Page 234 of Share with Me

“With a wife.”

“Hey, we’re not married yet.”

“In less than two months we will be. Let’s practice our PDA.” Ivan waited for her to react at his suggestion. She didn’t seem fazed by the idea of a public display of affection.

“But it has to be in public,” she said.

“Huh?”

“We’re alone in this warehouse.”

“You mean we have to kiss outdoors?”

“Yeah? Public?”

So they went outside, and Ivan kissed her until it was time to go home.

* * *

The horsehairon the bow looked pretty decent. The strings, on the other hand, were bad. Ivan would have to replace them. No biggie. The lower bout was scratched, but Ivan didn’t care. Soon, when he had saved up enough money, he’d send it to a luthier to be revarnished.

What mattered most to Ivan was that as he trusted God anew, God began to provide surprises in unexpected ways to cheer him up and encourage him to keep working through his wrist therapy to get well.

Like this violin, for example. A blessing.

And earlier today, the warehouse. Another blessing. A big one.

“What do you think?” Matt Garnett sat down on the floor in Ivan’s family room and popped the top of the soda can.

“There’s a chair over there.” Ivan pointed to the other folding chair. Outside the windows it was dark and approaching ten o’clock. He had just come home from working at the thrift shop when Matt called, saying he was driving into St. Simon’s and wanted to drop something off at his house.

“Nope.” Matt propped himself up against the wall. “The last time I sat on one of those I fell through.”

“Some man you are.” Ivan laughed. He continued to examine the old violin on his lap. “I still can’t believe you got this for two hundred dollars. You sure you don’t want to get it appraised, auction it off?”

“Either way, what does it matter?” Matt said. “I’m giving it to you. Now someday you can sell it back to me for list price. Then I’ll do something about it. So you think the label is authentic?”

“As far as I can tell. Made by Ira J. White. 1863. If this is real, you’ve made a terrific find. I’d say it’s worth over two or three thousand dollars.”

Ivan had heard of Ira Johnson White and his brother Asa, American luthiers who had produced respectable violins in the nineteenth century. It would be an honor to play an American-made violin.

“A big if. Can it still play?”

“Yeah, as soon as I get new strings for it. Looks like the horsehair still works, but I think I’ll replace that too.” Ivan placed the bow and violin back into the case. The case was probably why the bow hadn’t been lost. He clicked the lid shut. “I don’t want you to just give it to me, Matt. I’ll pay you the two hundred in installments. Okay with that?”

“Whatever, dude.”

“I insist. Thank you for this. Appreciate your thinking of me on your trip.”

“I wasn’t thinking of you most of the time, dude. I went to that house because the owner said the grandfather had died and left a collection of ‘junk’ he wanted to get rid of. In truth, I stumbled onto that violin, and only then did I think of you.”

“Stumbled onto it? I think it was more like providence.”

Matt lifted up his soda can. “Yep. God provides. It was my last stop. I almost decided to skip that route because it was raining and I’d been living in that old van for two weeks and getting van fever.”

“But God.”

“Right. Always God. And here we are.”

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