The Christmas Violin Read Online Free PDF Page A

mom shook her finger. “No, you’ll make one now.”
    “Mom!”
    “I mean it, Willow. You look awful. If you don’t make it, I will.”
    Later that afternoon, Willow found herself in the examination room trying to explain to Dr. Hilton that she couldn’t possibly be pregnant. She was on the pill. Had been forever.
    Willow looked at the calendar on her phone and determined that she was about eight weeks pregnant. She knew it was Dan’s; she hadn’t been with anyone else in more than a year.
    Willow’s initial shock was followed by fear and joy. Would the baby be all right? Would she be a good mother? How would she manage raising a child and continue her career? But, oh, there was a baby inside of her. She felt her tummy. She was going to be a mother. It wasn’t something she had thought a lot about, but now that it was going to happen, she felt like she had been given the most amazing gift. And she would give this gift the world.
    Willow blinked back tears.
    “Almost done, Willow,” Dr. Hilton said. “Relax.”
    A couple of deep breaths later, and Willow was getting dressed.
    “Everything looks good,” Dr. Hilton said. “How about your anxiety? Is the medication still working for you?’
    “More or less,” Willow said. “Some days are better than others.”
    “But you’re OK with one tablet? If you think you need more, I can up it to a tablet and a half.”
    Willow shook her head. “I’m doing fine. If I have trouble sleeping, I’ll call.”
    As Willow pulled out of the parking lot, she looked in her rear-view mirror. A very pregnant woman waddled across the parking lot. Willow couldn’t keep a smile from sneaking onto her face. Babies did that.
    The Old Woman
    The old woman found a warm corner on the third floor of the library in the reference section. It was always quiet there, never busy. She figured most people looked things up on a computer nowadays. Rows of thick tomes lined heavy wooden shelves. Encyclopedias. Dictionaries. Atlases and almanacs. Like her, they were worn from years of use and left to collect dust. Every once in a while they’d feel a hand touch their spines, but there had been fewer and fewer hands over the years. They just weren’t needed anymore.
    The old woman sat down on the black leather chair. The seat cushion caved in the middle and the seam in the front was coming apart. But, no matter. She took the small brown pillow she kept in her cart and put it behind her head. She leaned against the pillow, her heavy eyelids dropping like a puffy theater curtain.
    She hadn’t been sleeping well. Most nights, she slept in the shed. The caretaker had made her a cozy spot in the back corner, away from the mower and gasoline can. He even spread out an old sleeping bag he found when he was cleaning out his basement. Figured the old woman could use it. And she did. She loved that sleeping bag, especially on cold nights when the wind whistled through the trees and rattled the shed windows.
    The old woman appreciated the caretaker’s kindness. No one had ever been that kind to her. When she first settled in the area, she got hooked up with a drunk who used her as a punching bag. She thought she deserved it, at least that’s what he told her, so she stayed. Until the voices came, and then even the drunk was afraid of what she might do. He kicked her out and she found comfort in the cemetery. The dead aren’t mean. And they don’t punch.
    The old woman slept soundly, wrapped in her plaid throw in the leather chair. When she awoke, it was early afternoon. She looked around and she was still alone.
    She pulled the napkin she had stuffed in her coat pocket at breakfast and fetched the sourdough roll she had saved in the plastic bread bag she had dug out of the trash and kept in her cart. She noticed green mold about the size of a pencil eraser on the roll and picked it off. She dug her right thumb into the roll and broke it apart. Then she ripped the bacon in half and made a sandwich. She