Roses and Sonatas [Harvest Moon: Tale of Two Towns]

Epilogue

Every year on the anniversary of her death, I go to visit my Grandma Alice's grave. I'd had Mikhail's violin and bow bronzed and placed at the base of her marker, in order to preserve his final gift to her. Among her papers, I had found the music that he'd written for her twenty-fourth birthday, the pages yellowed with age, tucked into her old volume of Bashō. I'd taken up the violin after her death, playing on the instrument she'd willed to me, so whenever I visit her grave, I first lay a large bunch of roses on her grave, then I play Mikhail's sonata for her, in honor of her love for two very different men.

This year—five years after her death—was a little different. I married my fiancé a little more than two years ago, and this time our four month old daughter accompanied me. I'd named her Allison Mikhaila, obviously in honor of Grandma and Mikhail. Grandpa already had a daughter named for him, but Mikhail had never had the opportunity to have a namesake, and I didn't want him to be forgotten, either—because he'd loved Grandma, too, just as much as Grandpa.

Although I knew little Allie wouldn't understand my words yet, nevertheless after I had placed the roses and played the violin, I sat on the soft green grass next to her carrier and lifted her out. I bounced her on my knee as she squealed and grinned her gleeful, toothless grin, wriggling fingers and toes joyfully in the warm spring sunshine. Cuddling her up to me, I looked down into her beautiful storm-blue eyes.

Smiling at her as I tickled her chin, I began, "Did I ever tell you how your great-grandma came to marry your great-grandpa? Well, this is how the story went...."