Rain pours down the windows of the house and thunder rumbles in the distance. I stand looking out at the world through the lens of the water. Drinking in the scenery the way the plants are drinking in the moisture.
My eyes close and I let out a deep sigh just as thunder growls gently somewhere far away. The rain patters on the window softly, melodically. I see a flash of light through my eyelids and hear more low thunder.
A car passes close to our house, musically splashing through the thick sheet of rainwater on the street.
Swallowed up by the sounds of the outside world, I open my violin case and lift the instrument gently into position.
As I improvise a tune, I smile to myself, picturing Sherlock Holmes playing and thinking to himself about some murder case or other.
While I draw my bow gently across the strings, my mind glides on the beautiful notes coming out of her. My eyes close again, and I let the music fill me up. I hear the gentle thunder, I hear the soft padding of the rain on the earth, I hear the rustle of the wet trees in the wind, and I play along with them, adding my sounds to their symphony.
I hear the door creak open behind me, but I don’t stop what I’m doing. I hear the sounds of everything around me and they all become music. I play my notes to them and I can feel them smiling.
I glance over as the footsteps approach me. Delta takes a seat on my bed and nods, knowing better than to disturb my music once I’ve retreated into my own little world.
Because once I was on a roll and interrupted, that’s it, my flow would be gone.
She flipped through a Seventeen magazine that I’d left on my bedside dresser.
The pages turn with a subtle snap that I soak in along with the strings and the thunder.
I listen to the breeze in the trees, now much harder than it was before. The wet leaves shake, creating a beautiful rhythm, the thunder crescendos, and I can imagine that the drops of rain are hitting piano keys. With each tap at my window, I can hear another note being played in harmony with the sounds coming from my violin.
The rain picks up tempo and so do I. Everything is growing faster and stronger.
I’m shocked and startled when a slap lands across my face. I’m ready to strike back until I realize that Delta isn’t the one who landed the sinistral blow.
Mom hits me again. “Could you be any louder?” she complains. “You know I have a headache!”
No, how would I know that? She’d been in her bedroom all morning and I’d assumed she was still sleeping. It wasn’t unusual for my mother to get up in the afternoon when she was on one of her downswings.
“I’m so sick of the lack of consideration from you two!”
“Me?” Delta gasps. “But I’m not doing anything. I’m just reading a magazine.”
Mom rips it from her hands and flings it to the floor, where it slides under my bed to join the other items in the Forgotten Abyss.
“You’re the older one,” she charges. “Couldn’t you have said something? You should have known better than to let your sister make such a racket while I was in bed.”
Hoping that Mom is focused on Delta, I lower the violin back into its case.
“This!” Mom points at my violin. The poor thing now has some unwanted attention.
You wouldn’t have been singing before if you knew the bear would come prowling, I though to her.
Mom grabs her from the case and I try to pull her back.
“Let go!” Mom demands.
Tears in my eyes, I do as I’m told and release my precious treasure into the hands of my angry mother.
I don’t know what to do when Mom disappears from my room, her hand strangling the neck of my delicate instrument.
Delta looks at me in panic. We trail Mom into her own bedroom. When we see what she’s doing, my jaw drops in absolute horror. I hear Delta gasp behind me. “Mom, don’t!” she cries.
“I don’t care,” Mom announces defiantly. Her bedroom window is open and she’s holding my violin upside down by the neck, ready to dispose of it. “I’ll make sure that this never happens again. Both of you need to learn some manners!”
I’m suddenly very sorry for everything that I’ve ever done, whether good or bad. I’ll apologize for anything, admit to anything. Please don’t take my baby from me. Please don’t hurt her.
A shriek emits from my mouth as Mom pounds my baby against the wall. She smashes it to pieces to make sure that I can never fix it.
All I can do is stand there, transfixed, screaming and hoping that she’ll at least scuff Mom’s wall up with her dying cries.
When Mom is finished with her demolition, she flings my baby through the open window.
She stands there looking so satisfied with herself. Her eyes smolder in anger and her fascicle grin announces victory.
My lower lip quivers. “I hate you,” I sob, turning to leave. I just want to curl up in my bed and die. I want to be left alone to mourn the loss of my most prized possession.
Delta backs quickly out of my way, her eyes widening. “Tiff,” she warns.
I turn just in time to see Mom charging at me like she wants to ram me through the wall. She grabs me by the shoulders, shakes me, and slams me backward.
It’s probably lucky that I’m crying too hard to say anything else, because anything I can say will only pound me further into my grave.
Fine, just get it over with.
Mom’s long nails dig into my arm as she drags me through the hallway and down the stairs.
I glance behind me, looking for my older sister, and I spot her watching from halfway up the staircase, ducked behind the banister.
Mom throws the back door open and shoves me forward. I stumble and land on my hands and knees. “You can stay out there until you learn some respect!” she snarls before slamming the door, leaving me to sob and shiver on the porch in the rain.
Oh, Death, take me now.
I sit back on my knees to clear my curling blonde hair from my face. Not too far away I can see the remains of my baby. Her neck is broken and her strings are mostly snapped.
I rush over to her and fall at her side. “No, no,” I murmur, stroking the destroyed violin.
Dad had bought her for me when I was six. I’d just started taking lessons and I could barely play Twinkle Twinkle, but he’d had so much faith in me that I quickly developed that same attitude myself.
I’d wanted to buy myself a violin. I don’t know why I was under the impression that they cost as little as I made in allowance, but my self-reliance had been applaudible. So Dad had taken my five dollars from me one week and brought me to the store so I could pick one out. Of course, I never knew then that he was paying for the balance.
This instrument was one of the few things I had left of my father. And now she’s gone. Now they’re both gone.
I hear Delta grunt as she hits the porch. I look up from where I’m knelt over in the grass and she comes over to me, rubbing her hands up and down her arms for warmth.
“What did you do?” I ask.
“I told her I was going to let you in. So she said if I cared so much I could stay out here with you. It would be nice to have a treehouse about now,” she says softly. “At least that would be shelter from the storm.”
Ignoring the comment about the treehouse, I say, “I think the storm’s moving away. The time between the lightning and thunder is getting longer.”
We huddle together at the far end of the yard, our backs propped up against our large oak. As little kids, we used to call him Tyler and we’d climb him and stash toys in the tiny cave created by the gap in his roots.
Dad was going to build us a treehouse. There was never a good time to do it. When Mom wanted the downstairs bathroom retiled, he was busy helping her with that. And then we had a streak of bad whether, so it wasn’t a very good time to get out and climb a tree. The right time had never come.
Delta and I sit outside until the rain dies and the sun comes out. Mom opens the door and says, “There are towels in the kitchen. I hope you’ve learned your lesson. Oh, my head hurts, I’m going to lie down.”
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