The Violin

Abbie blew the dust off the old beaten case. The musty attic was cramped and smelled like old newspapers. She had never been up there before, and by the layer of dirty powder covering everything, she guessed no one else had either. She was visiting her grandpa’s house with her little sister Sylvie while their mom went on a business trip. The last time they had visited was five long years ago. She was 12, Sylvie barely six.

The few times Abbie had been around her grandpa growing up, she never felt welcome. Her friends always talked about the fun outdoor adventures they would have with their grandparents and she was always jealous. Abbie’s dad was out of the picture and her mom’s dad was her only living member in her extended family. Her grandma Abigail had died a few years before Abbie was born. Her mom told Abbie that grandpa Otto wasn’t always so standoffish. He used to be funny, always telling jokes. He would cook giant family meals and bake cookies for dessert. The most shocking thing to Abbie though, was that he used to play the violin. He supposedly played beautifully, but no one had heard him play in 20 years.

Abbie looked at the old latch on the front of the case. It looked slightly damaged, as if the case had been tossed around. She carefully reached for the two zippers that met in the middle. She was just about to pull them apart when a crash behind made her jump.

“Aha! Found you!” Sylvie had climbed up the wooden stairs slowly, trying to lessen any creaks. “How did you get up here to hide? I thought the door was always locked.”

Abbie faced her sister and crossed her arms. “It wasn’t locked. I simply opened the door and came up. I was hoping you wouldn’t find me, I didn’t want to play hide and seek with you.” Sylvie’s face turned sad and showed disappointment.

“I know…but what else are we gonna do here? Grandpa doesn’t want anything to do with us, and it’s not like there’s any kids in this neighborhood. He doesn’t even have Internet!” Sylvie lightly sat on the edge of a dusty wooden chest. Abbie already knew they were without the internet for the length of their stay. Grandpa did have an old fatback computer, but the only things to do on it is type in Notepad and play SkiFree. The sisters played SkiFree for ten minutes before they were bored.

Abbie moved toward her sister and sat next to her. “I know, we can’t watch anything and mom took my phone because she’s still mad about my grades.” Abbie huffed. “And it doesn’t help that it’s raining. We can’t even walk around!”

“Maybe we could ask grandpa to take us to the store? We could at least get some junk food or something,” Sylvie thought aloud. She was swinging her short legs that didn’t reach the floor. Abbie smiled watching her, remembering how the last time they were at grandpa’s house she herself was about that size. Just because Abbie felt their grandpa was cold and distant didn’t mean Sylvie had to grow up thinking that.

“That’s not a bad idea,” she said. “Maybe we could bake some cookies for him. Mom always says how much he loves double chocolate chip cookies.”

Sylvie sprung to her feet and clapped her hands. “That’s a great idea!” She ran to the attic door, ready to bound into the living room where grandpa Otto was watching the local news channel. Abbie followed. She glanced back at the old violin case before softly walking down the stairs.

Grandpa Otto was staring out the window, watching the rain slide down the glass. Trees across the street were swaying in the wind. The news reporter in the background was droning on and on that the rain was here to stay for the next week. Abbie heard that as she walked in. Great, she thought. Sylvie cautiously stepped close to grandpa Otto’s rocking chair. She reached out a small hand and lightly tapped him on the shoulder. He murmured a low groan and brought his attention to her.

“Hey grandpa, do you think you could take us to the store? Abbie and me want to make you cookies,” Sylvie said in a shy voice. Abbie shivered. Looked like Sylvie already had the unwelcome feeling from grandpa like she did. So long for that idea.

Grandpa Otto muttered to himself more than Sylvie. “It’s raining, I don’t wanna be driving in this mess.” He gave her an annoyed look and shifted his attention to the television. Sylvie shrank back from him, turning to Abbie. “Wait, what’s that?”

Sylvie looked at him confused. She checked her hands in case she was holding something.

“No, no. On your backside,” he snapped.

Abbie looked at her sister and realized she had dust all over her jeans and pink hoodie. Grandpa definitely knew they were in the attic.

Abbie cleared her throat. “Oh, that’s just some dust. We thought we heard noises in the attic, like a squirrel or something. I went up to check and she followed me. Sorry grandpa. I know you don’t like people snooping through your house,” she said. Sylvie looked at her with grateful eyes.

Otto’s eyes narrowed on Abbie as his mouth curled into a hard frown. “I’ve told you girls before, don’t be running around my house! I have things just how I like ‘em. Don’t be messing things up!” he scowled. His shaky voice was seething. Abbie saw his hands resting on the arm rests were now in tight fists. His wrinkled knuckles were white.

“I’m…I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. We didn’t touch anything, I swear. There wasn’t much up there anyway, just a few boxes and an old violin case…” she mumbled. She looked at the carpet but could still feel his gaze on her. But when she peered at him, she saw a new expression on his face. Something she had never seen before. He looked heartbroken.

Otto loosened his fists and felt his stomach drop. No one had been in the attic for years. He didn’t even visit half the rooms in the house. His usual routine was shuffling from the bedroom, to the kitchen, to the living room, occasionally the bathroom, then back to the bedroom. There was a guest bedroom, a small home office/library room, and a craft room that never had their doors opened. Those were Abigail’s rooms. When she first passed, he could barely walk past them without seeing her. The library was where she spent cold winter days, curled up on the overstuffed chair, nose deep in a book. Her craft room was filled with yarn, buttons, colored paper, markers, empty glass jars, and a large sewing machine. Abigail loved all things crafting. Each time he walked by the room now, he could almost hear her humming to the radio as she worked. Otto hadn’t been up to the attic since their daughter was young. Abigail was the one who would take out and repack the holiday decorations that they stored there. Nothing else was really up there.

He had forgotten about the violin. His daughter must have stuck it up there after Abigail’s funeral, knowing it would cause him too much pain if it was somewhere he had to see it. Static built in his chest as his breathing suddenly felt impossible. A pressure built around his eyes. His face softened from the hard look of irritation.

Sylvie broke the silence. “Grandpa, are you okay? Do you want some water?” she whispered. She shared a look of concern with Abbie before turning back to him. “Or we can leave you alone…”

Otto raised his hand to stop her talking. “No, I uhm…I didn’t realize I still had that violin,” he said. His voice was low but the girls could still hear him.

Sylvie took a step closer to him, wanting to touch his arm. But she held back, not sure if it would make him angry again. “Did you play?”

Otto looked at her, a thin smile on his old stony face. “Your mom didn’t tell you?” he asked.

Sylvie shook her head. Abbie walked over to the couch and sat down. “She told me before. She said you used to play. A lot. And that you were really, really good.” Abbie motioned for Sylvie to sit next to her. The two sisters looked in awe at the grandpa, a man they had only heard speak a handful of times. “Will you tell us about it?”

Otto groaned as he shifted in his seat. He hadn’t thought about his violin in years. “I don’t want to bore you girls,” he huffed. His gaze went from the window to the couch, where his only two granddaughters were now sitting. They looked at him eagerly, excited to hear his story. They both resembled Abigail so much, but Abbie was nearly a copy of her in high school.

Sylvie piped up. “Please grandpa, I want to hear!”

Abbie smiled. “Yeah, we don’t know much about you. I’d love to know more.”

Otto’s heart pinched. His own family didn’t know him, all because he closed himself off from everyone. He used to be outgoing. The funny guy. Always cracked jokes and made people happy. Now, his own family was scared to be close to him because they didn’t know him. He felt awful knowing Abbie was 17 and they had only talked to each other once every few years.

He leaned back in his chair. “Alright, I’ll tell ya. When I was in high school, I played basketball. I wasn’t very good, but all my friends were on the team so that meant we would get to spend a lot of time together. All I cared about was basketball. I tried to improve, wanting to get the cheerleaders' attention. But man, was I bad.” Sylvie giggled as he continued. “I was late to school one day since I overslept. I was rushing to get to my biology class when I stopped dead in my tracks. I was passing the music room when I saw her.”

Abbie’s heart fluttered. Was he talking about their grandma? She leaned a little closer.

“A tall, gorgeous girl with short, curly black hair. She was playing a cello in the room alone. She had her eyes shut as she swayed with the music. I couldn’t stop looking at her. I had never seen someone so beautiful.” Otto closed his eyes as he put himself in his memory. “I knocked on the open door when she was finished. I scared her so bad, she jumped nearly a foot from her chair. That’s when I saw her eyes. They were a warm, golden color. Her dark skin seemed to make them even brighter. I knew right then, that was the girl I was gonna marry.”

Sylvie let out a small squeal as Abbie covered her now open mouth. “All the way back then, you knew?” Abbie asked. She was now the age they met. She couldn’t even imagine a guy from her school thinking about her that way.

Otto opened his eyes and smiled at her. “Of course. I could feel our connection like a huge magnet, even before I saw her. Her music…it drew me in. It was like the universe telling me I needed to go in there and meet my future wife.”

“That’s amazing!” Sylvie shrieked. She brought a pillow to her lap and leaned toward her grandpa. “So did she feel the same?”

Otto laughed. The sound was mellow, a tender laugh. The girls looked at each other in disbelief. Abbie had never heard him laugh. Not once in her 17 years of life. It lit a small fire in her chest, an unfamiliar warmth spreading outward.

He took a deep breath and looked at the girls with a huge smile. Another new thing from him. “No way. She thought I was crazy! I asked her out about six or seven times before she finally agreed. We went to a movie and I was so nervous, I spilled half our popcorn on her. Lucky for me, she thought it was cute. From that day on we were always together.” Otto looked down at his left hand and rubbed his dull gold wedding band. “We got married a month after we graduated. Everyone thought we were insane. Our parents told us we needed to figure out our lives first. But we knew, our lives were one. We would figure out who we were as we grew together.” His eyes began to water. He looked toward the window, rain still hitting the glass with a soft pitter-patter.

Abbie leaned back. This was all so strange. The old man sitting across the room from her who was now animated while telling a love story, was so different from the grandpa she grew up with. This man made her heart feel full, not scared and in the way. She looked out the window too. “But, what about the violin?”

Otto pulled his eyes from the window slowly. He looked at the girls as a single tear slid down his face. “When we met that day, I told her I wanted to learn. I wanted her to teach me how to play the cello. She laughed in my face and told me there was no way. I bet her that if she couldn’t teach me how to play any instrument of her choice, I would give her a flower every single day until the end of high school. She took that bet. She told me the cello would be too easy for me, but the violin, now, that she thought would be a challenge. The smaller frame had to sit under your chin and you had to hold the bow higher. I think she just wanted to embarrass me by how dumb I would look picking it up.

“Little did 16 year old Abigail know, I was going to be a great violinist. We met every Monday and Wednesday before school so we had the music room to ourselves. The first couple lessons were rough. I didn’t know how to hold the bow and my fingers didn’t want to stretch far enough to reach the notes on the strings. My fingertips callused fast. I had only read music in elementary school. But I was determined. Every night after basketball, I would go home and play for two hours. Every night. On weekends I would sit in my room for five hours. After two months of lessons, I joined the orchestra. I wanted to see her more.

“I won the bet, I’m sure you guessed. But I still brought her flowers every day for the next two and a half years. I was completely in love with her.” Otto’s mouth formed a small, hurt smile. “I told Abigail that we should play a song together at our wedding. Since hearing her play was the first time I loved her. I had been playing an old second–maybe even third–hand violin that was dented. The hairs on the bow were sparse.

“Two days before our wedding, Abigail and I were having dinner. She had been acting weird, like she had a secret she was dying to tell me. I finally asked her what it was. She bent down and pulled a case from below the table. It was a brand new violin. I was speechless. I knew she loved me, but that gift…it cemented it.” Otto wiped another tear from his eye. “I played that violin at our wedding and she played her cello from high school. It was the single most precious thing I had ever received. Apart, of course, from when we had your mom.”

Sylvie and Abbie were both quietly crying. They wished they could have met their grandma. She sounded like such a great woman. Their mom had told them stories of her, but something felt different hearing about her from her husband.

“That’s beautiful, grandpa. I didn’t know any of that,” Abbie said.

Otto smiled at his granddaughters. “You two look so much like your grandma. Abbie, you could be her twin.” Otto sat up in his chair, feet planted on the ground. It looked like he was about to get up.

Sylvie spoke up. “Grandpa, would…” her voice trailed off. Abbie knew what she was going to ask.

“Would you play us a song?” Abbie asked as she took Sylvie’s hand.

Otto looked surprised, a cloud of shock crossing his face. He hadn’t played in years. The violin had been in storage for 20 years, the wood could have been warped. But, he hadn’t looked at that violin in so long. Maybe it was time for him to stop pretending Abigail was gone. Maybe he needed to start embracing all that she was.

“Would one of you go grab it? Bring it here and I can try to squeak something out,” he said. Sylvie jumped to her feet and ran up the stairs to the attic. She was back in less than two minutes.

“Here grandpa!” she yelled excitedly. Otto looked at the old dusty case and took a deep breath in. He slowly opened it. To his utter surprise, a few packets of silica salt were placed beneath the body. As he took out the bow to tighten it, he noticed a small note folded in it. He picked it up and gasped.

“What? What is it? Are you okay?” Abbie asked, concerned.

Otto touched the note. His fingers blazed above it. “I’m fine. Sorry, it seems your grandma snuck one last love letter to me.” It took quite a while for him to tune his violin as close to right as he could and slid resin on his bow. “Now, let me try. This is the song we played at our wedding.” He stood and placed the violin below chin. The sisters sat on the edge of the couch ready to listen. The rain outside seemed to pause to listen too.