of the instrument a perfect fit for my hands. Joy surges through me, followed by a feeling of sadness. I don’t understand what’s happening to me.
“Lil? What’s wrong? You’re shaking like crazy. Is it your mom’s? Didn’t you tell me she used to play?”
“Yes, in the school orchestra when she was growing up. But why would she have had such an expensive violin?” Keeping my focus on the instrument, I cross to Wyatt. “This is going to sound weird, but it’s like I remember it.”
“Just because your mom didn’t play it for you doesn’t mean you never saw it. She might’ve shown it to you before she packed it away.”
“Yeah, I guess.”
A creeping sensation climbs up my spine, and when it reaches the space between my shoulder blades, I feel a firm pressure, as if I’m being nudged to pick up the violin. I jump, unsettled to have felt Iris’s touch in such a solid way—if that’s what it was. Apprehensive, I reach for the Stradivarius, but quickly draw back my hand after brushing my fingertips across the strings.
But I’m too late.
The brief contact triggers some switch inside of me, and out of nowhere, frantic notes fill my mind, the melody they create too faint to clearly distinguish. I close my eyes and a vision flickers on the backs of my eyelids: Long fingers quivering across strings . . . feminine fingers tipped by short, glossy nails, holding a bow that simultaneously jerks and glides. And behind the bow, a flash of sparkling green—the dress. The music fades. Applause explodes like thunder.
Shaken by the memory, I look at Wyatt again. “I think I did hear Mom play when I was little. I’m pretty sure she was wearing that beaded dress.” I gesture toward where it hangs over the table saw. “And she was on a stage, performing for an audience.”
His brows lift. “I didn’t realize she had that kind of talent.”
“Neither did I. She only told me she took lessons in school.”
“Why wouldn’t she have mentioned something like that? And if she was that good, why would she have given it up?”
We gave up everything. Mom’s words to Dad that morning of the accident. Was a career as a professional musician part of that “everything”? Why would she have to give it up for me? “She told me she wanted to concentrate on her artwork,” I tell Wyatt, trying to tamp down my sense of unease. “But if the memory I just had is real, she was a much better musician than she is an artist.”
“Do you think she plays when she comes out here?” he asks, plucking a string gently.
The ping of the note vibrates the hushed air around us. I shake my head. “I would’ve heard her. And anyway, with her hands so crippled, I’m not sure she could.”
I step around Dad’s old battered toolbox and head for the storage closet. It’s dark inside, and the single bulb overhead doesn’t offer much light. Finding a flashlight in the corner, I snap it on and sweep the beam across the shelves, scanning rows of jars filled with nails and screws, measuring tapes, extension cords.
Something on the top shelf catches my eye. I stand on tiptoe and reach for it, but the shelf is too high.
“Here,” Wyatt says from behind me. “Try this.” He drags a stepladder from the corner and positions it near the wall.
I climb up and aim the flashlight above, moving the beam left to right. Four long cardboard tubes are stacked on the shelf. One by one, I hand them to Wyatt, then I step down and we move the tubes into the center of the workshop.
Using my fingernail, I pry the cap off the end of the first one. Inside, paper is curled up like a poster. “This looks like the parchment Mom uses to sketch,” I say as I slide it out.
Wyatt reaches for one end. “I’ll help you unroll it.”
I lay the tube on the floor at our feet alongside the others, then Wyatt takes hold of the edges of the parchment and walks backward. The paper uncurls in my hands. “Be careful not to tear it,” I say.
When it’s completely open between us, Wyatt says, “Hey, is that you?”
Oh! Iris gasps as I study the girl in the sketch. She’s probably twelve or thirteen, and sits in profile, playing a violin. The girl’s hair is chin length, just long enough that it falls forward to cover her face so that I only