that kids would try to break into her home.

“Cop just turned in,” a girl yelled. “We’d better get out of here.”

After the kids left, the old woman exhaled. She hadn’t realized she had been holding her breath.

The old woman’s thoughts slipped back to the young woman with the violin. She wheeled her metal cart past the dollar store and noticed all of the Christmas decorations in the window. Wreaths and red bows and plastic Santas. It was beginning to look a lot like Christmas in the town. Festive banners hung from lamp posts along Main Street and the community Christmas tree was being erected in the town square.

The old woman had only missed watching the tree go up one year. She had awakened to voices screaming in her head. And they were determined to be heard.

Slut.

Bitch.

Whore

Worthless.

Scum.

Fucking ugly.

No one likes you. You have no friends. You’d be better off dead.

So, the old woman had stayed in the shed, trying to slay her demons.

But she felt good today. And she made her way past the dollar store and headed toward the square.

She sat on a wooden bench across from a flat-bed truck with a forty-foot blue spruce on top. She watched as a big crane lifted the tree off the truck.

The crew used cables to tie the tree to a pair of nearby trees and a traffic pole. Then they strung the lights – two thousand of them. The old woman had never seen so many lights. Blue. Red. Purple. Orange. Green. Yellow.

Sometimes at night, she’d sit on the bench and stare at the dancing lights and imagine it was Christmas morning and there was a gift for her under the tree. But there never was. People with demons never got gifts.

Peter

Peter whispered to Camilla, updating her on his latest plans. He had decided to rent space in the strip mall near the newspaper where she worked.

“You always said I should try,” Peter said. “Guess there’s no turning back now.”

Just as he was getting ready to leave, he heard the sweet notes. Willow had returned. He headed in her direction. As he approached, he noticed an old woman listening from a cluster of nearby bushes. She had her metal shopping cart and Peter recognized her as the homeless woman he had seen around town.

Not wanting to interrupt Willow, Peter watched from where he had watched before. He wanted to get closer, but he didn’t want to scare her. She was lost in her music, swaying as it seeped from the deepest part of her soul.

By now, the notes were familiar. Even though he had heard Willow play the lullaby only once at the cemetery, he had listened to it dozens of times on Camilla’s CD. He knew Willow was coming to the end. When her bow hit the last note and her hand quivered, Peter clapped. It sounded even more beautiful live.

Willow jerked. When she saw it was Peter, her body relaxed. “I didn’t know I had company. Peter, right?”

Peter nodded and walked over. “Do you play every morning?”

Willow nodded. “Except when I’m not here. Like when I was in Florida.”

Peter nodded. “About that. Sorry to hear about your father.”

“Thanks,” Willow said. “I’m really going to miss him.”

There was a pregnant pause and Peter suddenly felt awkward. The last thing he wanted to do was upset her.

“Thanks for the card,” Willow said.

Peter could feel his right leg shaking. It always shook when he was nervous. “I was wondering, Willow. Any chance I could talk you into a cup of coffee?”

“Today? Like now?” said Willow, not expecting the invitation.

“It was just a thought,” Peter said. “I shouldn’t have…”

“No. No. It’s OK. It’s just that I have to go home and practice. But later I could.”

“What about dinner?” Peter said. “I know a great place to get Italian.”

Willow smiled. She couldn’t believe she was agreeing to a date. She couldn’t remember the last time she had gone out, but there was something about Peter that drew her to him. “Italian sounds great!”

Willow

Willow removed the orange plastic pumpkin from Luke’s grave and placed it in a white plastic bag. Then she removed the tiny Christmas tree from another bag and set it up.

She twisted the bottom of the tree into the hard ground until the lowest branches brushed the grass. The first year she had put the tree on the grave, it blew off during a storm. So she didn’t take any chances. She also tethered the tree to the ground using heavy twine and stakes. By the time she was done, it would take a tornado to toss it.

Willow wired the teddy bears and the baseball ornaments onto the branches. She stood back to look at the tree. Her lips trembled. Sometimes, she’d close her eyes and try to imagine Luke in her arms. The small bundle nuzzling against her breast, his tiny hand wrapped around her finger. His baby smell filling her with unbridled joy.

Willow had never wanted children, but Luke changed that. And she wondered if she would ever experience motherhood again. She didn’t want to replace Luke. No one could ever replace him. But she did think that maybe she should have another child. She researched. She could do it on her own. Use her egg and donor sperm. Yet, she also knew that Luke was created during a beautiful night and she loved the idea of finding that again – with someone. But maybe it wasn’t possible. Maybe she’d had her shot and blew it.

She checked her watch. She had to get home to practice if she wanted to be done by the time Oscar was supposed to call. She had been thinking a lot about what Oscar had said. She was still praying for a sign, but maybe Oscar was right. Maybe it was time to return to the stage. Maybe it was now or never. It’s one of the reasons she had surprised herself and accepted Peter’s dinner invitation. She wouldn’t have done that a year ago. But he seemed as sad as she felt. Maybe it would do them both good to have a little company.

She knelt to close her violin case and headed to her car. She turned, looked back at the grave one last time, before opening the car trunk to put the bags and her violin inside.

Out of the corner of her eye, she thought she saw something move in the bushes. At first she thought it was a dog or cat, but then she realized it was a woman.

The Old Woman

The old woman’s lips curled up. She was happy that Willow was back. The old woman hadn’t realized how much she had missed hearing the lullaby. And she was excited to see the Christmas tree, excited to finally be able to surprise Willow. She had been waiting all year for this day, and it was finally here.

For the first time in a long time, she felt good. There was a spring in her step and her face brightened. Just when she thought the day couldn’t get any better, Big Feet had saved her six pieces of bacon at the soup kitchen. She even let him sit a little closer.

“Now I see a smile on that face of yours,” Big Feet said. “Ain’t gonna fool me. You happy I saved you bacon. Got lots today, too. Before Old Harold got his grimy hands on it and ate it all.”

The old woman did something she never did. She spoke. “Thank you.”

Big Feet’s eyes widened. He blinked. “Lordy me. Ain’t never thought I’d hear you talk.” He laughed. “Must be a good day.”

The old woman nodded. She said more than she intended to. Her next words she was saving for Charlie. He wasn’t at the door when she arrived, but she knew he’d be sure to see her off. And she wanted to thank him, too. Two thank-yous in one day were plenty, she thought. That was more than she had said to anyone at the soup kitchen in all of the decades she had been going there.

She ate slowly, enjoying the scrambled eggs and home fries slathered in ketchup. She wrapped four pieces of the bacon in a napkin and stuffed the pouch into her pocket. She ate the other two, taking tiny bites and sucking all the juice out of each bite before swallowing.

Her hand shook as she spread butter on her toast. She stared out the window, lost in her thoughts, thinking maybe she would go to the park and sit on a swing. When she was a child, swinging was her favorite thing to do. She’d go to the park, which wasn’t far from her house, and swing as high as she could. For a few moments she was free, flying away from all the bad stuff in her life. She couldn’t remember the last time she had been on a swing. Or the last time she felt free.

Peter

Peter stared at the shirts hanging in his closet. He couldn’t decide between a button-down oxford and a more casual polo shirt. He laughed at himself. He couldn’t believe he was worrying about what to wear. He picked the tan striped polo and brown slacks.

He looked into the mirror, making sure there was no hair coming out of his nose. He smiled. He had never worried about hair peeking out of his nostrils until Camilla noticed it one day. They were getting ready for work, standing side by side at the bathroom vanity.