Page 33 of The Single Dad Grump Next Door

I stop myself, unable to finish the sentence. My mother doesn’t respond right away. I brace myself, expecting nothing but the icy venom of Maria Sokolov when she’s at her most petulant, but then there’s a shuffling sound as my father takes the phone.

“Alina,” he says, his voice slightly calmer but no less disapproving. “You need to stay focused. This is just a bump in the road. You’ll find a solution.”

“It’s not that simple,” I whisper.

“It can be,” he says firmly. “These things happen, especially when we are careless with ourselves. Our body is just as much a part of the instrument as the bow and the strings. You must take care of it, and if you have failed to do that, then there is no use in wasting time wallowing. You must simply do better and then return to the orchestra.”

Wallowing. My chest tightens as the word sinks in.

“I’m not wasting time,” I say through gritted teeth. However, I am, admittedly, wallowing. I’ve been stuck in the depths of my wallows since that fateful meeting in Diana Crane’s office.

“Then figure it out,” my mother snaps, her voice returning to the line. “Because this isn’t just about you, Alina. It’s about all of us. We have given too much for you to be such a fool.”

Then, without a goodbye, the line goes dead.

I stare at the phone in my hand, numbness seeping throughout my limbs.

I don’t know how to feel, so I’m settling on feeling nothing at all. I can’t handle the guilt of knowing that I’ve failed my parents. That I’m shaming them by being forced to take the summerseason off despite all the time and money and energy they’ve poured into me becoming a violinist.

My own mother thinks I’m a fool. She thinks this is my fault. ThatI’mthe one who broke my own hands.

Maybe it is my fault. After all, when I started to notice that the usual soreness in my wrist joints was lingering for longer than usual, I chose to ignore it. Then, when the pain started spreading down to my hands and settled deep in my knuckles and fingers, I kept on playing. Because, as my mother said, it’s what my father taught me to do.

Push through it,he used to lecture me.Your hands will learn to endure it. Tune your body the way you tune your violin.

Just like that, I feel like a child again. Merely five years old, tears streaking down my face because my neck hurt from being bent out of shape for too long as I held my violin on my shoulder. I’d been crying over the pain, but my father had no sympathy for me.

In hindsight, maybe they were even more brutal than I remember.

A soft knock on the door startles me.

“Alina?” Karina’s voice is muffled, yet audibly concerned.

I manage to croak, “Come in.”

The door opens, and she steps inside, her expression cautious. “Hey. I heard yelling. Are you okay?”

“No,” I whisper, my voice cracking as tears prick my eyes.

She doesn’t hesitate, coming to sit on the bed beside me and pulling me into a hug. I answer the embrace awkwardly, never having been one to seek physical touch for comfort. Not with parents like mine.

Karina pulls away slightly, her brow knit with worry. “What happened?”

I try to explain, but the words tumble out in a disjointed mess. My parents. Their expectations. The unbearable weight of letting them down.

“They don’t get it,” I finally say, my voice shaking. “They think I made a mistake and that’s why my hands are… I don’t think they even believe me about the medical leave. They probably think that I’m just being lazy and making excuses.”

Karina sighs heavily. “You are so much more than this. So much more than that darn instrument.”

“Am I?” I laugh bitterly. “All I’ve ever been is a violinist. Every single aspect of my life revolves around it, just as it has for my parents. I mean, my mother doesn’t even play, but she’s still devoted to it by virtue of being married to my father. The Sokolovs are all about being classical musicians. And now I can’t even do that.”

She shakes her head. “Aunt Maria is crazy. My mom said she was always very hard on herself and everyone else around her, even when they were kids. But you’re not a robot, Alina. You’re a person. It’s okay to need a break. It’s okay to take a step back. It’s okay to be something other than a violinist, even if only for a little while.”

Her words are kind, but they don’t quite reach the storm in my chest. Something horrible is still raging inside me, and suddenly all I want to do is scream.

“I just don’t know what to do,” I admit.

“Don’t do anything at all, silly,” she replies with a soft smile, as if the answer is obvious. “Stay here.Rest.You’ll heal, Alina, and in the meantime, you can figure out what you really need from this life of yours. Forget what anyone else thinks. All that matters is what you want. And if the violin really is what you want more than anything else in the world, then you’re doing yourself a favor by taking this chance to confirm that.”

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