She Plays the Violin- Part 7

At home, her violin playing is wilder, more unrestrained. Ms. McKay compliments her on incorporating modern styles but looks concerned. Violet doesn’t care. When she closes her eyes, the sheet music vanishes and she is left with half-remembered images: the shadow of her mother’s hair, the sweep of her long skirts across the floor. These are also what she sees when she’s lost in the frantic rhythm of a live punk song. She imagines the music taking these fragments skywards, offering them up like a prayer, where they can blow away on some forgotten wind.

If someone ever asked why she loves music, this would be her answer. But nobody ever does. People just look at her and think, so loud that she can hear, poor thing, poor thing, poor thing.