As it turned out, Marisa had been the first to leave. They both had jobs in Baltimore, and soon Sam began to travel with a world health organization—not full-time, but once or twice a year. But they kept playing music together in Baltimore, and until Marisa got married and moved to Boston, they shared an old row house just a few blocks from the harbor.

Now, holding her violin, Marisa thought of how easy their long-ago promise had been to keep—they would always get together to play, at least once every summer. Sam had loved Marisa's first husband, and she had been over the moon to become an aunt. Marisa knew that her daughter had made them closer than ever. It had seemed a bond that could never be broken, no matter what came along.

“That's pretty, Mom,” Jessica said, coming in from the garden now. “What is it?”

“Mozart,” Marisa said.

“That doesn't sound like fiddle music.”

“It's not. It's violin music.”

Jessica smiled. She looked so happy to hear her mother playing, Marisa felt a twinge in her heart.

“How do you know the difference?”

“Jess,” Marisa said, “I think you know.”

Jessica nodded, and her eyes filled with tears—because her aunt had been the one to teach her.

“They're the same instrument,” Marisa said. “But it depends on how it's played.”

“The violin speaks to the mind, and the fiddle speaks to the heart,” Jessica said, but Marisa swore she could hear Sam's voice. Her sister had loved to quote Miss Tilly Lonergan, an old fiddle player from Baltimore.

“A violin has ‘strings,' and a fiddle has ‘strangs,'” Jessica said. “A violin is played sitting down, and a fiddle is played standing up.” The differences usually made Jessica smile, but right now she had tears running down her face.

“Oh, honey . . .”

“Mom,” she said, “why won't Aunt Sam come see us?”

“She's mad at me,” Marisa said.

Marisa reached for her, and Jessica sobbed against her chest. Trying to console her, trying to help her, Marisa almost wished she had left her fiddle in the closet.

“She's not upset with you,” Marisa said. “You can't think that.”

“But I'm not enough to make her forget what happened,” Jessica wept. “Or she would be here now.”

Marisa's heart skipped several beats. Being angry at Marisa was one thing, but hurting Jessica was something else. She whispered that everything would get better, that Sam would probably call or write as soon as she got back to the States. But inside, she was shaking. Somehow she had to tell Sam what this was doing to Jess.

Easing away, Jessica picked up the violin and bow, handed them to her mother. Marisa saw the plea in her eyes, and remembered how comforted Jess had always been by their music—Marisa and Sam's—especially after her father had died.

“What would you like to hear, honey?” she asked.

“‘O'er the Hills,'” Jessica said.