Page 197 of Share with Me

Chapter Sixty-One

“Man, you still have pictures of your ex-wife all over the place.” Ivan put down his duffle bag on the floor and picked up an antique silver frame off an old console table near the door to the balcony overlooking the playground and pier.

Matt Garnett didn’t answer.

“That was a beautiful wedding, Matt.” Ivan remembered because he was Matt’s best man.

“Yeah. The most important day of my life before I got saved.”

Ivan stood at the window. Outside was cloudy. Beyond the live oaks and the playground, he could see the lighthouse where he and Brinley had—

He turned away. “Hey, Matt. Just want to thank you again for letting me stay here for a bit.”

“It’s not all freebie. You know you need to put in some good hours at my shop.”

“For sure.”

“Where’s your violin?”

“My what?”

Matt was standing there at Ivan’s duffle. “Violin, dude. Where is your violin?”

“I’m not playing it anymore.” Ivan didn’t want to tell him that he sold his last violin to pay for food and to keep up with the minimum payments on his bills. He’d have to declare bankruptcy soon, but he wanted to hold out as long as he could. No need to disgrace the memories of his grandparents, who had raised him better than this.

“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard, Ivan.”

Ivan lifted up his braced left wrist as if to prove his point.

“You’re such a whiner, Ivan. Remember when I beat you at track in tenth grade and you cried?”

“I did not!”

“Yeah. Sure. You said a bug flew into your eye. Like anyone’s going to believe it.”

“It did! A gnat of some sort!”

“Your ego flew into your eye, Ivan.” Matt elbowed him on the way to the small galley kitchen. “Want a sandwich?”

“What you got?”

“PBJ. Not grape, though. Ran out. Apricot is what I have. On sale.”

“Anything. I don’t care.” Ivan glanced at the distant lighthouse one more time.

He wondered how Brinley was doing. Where she was, who she was going out with. But he told himself it was a passing interest, these thoughts of his. Brinley and Christmas were over.

The month or so he had spent at Willow’s house in Atlanta had been therapeutic. He didn’t know anybody at her church, so they didn’t ask him questions he didn’t want to answer. For the most part, he kept to himself and was even able to sub for Willow a couple of times in her piano studio in exchange for room and board. Teaching little kids piano was easy and he didn’t have to turn his wrist, so it all worked out. He did his own physical therapy since he had no health insurance, and he could flex his wrist more now.

All in all, he was getting better.

Thank You, God. And I’m sorry I was such a pain in the neck.

Willow’s piano studio in Atlanta was smaller than his violin studio. He wondered if they might come together to expand their music studios, but he really didn’t want to move to Atlanta. He didn’t care for the traffic and people and noise and city life and all. If he went further and further out into Atlanta’s suburbia, the number of students would be fewer.

Yet somehow on St. Simon’s Island he managed to end up with forty students before his violin studio shut down due to his injury. He didn’t want to open a piano studio even though he could play it. He wasn’t as interested in piano as he was in violin. But now that his violin career was over, perhaps piano was as good a Plan B as any other.

Meanwhile, Matt had offered him a job at his thrift shop. Maybe he could get some discounts on summer clothes. He should replace his faded cargo shorts.

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