The Violin Conspiracy(26)

His aunts and uncles jockeyed for position.

He reached out with hands that did not seem to belong to him, popped the two clasps, folded the top back.

A fiddle lay there. PopPop’s fiddle. There, in front of him.

An excited babble of voices rang out. He heard only his mother: “Rayquan, that ain’t yours to keep.” Gently he leaned down again, picked up the fiddle, lifted it into the air. He was actually holding PopPop’s fiddle.

“How do you like your new fiddle, baby?”

“Grandma, this isn’t—”

“Hush, baby. It’s yours now.”

“Mama, you can’t give him that! Nope. That thing is not leaving this house.” The voices swirled around them, but right then there was only Ray and his grandmother. “I can’t take this. I just wanted to find it for you. I just wanted to play it for you.”

“I know you did. And now you will.”

“It’s yours,” he said. “It’s PopPop’s.”

“It’s yours now,” she told him. “He’d want you to have it. I want you to have it.”

“Mama,” Ray’s mother said, scowling, “what are you thinking?”

“Ray, baby,” Grandma Nora said, “take your fiddle and go into the kitchen, okay? I want you to play me that pretty song in a little while.”

No one spoke as he reverently closed the case, carried it out of the room. Out of sight he put his back to the wall, listened.

“Every one of you hush,” Grandma Nora was saying. “If anybody says a word I’m taking off my shoe and going upside your head with it. Your daddy and I tried to get every one of you to learn to play. All of you! Not a one of you would do it. It’s mine, and I will give it to anybody I please. None of you has anything to say about it.”

“He needs to get this music out of his head and start thinking about a real job,” his mother said. “He’s graduating from high school soon and he don’t know what he wants to do. He can’t make a living as a musician and he don’t need no encouragement from you.”

“It’s his life. He needs to start making his own decisions.”

“His own mistakes, more like.”

He couldn’t listen anymore. He left them arguing, set the case on the kitchen table. It didn’t matter what they decided: for this moment, the violin lay in front of him, connecting him to his grandmother and to his past and to a musical heritage he barely understood.

Grandma Nora had told him that she wanted him to play tonight for her, but he saw immediately that was impossible. The tailpiece was cracked. Two of the pegs had broken off. The bridge was badly warped and the sound post rattled around inside. Decades of mildew and built-up rosin coated the instrument in a whitish film. He rubbed at it, and his fingers came away black, but underneath was more caked-on rosin. There were more hairs lying inside the case than attached to the bow.

But the violin’s body was sound, not cracked or warped or eaten by insects. It could be fixed. He could take it to the music shop in the mall. Even if he couldn’t keep it, he could play for her when he visited. Her gift to him would be his gift to her.

“Ray, get in here.” His mother, voice sharp.

He placed the fiddle back in the faded green cushion of the alligator-skin case, returned to the living room.

“Baby,” said his grandmother, “PopPop’s fiddle and his fiddle case both belong to you now. No, I will not be taking them back and I better not find out that anybody tried to take them from you.”

His mother had taken a step toward him when she saw him, but now she turned and rolled her eyes at Grandma Nora. She sighed. “But, Mama—”

“You hush. You heard what I said. Now you play something beautiful for us,” she told him.

“It needs to be fixed,” he said. “I can’t play it till it’s fixed. But I can take it tomorrow to that music store in the mall.”

“Tomorrow’s Christmas,” someone said. “It’ll be closed.”

“The day after, then,” Ray said. He never looked away from his grandmother. It was starting to sink in. He had a violin of his own.

“Thank you,” he said, leaning down and squeezing her so tightly she gasped.

“You’re welcome, sweet Ray,” she said when he released her. “That’s how much I love you, baby.”

Later that night, after they’d all gone up to their rooms, Ray dialed Aiden’s number.

“Merry Christmas, bro! Good to hear from you, but your timing sucks. We’re—”

“So is that New Year’s gig still on?

“Yeah, but when you said you couldn’t do it, I asked around. Chad’s doing it.”

“Are you serious?”

“It’s a three-hundred-dollar gig. I had to find someone.”

“I have a violin now. I can do it.”

“I already asked Chad. Don’t get me wrong. I’d much rather play with you, but—”

“But nothing. Tell him he’s fired, tell him it’s canceled. Tell him something. Let me do it!”

“That is so messed up. Chad’s a flake, but I can’t yank the gig from him.”

“Chad doesn’t give two shits about you. We’re homies. You give me this gig, I’ll owe you for life.”