Home Another Way by Christa Parrish Read Free Book Online Page B

two logs I had stacked next to the woodstove. I unlocked the front door and nudged my head outside, seeing only three logs on the porch, and added firewood to the list of necessities.
    Smelling of stale laundry and the mothballs I found tucked in the couch crevices, I wandered into the bathroom and started the water in the tiny shower. The stall’s door was glass, transparent and icy. I soaped and shaved under the steaming water for almost an hour. My clothes, however, were still crumpled in shopping bags. I put on a bathrobe and, wrapping my hair in a towel, scooted to the living room closet where I had piled the bags.
    Crouching on the cold pine floor, I scoured through the sacks, selecting wool socks and a velour jogging suit. Kicking the clothes back inside, I knocked over the fiddle case, which I ignored as I yanked the socks over my frozen toes. I couldn’t shut the door, though; the case blocked it. I bent over to nudge the instrument into the closet, but found myself popping open the latch. Inside, cradled in musty gold velvet, was a violin. I picked it up, hands trembling slightly, and turned it over. The one-piece maple back was deeply flamed, the varnish muted with age. I peered into the f-holes to find the label. There was none.
    Lifting the violin to my chin, I ran the bow over the strings. Flat, but just a little. I tweaked the boxwood tuners and tried again. Brilliant, sinewy tones resonated through the house. This instrument rivaled my own vintage Leon Mougenot. Of course, I had hocked that violin last year.
    Taking a deep, shaky breath, I began Bach’s Concerto in A Minor, a piece I’d memorized in junior high school. I played the first movement, hands and arms tense, strings cutting into my skin, calluses having peeled away months ago. However, as the allegro moderato rolled into the andante , I melted into the music, and my fingers remembered.
    I completed the allegro assai , and immediately shifted to something more befitting my mood, the brooding Shostakovich concerto from opus 99. I skipped the first two movements and began with the passacaglia . Pounding away at the accents, jerking my head until the towel unraveled and my hair flopped around my face, I played until I had the eerie feeling of someone watching me.
    I spun around.
    Jack leaned against the front door. “The door was open, and I heard you playing, and . . . wow,” he blurted.
    Gathering my robe tight at the neck with one hand, I fumbled to get the violin in the case with the other, saying, “I found it in the closet.”
    He moved a few steps closer. “You don’t have to stop.”
    I closed the instrument in the closet. “Did my—Luke play?”
    “Not like that.”
    “I’m out of practice. It was awful,” I said, my face hot and prickly.
    Jack shook his head faintly, “No, it was, wow. Wow.”
    “You said that.”
    “I know. I mean, Sarah, you’re wonderful.”
    I brushed away the compliment with a brisk “Thanks” and picked up my jogging suit. “Excuse me. I was about to get dressed.”
    Jack, realizing suddenly that I wore only a bathrobe and socks, blushed and turned his head. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t notice.”
    I locked myself in the bathroom. There was only one mirror in the house, the medicine cabinet above the sink. I climbed up on the vanity and, kneeling precariously on the Formica top, obsessed over my puffy stomach, which I pinched and pulled for several minutes. I would have to add lettuce and prunes to my current I-hate-my-life diet, or six months from now I’d leave here looking like Memory Jones. Well, half of her, anyway.
    Fortunately, my running pants had a drawstring waist.
    Jack continued to wait for me in the living room. I heard him sneeze a couple of times. Sitting on the edge of the toilet, I leaned forward and squished my head between my knees, hoping to soothe the uneasiness in my gut. I never played like that in front of people. My public violin performances were terse and controlled,