Page 23 of Hunger

Hill Dark. Hill Light. Hill Violin.

I don't move for a long time.

The morning is still gray. The wind hasn't picked up again. The boxes haven't stirred. They sit on the four inches of stone outside my second-floor window with the snow on the ledge around them like they've always been there.

I look up at the eaves above my window. The eaves are three feet above the top of the window frame. There's no tree near my window. The nearest tree is a bare elm on the far side of the parking lot, twenty yards away.

There's no way for a person to have put these on the ledge. And yet here they are.

I close the curtain and sit on the edge of the bed.

The room is dim and quiet. The heat kicks on. I look down at my hands and they're shaking. The shaking isn't because I'm afraid, exactly. I'm not afraid. I don't know what I am. I'm shaking like someone who's been too long in the cold and finally come inside, everything held tight all day letting go.

I pull the curtain open and the boxes are still there.

Hill is the rosin Dr. Reeves used to insist on. Dr. Reeves who I haven't thought about in over a year and a half. Dr. Reeves with her cardigans and her tea and the little office where she let me sit for hours when I wasn't supposed to be in the music building because I was a pre-med student.

I lift the latch on the window. The latch sticks for a second and then gives. I push the window up. The cold air hits me.

I reach out and take the boxes from the ledge one at a time.

They're heavier than they look. The wood is smooth. The hinges are small brass. I bring them inside and close the window behind me. I lay all three on the desk beside the cup with the wilting jasmine and I look at them.

There's no note.

I open the Hill Dark first. The little brass hinge moves easily. Inside, the cake of rosin is the color of dark honey. The cloth lining the case is dark green. The rosin has been used very lightly, just once or twice — there's a faint pale stripe across the top where someone has drawn a bow across it.

I close it.

I open the Hill Violin. The same. The cake inside is paler, more golden. Untouched.

I open the Hill Light. The cake is the lightest of the three, almost lemon-yellow under the cloth. Also untouched.

I close them all. I stack them carefully on the desk. The three boxes together would have cost more than my electric bill this month.

I sit on the edge of the bed again.

I don't know what to do.

I get dressed and make coffee, drinking it standing at the counter. Lisa is gone. Dee is gone. The apartment is empty and quiet.

I look at the clock on the microwave. I have three hours before my shift.

I go back to my room.

I look at the boxes of rosin on the desk.

I cross the room to the corner where the violin case has been leaning against the wall for months. I crouch in front of it. I haven't opened it. I haven't even moved it. It's sat in this cornersince I packed it on the floor of my bedroom in my parents' house the week before I told my father I was dropping out.

I lay the case flat on the floor.

The latches are tarnished. I work the first one. It gives with a dry click. The second is harder. I have to push it sideways with my thumb. It opens.

I lift the lid.

The violin is exactly where I left it.

The wood is the same warm orange-brown it's always been. The strings are dull from disuse. The bow is in its slot along the top of the case, the horsehair gone slightly slack. There's a pocket beneath the chinrest where I used to keep my old rosin and my soft cloth and a half-broken pencil for marking music.