The Christmas Violin

by Buffy Andrews

  He pulled up the e-edition of his hometown newspaper. Ever since Camilla’s death, he checked the obituaries every day. It had become habit. Once, he saw an obituary for an older couple. The husband and wife had died of natural deaths hours apart. Their daughter found them sitting in their living room. One was in the chair; the other on the sofa. And the TV was on. It was so unusual that the paper even did a little write-up about it. The news story was along the lines of them always being together, even in death.

  Peter always took notice of the people’s ages. If they had died young, like sixteen or seventeen, and there was no indication of the cause, he wondered if they had committed suicide. And if they did, why? He couldn’t understand why some people wanted to die while others who had died, like Camilla, would have given anything to live.

  Peter finished his coffee and walked over to throw his cup in the trash. The passengers from the incoming flight were walking up the ramp. When Peter turned to go back to his seat, he spotted the woman from the cemetery. She was headed right toward him.

  His heart skipped a few beats. What the hell was she doing here? And what were the chances he’d see her in the Tampa airport? Maybe it wasn’t her, he thought. Maybe it was her twin. She wore a tan dress and Peter couldn’t help but notice her shapely legs, which seemed to go on forever. A black bag hung on her shoulder and she carried a tan blazer that matched her dress.

  He held his breath. Would she see him? Would she recognize him? No, of course not. They hadn’t even talked in the cemetery. It was a brief moment, the kind so fleeting that if you don’t coddle it you lose it.

  He watched as she looked at her wristwatch and then straight ahead – into his eyes.

  Willow

  Willow’s heart danced when she saw him. It was the guy from the cemetery, the one who watched as she played for Luke. What was he doing here? She didn’t even know his name. It would be rude not to acknowledge him, she thought. Rude not to say hi. Maybe she should at least introduce herself.

  When she first realized he had been watching her in the cemetery, she was a bit resentful. Her daily cemetery playing was for Luke – no one else. And when she saw him standing there, next to a gray granite grave, she almost felt like he was intruding. Of course, the cemetery was a public place. He wasn’t any more an intruder than she was.

  She stopped in front of Peter and smiled. “I saw you. Yesterday. At the cemetery.”

  Peter nodded and held out his right hand. “Yes. I’m Peter. Peter St John.”

  Willow shook his hand. “Hi, Peter. I’m Willow Channing.”

  Peter smiled. “I enjoyed your music. You play well.”

  “Thank you,” said Willow, realizing he had no idea who she was. “You’re heading back?”

  “Yes,” Peter said. “I was here on business. You?”

  “Visiting my parents,” said Willow, checking her watch. “I should go. It was nice meeting you.”

  Peter nodded. “Nice meeting you, too.”

  Willow headed for the restroom and then to get her bags and the car she had rented. By the time she got on the road, she was famished and went through a drive-thru for a burger and fries. She never ate fast food, but she didn’t want to take the time to get something healthier. Besides, the burger and fries reminded her of when she was little and her dad would take her on daddy/daughter date nights. They’d always get a burger and fries at McDonald’s and then they’d go to the movies or the park or wherever Willow wanted to go. Willow smiled. She had loved their date nights. And she especially loved the way her dad made her feel like she was the most important person in the world.

  Willow headed down Interstate 75 toward Fort Myers. She turned on the radio and found a classic rock station. Stevie Nicks blared from the radio, singing “Landslide,” one of Willow’s favorite Nicks songs.

  Willow bit her lip, trying to barricade the tears. She felt like she was caught in her own landslide, that everything around her was crashing down. And, like Nicks, she wondered if she could handle the seasons of her life. She wasn’t sure.

  The Old Woman

  The old woman’s eyes were the size of half dollars when she saw the shiny metal cart and the fuzzy brown blanket. She turned in a circle, checking to see if anyone was watching. She figured they were from the caretaker. He was the only one who knew the shed was her home. And, the only person who seemed to know what she needed most. More than once she thought he might be Jesus. And, if he was Jesus, she hoped he wouldn’t hold her accountable for what the voices inside her head said. They were bad voices. She hated them.

  Her cracked lips trembled. She couldn’t remember the last time someone had done something so nice that it made her cry. A tear escaped from the corner of her left eye and slid down her wrinkled cheek. She wiped her baggy eye with her tattered knit glove. Why was the man so kind? She wondered. She had nothing to give him. She didn’t even know his name.

  She tried to think of what she could do for the caretaker, but she couldn’t think of one thing. Maybe she’d keep an eye out when she went trashing, find something that she could give him. Like a tie or some discarded screws that still had some life in them.

  She grabbed the handle on the cart and stuffed her walking stick inside. She pushed it over the lumpy cemetery ground to the crumbling stone steps she had crawled up the night before. She had spent many hours on those stone steps, watching the world whiz by, going fifty in a twenty-five miles per hour zone. People were always in a hurry to go nowhere, she thought. And they all ended up here, in the cemetery, eventually. What good was life if you were going too fast to live it?

  She pushed her new cart down the street, shuffling her feet. She tried to think of the last time she had something new. She couldn’t. And she had gotten two new things in one day – the cart and the blanket. She thought she was the luckiest person around.

  A bus loaded with school kids was stopped at the traffic light. She could hear them laughing. When she looked up at the bus, she realized they were laughing at her. They were pointing fingers and pretty soon a few laughing and pointing turned into the whole side of the bus laughing and pointing. All the goodness she felt from being given the cart and fuzzy blanket drained from her saggy face. She hated kids, except the boy buried in the cemetery. To hell with the rest of them, she thought. They brought her nothing but trouble. She liked it better when they were dead. They couldn’t make fun of her then.

  By the time she got to the soup kitchen, cheerful Charlie Shue was waiting outside. He smiled when she got closer.

  “About time you get here,” he said. “You had me worried.”

  The old woman stopped and sucked in deep breaths.

  “You seem like you got to work mighty hard to breathe,” Charlie said. “Maybe you ought to see a doctor.”

  The old woman shook her head. “Ain’t nothin’ wrong with me,” she muttered, “but having to deal with people.”

  She pushed her cart past Charlie and made her way into the soup kitchen. Big Feet was already in line for the second time. He turned around and saw her. A big smile erupted on his face. “Ain’t no more bacon,” he said. “But I saved ya a piece.” And he winked and flashed his big teeth smile.

  He pulled a napkin out of his coat pocket and held it out. The old woman stared into his black eyes.

  Big Feet nodded. “Go ahead. Take it. It’s yours. I got it for you. I ain’t gonna take it back.”

  The old woman snatched the napkin and stuffed it into her pocket and Big Feet smiled and nodded.

  “Now that’s what I’m talkin’ about,” he said. “That’ll be good eatin’ for ya later.”

  For the second time in one morning, the old woman found herself smiling. And she wasn’t quite sure how she felt about that. Other people smiled. Not her.

  Peter

  All Peter could think about on the flight home was Willow. What a beautiful name, he thought. Wispy and swaying, like the tree – like her.

  He wasn’t a classical music guy. Rock was more his t
hing. And when it came to the violin, he preferred listening to Irish fiddle players.

  Camilla loved classical music and she had explained to him the difference between a fiddle player and a violinist. He couldn’t remember how it exactly went, but he was pretty sure a fiddle player learned by ear and the violinist learned to read sheet music. Camilla had told him that there were fiddle snobs and violin snobs; each thought they were better than the other.

  Odd, he thought, that they could play an identical instrument yet create totally different music. It seemed to him that life was like that. Two people might be dealt the same hand, but it’s how they played the hand that determined the outcome. He thought that perhaps it was time to fold his hand and start anew.

  He wondered when Willow would return from visiting her parents. He wanted to see her again. Maybe he’d see her at the cemetery. He sort of felt like a dirt bag, hoping he’d run into her at the cemetery. But the cemetery was the only place he knew she went.

  Thinking about her as much as he was spooked him a bit. That’s when he realized there was a shift, a change that he hadn’t seen coming. It snuck up on him like a birthday; it came whether he wanted it to or not.

  It used to be that the only woman he could think about was Camilla. When he closed his eyes it was her that he saw. But now, he saw Willow. And it scared him and made him feel guilty. And yet he couldn’t help himself, couldn’t help feeling what he was feeling.

  He closed his eyes trying to remember Willow’s last name. If he knew that, he could Google her. Maybe find out where she lived or another way to contact her. He was always terrible with names.

  Something with a “C”, he thought. Damn, I can’t remember.

  But he could remember her slender neck, long arms and legs and the way she swayed, like a willow branch in the breeze, as she walked. That, he could never forget.

  He figured the name would come to him. Usually, when he couldn’t remember something it came to him while he was in the middle of doing something totally unrelated. It was in his brain somewhere, just couldn’t pull it out at the moment.

  The flight wasn’t full and he had the row to himself. He was glad. He didn’t feel like talking, and when he sat next to someone he felt obligated to do so. All he wanted to do was close his eyes and think of her.

  Willow

  Two hours seemed like ten, and when Willow pulled into the hospital parking lot, her mom was waiting for her just inside the front entrance. As soon as Willow saw her mother’s red blotchy face, she knew her dad was dead. She was too late.

  “I’m sorry, Willow,” said her mother, sobbing.

  Willow flew into her mother’s opened arms, burying her face into her mother’s bony shoulder.

  “I came as fast as I could,” she cried. “I thought you said he was going to be all right.”

  “I thought he was. It happened so fast. He was hooked up to all of these machines. They started beeping. The nurses rushed in and they told me to leave. They worked on him but they couldn’t bring him back.”

  Willow pulled away from her mother’s shoulder so she could look at her. “I’m so sorry, Mom. I wish I could have been in time. For Dad. For you.” And this time, Willow opened her arms and her mother buried her face in Willow’s bony shoulder and cried.

  It seemed like they stood inside the front door in their sobbing embrace forever, each one not wanting to let the other go. Finally, Willow spoke. “Can I see him?”

  Her mother nodded. “I told them they couldn’t take him until you saw him.”

  Willow followed her mother around the corner to the elevators. The elevator door slid open and they were the first on, followed by a woman carrying a floral arrangement with blue carnations and a balloon that said “It’s a Boy!”

  “Five, please,” said the woman, trying to keep her balloon from bobbing in their faces.

  Willow’s hand shook as she pushed four then five.

  Irony hung in the air like an unwelcome guest. One life had ended and another had begun. The pregnant silence was awkward, and Willow felt like she should say something to the woman, who hadn’t stopped smiling since boarding the elevator. “Congratulations.”

  “Thank you,” the woman said. “It’s my first grandchild, and I’m so excited.”

  Willow felt her mother’s hand squeeze hers. The elevator beeped and Willow scurried out of the elevator like a deer fleeing a hunter. She put her hand to her chest, which felt like someone was squeezing it like a sponge.

  Her mother placed her hand on Willow’s arm. “Are you sure you want to see him?”

  Willow sniffed and wiped both eyes with the back of her hand. “Yes. I have to.”

  She and her mother held hands as they walked down the long hallway. All of the doors were ajar – except one.

  Her mother stopped in front of the closed door. “Do you want me to come in?”

  Willow shook her head. “No, this is something I want to do alone.”

  And she opened the door.

  The Old Woman

  A dog barked. Then another dog barked. Then another and another. Pretty soon it seemed like the whole damn street was an oversized kennel. The old woman hated barking dogs. They drew attention and she didn’t like attention. And they made her jumpy. She liked it to be quiet when she went through the trash on Maple Street. She was able to think more clearly.

  The people who lived on the street, which was lined with thick maple trees on each side, didn’t seem to mind her going through their trash, as long as she put everything back the way she found it. One trasher didn’t do that and he was run off. He’d rummage through the bags and leave trash strewn on the sidewalk. She hadn’t seen him in this part of town since. She preferred this area. It was an older section of town, crowded with old homes that people took care of. Not like Queen Street or, worse yet, Princess Street, where the homes were falling down and the trash was junk that even she wouldn’t want.

  Sometimes, if the Maple Street folks had something they thought she might want, they’d leave it in an open cardboard box instead of buried in a bag. It was easier for her to find. That’s how she found the pillow she carried around in her metal shopping cart. It sat in a cardboard box, all by itself. She hadn’t noticed until later that it still had the store tags attached to it.

  That was the night she noticed a woman peeking through drawn curtains on the second floor. It was as if she had been waiting for the old woman, watching to see if she found the pillow. Thinking about the pillow reminded her that she needed a new one since hers had been stolen.

  The old woman pushed her cart down the sidewalk, stopping to look inside the blue recycling bins that lined the street and check any cardboard boxes. No sense in going through bags of wet trash if she could find what she was looking for inside a recycling bin or cardboard box.

  She stopped in front of the house where she had found her Christmas surprise. It was the last house on the right in the first block, a wooden Victorian with a wraparound porch and intricate gingerbread.

  At one time, the neighborhood had been filled with Victorians, but over the years the homeowners had removed the gingerbread and covered the outside with siding. The old woman figured it was because the wooden Victorians were too much work to maintain. But not this homeowner. He took care of the house. Every few years, she’d see a man on a ladder painting. Few people painted the outside of homes anymore. People went for convenience, even when it meant losing the charm.

  She looked around. The man must be out of town. Or had forgotten to put out his trash. There were no bags and no blue recycle bin.

  When the old woman came to the stop sign, she stopped to catch her breath. Her bones were creaky and tired and all she really wanted to do was crawl into her sleeping bag. She crossed the street and went down the other side. She didn’t find a toothbrush, but she did find an old sponge. She figured she could rip off a piece of the sponge and jab a stick into it. It wasn’t as good as a toothbrush, but it would do until she found one. The ol
d woman was used to making things work.

  By the time she got to the end of the street, she was laboring for breath. It was getting harder and harder to get around and she cursed her lungs. They weren’t holding up as well as the rest of her, she thought.

  On the way back to the cemetery, she had to stop every block or so to rest. By the time she walked into the shed, she was too tired to even open her sleeping bag. Instead, she collapsed on top of it.

  Peter

  When Peter pulled into his driveway, it was nearly midnight. Despite coming home earlier than he had planned, he decided to still take the next day off. He’d use the time to think about his plan. He hoped to start the new year with a firm timeline for launching his business. Now that he had decided to jump off the cliff, he wanted to make sure he wasn’t headed for jagged rocks below. He was willing to take chances, but he wanted the odds to be in his favor.

  He grabbed a beer from the refrigerator and drank it while he unpacked. He thought he’d fall into bed when he got home, but his mind was restless, thinking about everything that had happened. Running into Willow. The interview. Willow. His decision to open his own office. Willow.

  Channing, he thought. Her last name was Channing.

  Before he could forget her name again, Peter popped open his lap top and typed W-i-l-l-o-w C-h-a-n-n-i-n-g.

  He ran his fingers through his hair. He laughed. No wonder she’s so good. She’s a concert violinist.

  He found tons of information online. He learned that she played all over the world, wasn’t married, had one child, Luke, who died when he was four. That’s who’s buried in the teddy bear grave.

  He saw that she had an upcoming Christmas concert locally and went to the theater’s website and bought a ticket. At least he knew he’d see her at the concert, even if it was from seat 105 in row O.

  Peter hung up his shirt in the closet and noticed the box of Camilla’s CDs he had stashed away after she died. He had planned to get rid of them, but couldn’t bring himself to discard something that had meant so much to her.