Meg asks, "Home, or do you want to go grocery shopping with me?"

"Home, if you wouldn't mind," I answer "I'd like to get unpacked."

The job doesn't take long, though, and once again I find myself wandering the house. In the living room, I see that someone's put my violin on the piano. I ought to take it to my room, I think, without moving toward it. I bring a cola from the kitchen, page through a magazine, and then abruptly put it down.

I go over to my violin, open the case, and run my hand over the instrument inside—the way I felt the wood of Katharina's father's violin. Plucking a couple of strings, I wince at how they've slipped out of tune.

Bringing them back up to pitch, I play a few chords, and it feels so good that I think maybe I'll keep going, just for a little while. I sound a few more chords, considering I know so many pieces, but I think that what I should play is my solo. When you make a mistake, you don't go on until you fix it. At least I never have.

Only, when I try that first note, the one I last heard tear out raw and wrong into a concert hall full of people, I bow it almost too softly to be heard. I'm scared of it, I think. One little note, and I'm scared of it.

I take a deep breath, prepare to try again, and am glad when Amy's bursting through the front door gives me an excuse not to. She holds out a chalk picture of two tents in a mountain meadow. "It was arts day at the park," she says. "I made this for you."

"Thank you," I say. I start to comment on the wild, bright colors she used, but she's looking at my violin. "Can I hold it?"

"If you're careful."

I put it in both her hands, but she says, "No. Like you hold it."

So, with my hands around hers, I put it into position. "Rest your chin on that black oval piece." I help her bow some open strings, but she wants real music.

"You've got to know fingering to play a melody," I tell her "That takes lessons and practice."

"Then you play," she says.

I hesitate, but then I think, She's not expecting Vivaldi. "What would you like to hear?"

"I don't know."

"'Danny Boy,'" Meg says, pausing in the hall, sacks of groceries in her arms. "It's been going around in my head ever since Katharina mentioned it."

"Don't you want help putting those away?" I ask.

"No, thanks. Not this time," she answers.

So, accompanied by the quiet click of kitchen cabinets being opened and shut, I play my violin for the first time since the concert. Amy watches, her arms wrapped across her middle. She's a rapt, uncritical audience, and "Danny Boy" is so lovely and simple it almost plays itsel£ Only, when I'm halfway through it, I can't go on.

I stop in the middle of a phrase. "I'm sorry, Amy," I say. "I'll have to play for you another time."

"Why?" she asks.

"I'm sorry," I repeat as I put my violin in its case.

There aren't any sounds from the kitchen for a few moments, and then Meg calls, "Amy, will you please come set the table?"

WE EAT DINNER in the kitchen. Supper really, since it's just soup and sandwiches. Amy is telling a drawn-out story about her friend's little brother being a major plague when she suddenly breaks off to tell Dad, "Tess played her violin for me today. She's wonderful."

"You don't have to convince me of that," he says.

"Of course, she's been playing a long time." Amy points to the photo on the refrigerator the one of me when I was a little kid. "Since then, right?"

"Since then," I agree. "That was taken the Christmas I got my first violin."

"Is it what you asked for?"

"I don't remember" I tell her "I know I was happy to get it."

Dad laughs. "No, you weren't, Tess. You wanted a drum."

"No!" I protest. I know he's wrong because I can see so clearly how that long-ago day was. Mom's told me how my eyes grew big with wonder when I first saw the violin, and how I took it from its case and cradled it.

I ask, "A drum?"

"A drum," Dad answers. "A toy drum like one that a little friend of yours had."

"And I didn't want the violin?"

"Nope."

Lenny, I suddenly remember That was the boy's name. His drum had one red rim and one blue.

I look again at the photo on the refrigerator It's been there almost forever reminding me, as Mom says, how my violin and I were a match from the start. How the first note I bowed was perfect and how after hearing it I never wanted to do anything but play my violin.

Amy asks Dad, "Was it Christmas Eve or Christmas morning when Tess got her violin? Because Mom and I open presents in the morning, but if you want to do Christmas Eve, that's okay."

Meg tells her "I don't think we need to decide that now, with Christmas still half a year away."

Dad says, "Anyway, we've always been a Christmas morning family, too. And nobody"—he gives Amy a fierce, teasing scowl that sets her giggling—"nobody goes in to see presents until everybody's ready."

"But how does everybody know?" Amy asks.

"Because I tell 'em!" Dad answers. "Right, Tess?"

"Right!" I say. "Right," I repeat. "Right."