Palouse - 20. Chapter 20

Chapter 20

A Hellish Day – March 1991

A Month Later

“You’ve only practiced two hours this week. Two hours,” Betty shouted. “Basketball season is over. Your vacation is over. It’s time for us to get back to where we were.”

“Us? You mean that you want me to get back to work so that you can get back to where you were.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Nothing.” Micah shrugged his shoulders.

“I want you to be a great violinist, Micah. If you don’t want to do it, forget it, once and for all. They come from all over the world to Marcia Vilas just for one lesson, and you don’t respect that. You’re not taking your life seriously.”

“I don’t feel like playing anymore. I need some time off.”

“I think you’ve already had your time off.”

“Screw you.” Last time Micah had said this he was out of Betty’s earshot. This time he was not.

“I have never struck one of my children, and I don’t intend to do it now. But I have never felt so close to doing so.” Betty turned on her heels and stormed out of the room.

* * * * *

There was a sharp knock on the bedroom door. Micah opened one eye and looked at the glow of the clock – 6:04 a.m. What the hell is going on? he thought. He looked across the bedroom at a sleeping Greg, who was a lump in his bed.

“Micah, get up,” he heard his mother speak through the door.

“Why? It’s 6 a.m.”

“We’re driving to Seattle. Get dressed and get the Guarneri. Breakfast will be in 10 minutes.”

Micah lifted his feet off the bed and onto the floor, sat for a second staring at them and then trundled down the hall to the bathroom.

Something was wrong, and he thought he knew what it might be. After a quick shower, he returned to his room and put on some jeans and a sweatshirt. If his mother wanted him to dress better, she should have said so. Fuck her.

There were some pancakes on his plate when he arrived in the kitchen. He put some butter and syrup on them and dabbled at eating them, looking up from time to time at his mother, whose chin and eyes were set in grim determination. It was too early for him, and that seemed to strip him of any hunger. What was left of it disappeared with the look in his mother’s eyes

“Mom, do we have to do this?”

“I’m tired of it, young man. You don’t deserve the Guarneri anymore. You don’t practice; your concerts have been canceled; I know your teachers won’t like to work with someone who doesn’t practice. The Guarneri is just a 400-year-old liability, so it’s time it goes back to its owners. We’re leaving in five minutes, so finish up.”

Micah climbed into Betty’s van, put his violin carefully in the back, took off his jacket, folded the jacket as a pillow and leaned his head against the passenger side door.

“Buckle your seat belt!” Micah reluctantly reached behind him and found the buckle.

He wasn’t going to say anything. A part of his very being was being wrenched from him. He felt an immense sense of loss coming; a stage in his life was shortly going to be behind him. He wanted tears, but he held them back so as not to show any remorse to his mother. He had his other violin, but he knew, in the state that he was in, that it would sit in the corner of his closet when he got home.

Micah didn’t realize how wrenching this day was for his mother, too. She had devoted much of her last seven years nurturing Micah’s talent, making sure he learned music theory thoroughly, getting him to his lessons, making sure he kept his grades up even with a rigorous schedule, arranging his concerts and pushing him to achieve what she had been unable to achieve. When the Guarneri violin had arrived, she had cried all night in joy. When she’d decided to make Micah return it, she shed an equal quantity of canceling tears. But, she knew what had to be done. It just wasn’t proper for Micah to keep an instrument he no longer deserved. Though she would not admit it to herself, the other reason was her anger at her son’s rebellion against her.

She drove the van up to I-90, turned west and after five hours arrived in Seattle with only a short stop to get a hamburger. She’d gotten directions to the Queen Anne house from Jake Cantwell and arrived there shortly after noon. She decided she would sit in the car and let Micah take the violin to the door. She parked the van in front of Jake and Robbie’s fine brick home with its beautifully tended gardens.

“Micah, take the violin into the house. I’ll wait in the car.” The van idled quietly.

Micah hadn’t thought what would happen when they arrived at their destination, but this wouldn’t have been how he envisioned what would happen. He hesitated, but his mother simply sat holding the steering wheel, her eyes looking straight ahead, the car ready to return to Endicott. Micah unbuckled his seat belt and opened his door. He opened the back door and retrieved the violin. He slammed the back door hard, partly in frustration, and walked up the brick walkway to the front portico. He rang the bell. Robbie answered it, knowing what was going to happen, but uncertain on how to act. Micah thrust the violin at Robbie.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Robbie asked, realizing immediately what was happening and knowing some of the problems that Micah was having after speaking to his violin teacher Marcia.

Micah shrugged sadly. “No.” But Micah’s head was nodding. “Yes.” Micah turned and started to walk away. “I’m sorry,” he said over his shoulder. He hurried down the walkway. Robbie stared at him, feeling sad at what was being lost.

Tears smarted in Micah’s eyes as he went back to the van. He opened the back door, climbed in and lay down on the seat, curling in a near-fetal position. Betty thought about reminding Micah about a seat belt, but decided against any admonishment. She put the van in gear, turned east toward Queen Anne Avenue, coasted down the hill to Mercer Street before heading east to I-5 and then onto I-90. When she reached Issaquah, she pulled off I-90 to get gas; inside the mini-market, she bought some fast food and tried to hand a sandwich to Micah. But Micah was fast asleep, so Betty climbed in the van and drove back to Endicott.

It had been a hellish day.