Violin Read Online Free PDF Page B

flowers?”
    Beneath the altar before us, the carved wooden figures of the Last Supper are set in their deep glass-covered niche, and above on the ornate cloth stand the regular bouquets of the Chapel which have such size, authority, giant spear-like flowers with snow-white blooms. These are powerful flowers! Flowers as powerful as tall wax candles.
    “Oh, yes,” says Mother. “When we leave, the Brother will come and he’ll take our little flowers and he’ll put them in a vase and he’ll put them before the Baby Jesus over there or the Blessed Mother.”
    The Baby Jesus stands to the far right, dark beside the window now. But I can still see the world He holds in his hands, and the gold that glints on His crown, and I know that His fingers are raised in blessing, and that he is the Infant Jesus of Prague in that statue, with His fancy flaring pink cape and lovely blooming cheeks.
    But about the flowers, I don’t think it’s so. The flowers are too humble. Who will care about such flowers left like that in the gloaming, the chapel now full of shadows that I can feel because my Mother is a little afraid, clutching the hands of her two little girls, Rosalind and Triana, come, as we make our genuflection and then turn to go out. We are wearing Mary Janes that click on a dark linoleum floor. The holy water is warm in the font. The night breathes with light, but not enough anymore to come inside among the pews.
    I worry for the flowers.
    Well, I worry not anymore for such things.
    I cherish only the memory, that we were there, because if I can see and feel it and hear this violin that sings this song, then I am there again, and as I said—Mother, we are together.
    I worry not for all the rest. Would she, my child, have lived had I moved Heaven and Earth to take her to a faraway clinic? Would he, my Father, have not died if the oxygen had been adjusted just so? Was she afraid, my Mother, when she said, “I’m dying” to the cousins who cared for her? Did she want one of us? Good God! Stop it!
    Not for the living, not for the dead, not for the flowers of fifty years ago, I won’t relive the accusations!
    Saints in the flicker of the chapel do not answer. The icon of Our Mother of Perpetual Help only gleams in solemn shadow. The Infant Jesus of Prague holds court with a jeweled crown and eyes with no less luster.
    But you, my dead, my flesh, my treasures, those whom I have completely and totally loved, all of you with me in the grave now—without eyes, or flesh to warm me—you are with me!
    All partings were illusions. Everything is perfect.
    “The music stopped.”
    “Thank God.”
    “Do you really think so?” That was Rosalind’s soft deep voice, my outspoken sister. “The guy was terrific. That wasn’t just music.”
    “He is very good, I’ll give him that much.” This was Glenn, her husband and my beloved brother-in-law.
    “He was here when I came.” Miss Hardy speaking. “In fact, if he hadn’t come playing his violin, I would never have found her. Can you see him out there?”
    My sister Katrinka:
    “I think she should leave now for the hospital for an entire battery of tests; we have to make absolutely sure that she did not contract—”
    “Hush, I won’t have you talk this way!” Thank you, perfect stranger.
    “Triana, this is Miss Hardy, dear, can you look at me? Forgive me, dear, for quarreling so with your sisters. Forgive me, dear. But I want you to drink this now. It’s just a cup of chocolate. Remember when you came that afternoon, and we drank chocolate and you said you loved it, and there’s lots of cream and I’d like you to have this …”
    I looked up. How fresh and pretty the living room was in the early sun, and how the china shone on the table. Round tables. I have always loved round tables. All the music disks and cookie wrappers and cans had been taken away. The white plaster flowers on the ceiling made their proper wreath, no longer degraded by detritus beneath them.
    I