Chapter 6 - THE VIOLIN WAS ANNA’S LAST GIFT
The violin survived the fall.
A luthier examined it two days after the charity dinner.
The bridge needed resetting.
The broken string was replaced.
A small section of varnish near the lower bout had been scuffed.
The repair cost less than Robert feared.
Its monetary value was not extraordinary anyway.
Anna’s violin had been made by a respected American workshop in the 1980s.
Worth several thousand dollars.
Not a Stradivarius.
Not a secret museum piece.
Its importance was personal.
Robert took Lucy to collect it after the repair.
Michael came too.
Lucy’s father had flown down from Portland as soon as Robert called after the country club incident.
His reaction to what Diane had done had been immediate.
“She doesn’t see Lucy again unless I approve it.”
Robert did not argue.
Michael was Lucy’s legal parent.
He had the authority to make that decision.
That fact also forced Robert to confront a family habit.
The Bennetts had money, staff, family offices, foundations, and country club rooms.
Sometimes they behaved as though those things made them the center of every decision around Lucy.
They did not.
Michael was her father.
Anna had been her mother.
Robert and Diane were grandparents.
Important roles.
Not superior ones.
When the luthier opened the case, Lucy approached cautiously.
“Is it okay?”
He smiled.
“It’s fine.”
“Did I break it?”
“No.”
Lucy looked toward Robert.
“But it fell because Grandma—”
Robert interrupted gently.
“You did not break it.”
The distinction mattered.
An adult knocked it from her hands.
Lucy had not failed to protect it.
The luthier handed her the violin.
Lucy held it against her chest but did not play.
Michael noticed.
“You don’t have to.”
Lucy nodded.
On the drive home, she asked if her mother had ever dropped it.
Robert smiled.
“Many times.”
“Really?”
“Once off a chair. Once out of the case. Once she backed into a music stand and sent everything flying.”
Lucy finally laughed.
“Was she bad?”
“At first?”
Robert considered the question.
“She sounded like a cat arguing with a screen door.”
Lucy laughed harder.
Michael looked out the window, smiling.
Robert continued.
“She got better because she loved playing. Not because she had to prove anything.”
Lucy became quiet.
Then she asked the question he had been expecting.
“Did Grandma think Mom was bad too?”
Robert chose his answer carefully.
“Grandma and your mom had complicated feelings about music.”
“What does complicated mean?”
“It means Grandma sometimes wanted different things for your mom than your mom wanted for herself.”
“Was Grandma mean?”
“Sometimes.”
Lucy looked down at the violin case.
“Like with me?”
Robert’s chest tightened.
“Sometimes she tried to control your mom in ways she shouldn’t have.”
Lucy absorbed that.
Then she said something painfully simple.
“Mom still belonged.”
“Yes.”
“Even when Grandma was mad?”
“Yes.”
Lucy looked at him.
“Do I?”
Robert did not answer with a speech.
“Yes.”
Michael turned from the front passenger seat.
“Always.”
Lucy nodded.
The car continued along the coast.
For the first time since the charity dinner, she opened the violin case voluntarily when they arrived home.
She did not play.
She touched the wood once.
Then closed it again.
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Recovery, Robert understood, did not happen because adults delivered perfect reassurance.
Sometimes it began because a child was allowed to approach what frightened her at her own speed.
