Disclaimer:  This story is a work of fan fiction written for pleasure and not for profit.  The DM characters were borrowed for the purposes of the story, the rest are the work of my imagination.  Thanks to Gayle, group manager of SWP, for providing the impetus to write this story, and to my friend (she knows who she is) for allowing me to use her three children and her son's cat as important characters.

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The Violin

A DM Christmas story.

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Dedicated to my Uncle Herb, who suffered the same tragedy and never recovered.

Chapter One:  A Haunting Melody

(November 1st)

"Hey, Dad, how about this old violin?"  Steve asked, opening the case to reveal a blue velveteen interior.  "It should bring at least a couple hundred dollars, don't you think?"

"Oh, no, no, no.  I'm not parting with that, Son," Mark said as he took the open case from his son and gently fingered the instrument.  He plucked at one of the strings, and cringed when it made an unpleasant twanging sound.  He shook his head sadly, knowing the fine old violin was decaying from some forty years of neglect, but he just couldn't bear to part with it.

It was November 1, and Steve and Mark Sloan were doing their annual housecleaning.  They had started the tradition about ten years ago when their friend Sister Michael had produced a video to 'recruit' young Catholic women to the convent way of life.  The cameraman, a young thug Sister Michael had rehabilitated, had been murdered to prevent him from disclosing an incriminating piece of evidence he had hidden in the convent.  After the murderer had been caught and the evidence discovered, Mark and Steve had begun to consider how they might help their friend preserve her convent.  Since neither of them felt the necessary vocation for taking the vows of poverty and chastity required, they were both delighted to help when she came to them several months later for help in organizing an auction and rummage sale instead.

Steve, who had been rooting through the storage room searching for more items to donate to the sale, missed his father's pained look as he closed the violin case and put it back on the shelf that had been its home since the Sloan family had moved to the beach house.

"Oh, come on, Dad!  It will buy a dozen turkeys for Thanksgiving dinner at the shelter."

"I said no!"

Steve was taken aback by his father's tone, one he had not heard since he was an unmanageable teenager, and turned to look at him, thinking he may have misheard.  He was surprised to see his father's normally sky blue eyes dark with anger and glittering with . . . tears?  Profoundly puzzled, but knowing better than to inquire now, he just changed the subject.

"I think I might donate my punching bag and boxing gloves.  I haven't used them since I started working with the kids at Kelley's Gym, and maybe my drums, too, since I never practiced as a kid.  I was going to give the drums to Jesse, because I know how he likes to play yours, but there just isn't room for them in his little apartment."

Steve grinned, but it collapsed to a troubled frown as, to his astonishment, his father turned and walked out of the storage room without a word.  Sighing, and suspecting they were already finished for the day, Steve followed several yards behind as his dad walked round the house and out on to the beach.  He stopped in the yard and watched as Mark headed off to his thinking spot among the dunes, his body language screaming leave me alone even at this distance.  More intrigued than ever, Steve returned to the house.

Back in the storeroom, Steve, looked around a bit, and finding no place to sit, he set a couple of trunks on end.  Sitting on one trunk and using the other as a makeshift table, he opened the case, took the violin out, and for a moment just admired the instrument.  The front was a fine-grained reddish wood, smoothly finished, and the back was a narrowly banded, gold and reddish, tiger-striped lighter wood.  The neck of the instrument was black, the tuning pegs matched the front, and the tiger stripes were repeated in the scroll.  Steve didn't know much about musical instruments, but even he could tell this one was a beauty.

It was also a mystery.  In all his life, Steve had only known one person who played the violin, yet this one had floated around with his family for as long as he could remember.  Never having been musically inclined, he had always just ignored it, and the only time he had ever shown any interest in it had been as a teenager one day when he was fooling around with his buddies.

Steve, Ben Meyer, and Nick Marino were looking for old clothes to wear to the school Halloween costume party.  They hadn't decided yet who or what they were going to be, but Steve, knowing his parents' propensity to keep everything that came into the house, was sure they would find some inspiration as they went through the stuff that had been put into storage in the spare bedroom.

Ben had found and tried on an old double-breasted, pinstriped suit, a dark gray fedora with a wide black band, and black and white wingtips, and suddenly, Steve had an idea.  He got down the old violin case and handed it to Ben, then turned him to look in the full-length mirror on the back of the door. 

"What do you see?" he asked.

Ben studied himself for a moment, then grinned.  "Hey, I'm a hit man!"

"Uh-huh," Steve agreed, "and if you get Becca to wear that tight dress she had for homecoming last year and one of those . . . feathery things . . . "

"A boa," Nick supplied, and when both Steve and Ben looked at him questioningly, he shrugged and said, "My sister's eight years old and she likes to play dress up.  Sometimes I get asked to baby sit."

"Ok, whatever," Steve agreed, too excited by his ideas to stop and tease his friend.  "Nick and I can wear the suits we usually wear for church, and get a couple hats at a costume shop, and . . . "

"We can be Bugsy Siegel, Meyer Lansky, and Lucky Luciano!"  Ben finished for him.

"Yeah," Steve grinned, "something like that."

Satisfied that they had their costumes settled for the dance, Ben decided it was time to pick on Nick.  Making a thoughtful face, he asked, "Nick, didn't you used to play the violin?"

"What?  Who?  Me?  NO!"

Ben grinned, knowing his friend was lying, and winked at Steve.  "Yes you did.  I'm sure of it."

"Yeah," Steve agreed, "remember when we used to call you Florian, Nicky?  After that kid on the talent show episode of the Dick Van Dyke Show?"

Ben opened the case and said, "Come on, Nicky, play us a tune."

"Oh, no.  No way, guys.  You don't want to hear it.  Trust me.  The worst sound in the world is an old violin being played badly.  I ought to know, I did it for six years until my mother finally accepted the idea that I didn't want to learn to play it well."  Nick tried to back away and bumped into Steve, who had moved to stand behind him, blocking his retreat.

"Nicky, Nicky, Nicky," Steve said in the tone of a disappointed parent.  "You can let us laugh at you now, or let everyone in school laugh at you when we tell them how you just love to play dress up with your kid sister."

Nick's eyes opened wide.  "I didn't say that!" he protested.

"Maybe not, but we will," Ben promised.

Nick sighed, knowing he was beat, and knowing he deserved it.  He, Steve, and Ben were good friends, but they were constantly playing jokes on one another, and it was about his turn again.  He took the bow out of the case first and tightened it, then he gingerly picked up the violin.  Looking at his friends, he said, "I think I remember 'Mary Had a Little Lamb'."

His friends giggled evilly and Ben said, "That will do, for a start."

The first tortured cat shrieking notes had barely left the strings when Steve's dad appeared in the doorway yelling, "What in the hell are you boys doing?"

Startled out of his skin, Nick nearly dropped both violin and bow.  "S-s-sorry, Dr. Sloan, we were just goofing around.  I-I didn't mean any harm."

"Get out!"  Mark roared.

Nick handed over the bow and violin and hightailed it out of there, Ben close on his heels, feeling ashamed to leave Steve to face his furious father on his own, but too embarrassed to go back and share his fate.

Steve and his father had argued then, over Steve's lack of respect for other people's property and Mark's outrageous behavior in front of Steve's friends.  After that, they hadn't spoken for days, and for some reason, Mark had even been snappish with his wife for a while after the incident.  In the end, the boys had borrowed a violin case from the band director and a boa from Nick's little sister, and the three of them and Becca had split the first prize from the costume party, dinner for four at a local burger joint.

Steve's frown deepened as he returned to the present.  As a teenager, he'd often been at odds with his father.  At the time, his dad had just seemed to be yelling at him again, but now he wasn't so sure.  Steve knew as a kid he had been a good one for blaming his problems on his father's 'too strict' rules, but now in hindsight, Mark really had overreacted that day.

Wondering exactly what the violin meant to his father, Steve gently set it aside, and half expecting Mark to come roaring in again as he had that day with Ben and Nick, he began to search through the case for some sign of its significance. 

Besides the bow, he found a bit of rosin and a soft cotton flannel inside the case, but nothing to indicate that it had any connection to his father.  Then he reached into the pocket in the lining of the top of the case, and what he found astounded him.

There were a dozen pictures of his mother, looking younger than he'd ever seen her.  Though the snapshots were black and white, he could remember the colors.  Her dark golden blonde hair was piled high on her head, a few wispy curls trailing down against her porcelain skin and long elegant neck.  She wore a black velvet dress with a deep v-neck and three-quarter length sleeves.  It fit snugly down to her waist and then flared out into a full, sweeping skirt.  A cameo pendant on a ribbon choker hung round her neck, and a delicate gold bracelet dangled from her wrist.

And she was playing the violin.

One shot particularly captivated Steve.  His mom was leaning forward slightly, a blissful smile on her face, her eyes half closed, lost in the music she was making.  Steve remembered how green her eyes had been.  Suddenly missing her, he closed his eyes and swallowed hard.  The feeling was always the same, homesickness, lovesickness, knowing the person you most wanted to see would never, ever be there again.

He took a deep breath to steady himself, and finally understood his father's attachment to the old violin.

"She was a fine musician, your mother."

Steve jumped and the pictures scattered.  Though soft and low-pitched, and full of pride, Mark's voice had startled him.  As Steve scrambled to gather the photos, Mark moved into the storage room and took over Steve's seat on the end of the trunk.  He picked up the violin and the flannel that was in the case and began gently polishing it.  The varnish had clouded slightly over the years, but it was only a minor surface defect, and his gentle ministrations were already giving the instrument the appearance of new life.

Steve slipped the pictures back into the pocket in the top of the case, and, having lost his seat, he closed the case and, holding it in his lap, sat on the other trunk, facing his father.

Mark had his glasses on now, and was studying the instrument carefully.  Steve had the uncomfortable sense that his father thought he had somehow damaged it.

"The bridge is a little warped," Mark muttered.  "It should be replaced, and I'm afraid it's been too dry for too long.  The glue might have cracked."

"I remember Mom playing the piano," Steve said, "but I didn't know she ever played that."  He gestured toward the violin.

Mark peered at him over his glasses.  "You weren't supposed to," he said.  "She was very, very good."

"Dad?"  Far from getting him the answers he had been seeking, Steve's little investigation had so far only yielded more questions, and this conversation with his father was proving even more confounding.

"Let's put it away, Son," Mark said softly.

Steve opened the case, and his father gently, lovingly, placed the instrument inside.  Then he took the case from his son, latched it closed, and carefully put it back on the shelf.

"Come, on, I'll help you load the drums into your truck."

They worked on cleaning out the storeroom the rest of the afternoon, exchanging the fewest words possible, Steve itching to ask more about the violin and knowing he shouldn't, Mark aching to share his memories of Catherine, and knowing he couldn't, at least not yet.  By three o'clock, Steve's truck was full of odds and ends for Sister Michael's rummage sale, and the storage room, though still overfull, was as empty as he had ever seen it.  They dropped their donations off at the convent and, since neither of them felt like cooking, they stopped at BBQ Bob's for some take out.  By five, they were sitting in comfortable silence on the deck, watching the sun sink below the Pacific horizon.

Mark sighed deeply and settled further into his chair, snuggling into the blanket he had brought out with him.  It might be Southern California, but it was still November, and there was a chill in the air.

"Dad?"  Steve said when he heard his father sigh.  He could feel a serious talk coming on, and he hoped he would be getting his answers about the violin tonight.

"Sometimes, I can almost see her, right there," Mark pointed to a spot on the beach, "building sandcastles with you and your sister.  I'd come out on the deck and yell, 'Daddy's home!'  You and Carol would race to be the first to get my suit all wet and sandy, and your mother always came running just a step behind.  You all nearly knocked me down every time, and I knew I was as happy as a man could be."

"I remember that," Steve said smiling, "and you always told us how happy we made you."  He turned his head to look at his dad and was shocked to find Mark fighting tears.  His chin was trembling, and his eyes were closed.  Steve saw his Adam's apple bob up and down as he swallowed hard several times.  Then he took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

"Your mother started playing the violin when she was six years old.  By the time I met her, she was an accomplished concert violinist with the LA Philharmonic, on the verge of breaking out and making a name for herself.  A mutual friend introduced us at a reception after a concert."  Mark decided to omit the fact that the mutual friend had been the late Detective Harry Trumble, Catherine's fiancé at the time.

"Before long we were engaged, and, well, you know the rest."

Steve agreed, though he was sure he didn't 'know the rest'.  Somehow, he knew his father didn't want to share the details with him.  It was like listening to a haunting melody on the radio while driving in the mountains, only catching bits and pieces of the tune as the signal kept fading out.

"All her life, your mother only wanted two things, Steve, to be a concertmaster with a distinguished orchestra, and to have a family.  It was like twin fevers possessed her, Son.  She would rehearse with the Philharmonic, then come home, and practice for hours every day.  When I got home, she would put the violin away and turn into, I don't know, June Cleaver and Betty Crocker all in one, I guess."

Steve smiled.  "Mom never did anything halfway."  To his relief, his father finally smiled back.

"No, she didn't."  He reached over to gently ruffle his son's hair and said, "Seems to run in the family."

Steve grinned openly and added, "On both sides."

Mark nodded and looked back at the sea. 

"She had just found out she was pregnant when they finally offered her the job.  The old concertmaster was retiring, and she was far and away the most capable of the remaining violinists.  It was a painful decision for her, Son, for us, really, but once she made it she never looked back, and the only time I ever asked her, she swore she never regretted it."

"What do you mean, a painful decision?"

Mark huddled deeper in his blanket, shivering despite the warmth it offered.  "A concertmaster is responsible for rehearsing the entire orchestra and leading them in concert.  She actually puts in more time than the conductor in some cases, and on the night of a performance, she tunes the orchestra before the conductor takes the stage.  If the orchestra travels, which the Phil did on occasion at that time, your mother would have had to go with them.

"I knew how much she wanted the job.  She'd been working for it all her life, and she'd only known me a couple of years at that point.  As long as I had known her, it had been like a need, a craving, wearing away at her.  And now she had the opportunity, but she was pregnant."

Steve remained quiet, waiting for what his dad would say next, and what he heard stunned him.

"I mentioned that, well, every week one or two women would have a therapeutic D&C at the hospital."

"D & C?"

"Dilation and curettage, Son."

Hoping he had misunderstood, Steve tried to clarify, "Isn't that where they go inside a woman's body and scrape out tumors or something like that?"

Mark nodded.  "Before Roe vs. Wade, it was used . . . for other things, too."

A heavy silence descended between them.  Steve wanted to say something to make his dad understand that whatever had happened, he was ok with it, but he wasn't at all sure that was the case.  Finally, Mark spoke again.

"I will never forget what she did then."  He spoke slowly and paused between his sentences, unwilling to let the words out.  "She covered her belly with both hands, like she was trying to protect it . . . from me.  She wasn't even showing yet, but we knew it . . . we knew you . . . were there.  'I will not have an abortion,' she told me, 'I want a family.'  She wouldn't let me touch her for weeks after that.  Even . . . in bed . . . she drew away from me."

Steve felt his heart sink to his ankles.  He had to look away when his father turned to him.

"I suppose I deserved it," Mark conceded.  "It was a stupid thing to say.  I never meant she should get rid of . . . you, Son.  I just wanted her to know that I would support her whatever she decided."

"Even if she had elected to have the surgery?"  Steve knew it was a morbid question, but he had to ask.  Finally looking at his father, he saw Mark's face was wet with tears, and instantly regretted his need to know, but before he could tell his dad that he didn't have to answer, Mark had spoken.

"I don't know, Son, but I thank God I didn't have to find out."

Steve reached out and placed his hand over his father's.  Giving a gentle squeeze, he said, "Don't worry about it, Dad.  You'd have done the right thing, whatever it was."

This time the silence was a little lighter, and father and son both turned to look at the ocean.

"She turned down the contract, but accepted the job as an interim position until they found a replacement for the retiring concertmaster.  It took them a while to find one, because the conductor didn't want your mother to quit. 

"She was only off two weeks when you were born.  I tried to get her to stay home longer, but she insisted she was fine and you were a good baby.  When she went back to the Phil, she took you with her.  I went by a couple of times just to ease my conscience, but I didn't need to.  She had this big wicker basket she'd put you down in, and you'd lay there at her feet cooing and giggling and playing with your toes, and you'd watch her play the whole time.  Your eyes never left her.  Some of the other orchestra members thought you would be another great musician when you grew up because you were so captivated by watching your mother play.  When you got fussy, the whole orchestra would play Brahms' Lullaby and you'd go right off to sleep. 

"Finally, in December she announced that she would not be back after New Year's.  Her friends tried to get her to stay, told her they loved having you around and that an education in classical music would be good for you, but she figured a little boy needed a mother at home, not a musician who raised him in the concert hall.  She also realized that soon enough you would be an active toddler no longer content with laying in a laundry basket watching his mother make music."

Mark was smiling again now; Steve could hear it, and the pride, in his father's voice.  "Her last public performance was Christmas Eve.  She had a seven-minute solo, a tremendously intricate piece that had been specially commissioned for the Phil's thirty-fifth anniversary.  She got a standing ovation.  Then we picked you up from the sitter and brought you home."

Steve heard his dad sigh contentedly with the happy memories.  "It was your first Christmas, and you must have sensed the excitement in the air, because you just wouldn't settle for the night.  Your mother had me sit in the rocker with you in my arms, and she gave us a private concert.  She played Brahms' Lullaby and the melody of  Pachelbel's Cannon in D, and by the time she ended with Silent Night, you and I were both asleep."

Again, silence descended, then, bereft, Mark spoke once more, "She woke me up after she put you in the crib, and she never touched her violin again."

Now Steve understood more than he had wanted to, and though he knew he'd had no control over his mother's decision, he couldn't help but feel guilty.

"She didn't have to give up her music, did she, Dad?  She could have stayed with the orchestra."

Mark shook his head.  "No, Son, you said it yourself, your mother never did anything halfway.  When you got older, it would have gotten more and more difficult to take you along and keep you entertained.  She would have had to hire someone to watch you while she was with the Phil.  When she was with the orchestra, she would have felt she was neglecting you and Carol, and when she was with the two of you, she would have felt she was neglecting her music."

"But, Dad, women hold all kinds of jobs and still have families, she could . . . "

"Maybe they do now," Mark cut him off, "but forty years ago, the world was different.  You know that, and you know being a devoted wife and mother and taking advantage of those opportunities that did exist were often mutually exclusive paths."

"She could have played for us, or in the church."

"No, she couldn't.  By the time of that last concert, she'd spent over twenty years working to get where she was.  Her music was a huge part of who she was.  She was at the peak of her career, Steve," Mark explained, "and there was no way she could have switched to playing Sunday mass and family room recitals.  It would have taken all the joy out of her music.  She had to quit completely or keep going full ahead.  I think she always hoped you or your sister would express an interest in it one day, but for her there was no middle ground."

"So, she just gave it up," Steve was almost angry with his mother for quitting because of him, and Mark must have heard it in his tone.

"Son, could you leave homicide right now and be a night watchman at the mall?"

Suddenly, he felt unspeakably sad for his mother.  "It's unfair, Dad," he said bitterly.  "She shouldn't have had to quit what she loved."

"I know, Steve, but that's the way the world was back then.  Remember the day I caught you and your friends playing around with the violin?"

"Oh, yeah.  I was thinking about that just today."

"For a while after that, I was angry at her for quitting, for robbing you and your sister of the opportunity to know how gifted she was.  I know I was difficult to live with for a few days.  After about a week, she finally cornered me, and made me tell her what was on my mind.  I asked her if she ever regretted her decision."

When his father didn't continue, Steve had to ask, "What did she say, Dad?"

"She said she had made her decision months before that last concert.  She had made it the day they offered the job, and again, when you were born, and when you grabbed her finger for the first time, when you first smiled at her, when you took your first steps, when your sister was born, and every day the two of you were growing up."  Mark smiled at his son, then, a gentle smile that lit up his eyes.  "She told me she made the same decision every time, Son, and she never once regretted it."

Steve smiled back, and breathed a little easier then, glad to know his mother had been happy devoting herself to her family and content despite the sacrifice she had made.