Play for Me by Steve Boseley

The man in the bed lifted his head as Rosanna opened the door.  “Rosanna,” was all he said and even that effort drained him.  Rosanna closed the door again and turned back into the room.

“Father.  I thought you were resting.  I didn’t want to disturb you.”  Her father’s head slumped back to the pillow but his eyes never left Rosanna, who moved back to his bed and rested her hand on his.  His skin had taken on a grey tinge over the past few weeks.  To Rosanna, he looked like he had aged ten years in the past week, and they both knew that Petros Dimitris was not long for this earth.  The machinery that surrounded the bed made regular pings that told him that he was still alive.  His daughter at his bedside was what he lived for, but even that was soon not going to be enough.

Petros raised a hand and indicated the violin his daughter held by her side.

“You want me to play for you?”  She had played since she was a girl.  Her parents had come to England when she was still growing inside her mother, so this country was all she had ever known.  She had struggled to fit in as a child, so when her mother had suggested she take a violin class after school, she jumped at the chance as it meant having to spend less time with other children.  By twelve she was a competent player, and by sixteen she had composed her first violin piece.  She continued to play deep into adulthood, and her parents enjoyed listening to her play for them.  When her mother passed away unexpectedly, the loss had hit Rosanna hard.  Whilst both her mother and father had been supportive, it was her mother that had been the driving force behind her success, and she had felt the loss almost as a physical pain.  She retreated into herself and stopped playing.  The violin had spent the next thirty years sitting on a cupboard at the foot of Rosanna’s bed, something to be looked at and remembered, not played.

Her father had taken ill almost three months ago.  Advanced lung cancer had been the diagnosis; the only treatment offered had been palliative.  Rosanna was with her father when he had been given the diagnosis, and she had been with him every day that he had spent in hospital.  He had asked her to play her violin for him on several of those occasions, but she had always declined; that part of her life had passed away at the same time as her mother.  The thought of picking up her violin and playing again had not occurred to her in those thirty years, and feeling it in her hand now felt awkward.

“Play, Anna.”  Her father let his hand drop back to the bed.  “Play.”

Rosanna looked at her father and allowed a tear to slip down her cheek.  “I can’t, father.”  She looked away, embarrassed by her own reticence.

“Play, Anna,” he repeated, once more raising a bony hand towards the violin.

In the years following her mother’s death, Rosanna and her father had become even closer.  She cared for him in the later years of his life, until he was diagnosed with cancer and taken into hospital.  She had visited him daily, but seeing him in obvious pain hurt her more than she would admit.  He had asked her to play for him almost a week ago and without thinking she had brought her violin in the next day, though she had not yet played for him.  She was afraid to play for him; afraid that she would not remember how; afraid that he wouldn’t like it; afraid that it would bring back memories of his wife, of her mother.  It just didn’t feel right.

When she made no move to lift the violin, he pointed to the chair alongside the bed.  “Sit, then.”  Rosanna sat down and took her father’s hand.  “When you were a girl, you played for me.”  The effort of speaking was etched on his face.

“I’m not a girl anymore, father.”  She wiped away a tear.

“No, you’re not.  I want to remember you as a girl.  I want to close my eyes and be back there.”  The monitor that sounded out the beat of his heart picked up speed.

“I don’t think I can.”

“Where is your mother?”

“She’s gone father, remember?”  Rosanna glanced up at the monitor.  His heart rate was becoming erratic.

“That’s right.”  He closed his eyes and smiled.  “I see her.  I want to hear her.”

“You can’t, father.”  Her chest hitched as she spoke, and she squeezed her father’s hand.

“I hear her when you play.”

Rosanna closed her own eyes and more tears spilled from the corners.  She took two deep breaths and stood up.  She reached for the bow that stood leaning against the chair and placed the violin under her chin.  She could feel her legs tremble beneath her as she stood, and after a few moments, she let the violin drop to her side and sat back down.  “I’m sorry, father.  I can’t remember how.”  She buried her face in her hands.

Her father reached for her and pulled one hand away from her face.  “Don’t cry.  If you can’t play, don’t play.”  It was his turn to squeeze his daughter’s hand, and his own tears began to fall.

Rosanna thought about her mother and how she had been taken too quickly.  Neither of them had a chance to be with her.  No one was with her when she passed away and for that Rosanna couldn’t forgive herself.  Now she had a chance to be with her father in his last days, and she wanted to make them special.  However, it somehow felt disloyal; it had been her mother that had introduced her to the violin; it had been her mother that had sat with her every night as she cried because of her teacher’s comments; it had been her mother that had wrapped her up in a hug when, at sixteen, she had performed her own composition in front of over two hundred people.  To Rosanna, the violin still held the essence of her mother.  It had taken on almost shrine-like significance, something to honour and remember the woman that had been taken from her all too soon.

As if reading her mind, her father said, “It’s alright Anna.  I loved your mother very much, and I know she loved you.”  He tried to lift his head from the pillow but after struggling for several seconds, gave up and closed his eyes.

“Father.”  Rosanna stood over her father and gently shook his shoulder.  When there was no immediate response, she glanced up at the monitor next to his bed; his pulse was becoming weaker, but he was alive, and when she returned her attention to her father she was relieved to find him smiling up at her.  She placed her head on his chest and gently squeezed him.  “I thought I’d lost you there.”  Rosanna made no effort to hide her relief.

“Not yet.  Soon.”  Her father’s breathing had become shallow, and she could barely perceive the rise and fall of his chest.  He stroked his daughter’s hair, which lay against his chest.

After a moment, Rosanna stood up and reached for her violin, and lifted it to her chin, grasping the bow in the other hand.

“No Anna, it’s alright.” Her father wheezed as he spoke, air leaving his body as from a deflating tyre.  “Keep your mother.”  He tried to lift his arm to reach for Rosanna, but she stepped away from the bed, and his arm settled back to the sheets.

Raising the bow, Rosanna began to play.  She was surprised at the ease with which her fingers moved over the strings.  She marvelled at how natural it felt to move the bow back and forth, with perfect timing, hitting all the right notes.  She played the piece she had composed as a sixteen-year-old, and as she played, she closed her eyes, transporting her back to her childhood, looking out over the people that had come to listen to her play.  Her mother and father sat at the front, her mother crying, and her father comforting his wife, his own tears threatening to spill down his cheeks.  Her reasons for giving up the violin were forgotten, insignificant, ridiculous, even; her mother lived when she played, and she wanted her father to hear that too.

It wasn’t until she finished the piece and dropped the violin and bow to her side that she heard the tone from the monitor.  The line on the EKG was flat, and her father lay still.  There was no rise and fall of his chest.

Rosanna bent and kissed her father’s forehead.  She thought he had died smiling.