The Christmas Violin Read Online Free PDF

chewed slowly, savoring each bite and wishing she had another one.
    She knew by looking out the window that the sun was heading west fast. She hated that the days were getting shorter. The darkness made her feel even more alone, and the older she got the more the cold bothered her. Maybe she should move south, she thought, but then realized that it would take too much effort. It was enough that she could make it from the cemetery to the soup kitchen each day. At least she had that.
    Peter
    Peter wandered through the corridors of the old Tampa Bay Hotel. One wing had been turned into a museum. Peter admired the Victorian furnishings and tried to picture what it must have been like in its heyday.
    He liked the writing and reading room best. The carved wainscoting, mantle and pier mirror were original. He imagined sitting at one of the writing tables, joined by the likes of Theodore Roosevelt or Stephen Crane. He smiled. Camilla would have loved the hotel. She would have especially liked the bronze bust of Mary Queen of Scots. She always thought Mary got a bum deal.
    By the time Peter pulled into the hotel, he was fighting to keep his eyes open. When he got to his room, he lay on the bed, pushing the decorative silk pillows out of his way.
    When he woke up, it was seven and he was hungry. On the way to the hotel bar, he heard violin music. It reminded him of the woman he’d seen in the cemetery that morning, and he looked around to see where it was coming from. He walked toward the restaurant and peeked past the maitre d’. A slender man in a black tuxedo serenaded the diners.
    “Will you be having dinner with us?” the maitre d’ asked.
    Peter shook his head. “I’ll get something at the bar.” Peter nodded toward the violinist. “He’s good.”
    “Yes,” the maitre d’ said. “He plays here most nights. If you care to join us during your stay, we’d be glad to accommodate you.”
    “Thank you,” Peter said, and walked across the marble-floored lobby and around the corner to the bar.
    He ordered a Yuengling lager and a cheeseburger and fries. He couldn’t get the violinist at the cemetery out of his mind. It surprised him a little. He hadn’t thought about another woman since Camilla. He wore his loneliness like a black cloak he was afraid to take off, worried that taking it off might make him forget. And he never wanted to forget Camilla. But he also knew that Camilla wanted him to go on. In fact, she said as much before she died. He remembered the conversation well.
    He was reading
Charlotte’s Web
to her. It had been Camilla’s favorite book as a child and when she was too sick to read it, he read it to her.
    When Peter got to the part where Wilbur asked Charlotte why she had done so much for him and Charlotte told him because he had been her friend, Camilla started heaving. Tears streamed down her sunken cheeks.
    “Promise me, Peter,” Camilla said, “that after I’m gone, you’ll be OK. I don’t expect you not to marry again. In fact, I want you to. I want you to be happy. To have a wife and a family. I need to know that you will go on. That when I die, you won’t die.”
    Peter hadn’t kept the promise he had made that day. And he wondered if it was too late. Was he already dead?
    Willow
    When Willow returned from her doctor’s appointment, she picked up the local section of the newspaper. The graduation list grabbed her attention and she scanned it to see if there were any graduates from her alma mater. There never were.
    Willow had attended Juilliard. She had wanted to be a concert violinist for as long as she could remember. When she was five, her mother bought her a violin. Willow never put it down. Her mother home-schooled her so she had more time to practice. And it paid off. Willow got into Juilliard and the dream career she had always wanted.
    And here she was, known all over the world but choosing to live in her childhood home, a Victorian her parents had given to her, the home she