Page 4 of Share with Me

Brinley had heard him play the violin before.

Why does he look different tonight?

The rest of the Sea Islands Symphony Orchestra faded away into the trompe l’oeil wall behind the platform and the antique copper ceiling above them as the clarity of that violin reached Brinley’s ears. She couldn’t help it if her heart wafted toward the threaded consonance of violin and piano, two of her favorite instruments. She’d been to many orchestral performances elsewhere. Yet something about thisespressivodelivery tugged at her.

Airhad come alive and swirled around her.

An anodyne for her painful weeks, months, years…

She closed her eyes to savor the notes from the second movement ofSuite No. 3 in D Major. For a moment, Brinley felt that the evening was meant for her.

How wouldAirsound if it were played on one of her Stradivarius violins that Grandpa Brooks had given to her from his personal collection?

Perhaps it was time to take those old Strads out of the vault and let them make music again. They had been hidden away too long. But she hadn’t done anything with them because they were common Stradivarius specimens. The pièce de résistance was the stolen 1698 Damaris Brooks Stradivarius that still hadn’t been recovered after seventy years.

I’d like to hear him playAiron that.

When she opened her eyes, Ivan was gazing at her, a glint of surprise in his own eyes. Something passed between them, something she could not explain. They’d known each other for a year or thereabouts. Always in passing. And often through oblique references in those emails that Conductor Petrocelli had sent her in Zurich to keep her updated about life in SISO, emails the conductor had sent to Grandpa Brooks when he had been alive.

But she knew one thing. ThisAirhad become their song.

Our song.

How could this be? There had been nothing going on between her and Ivan.

Why does he look different tonight?

Before Brinley could dissect the vagaries of that moment in time, Bach wrapped up. Brinley didn’t want it to end, but end it did.

Was it the violinist or was it the violin?

Brinley’s eyes were still on the platform as stirrings roiled in her heart. She watched Ivan bow and return to the first violin section. He sat down in the concertmaster’s chair and nodded to her.

That was all it took.

Her breath caught.

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